Chapter 4
The palace was endless. The invisible servants led Dalla up the east stairs, down several halls with turns, past numerous closed doors and elaborate sculptures that looked like they could be made of ice, though the air was unnaturally warm.
By the time the servants deposited Dalla at her rooms, she knew she would never be able to find her way out on her own. The palace was a labyrinth. It was going to be up to her to solve its twisting turns or use her wits to escape.
Oil lanterns sprang to life, making Dalla’s heart stutter as they illuminated the room.
Part of her was grateful the magic was not as strong here.
The room was warm without a fire, but the twinkling lights of the main hall made her head feel light and disconnected from the world, like she could float away into a dream at any moment.
The rooms were good accommodations—the kind she would have set up for someone of status back home. Not quite the jail cell she had been envisioning. The main bedroom had a large bed, a fresh basin with flower petals floating on the water, and a deep blue cloak laid out on the eiderdown blanket.
Dalla rubbed the fabric of the cloak between her fingers.
The material was diaphanous like none she had ever seen, shifting colors reminding her of the fairy—of Kolfrosta’s—skin.
Soft white fur hemmed the sleeves and neckline, sparkling in the light.
Donning the cloak was a way of marking Dalla as Kolfrosta’s property, she thought with displeasure.
“I won’t wear this,” Dalla said to the empty room, in case there was anyone there to hear her.
Invisible hands lifted the gifted cloak, and another set of hands shrugged off Dalla’s current garment.
Dalla remained still as the invisible hands dressed her. Ghostly fingers in her hair, redoing the braid that had come loose during the sleigh ride. Without notice, one of the servants splashed her face with water from the basin. Dalla sputtered.
When they were done, a looking glass floated before her.
Dalla appeared strange in this odd place in this extravagant cloak.
She preferred the plain colors of undyed fur.
The kind that did not stand out in a crowd, just as being the tenth child of a royal family lent one some invisibility.
Dalla had always leaned into that, and until the kidnappings started, this invisibility granted her enough freedom to do anything she wanted.
No one blinked when she practiced weapons with the soldiers in the yard.
Dalla snuck girls past various servants, gardeners, and lesser nobles, and none had gone running to her parents.
She’d moved into one of the homes near the castle, still within its walls but separated enough from her parents to enjoy privacy.
She was not totally free, but she could pretend to be.
All that was taken away from her at age twenty-six, and now less freedom belonged to her than ever.
So, no, she did not like the way she looked in the cloak, beautiful as it was. Dalla rather felt like she was being dressed for slaughter.
She took it as a bad sign that she was allowed to keep her dagger on her person.
A knocking at the door startled her once more.
“Queen Dalla, are you ready for dinner?” came Kolfrosta’s voice.
So Dalla was being escorted by Kolfrosta herself. What was it that Kolfrosta wanted from her, she wondered? Her reaction to wearing the cloak?
“I am,” said Dalla, and the door opened.
Kolfrosta wore the same white dress made of feathers. Her scepter was nowhere to be found. She extended an arm, and Dalla had the odd experience of thinking she was supposed to kiss Kolfrosta’s hand.
“I will escort you,” Kolfrosta said. Only then did Dalla notice her lips had started to pucker, and she quickly adopted a neutral face.
Dalla took Kolfrosta’s arm in hers. The contact of their skin was warm, and she got her first smell of Kolfrosta—a little smoky, as though she was recently in proximity to a fire. To her embarrassment, Dalla was drawn to the scent.
But then, she’d always been drawn to Kolfrosta—long before she knew her name.
Dalla tried to be aware of her surroundings, to map her exit as Kolfrosta’s shoes clapped against the marble floors.
The effort was fruitless. Instead, Dalla’s eyes drifted to Kolfrosta’s long, silver eyelashes and the dark irises underneath.
This close, the snowflakes were even more magnificent, gently flurrying under her skin.
Years ago, Dalla slept soundly in her safe room in the quiet home she shared with her sister Fonn. She recalled the door creaking. Lifting her head from the sheets, seeing swirls of mist gather on the floor, wondering if she had left the window open.
The fairy stood there in the doorway, looking like something out of another world. Dalla couldn’t breathe—she had never seen anyone so beautiful and powerful. She did not know what to do or say in the presence of this otherworldly being.
In the end, Dalla could not muster the courage to say anything. Kolfrosta said nothing, either—not a name, not a hello, and certainly not an explanation for what she’d been doing there. She nodded to Dalla and left.
Dalla fell back asleep, thinking she’d dreamed the visit from the fairy.
But the next morning, both her parents were gone, and every year after that, someone disappeared again.
Dalla told everyone the one behind the kidnappings was the Yuletide fairy, the counterpart to the summer fairy they worked with every year called Puck. No one knew the winter fairy’s name.
All they knew was that she kept coming back, year after year, to kidnap the current sovereign.
Kolfrosta didn’t look Dalla’s way once as they walked, nor did she say a word. Yet Dalla felt like she was under scrutiny, like she was meant to pass a trial without knowing its purpose. She was embarrassed.
Dalla had every right to be. She had dreamed about the Yuletide fairy entering her room often after their first encounter.
In these dreams, sometimes, Kolfrosta would sit on her bed with a comb and brush Dalla’s hair.
Sometimes, she would undress Dalla and caress her skin, and Dalla would wake with desire in her veins.
Often, the fairy would open her mouth to reveal fangs that would pierce the skin of Dalla’s neck.
Blood would pool on Dalla’s blankets—a desecration of her safe place.
Dalla was helpless in these nightmares, unable to scream or fight.
She would wake up sweaty and afraid, and her sister Fonn would make Dalla’s favorite comfort drink: a steaming cup of chocolate with a dash of peppermint.
If only a sweet drink could solve Dalla’s problems now.
At last, the winding hallways led them to an extravagant dining hall with a small table at its center.
Like the main hall, the dining hall was decorated festively: tapestries of stags pulling a sleigh and the palace in a blizzard, the same twinkling lights falling from the ceiling, tinsel and sparkles and glittering red on every surface.
Kolfrosta led Dalla to the table and pulled out a chair. Dalla started for the other side—where the only other chair was—and then realized Kolfrosta had pulled out the chair for her.
Like they were diplomats who had both chosen to be there rather than captor and captive. What a courteous host, Dalla thought drily.
She sat, and Kolfrosta took the other seat. There was nowhere else to look but forward, right into Kolfrosta’s chilly eyes and her beautiful face with its high cheekbones and full lips.
As promised, desserts were brought to them, floating into the room in the invisible servants’ hands.
The desserts were various and excessive.
Platters bore little circular yule cakes with nuts and icing, sweet bread with dried fruits baked into it, puddings garnished with cranberries, jams and spreads and cheeses and pastries with mouth-wateringly flaky layers.
A much finer feast than Dalla would ever have had at home. Some of the foods here she didn’t recognize, and some were out of season, like the baked cinnamon apples drizzled with honey. A bowl of hot wassail was poured, and the spices in the drink complemented the smell of the sweets all around.
Dalla cupped the bowl with her fingers, and the heat sank into her hands. Somehow, in this place that looked so cold, everything was warm and comforting.
She lifted the bowl and brought it to her lips. The delicious flavors of apple and cranberry rolled past her tongue and traveled down her throat, warming her. She set it down, impressed.
And found Kolfrosta watching her.
The plate before Kolfrosta was piled with sweets, but they were untouched. Was the wassail poisoned? How long would it be before she keeled over, clutching her throat?
“How do you like it?” Kolfrosta asked.
“I have had my first sip,” said Dalla. “It is your turn.”
Kolfrosta raised an eyebrow—not used to being told what to do, Dalla supposed. She lifted the wassail bowl and took three large gulps, the column of her throat bobbing with each. When she set the bowl down, it was empty.
This did not comfort Dalla the way she wanted it to. Fairies were probably susceptible to different poisons than humans. But Dalla took a yule cake anyway, because if she was going to die, she was going to find out what the icing tasted like.
The idea that Dalla could die soon emboldened her. “Did you treat the rest of my family to meals like this?”
Kolfrosta tilted her head. “You must hate me,” she said. “I’ve stolen most of your bloodline away from you by now.”
Dalla licked the icing off her fingers: sweet, but tempered with the savory flavor of the nuts in the cake. “I would like to know why you are doing it,” she shot back.
“I think you know,” said Kolfrosta plainly.
Did she? Dalla had several educated guesses, but she had never dared to assign one to the fairy’s motives. She grabbed a pudding to give her some more time to think. Like everything else, it was perfect.
“It’s because we’re terrible rulers, isn’t it?” Dalla said.
“I cannot tell if you are trying to make a very bad joke or not,” said Kolfrosta.
“Nor can I,” said Dalla. “Why didn’t you take me that first night?”
Kolfrosta took a moment to consider this. “I am not sure I understand your meaning.”
“Ten years ago, you came to my bedroom,” said Dalla, gaining confidence, “and then you left. You took my parents instead. Why?”
“I could tell you,” Kolfrosta said. “But will you allow me to show you?”