27. Lope
27
Lope
How beautiful the song of my blade through the air!
How lovely it is to accompany such music.
How sweet to be the hand that can hold the pen
That can change a page to a poem.
I stumbled out of the darkness, into the library, and shut the door behind me—thankfully, no Shadows had followed me. Steps hurried toward me, clacking against the parquet until Eglantine stood in front of me.
“Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly. She frowned. “Where is my mother? And Ofelia?”
“I made a bargain with the Shadow King,” I said. “I’ll not get what I bargained for until I’ve delivered what I owe him.” I rested against the door, my chest heaving, and held out the mirror to her. “As for your mother, you have this to speak with her.”
Eglantine snatched the mirror, looking into it with a furrowed brow.
“Be warned. The people in the Underworld are trapped in time. If they return above, they’ll age the years they spent below. And your mother—she could grow so old to be past her living years.” I noticed the bracelet on my wrist and remembered. I tugged it off my arm and held it out for her. “She wanted you to have this, too. To remember her by.”
Eglantine slipped on the bracelet and cradled the mirror in her hands. “Mother!” she said, her voice cracked and desperate. “Mother, are you there?!”
“Yes, love, yes.”
The voice, the same one I’d heard minutes ago, came from the mirror. Craning my neck, I could see Sagesse’s face in the little oval of perfect glass. It was just like the Hall of Illusions, in miniature.
“I will be reunited with you soon, my love,” said Sagesse, “if you help Lope succeed in her task.”
Eglantine glanced at me, her forehead furrowed. “What did you offer the king of Shadows for Ofelia’s and my mother’s freedom?”
I tightened my fists at my sides. “I will give him King Léo. Alive.”
Eglantine’s mouth hung open. “You—you’re not serious.”
“She is,” said Sagesse.
Eglantine gaped at her mother’s reflection. “How in the name of the bloody Underworld are we supposed to capture the king and send him below?!”
“Where is your door located? The one to the Underworld?”
“It’s in the palace library,” I said.
Sagesse hummed a thoughtful tone. “Léo’s not the literary type. You need to think of something that will bring him into the library.”
I wracked my brain to think of what could bait a king. He had everything he wanted and more. Even so, he wasn’t content. He was always throwing parties. Always surrounded by his courtiers. Telling them stories, telling them lies about his godliness. It was their love he wanted more than anything. Their attention. Their worship.
“Where is the king now?” I asked Eglantine.
“At his fête.” She lifted a finger, remembering. “You were inside the door for about three days. He claims the party is to ‘lift his spirits’ after his beloved daughter vanished.”
“Then we shall have to remind him that I’m right where he left me!”
I glanced down at the mirror. Only half of Sagesse’s face showed now, and on the left portion of the silver mirror, Ofelia had squished herself into view. “You could use me! Use my voice!”
“Use this mirror, you mean?”
“Yes!” Her one visible eye sparkled with mischief. “He wants everyone to believe he’s perfect, untouchable, absolutely blessed. He tried so hard to silence any rumors about the Hall of Illusions or the Shadows or—”
“What happened to you,” I said. “He told the court you had run away with me.”
Ofelia huffed. “The man is an ass .”
My heart sang, hearing her curse.
Her eyes creased in the corners with a smile. “Well, if I’ve run away, I’m about to give my father a pleasant surprise.”
Eglantine was hidden away in the library, lying in wait, holding on to the mirror. I, meanwhile, marched straight toward the ballroom, once more dressed in the guise of a palace guard. All around me, swanlike courtiers swam past, attired all in white for another night of parties.
At the ballroom doors, I stood before a gold-clad knight and bowed before him.
“I have... surprising news that must be relayed to the king,” I said, doing my best to lace my voice with the utmost gravity. “Lady Ofelia has returned to the palace.”
The knight lowered his head, his helm shielding me from any sign of emotion on his face. But his voice betrayed him, stunned and urgent. “What? How? Where is she?”
“She’s closed herself into the library. She says she won’t come out until the king comes to visit her.”
The knight huffed a loud sigh. “Take me to her, then.”
My heart skipped. That wasn’t our plan. “Well—can you not fetch the king? She won’t leave the library until she gets what she wants. I’ve tried—”
“I’ll not go disrupting the king on the merits of rumors alone.”
Very well. I’d let them follow me, but no matter what, I could not open the door for the knight.
With all the other courtiers gone into the fête, the corridors were empty. I stopped in front of the double doors of the library, gesturing to them. The knight leaned forward and jiggled the golden door handle but found the doors would not budge.
“Father?” called Ofelia from within. The sound of her voice rekindled the flame in me that fueled my every step. “Father, is that you?”
The knight’s eyes widened behind the visor. “No, Your Highness. I’m Edouard, a knight serving His Majesty—”
“I shall not open this door until my father comes to see me,” she snapped. The authority with which she spoke was truly remarkable.
“I’ll try to calm her down,” I told the knight. “Will you please send for the king?”
The knight nodded, defeated, and raced toward the ballroom.
I sighed, leaning against the door. “They’re gone.”
“Good.” From within the library, I could hear Ofelia sigh. “I confess I’ll be glad when all this adventuring is over. I once longed to be the hero of a story, but I never imagined it would be so exhausting,” she admitted. Then her voice turned more somber. “I’m sorry for all of this. If I hadn’t dragged you to Le Chateau to begin with—”
“You gave me the greatest adventure of my life,” I told her. “I never thought I’d see any of the world beyond the manor.”
“You deserve the world, Lope.”
I believed her.
After all we’d endured, after proving how capable and clever and fierce we were, we deserved to call the world ours.
“We can go see it together,” I said. “Somewhere peaceful. A valley, perhaps. A cottage tucked in a meadow.”
Her light, pretty laugh rang out. “Well, then, maybe I have enough energy left in me for another adventure or two. If you’re there with me.”
“It’s where I’ll always be.” I smiled now, thinking of how she tried to send me away, how we thought we could ever be parted. No. We were bound together, and not just by the countess or our shared birthday or our love of literature. We would never be separated again. I vowed it.
Footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor. One set, by the sound of it.
The king had come alone.
My pulse quickened, and my stomach seemed to somersault into my throat. This was it. I was now to trap the king. Thoughts whirred in my head. When I succeeded, when Ofelia and I were together again and back in the world above, what excuse would we give as to the disappearance of the king?
It did not matter. I did not care who would ask for his whereabouts. I’d take Ofelia far from this wretched palace.
His Majesty strode down the corridor, stopping in front of me. He was dressed all in gold, with his startlingly white hair draped artfully over his shoulders. Up close, the new lines around his eyes and his mouth were all the more pronounced. There were little age spots on his forehead, poorly covered up by powder.
“A soldier said he heard my daughter calling for me in the library,” said the king.
“Yes, Father,” Ofelia cried from behind the door.
The king’s pupils shrank. The color drained from his face. He looked at me and then at the door. He lunged for the door handle, tugging at it with both hands, but the door did not yield. His cheeks growing redder and redder with exertion, the king glared at me over his shoulder.
“You’re dismissed,” he said.
“No!”
He flinched at Ofelia’s command. I bit down on my lip to hold back my smile.
“I’ll let you in, Father,” she said. “But Lope will come, too. After all, she knows what it is you’ve done to me.”
Once more, his dark eyes met with mine, narrowing with recognition as I removed my helm. For the first time, looking at him, I felt more powerful than he. I felt like I had more strength. More knowledge. For just a moment, I was more worthy of his crown than he was.
The lock clicked.
With a rough push, the king burst into the library, marching forward. Using all the stealth I’d been trained to possess, I silently closed and locked the door behind us. On the floor to my right, a few feet away, the hand mirror lay. Eglantine left it there—she must have hidden herself away when she heard the king approaching. I swept it up and hid it behind my back.
Glancing about the library, King Léo turned on his heel, scowling at me. “Where is she?”
“You know very well where I am, Father. Where you put me. Where you put all of us.”
My determination soared at the rage that shook Ofelia’s voice.
The king narrowed his eyes at me, the only source of the sound. “What sort of trick is this?”
I withdrew the mirror from behind my back and showed it to him. He gasped, staggering back.
“Oh, Father, you look horrible,” Ofelia said. I could almost picture how fury would have painted her eyes dark. “How did you explain your appearance to the court? Did you say that your skin had aged from worry? Or that you’d been blessed again? Some other lie?”
He squared his shoulders—and then began to walk back the way we’d come.
“You’re dead,” he said. “I do not fear you.”
My heart skipped. He was leaving. No, no, I needed to draw him closer to the portal. I stepped backward, closer to the aisle where it was hidden away. “Wait!” I called out to him. I brandished the mirror. “You may not fear the dead, but the court—when they see their beloved Ofelia, when they hear her voice, they’ll know what you’ve done.” I held my arms wide as he looked back at me over his shoulder. “I’m no more than a servant, and one look at your many shadows was enough for me to know what kind of man you truly are. You are not blessed. You’re a serpent. A selfish wretch.”
He turned fully toward me. He looked like the illustrations of wolves in Ofelia’s fairy tales, hungry, ready to pounce.
“I suppose you want the mirror, then,” I said, holding it out to him.
He quirked an eyebrow, taking slow, measured steps toward me. “What would you like for it? A title? A girl? Would you like that scar removed from your face?”
Yes , I thought. Come get me.
“What would I like?” I hesitated, as if drawing out the thought while I stepped backward, closer and closer to the door’s hiding place. “You’ll have to find out.”
With that, I darted into the bookshelves, around one corner and past another. I could hear his footsteps behind me, always. After another turn, I stood before the black door with its metal handle, the door that had grown from my own blood.
Something grabbed the back of my hair.
I cried out. The unseen force behind me threw me onto my knees, sending the mirror skittering across the wooden floorboards.
The king loomed over me, pulling me onto my back, his knee pressed hard into my ribs, his hands wrapped tight around my throat.
“Do you know what becomes of those who defy me?” he hissed, his thumbs pressing into my windpipe. His dark eyes were flat as stone. “You do not know. Because those who defy me are not found .”
Kick , I begged my legs, but no—thanks to the sacrifice, it was as if they’d forgotten how.
Scrape , I begged my hands, but no—they, too, refused to move.
“My servants will come and sweep you up like refuse,” he hissed. “Your body will be tossed in a river. Or perhaps I’ll feed you to my dogs.”
When a Shadow stood above me, taking the breath from my lungs, it did so thoughtlessly. It did it out of servitude to its master, a king deep, deep under the earth.
This man, this king, was taking my breath and watching me with satisfaction in his eyes.
I choked. He did not flinch.
My body jerked beneath him involuntarily, and he pushed back harder.
He wanted to see the death in my eyes.
“What a useless knight you were,” he spat.
Darkness lingered on the outskirts of my vision, and I was screaming in my head, my cries permeating throughout the whole world—
That screaming I heard. It was Ofelia’s, too. She was calling out my name.
There was a loud thump, muffled and painful, like the final beat of my heart.
The hands loosened from my throat.
The king slumped to the floor.
Eglantine stood above me, chest heaving, a large book still held aloft. Among the spinning world, I could read the title of the volume that had taken down the king: His Majesty’s Innumerable Victories.
He groaned but was stirring still. I glanced at the mirror—it was empty. Ofelia had vanished.
“Are you all right?” asked Eglantine, heaving with breath. She offered me a hand, and with every inch of me quaking, I slowly stood.
It felt like the pull of the earth had been magnified tenfold. All my years of training, the strength I fought so hard to gain—all gone. “I’m alive,” I said softly, my voice rough and hoarse. Standing on my feet again, I heard Eglantine call my name. I looked up in time to catch a penknife in its sheath.
I smiled at the familiar blade, whipping it from its sheath. I approached the king, kneeling and pressing the blade to his jugular. With my other hand, I grabbed the back of his snow-white hair, holding him in place as his eyes struggled to focus on mine. He sneered—but there was real fear in his eyes. I knew it well.
“I have the power of the gods on my side, girl ,” he growled. “One word from me and they’ll turn you to ash.”
How that would have left me bowing and pleading only a few weeks ago.
Now I smiled. “Call them,” I said.
His confident look flickered for a second. “You cannot harm me. I was granted immortality.”
“Immortality, perhaps. Invincibility?” With a bit more pressure, a drop of blood rolled down the king’s throat and dribbled down his golden clothing. “Perhaps not.” The simple act was enough to leave my arm burning with pain. I gritted my teeth. I took a deep breath. “Shall I put your immortality to the test, sire ?”
“What do you want?” he snapped.
The answer was immediate, like oil catching fire. “I want Ofelia,” I whispered. “And I want you to rot .”
Before he could speak, I said, “Eglantine, are you willing to come below with me?”
“Yes,” she said.
I nodded at her, this librarian, my ally. “Open the door.”
“Door?” The king’s eyes focused behind me on the isolated black door standing not far from where I knelt. His pupils became pinpricks. He started to struggle against me, his movements sluggish and weak, but I held his hair tighter and kept the blade firm against his throat.
“You have nothing to fear, Your Majesty,” I said coldly. “You are favored by the gods, aren’t you? I should think you are good friends with the god of the Underworld.”
“Guards!” he bellowed. “Guards!”
Eglantine dashed to the door to the Underworld, glaring at the king as she held the doorknob. “You. You sacrificed my mother for your vanity ,” she hissed.
We had no time. I jerked the king to his feet, my blade still at his throat. “Get ready,” I told her.
He continued to scream. Footsteps began to resound like drums in the corridor. I felt a pang of regret for what we were about to do, releasing more beasts into this world.
Eglantine threw open the door to darkness. Shadows came flooding out, slipping past the three of us, through the library, out into the palace. More screams came from the corridor, men in agony .
Wading through currents of Shadows, I pushed King Léo through the door, and in a blink, Eglantine enfolded herself behind me in the cold and the dark of the Underworld.
With one hand, I closed the door behind us.