Scarlet in the Snow Read online

  I could tell him the truth, of course. But I hesitated. To him, Golpech was an eminent doctor and someone to be trusted, who was trying to make his godson well. And me? Well, I was a liar who had entered their home under false pretences, who had inveigled his airheaded daughter into showing me the glass room and who sought to corrupt her with promises of magic. I would look like the enemy, not Golpech. No, I had to rely on myself and my own resources.

  I paced up and down, up and down, waiting, waiting for what seemed like another age before I heard the lock rattle and the door open silently on oiled hinges.

  ‘You’re here,’ Celeste said unnecessarily. She was wrapped in a magnificent cloak with a sable-lined hood. In the moonlight her porcelain face glimmered in the shadow of the dark fur.

  ‘Yes. Has the doctor gone?’

  ‘Left half an hour ago. And Papa’s gone to bed. All’s quiet. Did you bring it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then show it to me now,’ she ordered, ‘before I take you any further.’

  I took the gauzy scarf out of my pocket and held it in one hand, with the opal flower in the other. ‘Choose.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand. Are these what you’ve brought me? I thought . . .’

  ‘Have you ever seen anything quite like these?’ I said, interrupting her. ‘Look at them closely.’

  She did, and I saw her eyes widen as she took in the little jewels on the embroidery, and the flash of colours deep in the opal. ‘No, I haven’t seen anything like them. But my father is rich and he goes to exotic lands. He could probably find me things like this somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘he most assuredly could not. For no human hand created these. They have come from pure fei magic.’ Fei was feya in the tongue of Champaine.

  ‘How . . .’ Her eyes were huge now and her tongue was unconsciously passing over her lips.

  I had taken the handkerchief and comb out of the box and put them in my pocket before I came into the garden. Now I pulled them out. I handed her the comb and said, ‘Comb your hair.’

  ‘What? With this cheap thing?’ she said with great scorn.

  ‘Trust me. Do it and you’ll see,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice steady, and hoping with all my heart that the magic wouldn’t forsake me.

  It didn’t. As Celeste ran the comb through her hair, something that flashed a brilliant white fell out of her black ringlets and dropped at her feet. She picked it up and uttered a cry of sheer delight. ‘Oh, how beautiful!’

  It was a brooch shaped like a white daisy, carved from a single large pearl, each petal rimmed with tiny diamonds that gleamed in the moonlight. She looked at me, her eyes aglow.

  ‘I told you,’ I said cheerfully. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Luel was here, I thought. Nearby. Working her magic in secret, for reasons best known to herself.

  I looked around quickly, but there was nobody in the walled garden except Celeste and me. There was nowhere Luel might hide, only bare trees, a still fountain and some moss-eaten old statues. The garden didn’t look much like the one in Summer Morning, not at this time of the night or the year, but it was still clearly the setting. If Luel was about, then she was keeping herself invisible and . . .

  ‘What about the other?’ Celeste’s voice made me start.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘So I’ve seen what the comb can do. What about the handkerchief? I want to see what it can do,’ she said impatiently.

  ‘Shake it then,’ I said, handing it to her and taking back the comb, ‘and you’ll see.’

  Celeste shook the handkerchief – and there was a pair of the prettiest, softest dancing slippers you ever saw, in pale blue satin with golden buckles. Taking off her own shoes, she slipped them on. ‘Why, they fit me perfectly,’ she said in wonder.

  ‘Of course. That’s how magic should work,’ I said. ‘It fits you perfectly. If it’s good magic, that is. But bad magic makes you fit into it. There’s the difference.’

  She stared at me. ‘How do you know so much about it?’

  ‘Oh, you get around, in my job,’ I said hastily. ‘You hear things.’

  ‘Where did you get these from?’

  ‘They were given to me as a gift. That’s all you need to know.’ I took back the handkerchief. ‘So – now you’ve seen what each can do, which do you choose?’

  She shot me a sideways glance. ‘Both.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want both,’ she said levelly, her eyes narrowed. ‘Or I don’t let you in.’

  My heart sank. ‘But that’s not what we agreed to.’

  ‘You either do as I say or you don’t go in. And then I’ll go to my father and tell him you’ve been trying to bribe me.’

  I looked at her. Her eyes glinted with a nasty light. I knew that if I thwarted her she’d do just as she said. But I also knew that the need to possess the magic had taken a powerful hold of her mind so that I was still in a strong position. I didn’t really want to give Celeste both things, but more than anything I wanted to get into that room. ‘Very well, you can have both.’ She stretched out an eager hand, and I took a step back. ‘Wait a moment. One now, the other after you’ve let me into the room and not interfered.’

  Celeste stared at me suspiciously. For a moment I feared that caution would overcome greed. Then she nodded, and held out her hand again. ‘Agreed. If you throw in the shawl and the opal rose too.’

  I shrugged. ‘As you wish.’ I gave her the handkerchief, and she pocketed it, scooped up all her things, and gestured for me to follow.

  As we went back through the dark, silent house, down long corridors, I was attempting to fix the way in my head. I needed to try to understand the layout of this house in case anything went wrong – her father awakening, the doctor returning, servants prowling about – and I had to hide till we could get into the glass room. But nothing happened, and soon we were back in the dark antechamber. Celeste pulled down the light lever and the room sprang into view. Ivan was as motionless as before, but it seemed to me that the helmet shone with a much brighter glow.

  ‘Did the doctor increase the dose of antirentum by any chance?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he did. What’s it to you?’

  ‘I’m just interested. Now, are you going to open up or not?’

  ‘Impatience,’ she snapped. ‘Why you think it’s so interesting to stare at someone lying there like a log, I can’t imagine.’

  That she could describe the man she had grown up with, that she was supposed to be in love with, in such a way sent a shiver of repulsion down my spine. Cold selfishness like that was a form of madness, I thought, a soul-sickness. Felix Vivian might be a hollow shell because of black magic, but Celeste was hollow by nature, without any help from sorcerers.

  ‘I don’t suppose you can,’ I said tightly. ‘Now, if you want the comb, enough delay.’

  Celeste snorted and pressed her thumb to the knot in the glass. Instantly, the panel in front of us slid open and we stepped through. As soon as we were inside, the panel closed behind us, sealing us into a quiet, still space that felt completely cut off from outside. For the wall we’d just come through had an odd feature: from the outside, you could look through it, but from the inside it was completely opaque, and the other walls with their interlocking image-imprinted panels dazed the eye so that you could not see through them either. And the light made you feel as though you’d stepped into another world, of moonlight and shadows and shifting images – a cold, timeless box of light floating somewhere yet nowhere.

  ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. Now give me the comb.’

  ‘No,’ I said, my eyes fixed on the still figure on the bed. ‘Not till I’m ready.’ I started to walk towards the bed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said uneasily.

  ‘No interference,’ I said tightly. ‘Remember?’

  ‘You can’t go near him,’ she snapped. ‘It isn’t allowed. Come on,
get out.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said brutally, rounding on her. ‘You think that’s all the magic I have, those baubles I gave you? If you interfere, I’ve got something much more powerful, something that is very dangerous indeed.’

  Her eyes widened with shock. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, pulling Luel’s box out of my pocket, and taking out the tin of sweets. ‘You see these? Just one of these is enough to cause a storm of poison gas that will overwhelm you at once. Not me, mind, just you.’

  Her lips were white. ‘No . . . you can’t . . .’

  ‘You want to test it?’ I asked, holding up the lozenge in my hand. ‘You’ve seen the magic of the other things. You really want to test this one?’

  She shook her head. ‘Who . . . who are you?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m someone who can make things very unpleasant for you,’ I said brusquely. ‘And as for what I want, it is that you go and stand over there –’ and I pointed to the wall we had come in through – ‘turn your back to me and put your fingers in your ears. And don’t you dare move till I tell you to. Understood?’

  If looks could kill, I’d have been stone dead. But I didn’t care what she thought or how she looked, only that Celeste did as I’d told her. And she did, without another murmur.

  I approached the bed, breathing hard. Oh, he was so still, so very still. Even this close to him, his skin had that waxwork look of the dead, his features fixed into an expression of bland impassivity.

  I held out a trembling hand and gently touched his forehead. It was icy cold, and the chill of it went right through me. Under the bedclothes he wore a plain shirt and loose trousers of soft pale cloth. I put my head to his chest and I could just hear a feeble pulse, but slowed down so much it was as though his heart hardly beat at all. But on the crown of his head, the skullcap pulsed gently, and I saw that what I’d taken for silver mesh was in fact a network of very fine clear glass tubes, through which a silvery liquid flowed, with a whispery, sinister sound. This must be the antirentum.

  More than anything, I wanted to tear that horrible thing off his head. But something stopped me; an uneasy feeling that if I did that right now, when he was unconscious, it might hurt or even kill him. I had to find some other, more gentle way of getting through to him. His spirit was there, I had to believe that. I had to believe I wasn’t too late.

  I bent down to him and kissed his cold forehead. I kissed his closed eyelids. I kissed his motionless lips. And each time the touch of him on my own lips was like the burning of ice, but I did not flinch. Then, holding his hand, I put my mouth close to his ear and whispered, ‘Wake up, my love, wake up. I’ve come for you. I love you, please wake up.’

  The simple words came hard. They hurt, for I was struggling against a cold so deep the breath was freezing as it left my lips and the words shattered like ice in my throat. But I forced them through, repeating them again and again, as if they were a magic formula, a talisman against the fear that was invading me with every moment that passed.

  Then I felt my breath getting warmer, warming not only my words but the space around his ear. Then, to my incredulous delight, a faint blush of colour began to appear in the lobe of his ear, then the top, then the skin near it. All at once, so close to him, my lips brushing his ear, I caught a very faint scent, so faint I thought I was imagining it. It was a scent that brought tears to my eyes and made my heart pound, for it was the shadow of a sweetness I knew with a thrilling tingle of the blood.

  Then his eyes opened – those beautiful, limpid grey-green eyes. Clasping his hand, I cried joyously, ‘Oh, you’ve come back, you’ve come back . . .’

  But the words died on my lips as I saw the bewildered expression in his eyes as he looked at me, without a hint of recognition. Pulling his hand away from mine, he whispered weakly, ‘Who are you?’

  His words stabbed me to the heart, and this time I did flinch. But I should have expected it. I should have known that the sorcerer’s poison would have already worked its way into Gabriel’s mind, through that abominable silver cap. Fighting back a grief-stricken panic, I said very quietly and gently in Ruvenyan, ‘It’s me. It’s Natasha.’

  Something flickered in his eyes, as if a memory was trying to struggle up through layers of forgetting. But then it was gone. He looked up at me, bewilderment giving way to anxiety. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you said.’ He spoke in his own language, Champainian, his voice still a little weak but soft and musical. ‘Yet somehow I feel as though I ought to know you,’ he went on. ‘Am I in a dream? A nightmare? Please, tell me.’

  I was trembling all over. I longed to hold him, to kiss him and never let go, the longing so strong it ached like a sharp physical pain. But I knew that if I tried to touch him too soon I would only frighten him.

  I said heavily, and in my accented Champainian said, ‘No, this is no dream, Gabriel.’

  ‘Then where am I?’ he faltered, his gaze flickering around the room, and once again there was no hint of recognition in his expression.

  ‘In the light-room of your godfather’s house in Palume, on Dr Golpech’s orders.’

  I heard a slight sound behind me and, looking over my shoulder, saw that Celeste Durant had turned around and was staring at us. Gabriel saw her too. Shock flared in his eyes as he tried to sit up. I instinctively put an arm around his shoulders to help him, and the silver cap pulsed once, brightly. I was jolted back, as though from an electric shock. Gabriel fell back on the pillows, all expression leaving his eyes as he slipped almost instantly back into that deathly sleep.

  ‘He knew me.’ Celeste’s voice came to me as though from a long distance. ‘He knew me. You saw that, didn’t you?’

  Oh, yes. I had felt the sharp pain of that realisation. He had recognised her at once, not me. But I wasn’t going to let the knowledge overwhelm me. ‘I did. And if you want that to happen again, you must tell your father the silver cap must come off and your house must be barred to the doctor from this moment on.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ she cried. ‘Why would we want to do that?’

  ‘Don’t you understand? The so-called miracle cure is all about keeping him in that half-state. The antirentum is wiping his memories, gradually and ruthlessly. It is starting with the most recent, and if it keeps going, soon he will not know you either; he’ll know nothing at all, he’ll cease existing in every way that matters. He will be a hollow shell.’ My eyes filled with tears as I looked at him. Death would be too easy, Felix had said.

  ‘You are mad,’ Celeste said blankly. ‘Quite mad. To speak about Dr Golpech’s treatment like that when it’s the only thing that will help Gabriel to –’

  ‘Think of Felix,’ I interrupted. ‘Think of what happened to him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That was Dr Golpech’s work, too.’

  ‘What was?’ Celeste said faintly, and I saw the foolish girl had no idea what I was talking about.

  ‘Surely you have noticed he’s not like he used to be?’

  ‘Who? The doctor?’

  Could anyone really be so dense? ‘No, Felix Vivian.’

  ‘So? That was quite different. Felix wasn’t kidnapped – he just went crazy,’ she said, with a chilling carelessness. ‘Anyway, I’ve kept my side of the bargain. You must keep yours.’

  ‘Only on one condition,’ I said. ‘I must stay here.’

  Celeste stared at me in disbelief. ‘Are you –’

  ‘Mad? Yes, very probably,’ I rejoined harshly. ‘But that’s what I want. And if you want what was promised, you have to agree.’

  ‘If the doctor finds you here –’

  ‘I don’t care about that.’ And I didn’t.

  ‘If I tell Papa –’

  ‘But you won’t,’ I hissed, ‘because if you do, you’ll lose all those gifts I gave you, everything will vanish in a puff of smoke. If you say nothing, think of all the pretty things you can conjure up for yourself!’
r />   I watched as the covetous gleam returned to her eyes. ‘They’re bound to find you in the morning,’ Celeste retorted.

  ‘Let me worry about that,’ I said. ‘Just remember this: say nothing, and it will all be yours, always. Tell anyone – anyone at all – and everything will vanish at once.’ I was talking nonsense, making it up as I went along, for in truth I had no idea how long the magic might last. But it didn’t matter. Celeste didn’t know of my ignorance. All I needed was to buy a little more time, to try again on my own. Tomorrow morning, if I failed, they’d find me. But it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, I’d be here with him, beside him.

  Celeste shrugged. ‘Very well. If you want to be so stupid as to spend the night here, that’s your lookout. Now give me the comb.’

  ‘I’ll throw it out to you as soon as you open the door and leave,’ I said. ‘Not before.’

  Celeste glared at me. ‘How do I know you’ll do as you say?’

  ‘You don’t. You’ll just have to hope I do.’

  ‘You’re a real hard-hearted shrew, you know that?’ she exclaimed. But one look at my face told her I wasn’t going to respond. With a theatrical shrug, she went over to the wall and put her thumb to the knot of glass. The panel slid open, and she stepped out. Just before the panel closed again, I threw the comb through the opening, straight at her. She caught it, and the last glimpse I had of her before the door sealed shut was the look of triumph on her face. In the next instant I knew why – the light abruptly went out and I was left in total darkness.