“You were given more than you deserve,” Kantelvar retorted, “and you will be happy with it, or I shall see to it you are left with nothing, which is what you actually deserve.”
Part of Isabelle’s mind scurried to keep on top of the conversation, but part of it fell back in time. She’d heard this exchange before, or a very similar one, the day Marie had been destroyed. Isabelle had been listening through the door when Hormougant Sleith threatened to withdraw some boon from her father. But that couldn’t be the same boon as this, could it? Twelve years ago, Rey Carlemmo hadn’t been sick, and if she recalled correctly, Príncipe Alejandro hadn’t even been married, much less to a barren woman. There would have been no reason, then, to posit the need for a Blessed Queen.
“Under the circumstances,” Father said, “I imagine that losing your prize would grieve you more than me losing mine.”
Before Kantelvar could respond, Father’s visage disappeared from Marie’s face. He might still have been present beneath the surface, silently listening, or he might have gone away completely. Better to assume the former.
Kantelvar stared at the bloodhollow for a moment, apparently thinking. Then he raised his staff and pointed the spiny end of it at Marie. Tiny arcs of lightning danced between the spines. “No more spies,” he muttered, his voice barely a buzz.
“No!” Isabelle lurched between Kantelvar and Marie, hugging the bloodhollow to her. She had no idea how Kantelvar had bound lightning to his staff, but she’d read enough to know that even the thinnest thread of galvanic fluid could be deadly.
Kantelvar withdrew his staff with a jerk. “Saint Céleste—Princess, stand aside.”
“No,” Isabelle repeated. “Don’t destroy her, please.”
“She’s your father’s spy.” He somehow extruded incredulity through his mouth grille.
Isabelle shook her head. “She’s my friend. Was my friend.” The rest was beyond her ability to explain. What stranger could understand twelve years of torturous, painstaking caretaking? Preserving Marie had become a purpose in itself.
Kantelvar tapped his staff on the ground in a slow rhythm. After a moment, he said, “Walk with me. Leave her.”
He lurched out the door, clockworks clinking. Isabelle released Marie, whose blank stare recognized neither threat nor salvation.
“Stay here,” she instructed Marie. She departed and shut the door between them.
She caught up with the artifex on his way along the garden path toward the central wing of the chateau and asked, “What did Father get in exchange for me?”
“That will remain a secret unless he decides to break his bargain.”
Isabelle seethed with frustration. She wasn’t even allowed to know what she was worth in terms of the price she’d commanded.
“What about my bargain? If I am to give myself to this as you request, what do I receive?” she asked, imagining she would regret her impetuousness. Words had consequences, and an artifex had the power to make those consequences hurt.
“And what would you like, in exchange for yourself?” Kantelvar asked evenly, as if this was not an unreasonable question.
Isabelle hesitated. For more than a decade now she’d gotten along by staying silent and out of sight. Yet she had found a way to make herself heard in the world. She had her printing press and her math, and she was good at it. It was a small life, perhaps, but it was her own, and she clung to it like lichen to a rock. She did not want to be dragged out into the sunlight again, to be stripped bare of all protection and mocked for her flaws.
“What are you offering?” she asked.
“Aside from the chance to become a queen, rescue a kingdom from inevitable civil war, and save a sorcerous bloodline from extinction?”
Isabelle hardly knew what to say. Yes, those goals were noble and worthy, and anyone would be proud to achieve them. Am I greedy for wanting more? Yet she had not been selected for this role because of anything she had done, not for any new idea or act of will. She was just the right-shaped cog for the hole.
“Why me?” she asked. “Surely there are unhallowed Glasswalkers.”
“None to speak of. If a Glasswalker family has a child who fails to manifest sorcery the child is given to the Builder, which is to say they are disowned, declared dead, and handed over to the Temple. It is not the sort of legal proceeding that would be easily undone, even if the Sacred Hundred would tolerate someone with such close ties to the Temple.”
Isabelle dearly wanted to withdraw from this conversation. Clearly, Kantelvar and her father were going to do with her just as they pleased. Her opinion was as irrelevant as if she were complaining about the weather, but if she was going to be sent off to new masters she needed to know more about them. “I thought the Aragoths were devout.”
“Compared to Célestials, yes. Especially the Aragothic peasants. Their nobility, however, are the ones governed by the Temple purity doctrine. As such, they are happy to acknowledge the Omnifex’s authority, but they prefer that he stay in Om.”
“But still—”
Kantelvar held up a hand to cut her off. “I did not say that persuading the various sects and crowned heads to support you was easy, only that the other options were even more difficult. Do you not want this chance?”
“What I want doesn’t matter,” Isabelle said. It was one assertion Kantelvar could not possibly disagree with.
Kantelvar fell silent. Isabelle used the moment to catch her breath and try to stop the world from spinning. The messier this deal got, the more she believed it. It wasn’t clean or fantastical but rooted in ruthless and cynical politics.
At last Kantelvar said, “I will offer you something, personally. A bride gift, if you will.”
Isabelle eyed him warily. “What, or is it a secret?”
“It is a secret you should keep, at least for the time being. I will revivify your friend, free her from your father’s grip, and restore her mind.”
Isabelle stopped as short as if she’d slammed into a wall. In the barest whisper she asked, “You can do that?” She’d spent years searching for any hint of a cure and found nothing but myths and baseless rumors.
Kantelvar leaned on his staff. “It is an arcane process, difficult and uncertain. I have attempted it twice. I succeeded once. Neither bloodhollow was in as good condition as yours.”
“How?” she asked, the dry husk of a word fluttering from her lips only after she had stripped it of all desperate pleading.
Kantelvar faced her, or at least turned his cowl in her direction. “I make no guarantees, but the vital spark cannot be completely gone or you friend would not have grown. Only living things can mature.”
Isabelle felt dizzy. He could cure Marie. Maybe. It was foolish to put any faith in this. She had endured false hope many times, only to have her heart shattered. But what if … what if…? After all this time her work might be redeemed, her mistake absolved, her obsession justified. What if Marie might come back?