No one was behind the house. Just an empty chicken coop and a tiny garden, all blanketed with snow.
She hooked one leg over the sill and was about to draw up the other when something caught her eye. The tinderbox, on the floor by her feet. It must have fallen from the mantel and slid across the planking. It was almost like her mamá had left it for her. A parting gift. Cloak, fire, and food.
The girl reached down and grabbed the tinderbox, shoved it into her herb basket beside the cloak, and slipped through the window.
Her boots crunched in day-old snow. She guided the window shutter so that it closed without a sound. She took a deep breath of clean, smokeless air, gathered her basket close, and sprinted for the trees.
Each footstep was a cacophony of sound, and her every muscle tensed, waiting to feel searing, sorcerous fire at her back.
But nothing came. She reached the trees and dashed behind a thick trunk, pausing to catch her breath and to peek behind her.
The tiny hut she’d shared with Mamá was barely a lump in the snowy meadow. Smoke curled up from the roof. The animagus’s people had probably broken through the door by now.
Beside the hut was the smaller lump of the chicken coop, and for once she was glad they’d had to eat or sell all their chickens. She didn’t have to worry about them burning alive.
Everything was blanketed with white, glittering slightly in the weak winter sunshine. And against it all was a line of shadows, sized like the feet of a little girl, a perfect trail for anyone to follow from the house to the place where she stood.
They would give chase the moment they realized she wasn’t inside. The girl couldn’t outrun people on horseback. But maybe she could outthink them. “Use your head,” Mamá always said.
For all she knew, the animagus’s entourage was made up of horrible sorcerers just like him, the most powerful people in all the world. But if they knew anything about hunting, they would have surrounded the hut right away. Never leave your quarry a good escape. All the mountain folk knew that.
The cold was already seeping into her boots, and her urine-soaked pants were growing icy. The girl’s gaze lingered on her home for a final, mournful moment. Then she turned and fled into the forest.
2
Now
I don’t know how old I am. Sixteen or seventeen, is everyone’s guess. Rosario insists I’m younger, but I don’t feel young at all. Today, in any case, I’m going to acquire a birthday. Well, an adoption day, but everyone says we’ll celebrate my adoption like a proper birthday every year from now on. Which sounds nice.
I mean, I’m grateful. I really am.
But I would be just as grateful if Elisa and Hector were fishermen on the coast instead of the empress and prince consort. What I want is a quiet, personal ceremony; what I’m getting is political theater.
Lady Mara fusses with my hair. She doesn’t have to; she’s first lady-in-waiting to the empress and a secret lieutenant in the imperial web of spies, and she can do whatever she damn well pleases. When I tell her as much, she says, “Today, it pleases me to help you with your hair.”
“Well, in that case, thank you.”
“Red, are you sure you want to cover it up?” she asks, finishing off a braid that starts at my right temple and winds around to the back of my head. “I think your white streak is quite lovely.”
“I want it covered,” I assure her. “Black as night.”
She frowns, but she complies, reaching for the clay pot on the dressing table. The dye inside is made of crushed walnut shells and kohl, and it costs more than half my monthly allowance.
Most of my hair is still dark from the previous treatment, but my mark shows clearly at the roots above my left temple, a blot of shimmering brightness against my otherwise black hair. If I were to ever let it grow out, it would be a ribbon of white flowing all the way to my waist.
Mara works carefully, spreading the dye with a tiny paintbrush that allows her to avoid my scalp as much as possible. Too much dye on my skin will cause an itchy, burning rash, which is why I sometimes let the roots grow out a little.
“You know,” Mara says as she works, “I have a mark too. I know what it’s like.”
She’s referring to the obvious scar on her eyelid, received in a beating from her long-dead father. It pulls that eye downward at the outside corner, making her seem perpetually sad.
“It’s not the same,” I tell her. “No one sees your scar and thinks, Vile magic.”
The paintbrush freezes. “Who said that to you?”
Lady Malka whispered it to her husband once when I passed. It was a false whisper, loud enough for me to hear. And of course there are strange looks every single day, even from the servants. But I’ve learned the hard way that letting someone jump to my defense just makes life at court harder for me.
“No one,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
Mara glares at me. “You’re the worst liar I know. If you ever decide to tell me who it was, I’ll have their head.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Still frowning, Mara gets back to work. A breeze flutters the gauzy curtains of my open balcony. Birds chirrup from the lush flower garden below. The lavender scent of my morning bath lingers in the air. This used to be the queen’s suite, before Elisa became empress and moved herself and her husband into the larger monarch’s wing next door. I’ve occupied these rooms as the empress’s ward for seven years now, and still I can hardly believe that such luxury is mine.
The curtain separating the tiled bathing area from my bedroom is whisked aside. “Wed?” says a tiny voice.
Princess Ximena rushes in, still in her sleeping gown, bare feet slapping the tile floor. At four years old, she’s an artisan when it comes to escaping her nurses and guards.
“Good morning, Mena,” I say.
She plants her fists at her hips and peers up into my face. Her large, dark eyes are slightly crossed, and surrounded by the long lashes of her mother. Her round face and stubborn chin are framed by the wild, curling hair of her father.
She looks nothing at all like her namesake. The first Ximena was a thickset, gray-haired woman, a specially trained guardian who eventually gave her life to save the empress.
“Papá says today will make us sistews,” the princess says.
“Yes.”
“Will you come live in the nuwsewy?”
“Probably not.”
Her eyes widen with hurt.
Before I can explain that I’m a little old for the nursery, Mara says, “Maybe Red can spend the night with you once in a while.” She dabs the brush into the dye. “As a special treat to you both.”
Ximena considers this. “I s’pose,” she says, then reaches up with her arms.
Smiling, I grab the little girl and lift her into my lap. “Mena, I hope you understand that I already love you like a sister.”
The princess gives me a look that could wither the freshest fruit. “I know that.”
“Be still, both of you,” Mara says, “or this dye is going everywhere.”
I’m like a statue, but the princess has no patience for stillness, and she starts fingering the neck ribbon of my dressing gown.
Again Mara pauses. “Red, what’s wrong?”