He’d asked the old tailor next door to sew him a dress. A new pair of shoes were fashioned by the cobbler. Such requests were not unusual; the puppetmaster often relied on his fellow artisans to complete his work with their finery.
When the moon peaked that fateful night, it was full and lavishly blue, the same shade as the cerulean in the puppetmaster’s paint pots. Its light was a living, ghostly thing. He waited until the rays illuminated his far workshop window—the only one he dared crack open.
He held the marionette gently, bathed in moonbeams, as he knelt on the floor. From his pocket he drew a small blade, a long-ago gift from his own father. With a whispered prayer and a deep slice across a scarred fingertip, he painted a heart in the place where a new one might grow.
Then, he uttered the old woman’s clandestine words, the marionette’s first lullaby. “Bitter moon and solemn blue …”
In a rush of joy and heartbreak, with a ripping breath that filled the marionette from the inside out, the wooden limbs became warm flesh. The cleverly fashioned joints on the arms and legs germinated from pins and wire to bones and sinew. A human heart hummed in the small chest. Gephardt’s blood spilled through newly strung veins, flooding the marionette’s cheeks and prodding her eyelids open. In wonderment, the puppetmaster and girl looked one another in the eyes for the first time.
In those first moments, I was, perhaps, still more wood than girl. It’s hard to say. Since a tree cannot move about, the only way for it to travel is to stand through time, the pages of its story pressed deeper inside with each passing year. I keep the memories of these first moments tightly pressed within. There are days when I wonder if you were to crack me open, could you still count my rings, each significant moment sealed in a new layer to protect it from the elements?
My father claims I attempted to stand, but my wobbly legs stumbled in a willowy twirl few dancers would have been graceful enough to manage. Like a leaf fluttering to the forest floor. Then came the puppetmaster’s hearty laugh and the words that never fail to bring a flood of those early memories rushing back.
“And so it was that I discovered your name: Pirouette.”
CHAPTER 1
TAVIA’S MARKTPLATZ IS NEARLY FULL BY THE TIME I HITCH Burl to our custom-fitted theater wagon and find an unoccupied corner of the square. Merchant tables and tents unfurl in a patchwork of every kind of ware, both common and exotic, that a Tavian might desire. Burl stands placidly, a bastion of calm among the shrieks and high-pitched chatter of those bargaining their way to fuller stomachs and emptier purses.
“A puppet’s pull goes far beyond its strings,” Papa often reminds me. “Marionettes aren’t just for children. A story—a good one—will grip any audience, young or old.”
I desperately hope the audience will be gripped today. I’m already sweating and hungry as I set up our little stage. The ridgepoles snap neatly together, and over them I hang a tailored shade to hide myself and the marionettes, sleeping in their trunk.
I lower the side panel like a drawbridge, revealing rich velvet curtains dangling at the ready. The stage is eye-level for children, though as my father anticipated, adults linger in the back of the crowd to watch, too—a puppet show in the marktplatz is always a welcome diversion. Afterwards, the generous will show their appreciation by placing coins on a narrow ledge bordering the stage. On a good day, I scoop up francs by the handful before returning home. I need today to be one of those days—Papa needs more paint. Again.
Inside the wagon, spools of canvas swing from the ceiling, backgrounds that I can lower and change depending on the story. My fingers stroll through the scenes, each one bearing the evidence of my father’s skilled brushstrokes. I select one with a familiar-looking tower in the distance. The crest on the tower’s banner is indistinguishable, but the flaming red color means only one thing to me: The Margrave.
Tavia isn’t a particularly large territory. There’s the sprawling village and surrounding farms, then the inner district where the Maker’s Guild and other merchants live and work, all wrapped around the central marktplatz. The Margrave operates as overseer, ruling from his estate at Wolfspire Hall thanks to an ancient appointment of the von Eidle family bloodline. He answers only to King Nicos II, who rules our lands from a city I’ve only ever heard whispers of—Elinbruk. The king and his rules are so far from here they may as well not exist. Not for us. The Margrave is king here.
With the stage set, I close the curtains ceremoniously, giving a sly wink to the gaggle of children already gathering at the theater’s edge. Anticipation builds in me each time I perform, like steam swirling in a teakettle. I settle myself on a three-legged stool and slide open the locks of the trunk with a satisfying chink.
The marionettes I perform with are some of our best, each about the length of my arm, painstakingly carved and painted and fitted with costumes that rival any larger stage. Carefully, I lift each performer from the silk-lined depths of their resting place. I hang the ones I’ll need later from hooks to keep their strings from becoming tangled.
I select a marionette I carved myself a few years ago, a peasant girl. She’s rough compared to the work I can do now, but the unrefined quality of her face suits her. Tassels of dark yarn escape the kerchief around her head and a smattering of freckles dance across her
