CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

They entered the House through one of the back entrances and passed through what seemed like an endless succession of dark offices and waiting rooms. The candles were all blown out and the lamps extinguished, and the Petlings that watched them from gold-framed portraits were painted in shadow.

“Where is everybody?” Rufus said.

“They are all gathered in the Square,” Teodor replied.

“Even the House assistants? I thought for certain they would be busy trying to come up with a solution.”

“I have not informed them of our predicament. And what solution could there be, except the one that walks by my side?” He regarded Clariselyn, who had withdrawn into her own thoughts and did not seem to be listening. “How did she break her snow globe? Did you find her in the Winterfyrst Well?”

They told Teodor what had happened outside the Palisade, and about the Technocraft mirror in the cage, and Figenskar and the Margrave and their evil Operation Corvelie.

“We don’t know how Clariselyn and Ursa Minor got Isvan through the Palisade, but maybe the caravan sled had something to do with it.” Rufus peeked out into the House courtyard. “I wonder where it is. It said it would meet us here if it could.”

Teodor stopped abruptly. “Right now we have more important things to worry about,” he huffed. “Take Clariselyn into my chambers. I will return shortly.” And he doubled back and disappeared down a different corridor.

In the hallway outside Teodor’s chambers, they found Ursa Minor, standing guard. He had a nasty gash across his chest, and one of his ears had been mangled.

“Minor!” Lin hugged him, taking care not to come near his injuries. “I’m so glad you made it!”

The great bear’s eyes shone. “It was easier when the caravan sled arrived, but we would have fought our way through anyway, wouldn’t we, my lady? Didn’t you say so? That we fought like Frostriders?”

Clariselyn didn’t acknowledge him, and Minor shook his head sadly. “Maybe she should sit and rest?”

They helped Clariselyn into the chief chronicler’s office, a large study populated by books and quills and maps weighed down by magnifying stones. Wax candles waited cold in great chandeliers, and the ashes in the fireplace were dead.

But from the innermost chamber spilled a white glow, from snowflakes that danced under the ceiling with a light of their own, always tumbling, never settling, like in the glacial cathedral.

The room was furnished only by a narrow bunk and a small nightstand. But the bed had been encased in twisting layers of ice, and on top of this silver nest lay Isvan. His face was covered in a thin glaze that reflected the snowshine, and his arms were crossed on his chest, stitched with frost.

Clariselyn stood at his feet. “Leave us.”

“Here’s your snow globe.” Rufus held it gently against the Winterfyrst’s belly, and to their relief she took it. “Minor is right. You should sit and rest,” he said. “The crack will only get worse if you . . .”

Clariselyn sighed, and the very sound of it coated the walls in a fresh layer of rime. Lin and Rufus found it best to retreat into the study.

The candles in the chandeliers blazed up, and the fire sprang to life. Teodor came in, carrying a steaming cup that clattered and spilled with every hurried step. He walked right past Lin and Rufus, into the makeshift tomb. The door was frozen stuck, and so the old fox could not shut Lin and Rufus out. But he spoke softly, and Lin couldn’t decipher his words, not until desperation leaked into his voice.

“But you know what will follow if the Wandergate does not open! The falling Palisade and the failing pact. The slow winding down. The creeping sluggishness. Until every speck of magic is spent and gone and Sylver is no more!”

“My strength is broken,” Clariselyn replied. “I cannot perform the simplest of tricks, let alone make the Wandersnow. And even if by some wondrous stroke of Luck I do succeed, my soul would shatter in the process, and the Winterfyrsts would be no more. In ninety-four years, when the Wanderer next appears, the world would still end.”

A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by crackles from the hearth. Lin held her breath. Finally Teodor spoke. “Ever bound, ever sworn. But only you can make this decision.”

The old fox came out of the bedchamber, still carrying the cup which now contained frozen tea. He shuffled over to the nearest desk, unwrapped his rune quill, and sat down to carve a melt rune into the milky lump of ice. Rufus leaned over the table. His entire fur stood on end. “You’re not even going to try and heal Isvan?”

Teodor didn’t look up. “No healing rune can bring someone back from the dead.”

“Then what did you mean ‘Sylver is no more’ and ‘The world would still end’?”

“Ah,” Teodor said, cocking his head as he drew the three tongues of flame. “I suppose I might as well tell you why the Wandergate must open. It makes no difference anymore.” He began to fill the leaping tongues with letters. “That storm of wild joy from the Wandersnow is the stuff—the material—our world is made from. Over the years, the thoughts and dreams and games of all the children of Earth continue to shape the Realms. But without the raw material of the Wandersnow joy, Sylver and all the rest of this world will slowly but surely die. Ponderous magic like the Palisade of Thorns will be the first to crumble.”

Rufus slammed his fists into the desk. The teacup rattled. “Why the rats have you not told us this before?”

Teodor finally raised his muzzle, and his golden eyes were murky. “Would you have done things differently if you knew, Rufocanus? Would you have tried harder to save Isvan or Clariselyn? Or would you have faltered, lamed by the possible consequences of your actions? No. It was better that you did your best, unfettered by fear.” He put down the diamond talon quill. “A pity you failed.”

“That,” Rufus said, and he was shaking now, “is not fair. Lin and I have done everything you asked of us. We found Isvan. We even found Clariselyn. We uncovered a traitor in our midst, and we stopped an invasion of trolls into the heart of Sylver. And you’re saying we’re failures? That we’ve done nothing good?”

“Don’t be silly. I expect the good. If you were not half acceptable half of the time, do you think I would have chosen you?”

“Chosen me?” Rufus stomped his foot. “Chosen me for what? Your chopping block?”

“No, you twice-chewed idiot. My apprentice in the Brotherhood of Frost and Flame.”

For a long moment, Rufus stared at Teodor. “Me. Your apprentice. To be a Flamewatcher.”

Teodor sighed, wrapping his rune pen in its leather. “Perhaps you have figured out by now that you are a Wilder as well as a Petling. Therefore, you ought to have the potential of both, bravery and true instincts as well as diligence and finger skills. Doctor Kott has pestered me about your talents from the day you arrived, and now you have gone and charmed a caravan sled into supporting you. I find myself outnumbered.”

“Oh.” For once Rufus couldn’t seem to come up with a clever retort.

“And tonight, you have even proved you are ready to give your life for others. Though how you would ever muster the patience and skill to draw a rune, the Flame only knows.”

“No need to worry about that!” Lin brought out Rufus’s map and unrolled it beside the teacup. “Rufus drew all of this, including the legends.”

The old fox frowned at the “Comprehensive Chart of Sylveros and All Its Lands.” “It’s not half bad.” He pushed the teacup to the side. “But it does not matter now. The Wandergate will not open. Sylver’s guard runes are all destroyed. There’s an army of Nightmares in the Whitepass, and the Palisade will wither this night. Rufus won’t have time for the simplest of carving lessons before our world falls to pieces.” He lowered his voice. “Unless you two have some Twistrose miracle up your sleeve.”

The great bells in the belfry tolled, twelve heavy strikes that boomed through the House, set the inkwells on the desk to tinkling, and curled around Lin’s spine.

Midnight.

Outside on the Great Square, a groan rose from the crowd. Lin peered out behind the curtains. She couldn’t see much, but she heard angry shouts and breaking glass. In the sky, the Sylver Fang obscured nearly half of the Wanderer. In nine more minutes, it would be gone. She drew a deep breath and turned back to the others. She had no idea what she was going to say or do.

Do not fail.

The door to the chamber flew up, and a small Petling came stumbling through, coughing hard.

“Nit!” Lin cried. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I . . .” A racking bout of cough shook the mouse, making him double over. “Sorry. I . . . The Thornvapor . . .”

Lin sat him down on a chair and patted his back.

“You have been to the vault?” Clariselyn had emerged from the chamber of ice, and her voice wavered.

Nit smiled radiantly at Lin. “Yes . . . I wanted to be worthy of your help . . . I wanted to be worthy of the Twistrose!” His smile slipped and he coughed some more. “I heard what you said about Isvan’s globe, and I wanted to bring the shards out. The Thornvapor let up a little, so I went down there. Mrs. Zarka is . . .” He shook his head. “I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t get the hatches open either, and there was a switch that seemed to be jammed, and the Machine woke up, and . . .” He lifted his arms in a feeble gesture that might mean “huge.” “And afterward, I found this.”

He straightened out to reveal a small ball of glass in his hands. “I’m afraid it didn’t come out right.”

Isvan’s snow globe lay whole and perfect in Nit’s hand. But instead of silver milk and golden white, it was filled with something dark. Something that sloshed and lapped when the mouse’s hand trembled, not brown like Thorndrip, but deep crimson of color.

“It’s blood!” Lin said.

Nit yelped and shoved the globe into her hands so quickly it was more a toss.

Lin caught it. It felt cool and heavy against her skin. The blood left muddy, weeping marks on the inside of the glass. Was that . . . Did she just feel something move in there?

She felt their eyes on her, Teodor’s golden and Clariselyn’s sapphire and Rufus’s black.

Start with what you know.

She knew the Observatory gifts gave her power to ignite magic. And she knew the gifts worked. Strength and Comfort, Courage and Luck, and Hope. All the things that Isvan had needed so badly for his journey, and even more for those long, lonely hours in the windowsill of the Hall of Winter. She only had to give it to him.

Lin closed her eyes.

Suddenly a rush of electricity made her back arch. Her ears throbbed and her palms glowed as the Observatory magic rushed out of her in one wild torrent. Isvan’s globe grew hotter and hotter, until it burned her fingers.

Finally someone pried it out of her hands. Lin took a long, gasping breath, the first since she caught the snow globe. A lovely calm flooded her limbs.

Rufus caught her as she sank to the floor, and his gray face was the first thing she saw when she blinked away the tears. The second was Clariselyn, staring into the globe of blood. The third made Lin lift her chin.

On the threshold to the chamber a boy stood shivering. His hair was tangled with rime and broken icicles, and Lin recognized the small tug at the corner of his lips that told of a whistlewind coming. But his eyes were no longer sapphires. They were brown, like peppernuts. Like Lin’s.

He opened his mouth.

“Mother. I’m cold.”