Magic Under Glass (16 page)

25

“Oh, Nim,” he said, when I emerged in the dress. Such a face he made, like he was so grateful just to see me, just to take my hand, that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was shivering all over from the sheer emotion of it, and I couldn’t seem to stop. We slipped out the back door together and walked down the steps to the garden.

I still couldn’t believe Erris was real. I had to wrap my fingers around my skirt to keep from touching him. I worried that he might be torn from me, as quickly as he’d come. Every moment felt so precious that I wondered if I could enjoy a single one.

I’d almost forgotten that he hadn’t seen trees and plants in some thirty years. His gaze followed the butterflies, and every leaf and flower received a glancing touch from his hand. Finally, he threw his hands up to the sky, worshipping the golden sun.

“This is amazing. The world is amazing. Look—look at that squirrel!”

“That’s a squirrel, indeed.” I tried to smile. A shawl of sorrow rested heavy on my shoulders, but I didn’t want to ruin his moment of joy when we both knew there was no guarantee of more.

“Lord, Nim, a squirrel! I haven’t seen one in—well, too long. I won’t dwell on that. And look at the sky! It’s so blue! It’s devastating, how blue that sky is. I could see only a little of it out my window, out of the corner of my eye, but there it is, so broad . . .” He ran his hand across the sky, like he could touch the very clouds.

The wind teased my hair, which still hung loose. Erris caught a strand and tucked it behind my ear. He placed his hands just below my shoulders, his grip heavy. His eyes were a deep brown.

“This is strange, isn’t it,” he said. “It’s strange to be here, and you don’t know what to do with me. I don’t know what to do with me.”

“Should we . . . try and go to Karstor’s?”

“I don’t know if I even want to go home anymore. I wanted to see my family, what was left of them. If they’re gone—If Luka is king . . .” He sighed. “I suppose this means Garvin hoped to restore me to life so he could put me on the throne instead.”

“Yes. Something like that.”

“He didn’t tell me,” Erris said. “He should have told me my family was dead. I could have told him to save himself the trouble. I’m not fit to be a
king.
” He started walking faster. “Especially not now that I’m some sort of walking, breathing . . . clockwork!”

“Erris!” He was running now, outpacing me. I tried to catch up, but my slippers weren’t made for chasing, and the pretty Verrougian corset was even more unforgiving to my heaving ribs than the one I’d worn running from Granden. He went through the bower, out of my sight.

When I caught up, he had an arm around the willow tree that dangled its green tears in the pond. Lily pads floated on the surface, and in the center, a fat duck paddled along in perfect contentment, but Erris didn’t see it. His eyes were shut against the world.

“I can’t feel the trees anymore,” he said, and he sounded so heartbroken, like he’d lost another sister or brother.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Erris, I’m so sorry! I thought I was helping you, but I’ve made everything awful. I thought everything would fall into place if you were only alive again. I thought we could stop Smollings. I must have seen too many stage shows. It was all some romantic idea, and now you’re stuck, and I wish I knew what to do, but I don’t.”

“Nim, no. No.” He put a hand to my back. “You gave me a gift. When your life is frozen—all you want is this. Just to move, and see the sky, simple things like that. You’ve given me that.” He watched a flock of birds scatter from a tree. “If Smollings destroys me, at least I could look him in the eye first.”

“Erris . . .”

“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” he said. “You risked a lot for me. The problems are much bigger than you, and they’d be worse if you weren’t here. And I can speak to you. I wanted that more than I can say.” He smiled faintly. “I’m not going to lie. I thought about you a lot. I mean, of course, whenever I was wound, you were there. But in the between-times, I lived in a sort of dream . . . and you were there, too.”

I thought about how I had kissed his lips. And now he was a real man . . .

“I thought about you, too,” I said.

Erris reached for my hand. “Well, if this is my chance to talk to you, I’d better try not to squander it.”

We crossed around the side of the house, but we strayed off the path, trudging through a sloping field of overgrown grass. I gathered up my dress so I wouldn’t dirty the lace hem. Crickets danced out of our path. Erris picked a white spray of flowers and twirled the stem between his fingers. Just then, the world was all beauty and sunshine, with the breeze teasing our hair. It didn’t seem like anything bad could happen.

I searched for some topic of discussion so we would not merely brood in silence.

“Now that you can speak, can you tell me any more about how you became an automaton?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure I know much more myself, but at least I can give you a little more background of what led to it. The humans attacked us at a time when our family was already vulnerable. My father was getting very old, and while my eldest brother should have been the obvious choice for succession, he wasn’t very well liked.”

“Do you think that cousin of yours had something to do with it, too? Not just the humans?”

“I think so. He was a distant cousin, and that branch of the family had never gotten along well with my father’s people. For a number of reasons.” Erris seemed to be momentarily lost in memories of what must have been a very complicated family. He continued, “I think Luka and his family may have made a deal with human sorcerers, like Smollings—or maybe his father, or Hollin’s father.” He rolled his eyes a little. “I do wish I’d paid more attention to the situation then.”

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, I was having fun!” He laughed. “Well, wars have a way of sneaking up on you. You don’t want to believe your world is changing, and at first it’s all very stirring to see parades and soldiers assembling all that. It doesn’t hit you until someone you love dies. . . .”

“You didn’t fight?”

“In my country, you don’t fight until you’re twenty. Unless, of course, times are very dire. The sorcerers got me before it came to such a point.”

“Where did they catch you?”

He groaned a bit. “You’re going to think I’m such a fool, Nim! We’d had reports of humans nearby and my mother told me not to leave the palace, but I thought she was overreacting, so I snuck out in a disguise to visit some friends in town. It obviously wasn’t a very good disguise. And she obviously wasn’t overreacting.”

“Well, you’re right. You should have listened to your mother. But I imagine you learned your lesson.”

“I certainly did . . .” His expression took a serious turn. “At first they just held me in a room and questioned me, and I thought it might be all right, but then . . . they did whatever they did.” He shook his head. “It all gets hazy after that.”

“Does it feel like all those years have passed?”

This question sobered him more. “I don’t think you were even born when I was last walking around . . . How strange. It does feel like time has passed, but not the way it should. My family, my home, they all seem far away, but until Garvin found me there’s been nothing to fill the space but dreams and shadows.” He looked at his palms, flexing his wrists, as if affirming that he could truly move. “And what now? I’ve been given this extraordinary second chance, and I haven’t any idea what to do with it.”

I pressed my palms to his larger ones, conscious of every point where our skin touched, of the soft warmth of him, of the beauty of this living man walking close to me, and what we had shared. “We’ve come this far. There must be something we could do.”

He laced his fingers with mine, but his smile was faint. “Even if I could escape, I told you I’m not the man to reclaim the family throne.”

“Maybe running away isn’t the right answer. Maybe we need to do something about Smollings. If there was some way just to stop him. Annalie told me Garvin’s spirit visits her sometimes. She said Smollings killed Garvin.” I chewed my lower lip. The answers felt so close . . . yet I couldn’t fit the puzzle pieces together.

“I knew he did!” Erris cried. “I knew it. That’s exactly it, Nim. We need to prove what he did. It’s the only way to get justice for Garvin—and maybe undo my enchantment, too.”

“I would love to prove it. But how? Would anyone listen to Annalie? No one even knows she’s alive!”

“Can’t she channel his spirit? Maybe a séance?”

“Is a séance considered legitimate evidence?”

Erris didn’t answer. The sound of footsteps crashing through the plants, just around the corner of the wall, halted our conversation. Linza dashed up to us, strands of fair hair floating around her head like a disheveled halo under the sunshine, a broom in her hand.

“Smollings!” she panted. “He’s here!”

26

“Already?” My heart was suddenly racing, and I wanted to grab Erris’s hand and bolt, but where to? The nearest copse of trees wouldn’t hide us. Could we make it to the forest?

“They said he came galloping up, alone on horseback, like he hadn’t slept all night. Miss Rashten must have got a message through to him somehow.”

Erris put an arm around me. It would have felt more reassuring if it wasn’t for the nervous clench of his fingers. “If we run I think we’ll only give him the satisfaction of chasing us.”

“But what shall we say to him?”

“I’d help you fight him,” Linza offered, and I felt sheepish that she currently seemed to be the bravest among us. “I’d hit him with my broom. Miss Rashten already has it out for me anyway.”

“That’s all right,” I said quickly, as I heard approaching male voices. “Go back to the house.” I didn’t want to implicate Linza in this mess any more than she already was.

I heard Hollin say something in a sharp tone, and Smollings’s equally sharp reply, but I couldn’t make out the words.

The men quieted down as they came around the wall. Sweat had soaked through Smollings’s jacket, and his face was haggard with exhaustion, but he carried himself with the greatest dignity. He held his sorcerer’s staff, the one I had seen him touch Annalie with to make her cry out in pain.

“So it’s true,” Smollings said. “The lost fairy prince, in the flesh. So to speak.”

Erris lowered his eyelids, giving Smollings an imperious look.

Smollings turned to me. “Well, Nimira. You are a very fortunate girl, to have managed this, without being consumed by the spirits of the netherworld.”

“Of course I wasn’t consumed,” I said, as if fighting them off hadn’t been one of the most harrowing experiences of my life, as if I didn’t care if he threw me in prison.

“Bravado is most unbecoming in a woman,” Smollings said. “So. A living automaton. I hardly believed it when the message came, but now I see.” He looked at Hollin. “Is he still wound by a key?”

Hollin said nothing.

“Miss Rashten told me you still had to wind him. Where is the key?” He stepped toward Erris. “Turn around. I want to see this botched magic.”

Erris held up his hands, like he’d push Smollings if he dared touch him. “Why would you need to see?” he snapped.

Smollings smiled at Hollin. “And he’s temperamental, I see. Has he given you any trouble?”

Hollin looked at Erris, the air nearly crackling between them, and then said no.

“Oh, very good. I’m glad you’re agreeable, Prince. If you continue to be agreeable, we might come to some sort of arrangement.”

Erris stood perfectly still except for his hands, which slowly curled into fists.

“I’m taking you both back to New Sweeling,” Smollings said, motioning me forward, which I naturally ignored. “Hollin, give me his key.”

“I’ll give you his key if you don’t take Nimira,” Hollin said.

“Nimira? For god’s sake, Hollin, don’t tell me you’re still swooning over a damned trouser girl! Open your eyes. Look what she’s done.”

“It’s my fault,” Hollin said, giving me a brief silencing glance. “I brought her here. She acted out of compassion. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

Was he trying to protect me? But . . . it would be no good to save me and not Erris.

Smollings furrowed skeptical brows. “Parry, can I talk to you a moment?” He gave Hollin’s shoulder a rough pat, urging him back to the garden.

“This is horrid,” Erris whispered as they moved just out of sight.

“What can we do?”

Erris took my hands and held them.

“Nim, I think our only chance is to convince Hollin and Annalie to speak out against Smollings. Even if they can’t prove he murdered Garvin, they could spur an investigation. If Smollings takes both of us, there’s no chance. You need to stay with Hollin.”

He was right, and we both knew it, but I didn’t want to let him go. Smollings would keep Erris alive for now, most likely, but I didn’t trust him.

“I know,” Erris said. “I don’t want him to . . . to wind me. I don’t want to give in, but I don’t know what else to do.”

I clutched my hands to my elbows. I wished I was a sorceress myself, someone who could only laugh at Smollings. I wanted to see his jaw drop. I wanted to see him humiliated. I wished Smollings were the clockwork man who had to be wound; then we’d see how he liked it.

I saw the weary decades in Erris’s eyes. “I don’t even know how long I’ll live,” he said. “Is this really life? I’m not really alive, Nim. What if this body breaks down?” His voice had a catch in it. He looked at me and slid his hand up my cheek. “You have to be here, to try and put things right.”

His touch prompted my skin to tingle and my lips to tremble.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “I can’t stand it. I’m only being honest.”

“You can’t die.” I pressed my hand atop his, holding it fast to my skin. “Don’t say that. She brought you to
life.
”

Now I started to cry, real sliding tears, although I was ashamed. Erris had enough to worry about without needing to console me. He tried to put his arms around me, and I turned away. “No. I’m not crying like one of those girls—who only wants to be
held
.”

“You
do
want to be held.” His arms went around me from behind. I felt his strength. “And how I’ve wanted to hold you, Nim. I
do
like Nim. And I don’t just mean the name.”

I stopped pushing. I let out my breath. Some resistance inside me broke, letting in a rush of something I’d never allowed before. I had never been so weak; yet I had never been so strong.

I turned in his arms, laying my head against his shoulder. He smelled sweet as summer grass. Our bodies drew closer. He kissed my cheek, gently, like my skin was sacred. My breath came faster, excitement and panic coursing through my veins until I felt dizzy.

“I love you, Nimira.” He spoke softly in my ear. “Whatever happens now, I have spoken those words with my own voice, and held you with my own arms.”

I hadn’t known a person could hold so much joy and so much grief at once. I was speechless with it. I didn’t want to ever leave that embrace, and it seemed so cruel, so very cruel, that the force of my feelings couldn’t keep me there.

We heard two sets of footsteps returning.

By the time Hollin and Smollings rounded the corner again, Erris and I were standing apart and gravely silent. I had my fingers buried in my pocket, clutched around Erris’s key.

Smollings held the other key, the twin to mine. “Here is what will happen,” he said. “The fairy will come with me. Nimira, you may stay with Parry. He has pleaded your case to me, but you keep your mouth shut or all bets are off.”

I wondered what Hollin had said to convince Smollings to leave me alone. Although I supposed all hope was not lost, it still felt awfully close. I pressed my lips together fast and didn’t look at anybody. In fact, no one moved at all.

“Well, then,” Smollings said after a moment. “Come on.”

Of course I wouldn’t put up a fuss. I knew how futile it would be. Yet, how could I stand by and let Smollings take him? Erris would suffer and it was all my fault.

“Please! Please don’t take him!” I cried, briefly knowing only that I couldn’t bear to see Erris torn from me.

“Nimira, if I were you, I’d hold my tongue,” Smollings said. “In fact, I’d kiss Hollin Parry’s feet for defending you. I’m sure he’d enjoy it.”

I flushed with a shame I should not have felt. I knew I should be grateful that Hollin defended me, but I almost wished he hadn’t.

“Where are you taking me?” Erris asked. “You’ve come alone. Where are the police?”

“This situation requires a sorcerer of high caliber,” Smollings said. “Don’t worry. I’ll ensure that justice is served. I used to be chief of the border patrol, after all.”

“This situation?” Erris echoed. “I’m not a ‘situation.’”

“You’re a fairy and that is enough of a situation,” Smollings said. “Your very existence is dangerous. You may think me cruel, but I must act for the good of the country. If you want to live, Prince, you have to accept that your life is not your own. It belongs to the council, and they shall decide your fate.”

Smollings held up the key like a dagger with which he would shortly stab Erris in the back. “Say good-bye,” he said, looking at us.

“I don’t like good-byes,” Erris said. He took my hand and kissed it. “I’ll see you soon, Nim.”

It seemed a long time since I had been the composed Nimira who never cried. I could only nod now.

“All right,” Smollings said, and he turned to the house. Erris followed, giving me one last brave smile.