CHAPTER FOUR

Midnight Oil

“I’m not angry,” Death says in the seat across from me, “just disappointed.”

I stare out the coach window at the passing trees, mouth pinched shut. The coach jolted back into motion once I’d settled inside, my escort carrying on as if we hadn’t taken a short break for me to be struck with a deadly curse.

Death waits a moment, then says exactly what I know she’ll say. “It doesn’t have to be like this. You know I can help.”

And that is when Fortune arrives in a jingle of coins and bones, manifesting into the seat beside Death with a flourish of dust and gold. To me, she looks a little like Joniza, the bard from Castle Falbirg, with skin of deep bronze and glossy, tight black curls.

“We agreed,” she says indignantly. “If we’re going to discuss her servitude, we do so together. It’s only fair.” Then she reaches over and pats my knee. “Hello, Vanja dear.”

“I didn’t come to speak to her of servitude,” Death protests, as annoyed as she ever gets. At least, she sounds like it. I get seasick if I look at her face too long. It’s already hard to see beneath her hood, and her features constantly shift, taking on the visage of people about to perish at that precise moment. “I came because she’s going to die.”

Fortune scowls. “Every human dies. That’s no excuse to break our agreement.”

“She’s going to die in two weeks,” Death clarifies. “On the full moon. It was a matter of business, not family.”

Fortune relaxes a bit more than I like, given that we’re discussing my imminent demise. “Oh, I see. Well then. How did it happen? Your luck’s shifted around quite a bit tonight, but I didn’t realize it was this dire.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble into my fur wrap. “I have it under control.”

Considering I now have two weeks to amass a fortune, escape one of the most powerful men in the Blessed Empire of Almandy, and evade the highly trained criminal hunter headed my way, all the while slowly turning into precious stones, I absolutely do not have it under control. But I’m not going to tell my godmothers that.

Besides, I have a bad feeling about what breaking the curse might entail. And if I have to make up for everything I’ve taken . . . well, timing is going to be key.

“She stole a token of Eiswald’s protection from a countess,” Death says flatly.

“Vanja,” Fortune chides, shaking her head. Her wreath of coins lets out a shimmery ring. “You should know better. It’s much safer to steal from the helpless.”

(If you have been wondering why I am the way I am, perhaps you are learning now. But I will give Fortune and Death their due: They treat the poor and the powerful with equal disregard.)

Death continues. “Eiswald has cursed Vanja in retaliation. If she doesn’t lift it by the full moon, Vanja dies.”

“A killing curse over a little token? Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Fortune folds her arms. “The nerve of some gods.”

There’s a muted croak from the empty corner of the coach, and then I remember it’s not empty after all. Ragne is huddled on the seat, feathers blending into the dark.

“Of course not, dear, I’m sure your mother has her reasons,” Fortune says quickly. Then she catches my bewildered look and adds, “I’m afraid Vanja can’t understand you like that.”

Ragne blinks a sleepy red eye at me and caws, then rolls over. Suddenly a black cat is hunching in the raven’s place. She shakes her head, then says in a strangled, guttural voice, “Better?”

“I hate it,” I say vehemently. “No. No talking animals.”

“The Vanja understands now. Better.” She curls up tight, tucking her nose into the end of her tail. “Good night.”

I bury my face in my hands. I am not going to spend what may be my last two weeks alive monitored by a talking feral shape-shifter.

Fortune’s voice carries through my fingers. “Will you be able to break the curse?”

“I said I have it handled.”

There’s an awkward silence. Then Fortune ventures, “Well, since we’re both here . . . there is a way to get out of it—”

“No.” I drop my hands to glare at her and Death. “I don’t need your help.”

“Eiswald would have no claim to you,” Fortune insists. “You’ll have to choose someday. It’s been what, two years? Seven?”

“Four,” says Death, for she always knows, “in two weeks.”

“I don’t need your help,” I practically spit, seething.

The fact is that I do. I desperately need both Death and Fortune on my side.

But I can’t ask for it, not from them.

It turns out all their help has a price.

After my mother gave me up, I lived with them in a cottage in their realm, and what little I recall, I recall fondly. I remember Death telling me bedtime stories of the kings she’d collected that day; I remember Fortune fussing over racks of houseplants that seemed to wilt out of sheer malice. I remember being warm and safe. I think I remember something like love.

When I was almost six, they could not keep a human child in their realm much longer, so they brought me instead to Castle Falbirg. Fortune meddled as she does, and suddenly I was the von Falbirgs’ new scullery maid. They left me there with their blessings: Unlike other humans, I could see Death and Fortune themselves at work in this mortal realm, and use that knowledge for my own ends.

When I was thirteen, they came to me again. I was of age, they said; I had been given to them, they said. And now it was time for me to serve.

Their gift to me was a choice. I was to decide whose trade I would take up: Death’s, or Fortune’s. I would follow and serve one of them to the end of my days.

My answer was what you would expect of a thirteen-year-old who was asked to choose between her parents: no.

My godmothers were flummoxed. They were angry. Fortune was the most vocal about it, but I could see the grass withering around Death’s feet, feel the hurt seeping from her shroud. I didn’t know how to tell them I didn’t want to choose which godmother I loved best.

I didn’t know how to say I wanted to be more than a servant.

I had no words at all to say I’d thought I was their daughter, not a debt to be collected.

They settled it between themselves, as they tend to do. One day, they agreed, I would call on one of them for aid. I would ask a favor, I would beg for intervention either by Death or by Fortune, and in that moment—I would make my choice.

And so it has been a long, hard four years since I last called on my godmothers.

Death could save me from Eiswald’s curse and simply refuse to take my life. Fortune could tilt the world in my favor, let all the answers spill into my lap so that the curse practically breaks itself. But I would rather leave Almandy, and all that I know, than spend the rest of my life serving anyone ever again.

“I won’t ask,” I say grimly. “I can figure this out on my own. If you’ve nothing else to say, leave me be.”

Death and Fortune trade looks. Then they vanish in a chorus of coins, bones, and whispering shrouds.

“Rude of you,” Ragne says from her corner of the seat, and flicks her tail.

I resist the urge to toss her out of the coach. If Eiswald cursed me for taking one lousy ring, she probably wouldn’t take kindly to me flinging her daughter into the road like the contents of a chamber pot. “I didn’t ask you either,” I snap instead, and yank the hood of my cloak over my face until all I see is fur.

Make up for what you have stolen. Low Gods love their riddles, but if Eiswald had meant only the jewels, she’d have said as much.

I stole this life from Gisele. And now, somehow, I have to give it back.

`

I doze off, but stir awake at the clang of the rising portcullis when we pass through the main gate of Castle Reigenbach. On a gloomy night like tonight, the castle is just columns of dreary stone, but by day it’s a vision, all lacy limestone towers and bright blue shingles clustered in the Yssar River’s terminal bend. The river makes a near-perfect natural moat around the castle walls before tumbling down a lovely waterfall and winding through the heart of Minkja below.

Ragne stretches and yawns on the seat next to me. I missed her curling up on a corner of my fur wrap while I was asleep.

“I can’t just bring a cat in,” I tell her. The hoofbeats on cobblestones cover my voice for the most part, but I still keep it low so the coachmen don’t think the future markgräfin is nattering away to herself.

“Why not?”

Saints and martyrs, her wretched yowling voice unnerves me. “Nobility doesn’t pick up strays for pets.”

She blinks her bright red eyes at me. There’s a faint glow to them even now. “You are not noble.”

“And you’re not a cat. We’re both pretending to be what we aren’t.” I push her off the wrap. “Hide in the carriage house tonight. You can come find me tomorrow.”

“I have a different idea.” Ragne crouches and seems to vanish. Then I feel tiny paws grasp my gloved hand and crawl up my sleeve. I yelp.

“Everything all right, Prinzessin?” the driver calls out.

“Fine,” I call back through gritted teeth, glowering down my sleeve, where a tiny black mouse with vivid scarlet eyes is now wiggling its nose at me.

I hate this perhaps more than I hate the ruby on my face.

That reminds me, I need either an excuse or a way to hide it. Eiswald had the decency to tear the jewelry from my satchel without ruining the jars inside, so I pick the least-foul-smelling opaque ointment and dab it over the stone as we roll up to the castle’s magnificent gilded double doors. I’ll make some excuse about an insect bite tonight if I need to, and tomorrow I can call the ruby teardrop a new trend.

Besides, castle staff have much more important things to worry about.

“Welcome back, Prinzessin,” the understeward, Barthl, says dourly as he reaches spidery fingers for my cloak.

I register the muffled uproar of servants rushing through the halls. “You’ve heard about the margrave.”

“Yes, Prinzessin.” Resignation is etched into his long face. He’s near Adalbrecht’s thirty years, and never approved of me, but I do feel a pang of sympathy. It’s his job to make sure the whole of Castle Reigenbach is pristine before tomorrow’s surprise inspection. “Will you need anything further tonight?”

“No.” No need to make more work for them, and better to keep eyes off me. I force my voice into a semblance of airy disinterest. “I’m retiring for the evening, and not to be disturbed.”

“Understood.” He bows quickly and hurries away.

I too hurry up the stairs to my wing of Castle Reigenbach. Technically, there’s a faster way to get to my chambers, but Gisele isn’t supposed to know about that. The servant passages are the domain of Marthe the Maid.

When I arrived a year ago, the first thing I did was filch a servant uniform, stow away my pearls, and run around the castle, begging for directions. I’m on an errand for my lady, can you tell me how to get to the stables? The ballroom? The library?

They showed me every shortcut and servant passageway in the castle, too busy to do anything but warn me not to hassle the resident kobold, Poldi. Once I drafted an order to the guards to let my maid Marthe come and go as she pleased, no door in Castle Reigenbach could hold me.

I suppose I could have kept the name Vanja, but there is a scant handful of people in Minkja who still know me by that name. “Marthe Schmidt” has no history, no baggage, no agenda. No scars. And I can stop being Marthe whenever I want.

There’s a fire in the hearth when I walk into my chambers, and a lit candelabra on the credenza by the door. That’s Poldi’s doing, for I know the worth of a friendly kobold, and the peril of a slighted one. Castle Falbirg’s kobold nearly lit Gisele on fire when he thought she had laughed at him. My first night in Castle Reigenbach, I scrounged up a bowl carved of boxwood, filled it with grits and honey, and placed it on my hearth with a small goblet of mead.

I awoke in the middle of the night to find Poldi on the hearthstones in the form of a fiery, squat little man no taller than my knee. I sat up and raised my own goblet from where I’d left it on the nightstand. “To your health, and to your honor.”

He toasted me back and vanished, leaving an empty bowl and a roaring fire in the hearth. I’ve been sure to put out grits and honey every night since, and it has always, always paid off.

I light a few more candles, then crash onto the bed facedown. Ragne scurries out of my sleeve and begins investigating the bolster and coverlet, whiskers twitching.

Part of me desperately wants to stay like this, maybe even fall asleep in my fine gown and let the laundresses steam the wrinkles out in the morning. I’ve burgled a small fortune, temporarily evaded a prefect, been cursed by a god, and been lectured by my godmothers.

It has, you could say, been a very long night.

But there’s a satchel full of stolen jewels in the carriage house, and I have to get rid of them before Adalbrecht returns. With a groan, I slide off the bed and onto the plush midnight-blue carpet. It’s almost as comfy as the coverlet. I make myself stand anyway, then shed my gown and pearls.

There’s a wine stain on my shift, so I draw a new one from my bureau. A small sachet falls out, and I tuck it back in with the soft linen.

When Gisele’s trunks were delivered to my rooms from Sovabin, I promptly dug out all the sachets of dried lavender that I’d sewn myself months ago, that I’d slipped between layers of cotton and silk, just as she’d asked. Then I threw them all into the Yssar River. I requested the steward bring me every scent I like, dried orange peels, vanilla pods, rose petals, even cinnamon sticks, all riches to me when I’d spent most of my life reeking of cheap tallow-and-ash soap. It was an unthinkable luxury to be as clean as I wanted to be, when I wanted. To decide what I would smell of.

By the end of the month, the last traces of lavender were gone, and every last stocking smelled of me.

I wonder if Gisele will return to lavender when I give it all back.

I can’t think about that now. I’ve just pulled the soiled shift over my head when Ragne’s voice pipes up. “Were you in a fight?”

I jump and whirl around, clutching the shift to myself. I’d forgotten she was there. Otherwise I never would have bared my back. “None of your business,” I snap.

Ragne’s taken the cat shape again, loafing at the foot of my bed. She blinks. “Are you angry? Those are good scars. I would be proud to survive such—”

“Shut up already.” I yank on the clean shift, face burning. “I said it wasn’t your business.”

Ragne just yawns at me. “You are very odd.”

I don’t dignify that with a response. Instead I finish changing into a servant uniform, hiding my hair under a plain knit cap this time. I also clasp my dowdy woolen cloak with a badge that marks me for a servant of House Reigenbach. Depending on what part of Minkja I’m walking, that badge can make me a mark or it can make me untouchable. My fence, Yannec Kraus, works in a tavern right on the border between them.

When I check my reflection in the vanity mirror, I see the ruby peeking through the ointment. That’s no good. Yannec has one rule: Everything I steal, I sell to him and him alone. He’s also a superstitious man, or at least gods-fearing enough that if I admit the ruby’s a curse, he won’t risk vexing a Low God by doing business with me.

There’s a small medical kit hidden in the vanity for any scrapes I collect on my heists. I plaster a bit of gauze over the ruby and hope it’ll stick better than the ointment did. As I do, something in my reflection catches my eye.

A ghost is in the mirror, a girl haunted by familiar unease and doubt now that the enchantment of the pearls can’t cover it up. I thought I left that girl back at Castle Falbirg.

“Where are you going?”

“Scheit!” I jump again, rattling the vanity. When I look back to the bed, Ragne doesn’t seem the least bit contrite. “Out,” I say shortly. “On business. Stay here and don’t talk to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because animals don’t talk.” I start lacing up my boots.

“Or you do not listen.” There’s a rustle and a suspicious quiet. “Can I talk to people like this?”

When I look up, there’s a human girl sprawled over the coverlet, her skin pale as bone, her slit-pupiled red eyes glowing at me from beneath an uneven mess of black hair. Somehow Ragne looks my age and ancient at the same time. She’s also as naked as the day she was born.

(I’m assuming she was born. For all I know, she was conjured out of cobwebs and a goat heart.)

“No.” I avert my eyes, patience wearing threadbare. “You absolutely cannot talk to anyone like that. We wear clothes.”

“Not all the time.” Ragne sits up. “You are uncomfortable?”

It’s not that she’s nude—I used to bathe with the other servant women in Castle Falbirg. But I knew them most of my life. I have no idea what to do with someone who bares themselves without hesitation. Without fear.

I point to a dresser. “Either change back or put some clothes on. There are nightgowns in the bottom drawer.”

By the time my boots are laced, she’s wearing a nightgown . . . as pants. Her feet stick out of the sleeves, the bottom hem hiked up to her neck. Ragne wiggles her toes at me. “Better?”

At this rate, if I leave her here, she’s just as likely to wander into the hall wearing only a girdle for a hat. “No. Fine. You can come with, if you change into an animal—a small one—and if you keep your mouth shut.”

Ragne clamps her teeth together with a click.

“I meant no talking,” I tell her. “Not unless we’re alone, understand?”

She nods and vanishes, the nightgown crumpling to the floor. A moment later, a black squirrel emerges from the fabric, scrabbles up my cloak, and rolls into a ball in the hood. I try not to shudder as I let myself out of the bedroom and slip into one of the servant stairways.

First, I head down to the kitchens and get grits and honey for Poldi. Once those are left on the hearth in the bedroom, it doesn’t take long for me to fetch the satchel from the coach (my lady forgot her toiletries) and pass through the main gate (my lady needs an urgent order placed with a seamstress for the wedding). The guards even light my lantern and offer a splash of schnapps to keep me warm. I politely decline.

They also offer a small dagger with the seal of the margrave’s guard in the hilt. That I accept.

Minkja is many things: a city, a dream, a promise kept, a promise broken. But it is never safe, and least of all by night.

The guards of Castle Reigenbach have earned their easy posts through valor and commendation. Adalbrecht is much, much less discerning with the Minkja guard; he lets his army’s washouts work off debts or sentences by handing them a cudgel, a uniform, and the nickname of “Wolfhünden.” Then he lets them off the leash.

In letter, they keep the peace. In spirit, they’re just a gang with a stupid name. (“Wolfhounds”? Groundbreaking.) They’ve fingers in every flavor of Minkjan crime, from poppy-dust to protection rackets. You want your rival’s bakery to go up in flames? Wolfhünden. You want a city council member to slip on a bridge and vanish into the Yssar? A Wolfhunder will provide.

And if the Wolfhünden find out I’ve stolen and fenced nearly a thousand gilden worth of jewelry in the last year without paying them a “protection fee” . . . well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the curse anymore.

I see the looks the gatehouse guards trade as I tuck the dagger into my boot. (Ironically the boot that already has a hidden knife, but they don’t need to know that.)

“Stay clear of Lähl, Marthe,” one finally urges. “Or we’ll never see you again.”

I want to scowl at them—what kind of business would a lady like Gisele have in Lähl?—but instead I bob a curtsy. “I’m staying within the High Wall, thank you.”

That appeases them only a little, but it doesn’t matter. I have to offload the Eisendorf jewelry before Adalbrecht arrives tomorrow. And the illusion of Gisele . . . well, she is a demanding mistress.

With my knife and my lantern and my satchel of stolen jewels, I leave the castle behind.