Chapter 30
Running in the spell was difficult, as the candelabras only illuminated circles of light beneath them.
Her shoes clicked against cobblestones. The sound resonated in the darkness.
As she came closer to the candelabras, she saw that they were crafted into wings, arms, claws, and fins, each limb balancing its torch in any way possible.
One boasted a tentacle that twisted so its tip pressed just below the candlewick.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mouse saw a clawed hand move, readjusting its grip.
She shuddered, wondering if the arms were just part of an enchantment, or if they were once attached to living things.
The glow of the bird remained just in sight, swooping around corners and then back when Mouse was not fast enough. Finally, the hallway lightened, and Mouse could see a doorway ahead. The bird chirped back at her, speeding her on.
Beyond the door, Mouse could see more detail. There was swirled wood and a flash of patched cloth. She was nearly at the threshold before she realized she was looking at her own bed in the Matchbox.
She darted through the opening and paused, shocked that an unseen force did not rise around her and throw her back into the magical hallway.
No Faerie warriors or twisted Fae hounds jumped out from the shadows.
It was just the Matchbox, with its radiator, quilted bed, and worn floor.
Blakeney’s still sat on the bookshelf. A teacup perched on her bedside table from the night before Beckett and Carlyle arrived, serene and unchanged by Faerie enchantments. The magic blossoms were gone.
She swallowed before turning back toward the magic hallway.
The other end of the path was closer, practically right on top of the painting itself, like an accordion pushed back together.
The final candelabra faded from view, and darkness swallowed the cobblestones.
The bird hovered at the edge of the hallway.
There was a click, like an electric light flicking off. Then, the bird doubled in on itself, folding into a square of paper again.
As soon as the two frames touched, the oblivion of the hallway vanished, leaving only the image of the tree stretching out of the painting toward her.
She sank onto the side of the bed. One hand flew to her throat.
When she found the keys, she pressed them hard between her fingers.
The metal bit into her skin. Somehow, this painting had been connected to Viola.
Perhaps the fondness she felt radiating from it all these years was not just touches of her mother, but of Viola as well.
That feeling of acceptance from this single room, this frame, was perhaps the remnant of an ancestor’s love, trapped there all along.
The sounds from below were boisterous, and she could make out the shapes of words. They muddled together to form strange sentences about hunting roses, gazing at rabbits, practicing magic on embroidered butterflies, and cutting villagers to pieces with tiny scissors.
The threat of gleeful violence billowed up to the Matchbox like smoke.
Walking down the grand staircase with so many Faeries lusting for blood would not work, and they might catch on to her humanity before she even reached the ballroom.
No, she would need to avoid them until it was necessary, when she would sneak into the heart of the Faerie King’s lair to destroy the source of his power and return Thornwood’s ring.
She needed an alternate route in among the wolves.
Mouse took stock, pulling up her dollhouse map of Thistlemarsh in her mind’s eye.
The best option, she thought, might be one of the bedrooms in the west wing, where she knew a few hidden servant stairways melted into walls and tucked into bookshelves.
The only room she would have to pass through was the portrait gallery, ornate with the frowning faces of all the Dewhursts dating from before they were even called Dewhurst. She did not know if the lines of condescending mortals would draw in the Faeries or push them away, but the choice was clear.
It was either brave the gallery or try to take on all the Faeries in a full-frontal attack.
Slipping out the door onto the landing, Mouse felt all the weight of her humanity. Her steps were clumsy and loud as she crept down the stairs to the third floor. Anxiety hummed under her skin, making every windowpane an enemy and every dust mote a villain.
“Steady,” she whispered to herself.
The strokes of magic that had only trickled from the walls under Thornwood’s touch flowed freely under the Faerie King’s.
As she picked her way through the winding hall, she passed a room crafted entirely of spun sugar.
Its contents had melted, leaving slumped furniture like uneven stubs of melted candle wax.
Another room was made of glass, and another of something that looked disturbingly like bone.
When Mouse reached the gallery, she closed her eyes, listening as hard as she could for any movement inside the room. The sound of her frantic heartbeat was all she could make out beyond the thrum of the court below.
Mouse gasped when she entered. Portraits were pulled from the walls like weeds, left in broken frames.
Horrid black ink stains blotched out faces, burn marks covered others, and trails of wax dripped down gilded frames.
Paintings were left with long gashes bisecting them and leaving the canvas gaping like torn flesh.
Worse, the Faerie King’s magic had enchanted the subjects of the paintings as well.
The portraits’ eyes followed her, silently pleading as she slipped past them.
Those newly without eyes had their lips pulled down, grimacing in pain.
For the first time, Mouse was glad that her uncle never added her mother and Roger to the walls and that Bertie’s portrait still hung in Lord Dewhurst’s room. She hoped that it remained untouched.
If there was one thing that the scene impressed upon her, it was that the years had done nothing to cool the Faerie King’s anger at the family.
Inky booted footprints darted between the pictures.
The trail stopped beneath a miniature portrait of a young man with gentle eyes.
The other faces dwarfed him, and Mouse found it challenging to focus on the small patch of natural color among the behemoth jewels.
However, the portrait had a delicacy where the others were gauche, and the strokes were so fine that Mouse could almost imagine the man was there.
His eyes did not move, nor did his soft smile change. A whirlwind of destruction battered everything around him, from the other paintings to the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling, yet his portrait was untouched, caught in the eye of a storm.
She could only guess that this man had been Viola’s husband, and the Faerie woman’s magic protected him, even if this was just his image.
Mouse did not linger.
She ducked into the servant entrance at the end of the gallery.
To her surprise, the servant staircase was as enchanted as the rest of the house, but as far as she could tell, it was unrefined, harmless magic, almost an afterthought extending through the walls.
Rocky stairs swirled downward, and moss grew like an ornate carpet.
A trickling waterfall flowed across each stair, winding left and right as Mouse followed it down.
As she journeyed lower, she heard more Faerie revelers. Clinking glasses rang out from the servant door to Bertie’s bedroom, and sounds were coming from her uncle’s bedroom that she did not linger on for long.
Trained fruit trees clung to the walls, bearing what looked like peaches but smelled distinctly of cinnamon. They were ripe and fragrant. Mouse ignored them despite the temptation.
Behind one of these trees was the hidden entrance to the ballroom.
Conversation roared, but so did the music in the ballroom. There was a sweep of violin and an underscore of cellos, undercut by the screech of a damaged gramophone from another room.
Mouse pressed her hand to her chest, touching the keys one last time for luck. Then, she cracked open the door.