And I know terribly well that is far, far from the worst thing that can be done to a servant.
I chuck the ruined slipcovers into the fire, where they catch almost instantly, giving off a faint singed-hair smell from the silk. I try not to breathe it in as I braid my hair and tuck it under the Reigenbach-blue cap. One of the burning cushion covers also has the smears of my face powders on it, for no handmaid would own such things . . . and my time as the prinzessin is waning.
The final touch, though, demands a mirror—not because I need to see what I’m doing, but because I need to be sure it works. Luckily, Gustav von Eisendorf loves nothing so much as showing off, and expensive full-length mirrors are well in supply in his guest parlor.
I stand before the nearest one and look my reflection over: From the neck down, I am a maidservant in an unobtrusive Reigenbach uniform, filling it out nicely with curves that would be called ambitious in a maiden of nearly seventeen like myself. From the chin up, a few wisps of platinum hair twist from under the blue cap, and silvery eyes blink back at me from a heart-shaped face. Even without powders or rouge, twin roses bloom in my smooth ivory cheeks, and my pert lips flush with a natural shell-pink glow.
The hair like sunshine, the eyes like moonlight, they are both key to the image of the girl the march of Bóern knows as Gisele von Falbirg.
So is her signature string of perfect matched pearls.
I reach back and unclasp it from my neck. The effect is immediate.
My face lengthens, thins, mottles with a dusting of freckles; my eyes darken to black; the few loose tendrils of hair burnish rusty orange. The uniform dress hangs a little looser, though I’ve put on weight from a year’s worth of finally eating my fill, and it hangs a little longer, for eating well still cannot replace the inches I lost to years of meager fare in Castle Falbirg.
I am plain. I am forgettable. I am what I was for ten years: Gisele’s perfect servant.
I slip the pearls into a pocket and button it tight. I will not risk leaving them hidden in a cushion. Not when I’m so close to being free of them, and of Gisele, for the rest of my life.
Right on cue, Hans’s footsteps echo down the hall. I hunch my shoulders forward, lower my head, and slip through the door, donning a look of worried vexation.
In my mind, the second card turns over: Marthe the Maid.
“There you are,” Hans says. “Marthe, ja?”
I jump as if he’s startled me, then shut the parlor door and bob into a curtsy. My voice takes on a high, whispery rasp. “My apologies, it seems my mistress sent a few people to look for me in her need. I’m afraid she’s had”—I watch as the smell of burnt silk reaches Hans— “an accident,” I finish with just enough peevishness to suggest this is not an unusual occurrence. Hans’s face softens with camaraderie. “I can’t leave her, but I need my toilette satchel from the carriage.”
Hans sighs, and his voice lowers. “Fine, I’ll fetch it. And if the von Falbirg brat has any further accidents, try to make sure they’re cheap ones.”
I curtsy again. “My thanks.” Once he’s started down the hall, I duck back into the parlor and call in my drunken-Gisele voice, “Marthe! What in the Blessed Empire of Almandy is taking so long?”
It is certainly loud enough for Hans to hear. If he is a dutiful man, he will hurry to the carriage house, which is even farther away than the new chapel.
But if Hans is as spiteful a servant as I was in Castle Falbirg, he will take his time.
Ten minutes at the least. Fifteen minutes at the most.
Marthe the Maid and Gisele the Princess fall back into their dance on the table in my mind’s eye, circling the third and final card I’ve yet to reveal.
This is how you win the game, you know. Show them what they want to see, let them think they can win, let them follow the cards. Keep their eyes where you want them.
And never, ever lose sight of the real mark.
I trade the cap for the dull gray kerchief to cover my inconveniently bright ginger braid. Then I take up the linen drawstring bag and fold it into another pocket, checking one corner for a familiar weight: a single red penny.
It’s there. And it’s time.
I turn my final card. It is a shifting shadow, a blur in the night, a faceless specter. It could be a ghost. It could be anything.
After all . . . no one’s ever seen the Pfennigeist.
Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other’s throats.
Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was—is—Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.
CHAPTER TWO
The Guest
Godmother Fortune is trying to get my attention. She’ll roundly deny it, insisting that I would have found the candle on my own with or without the glimmers of golden good luck in my sight. But one of the few benefits of being the goddaughter of Death and Fortune is that I can see their hands at work.
Fortune’s fingerprints have been all over this party. I’ve seen smudges of good-luck gold when I debated snatching a ring, clouds of coal-dust misfortune warning me not to empty my glohwein into an urn right before a knight turned to look my way. She and Death are supposed to leave me to my own business these days, but when Fortune’s in a mood, she can’t help but meddle.
I have yet to see Death’s hand at work here, and that’s probably for the best. It’s Fortune’s nature to poke at my boundaries, but when Death has business with you, she never needs an invitation.
And I don’t need my godmothers’ help. Even if I did, I can’t ask. They saw to that themselves.
Nine minutes left now.
I scowl at the luck-shine around the candle, but there’s no time to find another out of spite. I carry it over to the parlor’s balconette door and tip the lit end over each hinge. Drops of tallow run down the brass. I need to remember to check the hinges when I return so I can clean up the hardened fat. When I lift the door’s latch, it swings open glass-smooth and dead quiet.
I slip out into the night. This is my second-least favorite time of year, all damp and drizzle, with bright autumn leaves now sodden clumps of muck, and soil that can’t decide if it wants to freeze or not.
It’s still only second-worst. For me, the worst time of the year, despite all its Winterfast festivals and cheer, is midwinter.
But that’s something for Vanja to deal with; it’s not the Pfennigeist’s concern.
A blanket of fog has spread over the muddy fields, and the new moon sheds no light. My breath clouds in the chill, but I can only tell when it catches the glow of torchlight two stories below. A murmur of low voices wafts up from the ground level.
The handful of guards outside will keep their backs to the walls and their eyes on the mist, perhaps looking to the fingerbone boughs of Eiswald Forest beyond.
They will not be looking up at the manor itself.
I size up the distance between the parlor’s balconette and the full balcony of the count and countess’s bedchamber. They told me themselves of their precautions against the Penny Phantom, posting not one but two guards outside their solar and swearing it was the only way in.
They’d even had a priest of Eiswald’s patron goddess bless their chambers to ward off ghosts.