But then she would have to explain to Lynet the circumstances of her birth, the debt she owed to Gregory. Mina still had nightmares sometimes of that rotting heart in its jar, her father’s voice behind her telling her that she owed him her life. She remembered the way the village girls had looked at her when they had seen her experimenting with her powers. Lynet was probably better off never knowing the truth.
Even when the last tangle was free, neither Mina nor Lynet moved away. Running her hands through the girl’s hair was surprisingly soothing. It was thicker than her own, but softer. Could Nicholas even look at it without thinking of his wife’s hair? His wife, Mina thought, as though he only ever had one. She had the sudden urge to pull out Lynet’s hair, every last strand, and burn it all.
Lynet let out a little yelp, and Mina saw that she had started to act on her fantasy without meaning to, a few loose strands of Lynet’s hair coming away in her hand.
“I think it’s time you fly back to your room, Lynet. Your father might wake to find you missing, and your stepmother is tired.”
Lynet bounced off the bed in happy oblivion, and Mina watched her go. How many years would they have together before Lynet realized that whatever love she thought she felt for Mina was nothing but a childish illusion? How soon before Lynet began to resemble the portrait of Emilia on Nicholas’s wall? One day they would both start to see each other differently, and Mina couldn’t imagine how they could become anything but enemies on that day.
18
LYNET
The huntsman went straight to Mina and took her face in his hands, studying her intently. “You look sad,” he said. “Tired.”
Lynet was rapt. She’d never seen anyone approach her stepmother with such intimacy. Her father always wore a layer of formality when he was with the queen. But despite his youthful appearance, the huntsman spoke to her and touched her like they’d known each other for a long time.
Mina brushed his hands away, and her voice was cold as she said, “I look sad, do I, Felix? And why do you think that is?”
The huntsman—Felix—took an uncertain step away from her. “Is the king dead?” Was there a faint note of hope in his voice?
“Not dead,” Mina said, “but hardly alive. The surgeon did a fine job of closing him up, but it’s … it’s like he wants to die. He keeps asking for her, for his dead queen. I think he means to join her.”
“I’m sorry, Mina—”
She laughed, a brittle sound. “Are you? I don’t think you know what it means to be sorry.”
“I only know what you know. What you want me to know.”
“And do you know how to hurt? How to destroy? Have I taught you that?” She grabbed his arm and pulled up one of his sleeves, revealing the scarred skin of his forearm. “Look at all these scars. Did you receive one today, when you tried to slay my husband?” Felix flinched, pulling his arm out of her grip, but Mina didn’t relent. A terrible silence hung over them both, and Lynet kept her hand over her mouth, afraid she would reveal herself by some small sound.
“Mina,” he said at last, “I promise you I didn’t kill him. It was a stag. We were separated. I wasn’t there to help him.”
“You weren’t there, but you saw it happen, didn’t you? I can see it now in your eyes.” She lay her hand on his chest, and then Lynet witnessed something extraordinary: cracks appeared on the surface of the huntsman’s skin, cracks that branched all across his neck, moving up toward his face. The huntsman stood completely still, not even breathing. Was Mina doing this to him? How could that be possible?
“What did you do, then?” Mina said, her voice dangerously quiet. “I already know the answer, but I want to hear you say it.”
“I thought of you,” he breathed, and he buried his head in the crook of her neck and shoulder, his arms encircling her waist.
The cracks on his skin disappeared as Mina returned his embrace, one hand digging into his back, the other tangled in his hair. Lynet felt an unexpected pang in her chest. She had always thought that she was the only one who saw Mina’s private self, the woman behind the stately queen, but now she understood that she had never seen the real Mina at all.
“Oh, you fool,” Mina murmured against the huntsman’s neck. She pulled at his hair, bringing his face level with hers. “You sweet fool. You’ve ruined everything.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “He didn’t love you. He made you suffer again and again.”
“Oh, Felix.”
He pleaded with her like a hurt child, begging her to understand him. “I wanted to see you smile, as you once did,” he said. “I wanted you to look into my eyes and see yourself as you are, smiling and beautiful. What did I do wrong, then?”
“When the king dies, I will no longer be queen.”
“And what of it? Weren’t we happier before then? Before you chose him over me? It was when you became queen that you began to look so unhappy, so different from the first night I saw you.”
He reached for her, but she flinched away from him. “That was when I had nothing to lose. Now I can feel it all slipping away—my youth, my beauty, my crown. Even if Nicholas lives, he’ll give Lynet all my power, piece by piece, until I’m left with nothing but the glass heart my father gave me.” Her fingers curled over her chest, and she grimaced. “She’ll replace me.”
The huntsman tilted his head slightly, frowning a little in thought. “Do you want me to kill the girl?”
The silence that followed was as thick as the darkness in the crypt. Mina’s silence was worse to Lynet than anything else she had heard. It was the silence of thought, of doubt—and no matter what Mina answered, Lynet would never be able to forget the pause that preceded it.
“No, Felix,” Mina said at last, her voice hoarse. “You can’t—I can’t do that.” She turned away from the huntsman, looking up at the stained-glass windows like they might speak to her. Through the windows, the moon threw dappled shadows on her face, reminding Lynet of the strange cracks that had appeared on Felix’s neck. Mina was walking toward Lynet’s altar now, and Lynet shifted to hide herself better—and then she heard Mina inhale sharply.
A moment later, Lynet learned why—the moon had changed positions since she’d first hidden here, and so she was now casting a large shadow that had moved with her.
Mina’s voice, strong but slightly fearful, echoed through the chapel. “I know someone’s there.”