Bran pets the wolf’s shaggy gray head from atop a pile of marionettes. “It’s not as if the wolf didn’t deserve his end. It was a masterful tale.” He smirks. “But you know as well as I, the wrong ears listening …”
“I’ll be careful,” I promise, pulling the wolf from his grasp.
Shaken, I peer through the small space between the top of the stage and the curtain. If I tilt my head at just the right angle, I have a narrow view of the crowd. I make out a familiar dark shape across the square: Baldrik, the Margrave’s steward, hovering around the duke like a crow on a carcass. The duke, a fair-haired man with a red crest on his jacket, surveys the sights from in front of a posse of guards. He strolls the square, looking like a nobleman who knows his place: far above the rest of us. When his gaze turns to my wagon and its audience, though he can’t possibly see me, his eyes lock onto it with a strange air of possession. My stomach twists at the unwelcome sight.
“The Margrave still keeping you hard at it?” Bran prods me with an elbow.
“Still working on a new order,” I mumble, watching the duke’s men strut about. “Lately, it’s always wooden soldiers. More and more soldiers. Papa wears his fingers to the bone from dawn to dusk. Sometimes I think if I have to crack open another pot of von Eidle red, I’m going to scream.”
A line of worry stitches itself above Bran’s nose. It only serves to make his face more distracting.
“It’s business, Bran. What else can we do?” I sigh. “You and the tailor aren’t turning down requests for the marionettes’ uniforms, are you? What is it to us if the ruler of Tavia desires a collection of wooden soldiers?”
“It’s beyond me to wonder why a grown man would want life-size toys. But I don’t like the way he’s driving you and Gep into the ground. You already work with your nose to your chisel entirely too much, Pirouette.”
I shrug. “We’re makers. It’s what we do. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
“Unless it’s squeezing your throat.”
“Well, I can’t complain,” I say sharply. “Papa needs me. We’ll come out all right. We always do.”
Bran brushes his fingers against my arm in solidarity and my cheeks catch flame. That’s been happening a lot lately. Then he sneaks out of the wagon, just as skillfully as he came in.
Bran’s words sting, but we can’t afford to balk at the Margrave’s requests. A year ago, when my father received the first grand commission for an order of life-size marionettes, our little shop was barely scraping by. My father is an artisan of the highest degree, but his beautifully carved dolls, toys and puppets aren’t quite enough to keep us out of patched socks and worn boots. We’ve always had just enough. Papa’s always been adamant that we stick to our craft, our calling to produce clever and delightful work regardless of how much money it brings us. So when orders started pouring in from Wolfspire Hall, we weren’t in a position to refuse. Gold is gold.
Determined not to let the duke’s presence rattle me, I wipe the sweat from my hands and return to work. This time, I choose a common hearth tale about a greedy baker who refuses to sell his own bread. The baker gorges himself until he literally bursts from his gluttony—everyone’s favorite part. A tale without the slightest hint of magic or royal mockery, that no one could object to, be they peasant girl or duke.
“I will be careful,” I confide to a grandmotherly marionette as I pluck her from the trunk. I find comfort in her softly bent back and wizened, nut-brown face. “But you and I know that careful is not the same as silent, is it, old one?”
“Indeed,” she whispers back.
CHAPTER 2
HOME. THE PLACE WHERE I AWOKE TO A NEW BEGINNING, startled to find myself in sudden possession of a body and a beating heart and something else altogether foreign—a father. Inside Curio the air is spiced with glue and lacquer, the floor littered with curls of wood shavings that multiply no matter how often I sweep up.
You can’t help but admire our shelves, stacked and layered like the best kind of birthday cake, overflowing with toys. Jaunty little wooden men with sticks glued to their backs to make them dance look down upon a menagerie of animals, each more splendid than the next. There are snarling tigers, mysterious elephants, galloping horses and the great beasts of the sea: the monstrous whale and fearsome squid. Intricate wooden puzzles are tucked into baskets, each piece smoothed to perfection, their mysteries ready to confound minds for many a pleasant evening. Brigades of tiny soldiers line up in rows, waiting for a battle-thirsty master to put them to work. My stomach sinks when I see the soldiers now; I wish the Margrave desired toy soldiers instead of the larger-than-life ones he demands.
And all around, strung from the ceiling or sitting precariously on perches, hangs the pinnacle of his work: the marionettes for which my father is known far and wide. Waiting to spring to action are elegantly coiffed ladies, bashful gentlemen, brash sailors and sweet little shepherdesses. Some are as small as my hand, others as hefty as the wooden stool behind the counter. Creatures from every old hearth tale and fantastical childhood dream wait, poised for a player’s hands to give them voice and motion. I love the marionettes best of all.
My father is a born maker. From the moment he first picked up a piece of wood and a knife as a young boy, Gephardt Leiter has been making the things he loves come to life. That love is evident in every nook and cranny of Curio.
Several of the marionettes are my own creations. My father began training me as his apprentice as soon as he saw I had an inclination toward the work, once I proved myself capable of more than just sweeping up sawdust and sharpening tools. He taught me how to select the best pieces of wood, how to trace shapes onto a rough board of linden or halsa and then, bit by bit, how to transform those rough outlines into curves that speak of movement and expression. My tastes run toward the wild and wondrous: fairy folk and gnomes, lumbering giants and fleet-footed elves, creatures that haunt my daydreams and tiptoe around my nights. After almost seven years, I still find the process utterly thrilling.
If they knew my past, some might think it odd that I am so drawn to carving up the very thing I used to be. But woodworking is my native tongue; I relish the grain against my hands and dust beneath my fingernails, the satisfaction of polishing a piece until it gleams. It connects me with the deepest part of myself, that secret history only Papa is privy to.
Ducking through a curtain, I find him in the workshop, the very heart of Curio. As he sands away at a soldier’s rigid torso, his spectacles ride dangerously low on his bulbous nose, and his shaggy gray hair brushes against the rims. I set down the paints I picked up on my way back from the marktplatz.
“Was there enough, Pirouette?”
“Yes, Papa. Just barely. I think we’re depleting the chromatist’s supply.”
“Well, after nearly ninety-some soldiers-worth, I shouldn’t wonder,” he mutters, tossing a scrap into a jumbled corner behind his workbench.
Back here, every table is overrun with tools and stubs of dark grease pencil. Pots of glue drip slowly and dust motes sail the air, thick as fog. I stop to run my fingers across an emerging face, staring skyward as the iron jaws of a vise lovingly grip its skull.