She was crossing the university courtyard on the way to the old church and she saw a flash of a dark braid from the corner of her eye. But when she turned to look, she saw no one resembling Nadia in the courtyard.
Lynet was still shaken by her own disappointment when she entered the church. Her head was full of ghosts today. When she’d woken that morning, she had a moment when she forgot that her father was dead. And then the memories flooded in, and it was like hearing the news for the first time again, the ringing of a bell echoing in her head.
Gregory had told her she could look through his books while he worked in the laboratory, and though she had the feeling he was humoring her, she browsed through the shelves, looking for something that might show her how to help Mina. But even as Lynet started to pull books from the shelves, she wondered if she was only fooling herself into thinking she could find the secrets to her stepmother’s heart here. Gregory was the one who had shaped that heart—if he didn’t know how to cure it, then how could Lynet?
With a stack of books balanced on one arm, Lynet reached up for a thick red volume on a higher shelf, only to feel the entire stack slip through her elbow and land noisily around her feet. With a sigh, she bent down to collect the books, hoping none of them had been damaged in their fall. As Lynet retrieved one book that was splayed across the floor, a folded piece of paper slipped out from between the pages. The paper was yellow around the edges, but it was still stiff, meaning it probably had been tucked away and forgotten.
Sitting on her knees, Lynet unfolded the paper, her eyes immediately going to the two names written there, one at the top of the page—Mina—and the other at the bottom—Dorothea. It was a letter to Mina from her mother. Had Mina ever seen it, though? Had she placed it here herself?
My dear Mina, it began, I can’t leave without saying good-bye.…
Lynet told herself she shouldn’t keep reading, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the page, and by the time she reached the final words, she was glad she hadn’t stopped. Long ago, Mina had told Lynet that her mother, Dorothea, was dead. When Lynet had first started reading the letter, she had thought it was a mother’s final good-bye to her daughter before she died. The letter was a good-bye—but not from a dying mother. Lynet read through it again to make sure she wasn’t mistaken, but there was no question that Dorothea wasn’t dying, only leaving.
And according to this letter, she had left because she was frightened of Gregory.
Lynet’s stomach lurched, remembering Gregory telling her that she was his true daughter. She felt a pang of sympathy for the girl who had become her stepmother, living alone with a man who saw her as a failed experiment, a blemish on his own abilities. She was worth nothing to him, and Lynet knew that Mina must have felt it every day of her life.
If I’d had a father like yours growing up maybe I wouldn’t care about being queen either.
Mina had told Lynet that no one could ever love her, but Mina’s mother had loved her—the proof of it was here, in three words written at the bottom of the page. Lynet wondered if Gregory knew about Dorothea’s letter, if he had lied to Mina about her mother’s death. Glancing warily in the direction of the laboratory door, Lynet tucked the letter into the front of her dress.
She started to rise from the floor when a burst of pain in her chest forced her back to her knees. Her heart was racing, a frantic bird trying to escape tightening constraints, and when she tried to move, her surroundings all bled together and her head started to pound. She tried to take deep breaths, but they sounded more like sobs instead. Was this because she had been away from the snow for too long? Had she let herself grow too weak?
Trying to think clearly, Lynet emptied some of her purse into her cupped hands and let the coins become snow again. She nearly sobbed into the pile of snow, such a relief was it against her fevered skin. For the few minutes before the snow melted through her fingers, the world stopped spinning and Lynet started to breathe more normally. The pain had lessened, but her heart was still speeding, and she felt utterly drained, bloodless—
Bloodless. Lynet thought of the blood she’d given to Gregory last night. Was that why she was so weak today? Had the loss of the blood exhausted her beyond her limits, or were Gregory’s experiments affecting her, pulling on some invisible thread between her blood and her heart?
Lynet staggered to her feet, tucking away her purse. She had to stop Gregory before he conducted any more tests. He must not have known.… But then, that letter from Dorothea proved that Gregory knew more than he revealed.
There was no lock on the door, so Lynet burst into the laboratory without warning, not giving Gregory the chance to deny her entrance.
The laboratory was larger than she’d expected, a round room with a high window that let in the golden sunlight of the South. The room reminded Lynet of Nadia’s workroom—the same assortment of jars on shelves, the same long table, though this one was covered in glass apparatuses that she had never seen before.
And yet, this room was as different from Nadia’s as Nadia was from Gregory. It was the difference between the natural darkness of night and the stale darkness of the crypt.
Gregory had been hunched over the far end of the table, but he looked up in surprise when he heard the door. “If you wanted to come in, Lynet, you only had to knock,” he said.
“What are you doing with my blood?” she demanded.
“Exactly what I told you. And I’m very pleased with the results. Come,” he said with an eager wave of his hand, “let me show you what you can do.”
Lynet made her way across the room, passing shelves full of jars with unknown contents, including a withered, brownish lump that made her shudder violently for some reason. At the far end of the table was the now empty vial that had held her blood. She peered down at the table, trying to understand the relationship between the items of the strange collection gathered there. Alongside the vial were small piles of sand, as well as two open glass jars. In one of the jars was another pile of sand, but in the other was a small field mouse, its tiny paws trying to climb the side of the jar.
“Do you see?” Gregory said, gripping her upper arm to bring her closer. “The mouse is yours—made from sand and blood—your blood. You can only work with snow, but with your blood, I can shape anything. And the mouse has a heartbeat, which means it’s truly alive, Lynet.”