“Then why do you blame yourself?”
That was something I had no answer for.
“What others see in you reflects upon them, not you. Your stepmother treated you poorly—your whole village did—but that is not your fault. It never was. It never could be.”
I picked up a pebble and threw it into the lily pond, but it only made a pathetic little plash before disappearing beneath the surface. “I have always been powerless.” I fought to keep control of my voice.
The wolf shook his white head. “Just because you have always thought that does not make it true. Do you think your brother and your father were kind to you out of pity? Or because they saw the trueness of your heart, your goodness and your worth?”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “What is my worth?”
“Deeper than you know.”
Everything felt sharp and cold, though the sunlight poured warmth into the garden. I didn’t want to think about my scars anymore. I didn’t want to think about my father and Rodya, or be afraid they were happier with me gone.
“If others cannot see your true self, if they refuse to see it—that is a flaw in their own character. Not in yours.”
“Have you seen my true self?”
He looked at me. “I’m beginning to.”
“Have I seen your true self?”
For a long, long moment, he gave no reply. We stared at each other, while the wind blew dead leaves into the water. “In part.”
“Will I ever see the whole?”
“I do not know, Echo Alkaev.”
I thought of the bauble room, the clock and the curl of silver hair. The wood, the wood, the wood. Puzzle pieces, waiting for me to fit them together, if I was brave enough to try.
“Wolf, why did you really bring me here?”
His sorrow was palpable. His eyes over-bright. “Because you are the opposite of her. You are full of life and kindness. You are not brimming with malice and hate, or waiting to twist others’ goodness to your own cruel purposes.”
“What has she done to you? What is she going to do?”
But he shook his white head. “There is a … bond … on me. I … cannot …”
“I know.”
He nuzzled my knee and I wrapped my arms around him and held him close.
We sat there like that until the sun sank and the air bit cold, then went back inside to our dinner.
I SETTLED THE NEXT MORNING on the piano bench and opened the Czajka piece I’d been working on. Outside the window, sunlight refracted off the snow, I started playing, easing into the notes after fumbling a bit in the beginning.
The music swallowed me and I lost myself for a while in the soaring melodies and fairy-bright ornamental passages. I thundered into the last passionate crescendo and let the remaining few notes whisper out into the room, wavering with sorrow before they died away.
I took a breath. Laid my hands in my lap. And looked over to see the wolf, who had padded in at some point while I was playing. He stared at me, a strange light in his eyes. “I have never heard you play it so well,” he said gruffly.
I soared with pride. The wolf wasn’t generous in his praise.
Light streamed in through the window; dust motes swirled. The wolf leaned his head against my knee. “I do not deserve you. Your kindness. Your goodness. Your beauty.”
“Wolf, I’m not beautiful.”
He lifted his head and peered straight into my eyes. “You are wrong, Echo. You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”
Something inside of me cracked. Tears leaked from my eyes.
The wolf tugged gently on my skirt and I knelt on the floor and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Do not cry. My beautiful, beautiful girl. Please do not cry.”
I held him like the world had spun away beneath me, and I was left to dance with the stars, not mortal any longer but a creature made of moonlight and magic.
No one had ever called me beautiful before.
The room began to shake. I jerked my head up. A crack was splintering through the floor. “No! Not this room! Please not this room!”
But the wolf was already grabbing my skirt in his jaw, pulling me to the doorway.
The piano shuddered and groaned and fell into the widening crack.
“No! NO!” I dropped to my knees in the corridor, scrabbling for the needle and binding thread on my belt.
But there wasn’t enough thread, and it was too late.
The room spun away into darkness. The door vanished into the wall. I beat my fists against it.
The wolf was quiet beside me, waiting until I’d grown a little calmer before he spoke. “I am sorry, Echo.”
“The piano,” I whimpered.
“You are more important than a piano,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THERE WERE ONLY FIVE ROOMS LEFT. The house under the mountain had dwindled to the garden with its waterfall cave, the bedroom, the library, the bauble room, and, for some reason, the conservatory. It almost would have seemed like a proper house, if its hallways weren’t forever changing. But even those were beginning to crumble. I went looking once or twice for the Temple of the Winds. I couldn’t find it, and remembered that the wolf had told me it didn’t really belong to the house at all.
There were only three days left. My mind pulled at the mystery of the wolf like the frayed ends of a knot, but I was no closer to a solution than before. I sewed a binding stitch around the library’s door frame with the last length of golden thread, and stepped into a book-mirror titled The Queen’s Company.
Hal was waiting for me, lounging against the western tower with a sword strapped to his hip, my sword resting beside him.
I couldn’t help but stare—I hadn’t seen him in weeks.
He grinned, but there was something haunted in his eyes. He tossed me my sword. “We’ve work to do, Echo—can’t let you get out of practice!”
I barely had time to draw the blade before he lunged at me with his own outstretched.
We fenced for a long while in the grassy space in front of the western tower. Hal didn’t speak. There was a hard set to his jaw, a crease in his forehead. He fought like he was trying to escape something. Like he was trying to forget.
We caught our breath in a pavilion set up for a visiting prince, where iced wine and sweet-spicy tarts were being served. I sat cross-legged on a velvet-lined bench (how extravagant was this queen, that she could afford to line her guests’ benches with velvet?), while Hal slouched in a carved ivory chair, eating sugared oranges.
“You remembered more, didn’t you?”
He wouldn’t look at me, his eyes shifting away to the queen and her visitor, a dark-skinned prince with silk robes so thin and white I got the idea they were made of spider webs.
I took a bite of tart. Its initial overpowering sweetness shifted strangely to strong spices burning in the back of my throat. “What did you remember?”
Hal brushed his finger along another orange slice but didn’t eat it. Sugar spilled onto his lap. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Hal. Let me help you.”
The earth shook with sudden thunder, and I slid off the bench to the ground. An arrow whizzed past my shoulder. It stuck quivering in the queen’s sleeve, pinning her to her chair. The spider-silk prince smiled.
Hal cursed, and hauled me to my feet.
“What’s wrong?”
“The story is changing again. Those two are allies. They get married and fight off an army of fire demons. They bring peace to the continent.”
But as I watched, the prince drew a dagger and slit the queen’s throat. Her head slumped forward, blood running down her neck and soaking her gown. Drops of red touched her tart.
Hal grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the pavilion. We ran until we’d left the castle far behind and pain made my side catch. And then Hal let go of me and I wished he hadn’t. I wheeled on him. “What is going on?”
“The books don’t change. They never change. Those are the rules. You can’t break the rules.”
My fingers felt colder apart from his. Behind us, the castle was burning. “Someone did.”
He cursed again; his hands shook. “You need to get away from me. You need to leave.”