The clock groaned to life. Gears whirred and ticked. Azalea clawed her way through the pulleys, stinging all over, and hardly feeling it.
Keeper, gaunt, slipped back into his own form with the ease of a breath. He threw the pistol to the side with a clatter, tried to get to his feet, and fell on his hands and knees, coughing, hacking. Horrified, Azalea pulled back, watching as Keeper began to change.
His hair turned silver white, then tangled into stringy clumps, falling to pieces in the storm’s wind. His skin clung to his skeleton face. Azalea choked as she recognized the ancient Keeper—identical to the portrait hidden in the attic.
The blood oath. Azalea reeled, watching years of being kept alive pour over Keeper. He writhed, pockmarked, the skin melting from him like a candle. In the dim light, his black, sagging eyes flicked to the King’s limp figure, then to Azalea. They danced with triumph. His voice was like the pages of an old crinkled book.
“I win,” he said.
Azalea dove at him, but not before the wind eroded him, blowing him into streams of dust, his arms and head, blowing away into nothing. Azalea, stunned, pulled back. A final gust of wind snatched the handkerchief from her hand, out the clockface, and into the blizzard.
It flashed silver in the wind, and disappeared.
Dong. The tower chimed.
Azalea swallowed, backed away from the ledge, and scrambled to the King’s side.
“Sir,” said Azalea. “Sir!”
She touched his cheek. It was clammy. The King did not move.
Mr. Bradford arrived at the top of the stairs, out of breath.
“Fetch Sir John!” said Azalea. “Hurry!”
Mr. Bradford disappeared down the steps in an instant. Azalea tried to think. Hold a mirror to his face, it would fog—no, she didn’t have a mirror—staunch the blood—she hadn’t a handkerchief, and there was too much—far too much. She felt for the pulse on his wrist, but her hands shook too hard to feel anything.
Azalea’s sisters arrived at the tower platform, and their eyes widened when they saw the King.
They didn’t make a sound. Not a gasp, not a scream, not a cry. Snow streamed and whirled around them as they stood, frozen. Flora held her hands over her mouth. Kale and Lily clung to Clover’s skirts. Clover shook. Bramble was so white, the snow looked gray.
From a memory deep inside her, so faint it only held sounds and slips of color, a tiny, three-year-old Azalea wailed, “Papa.”
“Papa,” said Azalea to the lifeless form of the King. The word was so foreign, it choked her throat. “Papa…you can’t leave us, Papa…It would be very…out of order—”
Bramble knelt opposite her, grasping the King’s bandaged hand.
“She’s—she’s right, Papa,” Bramble stuttered. “We have…rules….”
Clover fell to her knees and pressed her handkerchief to his chest. Blood soaked through.
“Papa,” she whispered.
The girls knelt around the King, their skirts spread out like forlorn blossoms, swallowing, and whispering one word.
“Papa.”
“Papa.”
“Papa.”
It whispered among the gusts of wind stronger than the whistling gales of snow or the creaking, ticking of the clock, which felt strange and distant. Azalea gripped the King’s lifeless hand.
“Papa,” she said.
Through the broken clockface, the wind gusted stronger, and became—
Warm.
The snow, which had been sticking to Azalea’s skin, cold and icy, burned. The storm burst, bright, and Azalea realized it wasn’t the storm—it was her.
Inside her chest, a warm, billowing something swept through her, to the tips of her fingers, the bottoms of her feet, shining like a brilliant beam of light. It wasn’t the hot, boiling feeling of her temper, nor was it the cold wash of tingles that Swearing on Silver brought. It was deeper. It didn’t just pour through her body, but penetrated her soul.
Azalea gasped.
The feeling faded until it was just a flicker of warmth inside her chest, lighting her heart like a candle. The wind howled, cold again now, and snow flurried around her, landing cold on her cheek—but the warmth was still there.
Breathless, Azalea looked at her sisters.
Clover had one hand pressed over her heart, breathing tiny gasping breaths. Bramble’s thin eyebrows arched so high they reached her hair. The twins grasped each other’s hands, and Hollyhock rubbed her face with her skirts. Even the little ones, Kale, Jessamine, and Lily, didn’t cry anymore, but blinked wide-eyed at one another. Delphinium was so pale that if she fainted, no one would believe it fake. They all looked as stunned as Azalea felt.
“Great waistcoats,” Bramble managed to choke. “What was that?”
Between Azalea’s hands, which grasped the King’s hand so tightly she wrung his fingers, something twitched.
Azalea clasped a hand to her mouth.
His hand was warm. So warm, in fact, that it matched the flicker within her chest.
The King’s weak voice matched his limp attempt to push himself up. “Ow—”
“Sir!” cried Azalea. She threw her arms around him. “Oh—Sir! Papa!”
“Ow—”