36. Isla
36
ISLA
“ T he Countess never lets anyone into her house!” Izolda yells into my ear as we fly over the starlit sound toward the romance author’s home. “She hates people! Except her staff. She loves her staff. The day my parents poached Olena, she was so angry that she said her door would remain permanently shut to all Korols!”
Yet it’s possible she let one in. After all, her soft spot for Olena—according to Izolda—extended to Svyato, to whom the Countess had given seed money to build the tavern.
I stare at the moon’s reflection on the choppy water. It’s mere days’ away from being full. Two, possibly three. Will tonight be the night?
My heart pounds so fast that my saliva tastes like blood but feels like plaster—metallic with a side of cloying paste. The texture and taste don’t dissipate, not even when I recuperate my human form on the busy Voshnan wharf.
“Perhaps we should let Elio go inside alone,” I say as the boys land under the wary gazes of the Faeries either strolling or sledding along the harbor on their way into the old town. “He can pretend to be a diehard fan of smut, and?—”
“I came prepared.” Izolda brandishes a sky-blue bakery box she picked up in the castle kitchens while the rest of us went to fetch coats.
The air is so chilled I regret not swapping my silver gown for my usual leathers
“The Countess loves what’s inside this box,” she says as she swishes up the stone steps that have been cleared of ice and snow.
“Good, because I don’t know the first thing about smut,” Elio murmurs, following her up the hill toward the manors dotting the peninsula.
“Barely knows the first thing about sex,” Lachlano adds, which wins him a scathing look from our half-blood friend.
“I know plenty about sex, you ass.”
“Then you know plenty about smut, since it’s just another term for sexually explicit storytelling.” Lachlano fists his honeyed-brown dreadlocks, then rerolls the strand of leather he uses to keep them bound. “It’s actually pretty riveting. Almost got me killed, though.”
“How does risqué storytelling almost get one killed?” Izolda asks, whirling to look at Lachlano while pursuing her ascent.
How she doesn’t trip is a feat of verticality.
“I was reading out loud to Isla from that Empress of Ice novel, and lo and behold, your brother burst into the room, imagining Isles and I were getting our rocks off. You should’ve seen the look on his face.”
“Should’ve seen the look on yours,” I say with a smile I’m feeling, in spite of my clacking nerves.
Izolda barks out a laugh. Elio, too, guffaws.
“How I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall,” she says.
“In retrospect, it was quite funny.” Lachlano’s grin is as incandescent as the streetlights lining Dragosvet Avenue, the wealthiest district in Voshna.
It’s not only where the Countess lives, but also where Lev’s family resides. As we walk past their manor, I glance up at the stone spires, trying to catch sight of the dwellers within. The home is stunning, both from the outside and from within.
Naeva and I visited, under the cloak of magic, the day after Konstantin removed Lev’s hands. Even though, by that point, I was full-on team-Konstantin, I’d felt a pinch of aggrieved guilt at the sight of Lev’s stubby wrists.
Not enough guilt to prevent Naeva from painting a listening sigil inside his private chambers, though. A listening sigil, which is in dire need of being refreshed, since the paperweight I filched grizzles with imperceptible chatter nowadays. Not that it offered us anything worthwhile in the past. It was like Lev had known he was being listened to. He probably did.
A shadow moves in front of his bedchamber window, stops. I catch the burn of auburn eyes. The shine of dark curls. The harsh twist of lips. His hate is palpable.
“This is it.” Izolda nods to the looming gates emblazoned with a golden ‘A’ and ‘Z’.
I redirect my attention to the lofty metal pickets, then past them, to a house Naeva and I never entered. “Was the Countess not on your list of Jubilee attendees?”
Izolda pokes at a gold doorbell mounted into the gate. “No, because I knew she’d never come. She’s a total recluse.”
As we wait for the gates to open, my chest prickles with renewed unease. “Lach?” I call him over, index finger already pressed against my spiky earring. “I’ll make you invisible. Wander around. Just…keep an eye on yourself.”
He nods, understanding what I mean by that last part: that my spell will be more fleeting than any my Shabbin peers can cast.
He winks out of existence just as torches flare beyond the gates, illuminating a stone path over which soars a sprite sporting a tailcoat and an extra-high ponytail that gives his head the appearance of a fountain.
Once the palm-sized Faerie reaches the gates, he hovers there, gaze thinning at the sight of my stripes and the feathers tattooed on all three of our cheekbones. “May I help you?”
“We’re here to see the lady of the house,” Izolda announces with a friendly smile that the sprite doesn’t reciprocate.
“I’m afraid the Countess is unavailable at the moment.”
“I’m sorry, but I was told she’d be in and that I should just stop by. I believe there’s a codeword I’m supposed to give? What was it again?”
“Smut?” I suggest.
“No, that’s not it.”
The winged butler puffs out his chest, making the tucked ends of his cravat pop out from beneath his shirt. “There is no codeword.”
“Olena said—” Izolda scrunches up her brow as though giving this real thought. “What was it that Olena said?”
The sprite’s eyes seem to take on a brighter glow. “Olena no longer works here.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’ll let the Countess know you stopped by, Princess.”
“Unnecessary, we’ll let her know ourselves. Isla? A little help?”
I morph, which makes the tiny man spring backward and flit to the manor’s front door as though to warn the Countess— or Mestyla? —that her visitors didn’t take no for an answer.
Izolda and Elio climb up the ladder of my wing and settle astride my back. Thankfully, both are rather light, so I manage to take off and land without a hitch.
Izolda raps on the locked front door. “Countess Zubrowa, I know you abhor my family, but I urgently need a word with you.”
We wait for five entire minutes before Izolda nods to the lock, then to my hand. “I’m afraid we’ll have to let ourselves in.”
“Breaking and entering isn’t going to win us any brownie points,” Elio mumbles while gusting warm air into his palms.
“There will be no breaking,” I assure him, mostly to ease his nerves. “I’m not that dreadful at spellcasting.”
After painting my sigil, I slip inside. The sprite has just made it to the top of the stairs when I unlatch the door for the others. His eyes bulge as he rockets back toward me, wearing such a murderous expression that I disintegrate into smoke. I materialize just in time to witness him smack into the door frame at such velocity that he slithers down like a glob of soup.
I reach out and snatch him by his high ponytail a heartbeat before his limp body can make contact with the marble flooring.
“Unhand Pietr immediately!” comes a shrill voice.
I shuffle over to a round table covered in a pink tablecloth and set the sprite down beside a vase overflowing with huge pink roses. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to harm your butler.”
I lift my gaze to the glowering Faerie standing at the top of the stairs, blinking when I catch sight of the long gray plaits grouped on the crown of her head with a pink bow. I should probably be more concentrated on her frightful glower, but no…it’s the hair.
Izolda steps past me, her heels clicking on the buffed pink marble. “Countess Zubrowa, I’m your greatest fan.”
“Get out of my house!”
Izolda halts and holds up her bakery box. “I’ve brought you khvorost.”
“I don’t care to be plied with fried dough.” She glances disdainfully at the box that’s a shade paler than her eyes. “Out! All of you.”
“Please hear us through,” I say. “It will take only a?—”
“No.” She hikes up her chin.
I guess I’ll have to join Lachlano in his covert investigation.
I start to turn when Izolda splutters, “When Olena left, she gifted me her collection of signed editions. I own every book you’ve ever written. They’re my pride and joy. I reread all two-hundred and forty-three of them yearly. It’s thanks to your books that I learned to read. I was seven the first time I read one of your novels. On Shkolnaya Street . I borrowed it from Olena’s room. She obviously didn’t know. When she found out…oh, how mad she was.” Izolda finally takes a breath, eyes shimmering. “I loved that woman so much. And I know you did as well.”
The Countess’s expression, which had softened an iota during Izolda’s impassioned monologue, tightens anew. “A shame your brother didn’t care for her like we did.”
“Konstantin didn’t kill Olena,” I snap.
She flaps a hand that is as bejeweled as her long ears. All the stones are pink. Various shades of the hue, but all pink. Just like her dress. Just like the paint on her walls and her staircase runner and her nails and the ribbon she wears around her elegant black neck.
“Yes, yes, I heard it was Salom, but to me, they are one and the same.”
“They’re nothing alike.” I jut my head toward her still unconscious attendant. “If your sprite were to murder someone, would you consider yourself to blame?”
“Yes, for it would mean I did not guide him well.”
I roll my lips, feeling extra defensive of my fiancé, even if he is snubbing me at the moment.
“We’re sorry to pick at a barely-scabbed wound, but we’re trying to find Svyato’s daughter,” Elio says, closing his fingers around my twitching bicep.
Her glimmery eyelids spasm. “And you thought she’d be here ?”
“Yes,” he says.
She comes down a few stairs. “Well, she’s not.”
“It’s interesting that you haven’t asked us why we’re searching for her,” I muse.
Another lid spasm. “I haven’t asked you because I want to put an end to this conversation, not prolong it. Now, leave before?—”
“I know she’s my niece!” Izolda blurts out.
Silence entrenches us, glutinous like the sugared treats in the bakery box trembling from Izolda’s fingers.
“We don’t want to hurt her,” Izolda continues. “We only want to meet her. To speak with her. To?—”
“Mestyla’s not here,” the Countess repeats.
A soft thud on the ceiling jerks our attention upward. While Izolda sucks in air, I check the Countess’s expression only to find confusion, quickly followed by blistering irritation.
“Would you mind telling your snooping friend not to break anything in my study?” she snaps.
Izolda’s face warms with a blush. “We came here in peace. Truly.”
“Could’ve fooled me…” The Countess hefts out a sigh that reduces the tautness of her features. “Your sister didn’t come in peace.”
“Which sister?” she asks.
“Your twin.”
The bakery box plummets from Izolda’s fingers. “Ksenia ca-came here?”
“Yes. About a fortnight ago. She rang my doorbell. Apparently, one of her friends mentioned Svyato’s daughter had vanished the night Svyato met his end and his boss was worried. Ksenia took it upon herself to locate the girl. I told Mestyla to stay hidden and to wrap her hair and ears. Which led us to fight. Which led to her defying me. The instant Ksenia laid eyes on Mestyla, she realized the girl wasn’t Svyato’s.”
“She’s not?” I breathe out.
“Her ears are pointed, Miss Ríhbiadh.” She must assume this detail of Mestyla’s anatomy is unknown to me because her tone isn’t condescending.
“There are cases of half-bloods being born with tapered ears,” I argue.
“Yes, I’ve heard, but Svyato isn’t the girl’s father. Olena confessed this to me the night she stumbled onto my doorstep with the babe. Mestyla was barely-formed, forced into the world by a mother so committed to her cause that she refused to encumber herself with a child.”
Izolda’s whimper carries me to her side. I slide my arm around her waist and hold her, conscious of how upsetting this must be for a woman who yearns for children of her own.
“Olena mentioned that Alyona didn’t even know that she was pregnant until the day she delivered, so no one was aware of the babe, not even Mestyla’s true father.”
“How’s that possible?” Elio asks at the same time as I ask, “Who’s her true father?”
“I don’t know, Miss Ríhbiadh. As for how no one knew about the babe…pregnancy denial. Alyona was certain she couldn’t procreate after Vladimir commanded his son to plunge his blade into her womb as punishment for colluding with Regio.” The Countess’s tone softens as she adds, “Olena told me the poor boy wept when he had to remove the unborn babe she’d made with that Dante-buffoon.”
The babe who, if born, would’ve prolonged Mimi’s curse…
My first impression of the Countess improves slightly at her spot-on description of the Faerie prince my mother made king.
“It was unfair that the horrific task befell Kostya,” Izolda croaks, tears tripping over her freckles.
“Yes, it was. Your father should’ve given the responsibility to Salom. That brute wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at ending a life, much less one of Alyona’s making. Anyway, we cannot change the past, can we? Now, where was I?”
“Olena brought you the babe…” Elio reminds her.
“Ah, yes. I arranged for a closed adoption with a half-blood family from a neighboring eastern province—two wonderful educators of young minds. The day they arrived to pick Mestyla up, Olena changed her mind and ran off with her. Since Olena was far beyond the age of procreating, she passed the infant off as her brother’s. And then your wretched sister Alyona got Olena to help her out a second time. After Salom killed my dear friend…”
She takes a breath, slender nostrils flaring with emotion.
“After…I visited Svyato, intent on taking the child, but the stubborn man refused. I didn’t fight him for guardianship, because he loved Mestyla deeply and had just lost his sister, but I did take care of them both, seeing to her education and his personal welfare. A few years ago, I learned that Svyato had gotten into bed with the wrong people.” The Countess peers to the side, toward a window that gives onto her sprawling grounds.
“Who?” I keep my voice low, afraid to break the spell of her trust.
“Revolutionaries intent on abolishing the monarchy. The ones your radicalized twin is so very fond of. All this to say, I’m profoundly worried that Mestyla’s mind is being filled with politics and puffery. She’s sweet but trusting.” The Countess glides off the last step and walks toward us. “ Too trusting.”
When she’d stood on the upper floor, she’d seemed like some fearsome giant. Amongst us, the middle-aged Faerie appears tiny. Perhaps the reason she wears her hair gathered so high? I push the inane thought aside.
“To think I wrote to your brother to warn him to get the girl out,” she murmurs.
My heart stumbles against my ribs. “Y-You did? When?”
“Around the time of his Jubilee. I should’ve written him sooner, and probably signed my letter, but I was nervous that it would land in the wrong hands.”
Does she mean Salom’s? Ksenia’s? “Do you have any idea where the two could be hiding, Countess?” I ask. “Any at all?”
“Have you checked the Zaslofskys? Ksenia is close to them.”
“My mate has. He searched their house from top to bottom. He even searched their factory. Ksenia’s not there, nor is my niece.” Izolda sniffles. “They’re not anywhere.”
I tug Izolda into a hug. “We’re going to find them, Iz. We’re going to find them both.”
Under her breath, she whimpers, “Yes, but too late.”
“For your niece, but not for your sister,” I murmur against my friend’s pointed ear, praying I’m not misleading her with my interpretation of the prophecy. “Not too late for her.”
Or for Konstantin. Right, Cauldron?
“I’m sorry to have upset you, Miss Korol. Or should I call you Mrs. Flaherty? I heard you married your Crow. Congratulations on breaking the archaic norms of our land.” Turning to me, she adds, “May the interspecies marriage trend catch and spread far and wide.”
“It’s not a trend,” I point out as Izolda unwraps herself from my embrace.
“You’re right, my dear. It was the wrong word to use.” She smiles at me. Though her curve of lips lacks vigor, it doesn’t lack congeniality.
“Thank you, Countess.” Izolda’s voice still crackles with sorrow. “And sorry for having irrupted into your home.”
“I hope you manage to smooth out your family’s problems before the ripple becomes an unstoppable tide. Things in Glace might not be perfect, but Konstantin is trying. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that. Best of luck, children.”
“Stay back, Countess!” Pietr the sprite lurches off his resting place beside the vase. “I’ve got everything under control!” He hovers in front of the noblewoman’s face, fists clenched in front of his flushed face as though readying himself to pummel us. “What are you smiling at, boy?” he hisses at Elio, his fountain-do shivering from how fast he beats his diaphanous wings.
“I, um…I…” Elio bumbles as he rubs his nape. “Nothing. I’m not smiling at anything.”
The Countess, though, is. “Stop picking on my new friends, Pietr.”
The sprite whirls around so fast that he dips. The Countess holds out her palm, and he lands, then tilts his neck to peer at her. “They’re Korols. Well, not the male, but the other two.”
Is it odd that I don’t mind being referred to as a Korol?
“I know who they are,” she says. “Could you brew us a large pot of rosebud tea, Pietr?”
The sprite’s mouth falls open.
“If my guests have time for tea, that is?”
Izolda gives her cheeks a quick swipe. “It’d be our honor, Countess.”
Elio crouches to retrieve the bakery box. “Should I bring these with us?”
“Should the sun rise?” the Countess volleys back.
He nibbles on his lip, glancing toward the dark panes of glass. “Is that a trick question?”
The lady of the house smiles at him, then holds out her arm to Izolda. “I’m dying to learn which of my books is your favorite.”
Izolda’s face brightens as though filled with Faerie-fire. “You’re truly expecting me to pick only one?”
“Top five, then.”
Elio and I follow close behind.
Quietly, he asks, “In the prophecy, you only murder one Korol, right?”
Goosebumps pebble my skin. “I hope so.”
“But if they’re working together…?”
I shudder. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say, even though my mind is right there with his.
Killing a girl I’ve never met is one thing. Killing one I know…one who looks identical to a woman I care about is another. If the Cauldron had shown me kneeling beside Ksenia’s corpse, odds are, I would’ve stayed away from Glace.
“If I was Ksenia, where would I hide?” I muse quietly.
“Somewhere very unexpected, considering her own siblings haven’t been able to locate her for the past two weeks.”
I draw Elio to a stop. “What do you mean two weeks ?”
The whites of his eyes gain traction over his irises. “Shit. I don’t think I was supposed to tell you.”
“Well, now that you started, don’t stop.”
He sinks a hand through the curls at the back of his skull. “Don’t you care to keep me alive, Isles?”
“Elio Riccio Genovese,” I hiss, “I’ll tell the palace chefs to add blue cheese on all your food, desserts included.”
His nose twitches with revulsion. “Cruel.”
“Just tell me.”
With a sigh, he says, “She vanished the day before you left and hasn’t surfaced since. I imagine you weren’t told because they worried how you’d react.”
This collective of sneaks were right to worry about my reaction. I grit my molars, murdering the front door with a glare.
I didn’t care if Konstantin didn’t want to see me. He was about to see me. And to hear me.
I don’t stay for tea. I streak out the Countess’s house and morph. The instant I’m back in feathers, I reach out to my father and ask him if he was aware of Ksenia’s absenteeism.
I was respecting Konstantin’s wishes, he says, even though I bet he kept mute so I made the trip home instead of staying behind and taking matters into my own talons.
Beak gritted, I hiss, You should’ve told me.
A beat of silence trundles between us.
I sent Colm and Fionn and many others. No one’s found her.
Because she’s mine to find! They’re both mine to find! My explosion is met with more rife silence. I kill Mestyla, I remind him.
Yes, but we don’t know what happens before or after, he finally says.
I stop beating my wings and float as a realization strikes. Mestyla dies from a dagger to the heart. One embedded with diamonds in a pattern of a snowflake.
What if I’m not the one to kill Alyona’s daughter?
What if Mestyla dies at Izolda’s hands, and I only arrive after the murder?
That would mean that Izolda will find herself alone with her niece!
I need to make my friend swear to stay inside the castle, and I need to make Aodhan swear not to leave her side.