A Harvest of Hearts

14

The day of Clarissa’s return dawned with an appropriate feeling of dread. I chewed on the ends of my hair. I needed a wash—the fever and exertion of the day before had left its mark. I heated up water in the big tub before the kitchen fire and had as quick a bath as I could manage.

When I felt sufficiently restored, I made a hurried breakfast from the ingredients the House provided for me and went through to the throne room to find the sorcerer. I steeled myself against the inevitable leap of joy my heart would give at the sight of him and determined to stay as angry as possible, to guard against it.

He was clad in a billowing black shirt, a black waistcoat embroidered in silver thread, breeches, and his impossibly shining tall boots—dressed up for this important meeting with his sister. He had something small and fiery in his hand and was playing a sleight-of-hand trick with it, flickering it over and under each of his fingers in turn so that it shimmered like a bright-finned fish.

“Porridge,” I said, plonking the plate down. “Need anything else?”

“No,” he said, without looking up. I hovered, though, wanting to say something but not knowing what.

“What happened to being more than you were made for?” The words burst out of me. “To thinking for yourself?”

The little fireball winked and shone between his fingers.

“I suppose I’m next, am I?” I pressed.

“I told you that you would not be.” He spoke quietly, not looking at me.

“Very reassuring. Did you bottle the heart like a jar of pickles, or is it magicked away somehow?”

He looked up at me, his strange eyes cold and pale. “My sister will be here again soon,” he said.

“Right, then. Want me to bake a cake for her?” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice; I was not sure he would even notice it.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“You’ll be able to give her a nice surprise,” I said, the venom spilling out of me without my meaning it to. Every time I thought about him harvesting a heart, horror, disgust, anger, and jealousy rose up in my throat and threatened to choke me. The surge of emotion was almost enough to overpower my love, but not quite.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I suppose I will.”

Hands still shaking, I set his cutlery down and then turned to leave. He surprised me by speaking, and I stopped.

“I knew it would hurt you when I left yesterday,” he said. “I did what I could to mitigate it, but it seems like I have little control over the spell, as I suspected. The work I did the other night gave you some relief, though, I think.”

“Thank you,” I said, after a pause, taken aback.

“I will keep trying,” he said, surprising me again. “I will not be able to completely remove the pain, however, and if you travel too far from me, this new spell will not hold. I have to be fairly close to you in order to sustain it. The ... bond between us allows me to use it as a channel for such magics. At first, I did not think it would be possible, but it has grown easier for me throughout the day, I find, and I can hold it more loosely now.”

I pictured the spell like a fine, shimmering net cast over me, and the sorcerer holding the slender threads between his fingers. I wondered what his magic felt like to him, if it was something tangible he could hold and manipulate, like his endless parade of sorcerous toys. Like Da’s butcher’s knife, and the slabs of meat. “Anyway. It means that it is easier for me to work magic on you now that we already have a ...” he waved his hands vaguely. “Connection.”

I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. He seemed uncomfortable. We stared at each other.

“And what does this connection mean for you?” I asked.

He seemed startled. “I ... don’t know,” he said slowly. “But I am trying to find out.”

My mind was in a muddle. He had harvested a heart, but not mine. He had refused to harvest mine, in fact. He had left me but cast a spell to protect me while he was gone, as best he could. And when he found I had left the House, he had created a thousand plates to smash.

I knew he did not love me, despite what my embarrassingly ensorcelled heart tried to tell me in the dark watches of the night, but could he possibly like me? Or at least like having me around? I felt a stab of guilt, that I was thinking about how to leave him, and then an even sharper stab of anger at that guilt.

Of course I wanted to leave! Of course I wanted to go home! I had been stolen from my home, whether he had meant to take me or not. And of course he would rather have me cooking and cleaning for him and, yes, providing some companionship and conversation, than have no one at all. I was Cornelius, but more useful. Protecting me as best as he could from the worst of the injury he had caused was the very least he could do.

And so I argued with myself, staring into his face and saying nothing, while he stared back and waited for me to speak.

“What are you doing, Sylvester?” I said at last.

“I don’t know,” he replied. He held my gaze, but the light in his eyes flickered a little.

“You said yourself it’s what you were made for,” I whispered. “Taking hearts. You are doing your duty, right? Finally? So why are you helping me?”

He sat very straight, so different from his usual slouch. His hair fell in such perfect waves around the fine edges of his cheekbones that I wanted to weep.

Would I ever be free of this terrible pull toward him? I took a step forward, almost involuntarily.

What if I just gave in? Threw myself at his feet and told him that I would endure anything, anything , if he would only permit me to be near him always?

His jaw tensed, but he stayed still, watching me. So still. I couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest.

Another thunderous knock on the door. Even though I had been expecting it this time, I jumped. Thankfully. I had almost let the spell take me over.

“I’d better answer that, then,” I said, and waited for him to speak. He said nothing. I turned tail and stomped to the front door, flinging it open with more force than necessary. Across the doorway, Clarissa stared at me with open hostility. Still here? I could almost hear her thinking.

I made my face as stupid and simple as possible. It wasn’t hard, because faced with the inexplicable pull and attraction of her beauty, my face quite naturally fell into a stupid and simple expression on its own.

Without greeting me, she floated off to the throne room again, Colin following close behind and looking grayer and more mushroomlike than ever, and, again, I went to the kitchen to prepare tea and cakes for them both. My hands shook as I poured the boiling water over the leaves. Cornelius wound himself around my shins.

“You all right?” he said.

“Yes.”

Of course I wasn’t all right. I had half expected her to reach into my chest and pick my heart like an apple as soon as I opened the door. Well, maybe she would be satisfied with whatever he had been able to harvest.

I carried the tea tray through the throne room and to the crystal plinth the sorceress had created and did my best not to look at either of the magic-workers. An angry silence hung in the air when I walked in, as solid and tangible as a bat hanging from the ceiling. I would be glad to get out from under it and back out into the black corridor. Clarissa watched me closely as I walked back out and waved her hand at her servant.

“Colin. Guard the door.”

Well, that put a wrench in the works. Colin followed me out silently and took up station to the right of the door. It closed with a deliberate, final thunk , leaving me outside with no way to listen in this time, lest the servant bear tales to his mistress. I stared at his blank, bland face, and he stared back—or perhaps just stared into space, because there was no focus in his pale eyes at all.

I wondered if I could persuade him to let me look through the keyhole, which was still there from the last time. After all, it would be in his best interests as well as mine, if I was able to help the Snagged. He was the most thoroughly Snagged of all of us, as far as I could tell. Was there enough humanity left in there for me to argue—or negotiate—with? I sidled up to him.

“Colin,” I whispered urgently. His eyes flickered, just a little, which I took as an encouraging sign. Either that, or my breath on his face had made him blink. I chose to believe the former. He was in there, somewhere. I had to believe that. I didn’t want to think that I would end up like that, scooped out like a melon, nothing of me left. I didn’t want to think that Dav would end up like that, back home, or all the other Snagged I had met.

“I can help you,” I said. “I know people who might be able to fix you—put you back the way you were, before Clarissa got her claws in you.”

No reaction. I reached out and poked his shoulder. He swayed a little at the pressure, but it was like poking at an odd-shaped fungus you found in the woods. There was a slight give and squish, but the thing certainly didn’t push back.

“In order for me to do that, though,” I continued, “you have to let me listen to what they’re saying. All right? They’ll never know. I’ll just look through the keyhole.”

He made a small, convulsive movement, as if to stand in front of it.

“Please. I know you’re in there, somewhere. Please. I’ll try to help you if I can.” I hoped the words were reaching him, somehow.

To my complete astonishment, he shuffled a little to one side and turned his eyes away from me, leaving the keyhole unguarded.

“Thank you,” I managed to say through my surprise and knelt at the little opening, prepared to listen again.

At first, there was nothing to listen to. I could not see Sylvester clearly, because Clarissa obscured my view of him, but I imagined that he was either glaring back or lounging in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

“Sylvester,” Clarissa said at last. She drew something from the soft leather bag that hung at her waist. I squinted. It was a jar, I thought, but she was moving it around too much for me to get a good look. Some kind of liquid sloshed about inside. My eyes couldn’t get a good look at it.

“Why are you here?” Sylvester asked.

“You know why I’m here. We have to report to the king in two days’ time, and we’re concerned about you.”

I couldn’t see him, but I heard him snort. “Why?”

She did not deign to answer. She shifted her weight, and I heard a faint splash from the jar she held as it moved more clearly into my view. I could see only an ordinary glass jar, the kind that Da kept our pickles in at home, filled with liquid and nothing else that I could see.

“I told you,” she said. “He has expectations. If you haven’t done anything about them, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take your ... housekeeper ... myself. It’s for your own good, little brother.”

A strained pause. And then:

“I did it,” he said. “All right? Are you happy? Here it is.”

What? I clutched at my chest, which felt no different, in a momentary panic.

I clawed open my bodice as far as I could and stared at the unblemished skin. There was no bruise, no rot, no spiderweb of inching veins. My breathing slowed as I realized he was talking about the heart he had harvested, and not mine. Idiot , I thought to myself.

I heard the chink of glass. He must have reached out to pass something to her, because I saw her lean forward in her seat and stretch out her hand. It was another jar, not as large as hers. The sorceress unscrewed her own, and tilted Sylvester’s down to pour from one to the other. The solid thing floating inside Sylvester’s jar hit the liquid in hers with a stomach-turning plop, and she screwed the lid back on.

“I’m glad you realized it was madness to keep her here intact,” she said.

“It’s not hers ,” Sylvester corrected her.

“Then whose is it?” she asked sharply.

“Someone I ... met.”

“You harvested!” she exclaimed. “I’m proud of you, brother.”

I could see the jar again now. It winked in and out of my sight as she moved it in her hand, glowing faintly. There was something floating about in it, something solid but disintegrating, trailing threads of itself as it moved.

It was in some sort of oil, I thought, some golden and viscous substance. The sorceress’s mood seemed to have improved somewhat, however, and she smiled a little as she turned the jar over in her hands and peered through the glass.

“It’s not very big, is it?” she said.

“It’s big enough,” said Sylvester.

“Of course, it’s not big enough. You know the situation,” she said. “We need more, more, more. Much more, if we are to keep the peace in the kingdom, and restore the crops, and keep everyone plump and prosperous. I do not mean to nag you, brother,” and she winked, playfully, which was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen, “but you understand that it is terribly important.”

“You’ve had enough of them without me for years,” said Sylvester sulkily. “You’ll live. And there are shelves full of them in the palace.”

Shelves full of them in the palace. Now that was something to report to the society. Getting into the palace had to be nigh impossible, but perhaps they knew of some more shady characters who could help, like their mysterious magical benefactor.

“There are not,” said the sorceress shortly. “Not any longer. The mold, fungus, whatever it is, has been spreading.”

A fungus? Like the one infecting the Snagged, perhaps.

“Whatever it is,” she continued, “it has killed more than half of them. We have a deficit to make up. We have had to renege on our agreements with the closer villages.”

“Renege?”

“This was in your lessons , Sylvester. We agreed to leave them alone in exchange for the produce and meat that we needed.”

“Why can’t we just grow our own? I know, I know,” as she tried to interrupt, “I know that what we do is toxic. I know that the earth of the city is dead, and things do not grow here except by magic. That we,” and I heard the edge of self-contempt in his voice, “ infect this place. But if we stopped harvesting ...”

“We need hearts,” as always, the word jolted something in my chest, “to keep us safe. To feed us. To keep Darius on the throne. It affects everyone. It is very sweet of you to want to keep your housekeeper—”

“Foss.”

“—Foss, alive. But surely she would want her family to remain protected? Her village? They have not fared so badly, in recent years. For a long time, we have just picked the odd one here and there, plucked portions of hearts, only taken full ones when it was absolutely necessary. It is regrettable, of course, but now with this ... disease, we must harvest with a scythe if we are to build our stores back up. We will lose a few villages on the outskirts, but that is what they are for . In time, they will recover and rebuild, and they will be grateful that we kept them from a worse, more painful fate.”

“ Grateful. ”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

Lose a few villages on the outskirts? I felt a rush of rage at how carelessly she spoke.

“Foss’s father lives in one of those villages,” said Sylvester, echoing my thoughts. “He is a butcher. Like mine,” he added with a huff of a laugh.

“Don’t be so melodramatic. We are not butchers .”

“Really? What are we, then?”

“If anything, we are comparable to farmers,” she said. “We nurture, and then we harvest. And the harvest is for all. Without our magic, would our kingdom be as safe or prosperous? As peaceful? It is a small price to pay.”

Only if you’re not the ones paying it , I thought. I watched as Clarissa raised the jar to her face and examined it with the eye of a connoisseur. She shook it up, and swirls of oil and little threads and specks of flesh detached themselves from the heart and circled lazily in the slow liquid, like fish in a warm pond.

“Not bad, really,” she said. “A bit shriveled, but not bad.”

“Now will you leave me alone?” said Sylvester. “I will find you others, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want? Darling, it’s what you’re for ,” she said, an echo of her earlier words about the villages. She tapped a long nail against the glass. “It’s enough, for now. For today. I will take it to Father. But you still have that girl ...”

“What about her?” he said, rather sharply. I could see just one of his hands through the keyhole. It had been drumming impatiently on the arm of the throne, but now it stilled.

“She’s still here. Untouched.”

“What of it?”

“You need to get rid of her, Sylvester. Harvest her and get rid of her. You know we can’t live with people .”

I could almost hear his raised eyebrow. “Are we not people ourselves?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, sounding a little flustered. “With ordinary people.”

“You keep servants. You all do.”

“Yes, but empty ones, darling.”

Empty?

“Not whole humans wandering about, getting their sticky fingers into every corner and poking their noses into what doesn’t concern them. You can’t keep an intact human in here.”

Intact had never sounded like a dirty word to me before, but it did now.

“She doesn’t poke her nose into things,” said Sylvester, which was patently untrue.

“That’s beside the point. You can’t keep her here. You can’t know what she’s doing all the time. It can’t all be housecleaning and cookery—the place is lousy with magic! You don’t need her.”

“Food made without magic tastes better,” he said. “And we can’t eat magical food all the time and stay in best health. Why not have someone to prepare it?”

“I don’t understand you,” said his sister with a sigh.

“I know.”

“Look,” she said. “I told Father about her.”

“Why?” His voice changed, grew more resonant, as if he had suddenly sat up straighter.

“Because you can’t do this, Sylvester. You’re new. You don’t understand the rules yet.”

“I understand them just fine.” It sounded as if he were standing and moving about. I still could not see him, but I could see the nauseating little jar of drifting flesh in his sister’s hands. The ... thing inside—my mind shied away from it—turned a little, like a babe in a transparent belly. “Why did you have to say anything?”

“It isn’t safe to keep her. You know it isn’t safe.”

“What is he going to do?” There was a thread of panic in his voice, odd to hear.

“I don’t know, but I would advise you to get rid of her, one way or another, before he does anything.” A silence. The jar in her lap tilted a little, and the thing pressed up close and gruesome against the glass.

“Chase out that cat too, while you’re at it. It’s not natural to have those things around. They’re always watching .” A short pause. “You know I only want the best for you, Sylvester,” she said, her voice silken. “I am your sister, after all.”

“Sister in name only,” he said. “And one of a dozen.” But his protest was weak.

“Sister in more than name,” she retorted. “We were made by the same hand. Whatever we were before has been erased, and now we are creatures of magic, bonded by magic, closer than any blood siblings could be. No one else can understand what it is to be us . Certainly not your housekeeper.”

There was a long, unpleasant pause.

“Well, I suppose you’d better be on your way,” said Sylvester. “According to you, you’re very busy.”

There was a susurration of rich fabrics as Clarissa started to get to her feet, and then it subsided. I twisted a little, pressing my eye closer to the keyhole so that I could see her better. She was standing very still, looking closely at the jar.

“What?” said Sylvester.

I heard the sloshing of liquid as she turned the jar over in her hand again. I saw her lift it to her face, frown, narrow her eyes. Then she threw it. I heard the bright, almost joyful sound of shattering glass, and a discomfiting squelch that had to be the heart flopping onto the floor.

“Do you think I’m a half-wit?” she shouted. “Or are you a half-wit? Has your housekeeper pickled your brains in her sauces?”

Sylvester sounded bored. “Get to the point, Clarissa.”

“You were going to let me carry this to the king like a fool,” she said. “You would have had me telling him you were fulfilling your duties—defending you—all while you were palming off some wizened little piece of offal you bought from a two-bit hustler in the marketplace!”

“Hardly wizened. I plumped it up,” said Sylvester. “I thought it looked pretty convincing, myself. In fact, I’m a little surprised you didn’t notice sooner. I thought you fancied yourself a connoisseur.”

My own heart, however, was jumping up and down in my ears, and muffling all sound. So he hadn’t harvested a heart at all?

“What is wrong with you?” Clarissa was screeching.

“It’s still a heart,” I heard him say.

“A used-up, dried-up little husk of one,” she screamed.

“I could barely conjure up a toothpick with something like this. And do you think that, if these pathetic baubles did any good, Father would allow the black market to continue operating? It amuses him, is all, seeing the little people squabble over his leavings. He could gather all the black market hearts in a second, with one word, but he doesn’t. Because they are useless.”

She pointed a finger at him. “And you thought to fool him with one? By reddening it and swelling it out a little? I don’t understand what goes on in your head, Sylvester. And then I look like a numbskull for bringing it to Father like a good little go-between and pleading your case. He will be furious , Sylvester. And I can’t protect you any longer. You need to start pulling your weight, and fast.”

“I will,” he said.

“When?”

“Now. I will go today.”

She snorted. “And what, try to find another black market heart, but plump it up a little better this time? No. You are going to harvest, and I am going to watch you.”

“Fine,” he said, with a bite in his voice. “I will call for the carriage, and you can watch me as I take some poor villager’s heart. Happy?”

“No,” she seethed. “You will call for your housekeeper, now , and I will watch as you take hers.”

“Clarissa ...”

“I gave you a chance. More than a chance. It’s too late, Sylvester. It has to be done. Either you do this, or Father will.”

From the way she said it, I got the impression I really didn’t want “Father” anywhere near me.

“Really, brother,” she continued. “If it means that much to you, you can keep her once she has been harvested. She’ll still be able to cook and clean for you, and she won’t be troublesome. She should last a while longer once she’s been harvested. Long enough for you to get tired of her.”

“It’s not the same,” he protested.

“I assure you, it is exactly the same,” she said. “You just haven’t been around enough intact humans to realize how deadly boring they really are.” She raised her voice. “Colin, come in here.”

I shuffled backward as fast as I could, nearly falling over. The House provided a little alcove just in time for me to scramble into it as Colin came back to life and walked inside the throne room.

When the door closed behind him, I crawled back to the keyhole, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. I saw Clarissa standing before her servant, smiling into his blank face.

“It’s easy, Sylvester,” she was saying. “No need to be squeamish. It doesn’t hurt them.”

To my horror, she shook back her sleeve so that her hand and arm were exposed almost to the elbow, her fingers curled like the petals of a flower, and thrust her hand into her servant’s chest.

“Of course, most of his heart has been taken already,” she said conversationally as she twisted her wrist in his chest, and he writhed around her hand. “I’m careful to do a little bit at a time, if it’s a really good one. It’s surprising how long you can make them last, if you’re frugal.”

Colin’s face contorted, but he made no sound. His eyes were closed. He looked almost drugged. Perhaps he was—or perhaps she had bespelled him.

I watched in horror as his mouth made the shape of a scream, but no noise came out. I still couldn’t see Sylvester’s face. Was he bored? Yawning while he lounged in his chair? Watching avidly? I had no idea.

His sister withdrew her hand with an awful, incongruous “pop,” as if she had pulled a plum from a pie. Her servant’s heart was in her hand, a pocked and shrunken thing, clearly not whole.

She pulled an empty jar from the pouch at her waist and shook it. The shaking must have been part of a spell, because the jar filled with a golden liquid like runny honey. She dropped the heart into it and screwed on the lid in a businesslike manner.

“A pity to use him up all at once,” she said. “I was planning to hold onto him for a while. It’s better if the heart is freshly plucked. Still, I hope the demonstration will prove worth it.”

Colin swayed and staggered but did not fall. I could not see his chest. I wondered if it was a sunken cavity, like the boy’s I had seen at the secret society meeting. I knew Colin couldn’t have long to live.

But did Sylvester know that? Did he imagine I would survive the harvesting just fine, and keep on living in his House and cooking his meals as if nothing were wrong?

Well, I wasn’t sticking around, waiting to be mutilated. I turned from the door so quickly that I slipped on the slick floor and fell on my backside, the hard black substance sending a jolt up my spine. It made quite a thump, and I hoped they hadn’t heard me. I scrambled away, pushing myself along the floor with my feet, before getting up and running as best I could along the corridor.

I was trying to get to the heavy front door and out into the courtyard, to run out into the city, but the House undulated under my feet and would not let me. I almost sobbed in frustration, but could not keep my already unsteady footing, and so I obeyed it and turned around, cursing. I had to pass the throne room door again, but thankfully, it was still shut.

“Hide me, hide me,” I said under my breath as if chanting a spell. I couldn’t go to the kitchen, or my bedchamber. There was nowhere to go. Perhaps the House had decided to betray me after all—another of its whims, and a dangerous one this time.

Cornelius appeared at my feet.

“What’s going on?”

“She’s coming out to harvest me,” I said. “I need to hide.”

I scooped him up.

“Oi!” he protested.

“I’m sorry. But I have a bad feeling about you, too. I think it’s better if we’re both out of her sight.”

He wriggled in my arms. “Put me down.”

“I told you, it’s better that we both hide.”

“No, put me down, I can help.”

“How?” I looked around wildly at the black walls. “Why can’t you open one of your doors for us now, damn you?” I pleaded to the House.

“There are other ways,” said Cornelius.

“What other ways?” I put him down.

“I’m a cat,” he said, as if this explained everything. “There are always other ways.”

“Yes, well, I’m not a cat, and I can’t fit in your little spaces.”

“You won’t need to. You just have to sort of think sideways, like I said. Remember? To get to the Other House.”

“ Think sideways ,” I repeated. It made as little sense to me now as it had the first time.

“Like this,” he said, and vanished, as if that demonstration was going to help me. Shite on a pile of shite, I thought. The House has swallowed him up, and it will finally swallow me, too. And then he reappeared.

“I don’t know how to explain it any better,” he said. “I’ve only been able to talk for a few weeks. You have to ...”

“Think sideways, I got it.”

Right. This was going to be a challenge. I cursed myself for not trying this more when Cornelius had first brought it up, and when I had had leisure to try and fail and try again. But if I didn’t figure out Cornelius’s secret paths to the Other House, fat chance of either of us getting out, and odds were, I’d be chewed up and spat out by the sorceress without ever seeing Da again.

So, I took a step back inside my head to take a look at how I was thinking, which was confusing enough without asking the question, if I’m watching the Foss who’s thinking, who is “I” ? Which is not the sort of question I was in the habit of asking myself, nor was it in any way helpful. So, I pushed that aside. I remembered the time I had first tried, back when Cornelius told me about the Other House and I had caught just a glimpse of it. I cleared my mind as best I could, and tried to make a sort of sideways leap in my head, like a fish twitching on a line.

Admittedly, I hadn’t expected anything to happen, so it came as a shock when the corridor seemed to make a leap of its own and change shape for a moment. A trick of the light?

“That’s it,” said Cornelius. “Only this time, do it better.”

“Thanks. That’s really, really helpful advice.”

The door to the throne room opened. I almost screamed, but then I saw Colin stagger out, and the door slammed shut again behind him. He seemed to be trying to take his position by the door again, to guard it, but he was having trouble staying upright.

“I can’t leave him,” I said to Cornelius.

“What? He can barely walk. We can’t take him with us.”

“I have to try. That’s how I could end up, if I’m not careful.”

If Cornelius could have rolled his eyes, he would have. I went up to Colin and grasped him by the shoulder, shaking him a little. “You have to hold onto me, all right?” I told him. “I’m going to get us out of here, but you have to hold onto me. Don’t let go.”

It was too good to be true, though. I don’t know if it was pure coincidence that Clarissa left the room just then, or if she had some eldritch way of knowing what we were doing, but the throne room door blew open on a blast of hot air and noise—something like how I would have imagined a dragon’s cough to feel and sound—and Clarissa burst out of it.

I staggered backward and fell, feeling my face to see if my eyebrows had been singed off, but they seemed to still be there. Cornelius clung close to my side, bristling, as Clarissa blazed in the doorway like a phoenix, lit up, and practically steaming with rage.

I thought at first that her rage was directed at us, that she had emerged from the throne room to ambush us and rip out my heart. But then I saw that she was looking back at Sylvester, who had become a dark wavering shape, like smoke, behind her fiery fury. Her face was almost too bright to see.

She was shouting something at him, but I couldn’t make out the words, and I couldn’t see his face. Her hair lifted off her scalp, just as Sylvester’s had when he was smashing the plates, limning her head like a saint in a painting.

Even her skirts were floating, as were her long bell sleeves, although the embroidered and bejeweled fabrics had formerly seemed too heavy to walk in, let alone to blow about like washing on a line. The House shrank from her and warped around her, making me feel seasick as well as nervous and overheated.

She spotted me, of course, and lunged toward me with her mouth open and snarling, as if she was going to bite my head clean off. Her teeth were very white and sharp. I kept hold of her servant’s shoulder, more out of terrified instinct than fellowship. Cornelius launched himself toward her face, and she put up her hands and screamed.

I didn’t stick around to see what happened next. Trusting that Cornelius would be able to take care of himself, I scrambled down the corridor as quickly as I could, dragging Colin behind me. I could feel the heat of the sorceress’s anger singeing the hairs on the back of my neck. Cornelius yowled, and I heard his claws skittering on the floor as he ran after me.

“Foss! Wait!” I heard Sylvester shout.

Like I would fall for that old trick. I didn’t care if I dropped dead of heartsickness at the first corner; I wasn’t letting that magic harpy take my heart. As I was almost to the front door, however, I skidded on the smooth blackness—the House had given a twitch—and went sprawling, bringing Colin down with me.

Clarissa was upon me at once, glowing like a bonfire. As I quivered like spilled jelly on the floor, unable to stand, she reached out with one long-fingered hand and lifted me by the shoulder as if I weighed nothing at all.

She shook back the lace of her sleeve on the other hand, flexing her fingers into a claw. Three ripe, red scratches from Cornelius’s claws rent her perfect face. They were already healing as I watched, tiny invisible hands stitching them up until you’d never know anything had ever marred her flawless complexion. I shuddered. She flexed her hand, a twist of triumph at the corner of her mouth—and then hesitated. I had the sense that she expected something to happen, and was surprised when it did not.

“What are you?” she hissed at me. “What is protecting you?”

Sylvester appeared as a dark blur over the fire of Clarissa’s shoulder. I saw his mouth open and shut, and dimly heard him say my name.

“Foss!”

No, it wasn’t him after all—it was Cornelius, appearing and then disappearing, winking in and out of my sight, showing me what I should do. But Clarissa still had a grasp of my shoulder like an owl’s talons on a ferret, and I couldn’t twist free. She was examining me with cold curiosity, staring into my face as if trying to read something there.

Taking advantage of her distraction, I turned my head and bit her wrist as hard as I could, tasting her oddly metallic skin and then the warm flooding of blood that told me I had bitten deep. She cursed and released me, just for a second, but a second was enough.

My mouth full of her bitter blood, I thought sideways as best I could, and felt myself shiver out of one existence and into another. Just before I was entirely gone, I reached out and grabbed Colin by the ankle, hauling him with me.

It seemed to work, and for a moment, I was looking at the bare boards and cobwebs of the Other House. But a pain in my shoulder made me gasp and set my vision to shimmering, so that I was seeing first the sorcerer’s black House, then the Other House, back and forth, flash-flash-flash, until I thought my eyes would melt.

Then the pain stopped, and I sank to the floor in the silent, dusty hallway, and Cornelius was wrapping himself about my ankles as if trying to tie a knot around me with his own furry body.