Maybe that was why she had come here tonight—to remember what she was still fighting for.
In the wavering light of the candles, the glass mosaics of the four seasons shimmered. “Keep away from the walls,” she said to Felix. Then Mina held out her hands, feeling each piece of glass as though they were embedded in her skin, concentrated, and pulled.
The glass tiles all fell to the floor, glittering in the light. Mina concentrated again, and there was enough glass around her that she felt only the slightest twinge in her chest as each piece of the mosaic transformed into a grown man or woman wearing the finely made clothing of a nobleperson. A court of glass, she thought.
The members of Mina’s new court all sank to their knees, kneeling to Mina with their heads bowed. In the center of the throne room, surrounded and protected by her own creations, Mina felt something close to safe and loved, and she reached for Felix’s hand, because he was the closest to human of all of them. He took her hand, and he, too, went down on one knee, holding her hand to his forehead.
I should have done this before, she thought, but she had been too afraid to use her power so freely before, too afraid of anyone finding out about her heart.
But it didn’t matter anymore. Mina didn’t even have to wait until the Summer Castle was finished. She could replace all of her enemies with friends now. She could even create a family for herself if she wanted, a loving father and loyal mother, a devoted husband, a child—
Mina let out a small gasp, her hand going to her mouth. If she chose, she could take one of those pieces of glass and transform it into a perfect copy of Lynet, accurate in every way except that she’d be alive—mostly—and she would never hate Mina. She could have a version of Lynet from before the day of the accident, before Mina had destroyed everything between them, a girl who would never grow up—
A doll, Mina thought. Everything Lynet didn’t want to be.
What a terrible insult to Lynet’s memory that would be, to turn her into the very thing she had always feared—a shell, a body with no life or will of its own, a replica of someone dead.
How many times had Lynet come to her with that fear, sometimes unspoken but always lurking behind every word, every innocent question she asked? And how many times had Mina urged her to leave her mother’s memory behind? Mina had thought at the time that she was giving Lynet the right advice, encouraging her to choose her own identity, but now that Lynet was dead, Mina could be more honest with herself. It was easy to guide Lynet on the path away from her mother when that same path also led away from the throne, away from Mina’s crown.
Looking now at her loyal new subjects, at her throne at the end of the room, Mina shuddered in revulsion—at herself, at the life she had stolen from Lynet because she had been afraid that if she were no longer a queen, she would be nothing at all.
As soon as she’d allowed the thought to take shape in her mind, the glass court froze and shattered, glass littering the marble floor all around her. She thought for a moment that she had shattered with them, but it was only her resolve that had broken. Perhaps it would have been easier to live in the fantasy she’d created, a world of glass that reflected only the parts of herself that she could admire.
But every piece of glass on the floor was another lie to distract her from Lynet’s memory, and so she returned them all to the walls, putting back together the image of seasons that the North had lost long ago.
She returned to her rooms, wanting to be alone, and looked at herself in the mirror. The gray hairs around her temple had grown back, and instinctively, she tore them out, not flinching at the pain, because she had performed this ritual so many times already.
A frown line on her forehead. Dark circles underneath her eyes. The cracks in her surface were starting to show. If they love you for anything, it will be for your beauty, she mouthed silently, watching her lips form the words. She brought her fingertips up to the glass, the cool surface warming under her touch.
Mina looked at her hands. They were growing thin, her fingers bony, and she could trace with one finger the protruding veins that traveled down to her wrists. Again she moved like a sleepwalker, going to the table by her bed, taking up the silver bracelet that still lay there, clasping it around her wrist as a reminder, as a punishment. Ever since placing the bracelet by the bed, she had developed a morbid fear of it, flinching every time she saw it out of the corner of her eye. But she had stubbornly kept it there anyway, because she refused to feel guilty or afraid.
She wasn’t afraid now, either. She felt a strange kind of calm, an inexplicable relief at finally saying the words to herself, over and over again: You drove her away. You killed her. You stole her throne. You stole her life. It’s your fault she’s dead. The more hideous her thoughts, the more relief she felt, until finally she was driven to her knees, giving voice to all the truths she most feared.
Felix found her that way in the morning, bent over and clutching her wrist to her chest, still muttering words too low for anyone but herself to hear.
25
LYNET
The short climb up to the church’s second-story windows should have been easy for Lynet, but she was still navigating around the disorientation that had come over her since she’d left the North. Her arms grew tired quickly and she had to pause several times, clinging to the edge of the building, until her head stopped spinning.
But she managed to reach one of the broken windows and climbed inside, careful not to cut herself on the glass. The room she landed in was dark, with dusty sheets draped over furniture. She peeked under one of the sheets and found a half-finished stone altar, much like the ones in the chapel at Whitespring.
She left the room, finding herself at one end of a long, narrow landing illuminated by a beam of moonlight coming from a window set into the slanted roof. To her side was a curving stairwell that led below, and across the landing were more dark rooms. Lynet tried to be as quiet as possible as she crossed the landing, but the wood still creaked under her feet.
She was reaching for the handle of the first door when she felt a blade pressing into the small of her back. Lynet froze, her hand twitching for the dagger at her waist.
“You’re trespassing,” said the owner of the knife at her back, and Lynet let her hands drop to her sides in relief. It was Gregory’s voice.
“Let me turn around, and you’ll know why,” she said.
But she didn’t even have to turn before she heard Gregory inhale sharply. “Turn,” he said, and the blade at her back was gone.