nursemaids in an hour or so, and in the Palace…well, there was no escaping the children, because Katya had gotten this notion that it would be a fine thing for all of the nobles to send their offspring to the Palace to provide playmates and schoolmates for her brood. They were everywhere.
And they looked at her as if they expected her to curse them with icicles.
She sighed and stared at her fire — and managed to refrain from making any wishes herself. Wishes were dangerous things, as Kay had proved. She was not going to wish for anything stronger than that one of the servants would bring her a snack. Presently, one of the Brownies brought her cakes and tea, and she took up the book that had been lying there. The cakes were sweet and nutty, dense and moist; the tea was one of her favorites, with the flavor of almonds. The book was utterly forgettable, very light verse, but it was something to read, at least. From time to time, she looked up into a small mirror on a stand that held her plate of cakes and her cup. In it, she could see Kay laboring in his workshop. He seemed to be grinding lenses. She frowned.
“What's the cleverest lad in the world think he's doing now, Pieter?” she asked the Brownie who came to refresh her tea. The little fellow, who looked exactly like her sister's majordomo shrunk down to the size of a child, wrinkled his nose with amusement.
“He's making spectacles that will allow him to see us,” Pieter replied, chuckling, as his bright brown eyes twinkled. “He seems to think we're spirits or something of the sort.”
Aleksia sniffed. “He'd know better if he had paid half as much attention to his old nurse's stories as he did to taking things apart,” she replied, and grimaced. “This is the most tedious stage of beating them into shape. Has he started trying to find a way to escape yet?”
“Not yet, Godmother. He's just starting to feel the edge of loneliness. It hasn't really dawned on him yet that it only gets worse with time.” The Brownie offered honey for the tea; she tendered a nod of acceptance. “In my opinion?”
“Your opinions are invariably good ones, Pieter.” She sipped the tea and felt the warmth penetrate into her chilled bones.
The corners of the Brownie's eyes crinkled as he smiled. Pieter had a wise face that would have looked very old indeed if it had not been for the perpetual hint of mischief about him. “It's time to give him a view. We're going to get a blizzard. Let him see it. I would say 'throw another log on the fire under him', except that we really want the opposite effect.” Pieter chuckled at his own cleverness.
Aleksia smiled. “The result is the same, a rise in discomfort. All right.” She concentrated a moment, holding her hand palm-upwards, until a tiny spark of white light wafted up out of her hand, hovered there for a few moments, then evaporated. That was her way of getting the attention of the Palace.
The homes of all the Godmothers, whether they were Palaces like this one, fortified castles, lonely towers, or any other sort of dwelling, were living things. They responded to the needs of the Godmothers living there. Some of them were so good at it that entire rooms would grow before the Godmother herself realized she was going to need one. But some, like this one, needed prodding to wake them up.
Veroushka always assumed it was because of the Palace's immense age, but Aleksia had the feeling it had more to do with where it was. The Palace slumbered like a hibernating Bear, and whenever she needed to communicate with it, she always got the sense that she was looking in on its dreams.
Presently, she sensed a difference in the room around her, and the mirror frosted over. Dim images that were certainly not Kay in his workshop moved behind the frost, pale figures that could have been human, or Elves, or spirits, or none of these things. She felt the sense of waiting all around her.
“I would like windows in the boy's rooms now, please,” she said aloud. “Like mine, if you would, quite weather and leakproof. I don't need him getting ill from drafts.” She waited. The Palace generally took its time about these things.
Finally, the mirror cleared and showed her a view of one of Kay's two rooms. Now, instead of a blank, white wall, there stood an enormous glass-paned window, which looked down the mountain that the Palace stood on and across the valley to the unexplored peaks beyond. Everything was shrouded in a blanket of snow, of course, and it seemed waist-deep in most places. The mountains on the other side of the valley thrust their white peaks aggressively into the sky; the black storm clouds gathering just behind them provided a suitably ominous view should Kay return to his room before sunset.
“Thank you!” Aleksia said. Strictly speaking, it wasn't needful to thank the Palace, but she always did anyway.
The mirror cleared again, giving her a view of nothing more than her own reflected image.
“That looks like a bad storm,” the Brownie observed. Aleksia nodded. Her own rooms faced east and south, rather than west and north. She disliked being able to see the storms approaching; the wait before clouds finally descended and let loose their burden of snow always seemed worse to her than the blizzard itself. But there was no doubt this would have a profound impact on Kay. She could only hope that it would be for the better.
Because if it was for the worse…
She was going to wall him up in that workroom of his rather than be forced to listen to him whine and pout anymore. And she did not want to contemplate what she would have to do if he turned down any darker path.
2
Annukka Makela sat at her loom and wove steadily, the soft woolen threads of her own spinning forming solid, equally soft fabric beneath her hands. The rhythm soothed her, as she passed the shuttle through the warp threads, tamped them down with a double-beat and passed the shuttle through again. Thread by thread, the fine brown woolen cloth built up beneath her hands; thread by thread, the subtle spell of warmth and protection she wove built with it. This was simple magic, hearth-and-fireside magic. So far as Annukka was concerned, magic was no special gift, and most women of the Sammi could do it, if they put their minds to it, if they took the time to learn how to concentrate in just the right way.
The lives of the Sammi were intertwined with small magics. For most women, such things could be as natural as breathing, if they learned the tricks of it.
But most women didn't. In this, Annukka was special.
Annukka was not certain why; it seemed a logical thing, to her. If you intended to keep your family safe, why not weave magic into their clothing? Yes, it took a little more time, you couldn't just sit mindlessly at your loom and let the monotonous back and forth of the shuttle in your hand dull your mind. You had to think, to concentrate, to call up all the tales of narrow escapes and loved ones come safely home through peril. You almost had to speak to
