The guard blinked at her, then at the staff and the chicken. “Oh. Uh. I … Is she ready?”
“Yes. You should go in. She’s very tired, though.”
He bolted past them, not even glancing in Marra’s direction. They closed the door behind them and the dust wife took out a little jar from her pocket and dabbed something on her finger. She smeared it down the seam of the door and the metal knit together from either side, as high as she could reach, soft and malleable as clay.
“What is that?” asked Fenris.
“Slip from the potter’s wheel of a great saint. He preached to statues and they came to life to praise the gods.” She shrugged. “He’s dead now, of course.”
“He is?”
“You can’t keep bringing statues to life for religion. Sooner or later they figure out they don’t have souls, and then things go very badly for everyone.” She tried to turn, then sat down heavily on the steps. “Oh hell.”
“Lady Fox!”
“No, no,” the dust-wife said. The hen clucked warily. “I’m done. Go on. I’ll make sure our friend here doesn’t bother anyone.”
“Are you going to kill him?” asked Agnes, not sounding particularly appalled.
“No, losing his memory for a few days should be plenty. Hopefully he hasn’t accepted any surprise offers of marriage or anything.” She made shooing gestures. “Go, go. You heard him. The christening is about to start.”
* * *
Marra had very little memory of the panicked rush through the streets. Bonedog galloped beside her. Just before they reached the palace gates, Fenris caught the dog’s leash and Agnes waved Marra forward. “Go,” she said. “I’ll make my grand entrance just behind you.”
She had no time to question. She ran to the guards. “My sister,” she gasped. “My sister. The queen. I’m her sister. The nun.” She lifted her necklace with the grackle feather. She was gasping for breath, but hopefully that made her story more plausible. She waved frantically toward the lower city. “My carriage. Horse. Threw a shoe. Please. My mother’s already there. I have to be there!”
She didn’t expect it to work. It probably shouldn’t have worked. But the guards blinked at her and then at each other and she moved between them. Both of them clearly waited for the other one to say something but neither one did and by the time they had realized it, she had pushed past them.
Thank the Lady of Grackles, there was a footman that she recognized just beyond the guards. “Please!” she gasped to him. “Please, I’m late, I’m so late. Where is the christening?”
“Princess Marra?”
“Yes! My carriage— The horse—” She couldn’t remember if she’d said the wheel broke or the horse threw a shoe, so she just waved her hands.
“You know her?” asked one of the guards. “She’s the princess?”
“Yes, of course. But where is the godmother?” He peered over her shoulder. “She always comes.” He sounded a bit lost.
“Didn’t see her,” said Marra. “Take me to my sister. I’m sure she’ll show up.”
The footman led her away through the hall, still occasionally turning to look behind them, which footmen never did. Marra’s skin crawled. Was Agnes coming? Was Fenris? Had they gotten past the guards? Surely they could, but she would have felt much better if the dust-wife were with them.
I can do this, she thought grimly. I can do this. I did two impossible tasks and found the way out of the palace of dust. I can finish this. I just have to find Kania.
They reached the room full of courtiers. All eyes turned as the great doors opened and the room held its breath. “The godm— The princess Marra!” announced the majordomo at the door.
The silence broke. The courtiers looked away and began murmuring among themselves as Marra entered the room. They knew Princess Marra, and they knew that she was of no consequence.
“Marra?” said her mother, and did not ask Where have you been? or How did you get here? though her eyes were full of questions.
“Where is the godmother?” said Vorling. He, too, sounded lost and Marra hated him for it, the way that she had not hated the footman or the guard. How dare you? she thought. How dare you pin the royal bloodline on a woman held captive so long that she turned to living dust? How dare you? Which was unfair, and she knew it was unfair, but she did not feel any need to be just to the man who left bruises on her sister’s arms.
“Marra?” said Kania. She stood back from the cradle, her eyes huge. “Marra, is that you?”
“I’m sorry I’m late…” Marra babbled, rushing across the vast room. She could feel eyes on her, but they were contemptuous and dismissive and that was good, that was all good—no one cared about her here, no one knew to be afraid of what storm might follow in her wake. She fetched up at Kania’s side and clutched her sleeve. “Kania. Kania, I have to tell you— Kania—”
“Tell me what?”
Marra opened her mouth and realized she had no idea what to say next. She had always planned to speak to her alone, to warn her that there would be a different godmother, that something strange was probably going to happen, but Vorling was only a dozen feet away and her mother was right there. “It’s … it’s … I’m late…” she heard herself say.
“Where is the godmother?” said Vorling, turning toward her. He did not sound lost any longer. He sounded angry. “Was she behind you? Why am I being made a fool of in my own palace?”
Kania’s hand crept to Marra’s and squeezed in sudden fear.
Marra lifted her chin and met Vorling’s eyes. You are not so big. You are only a living king. I saw an old woman defeat a dead one. You cannot hurt me any worse than spinning thread of nettle wool, and you cannot confuse me any more than the palace of dust. Even your cruelty is small compared to the blistered land.
Perhaps he saw some of that defiance in her. Men like him always had a sense for it, did they not? He took a step forward and his hands clenched at his sides.
“Everyone’s asking about her,” said Marra in a clear voice. “No one at the gates has seen her. They’re saying she’s dead.”
“What?”
He took another step toward her and Kania took a step back. Marra pushed herself between them, wondering if decorum would hold him, knowing in her bones that if a king decided to beat his wife and her sister in front of the court, the court would stand there and watch. Please, Lady of Grackles. Please.
“I will stand as the child’s godmother,” cried Agnes from the doorway.
Chapter 21
Agnes, tall. Agnes with her eyes flashing green like beast eyes reflected in a fire. Agnes, a wicked godmother.
Vorling wheeled around and this time he was the one who took a step back.
She did not look like a tiny, fluttery woman who lived with chickens and a garden that had gotten out of control. She looked like a creature of magic and terror, the dark mirror of a saint, more at home in the goblin market than the throne room.
Despite everything, Marra’s first instinct was to lunge for the cradle and throw herself over her nephew to protect him. Instead she grabbed Kania tighter.
Her sister tried to move forward. Marra clutched her arm. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t! It’s our old godmother, the godmother’s gone, the curse…” She was making no sense and she knew that she was making no sense, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to make sense. She just had to hold Kania until Agnes reached the cradle, and then it would be over quickly.
“The godmother of the Northern Kingdom has died at last,” said Agnes, her voice ringing like steel in that great stone room. “The curse is broken. And so to this child, I give a new gift for a new age.”
Marra looked at Vorling, surrounded by his little triangle of guards, and saw his lips moving. Dead? He looked astonished, as if this was not something he had ever considered, as if the sun had risen in the west and then fallen from the sky.