Jim Hines - The Snow Queen's shadow

“Very well.” The Duchess’ image began to fade. “When you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

Danielle’s blade rang against the floor where the Duchess’ face had mocked her only a moment before. Her strike cut the carpet and gouged the tile below. She relaxed her grip, allowing the sword to fall to the floor.

The Duchess was fey; she would keep her word, protecting Jakob and raising him as her own son. Raising him to be fairy. Shaping him into God only knew what. Given the Duchess’ own magic, how difficult would it be to turn Jakob against his own kind?

She stepped to the window. Tiny flecks of silver and iron were worked into each pane of glass. Fairy glass, said to protect against magic, though only the weakest of charms would be repelled by such. The Duchess had answered Danielle’s summons easily enough.

A quiet squeak made her jump. A lone mouse stood in front of her wardrobe, balanced on his hind legs. The animals had always known her mood, coming to comfort her in the darkest times of her childhood. Danielle thought them friends sent by her mother’s spirit.

She dropped to one knee as the mouse darted closer. Drawn by friendship, or by some instinctive fairy allure? “The Duchess is right about one thing,” she whispered. “Every moment I waste, Snow takes my son farther from here.”

The mouse jumped back and waited, whiskers quivering. Its pose reminded her of a soldier awaiting orders.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid you can’t help me in this.” She grabbed her sword and headed for the chapel. Nobody stopped her as she crossed the courtyard. Perhaps something of her mood showed upon her face, because while several people started toward her, each one swiftly turned away.

She yanked open the chapel doors, taking in the scene in a single glance. Armand lay asleep on the altar. Gerta and Father Isaac had stopped talking in mid-sentence with Danielle’s arrival. “How is he?”

“Unchanged,” said Talia. She appeared disheveled, her hair a mess, her clothes rumpled and sweaty. A glance at the bench beside her explained why. A red cape, lined with wolfskin, sat in a pile on the bench. The cape had once belonged to the assassin known as the Lady of the Red Hood. Talia must have tried using the cape’s magic to track Snow and Jakob.

“Did you find anything?” Danielle asked.

Talia glanced at the cape. “Snow’s scent vanished from the workshop. I picked her up again near the main gate, but lost her outside the palace. I think she took a carriage, but I couldn’t say where she went.”

“Damn.”

Talia was studying Danielle’s face. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing.” This wasn’t the time to talk about the Duchess’ revelations. Danielle marched past, toward the altar. Gerta took a step back. Was Danielle’s frustration so apparent? “What have you found?”

“Very little.” Gerta was clearly exhausted, her eyes red and shadowed. She had nearly frozen to death below the palace, and hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since… ever, really. “Neither exorcism nor summoning rituals have helped. Everything is coming from within the prince. As far as we can tell, the demon isn’t controlling him. It’s simply changing the way he sees the world. It’s fascinating, really.”

Father Isaac cleared his throat, and Gerta blushed. Her enthusiasm reminded Danielle of Snow. Her eyes shone with the same excitement when she talked about magic. “We have to remove the splinter from his body.”

“It moves each time we try to examine it,” said Father Isaac. He had unbuttoned the prince’s shirt, and pulled it open to show new bruises along the right side of Armand’s chest. “I’ve kept him asleep, but the splinter acts like a living thing. I’m afraid if we try to cut it from him, we’d only send it deeper into his body.”

“Where is it now?”

Gerta pointed to Armand’s lowest rib on the right side. In a soft voice, she said, “Had it remained in his arm, we might have been able to amputate.”

Danielle forced those images away. “Snow could destroy her mirrors at will, reducing them to powder. Can you crush this splinter?”

“Even if we did, the pieces might still carry the curse,” said Father Isaac.

Gerta chewed her lower lip as she studied the bruises on Armand’s side. “If we bled him as soon as the glass was crushed, we might be able to remove most of it. Like sucking poison from a wound.”

“Or we could spread the poison throughout his body,” Isaac countered.

Danielle turned away. “A single sliver took my husband from me. My father was a glassmaker, but never have I seen a mirror as large as Snow’s. What we’ve seen in the palace is only the start. We have to know if this infection can be cured.”

“There are others we could attempt to free,” Isaac said. “I could have one of the prisoners brought from the dungeon-”

“They’re not prisoners, they’re people. Friends. You mean to tell me their lives are less important than Armand’s? That their families will grieve less over their loss?”

“He means you don’t risk the Prince of Lorindar to unproven magic,” said Talia.

“I could trap it,” Gerta said suddenly. She brushed her fingers over Armand’s chest. “Crushing the splinter isn’t enough. I need to isolate it from the prince… bring me a pearl.”

“Why a pearl?” Danielle repeated.

“Pearls are formed to protect the oyster from irritation,” Gerta said. “If I can do the same to this splinter-”

“Sympathetic magic.” Father Isaac moved toward the prince. “Yes. We can use the pearl as a focus to encase the glass.”

“Assuming we can trust her,” Talia said sharply. “We don’t know what she is, and now you mean to let her work her magic on the prince?”

Gerta jerked back, her brow furrowed with unguarded hurt. “Have I lied to you, Talia? Tried to trick you in any way?” She turned to Danielle. “I don’t know how Snow created me, or why, but she’s my sister. She wouldn’t want this. Let me help you.”

Not for the first time, Danielle wished Beatrice were here. The queen had always been able to see through deception. She would have known whether Gerta could be trusted, whether they should allow her to help Armand. “How long would it take?”

“Armand is asleep. We’ve isolated the splinter. I could begin now.” Gerta shrugged. “Bring someone new, and it will take longer.”

“Snow’s magic has already robbed Lorindar of its prince. And every hour gives Snow more time to escape with my son.” She whispered a quick prayer to her mother, and to Beatrice. “Father Isaac will help you.”

Isaac stepped sideways, away from the altar. “Perhaps we should consult King Theodore first, just to be certain-”

“No,” whispered Danielle. “He’s already lost his wife. Would you burden him with this choice?” Or with the consequences, should things go badly? From Isaac’s expression, he heard her unspoken words. “Do what you can for Armand.”

Gerta appeared oblivious to everyone’s attention as she pored over Armand’s body, her face so close to his skin that the hairs on his chest brushed her nose. If Danielle was wrong about her, it would be so easy for her to kill Armand.

Danielle banished that thought, as she had so many others. Father Isaac stood beside Gerta, his expression intent as he split his attention between Gerta and the prince. Talia paced behind the altar, her face a mask of distrust.

What was Gerta? Could Snow really have created a true person, an individual with her own mind and soul? Snow had never hinted that she could cast such magic. Or was Gerta’s life mere imitation, perhaps a fragment of Snow herself, broken from the whole?