He surveys me with a disinterested air, as though my presence is just another trifle in a parade of novelties he’s long grown tired of. His anemic face is too narrow for his short, stubby body, though the bushy eyebrows and trimmed white beard lend him an appearance of greatness I already know is untrue. Any man who would throw my father into Wolfspire Keep, force himself on Anke, and keep his love from Emmitt is far from greatness.
My close inspection of Tavia’s young duke leaves me rather startled. In complexion, he takes after his mother—the Margravina long dead, whose portrait hangs in memoriam in the hallway. White-golden hair slopes in a perfect wave down to his ears. While Laszlo is quite pale, matching his pallid reputation, his eyes are a piercing blue, his nose straight, and his jaw firm. He reminds me of a statue I glimpsed in the outer gardens of Wolfspire Hall—a man with a face hewn from stone instead of wood.
The corners of the duke’s full mouth turn up ever so slightly as I stare at him, as if we are sharing a secret between us, though we’ve never met. He’s rather beautiful—for a man—and I suspect he fully knows it. His uniform matches his father’s, except his red sash is quietly missing accoutrements. How could it have any when at twenty he’s barely been allowed off his own estate grounds? Laszlo has never seen a battle, much less commanded a regiment; he’s probably never raised a sword with anything but gloved hands.
The Margrave speaks first. “Well, Baldrik,” he says, directing his question to the steward who remains behind me, “has the puppetmaster not another assistant? A boy, perhaps, or an apprentice?”
Rage sputters inside me like a flame licking at a candlewick.
“I am the puppetmaster’s apprentice,” I speak up, nearly biting my tongue with the way the words come slicing out. “Pirouette Leiter, My Lord von Eidle,” I say with a flourish and a ragged curtsy. “I come in my father’s stead.”
The Margrave stares at me, visibly concluding I am something sour, a worm in a mealy piece of apple.
“A pity for the puppetmaster,” he remarks, leaning forward in his chair, medals tinkling against his chest, “that you were not born a boy.” He looks lovingly at Laszlo. “A son is the greatest longing of every man.”
Laszlo smiles at him beatifically. I suppress a longing to slap his marble cheeks.
You already had a son before that one came along, one for whom you dangle your affections about like rancid meat above a starving dog.
Instead, I manage to squeak out, “What is it that you require of me, my lord Margrave? Our final order has been delivered to you. Surely my father and I might be on our way, unless there is something else I can do to be of service?”
The old Margrave looks to his son, as if to say, “Go ahead. You need to practice ordering makers about.”
Laszlo turns the full light of his alabaster face to me. “We have another order to place with the puppetmaster.”
“That would be … splendid, my lord … but as you know, the puppetmaster is currently unwell in the Keep. I must insist that he come home, where he might recover, before we could take on another order of the magnitude of your father’s toy—er, wooden soldiers.”
“Oh, you are mistaken. Those soldiers are all mine,” Laszlo says, glowing. “And I have need of more, don’t I, Father?” He beams at the Margrave, whose fleshy bags under his eyes wag in accordance with the nodding of his head. “Indeed, you must take the puppetmaster home and get him well. Though to my way of thinking, as his apprentice,” he says, his icy blue eyes raking me up and down curiously, “you should be able to handle this next request.”
I look nervously from father to son. Did I hear him right? My father can come home with me! My relief is palpable. So is my curiosity at what the duke could possibly wish for that he doesn’t already have.
“Thank you, my lord. What is it to be?” I ask, praying it is something small. My father will be too weak to do much besides lift his head from his pillow once I get him home.
“The soldiers the puppetmaster built are brilliant,” Laszlo says, blue eyes gleaming. I have a sudden vision of what he must have been like as a little boy, never allowed to go outside and play with other children, knocking about in vast rooms with only his toys for company. Only his toys. Perhaps all of these soldiers truly are for Laszlo’s amusement.
“They are not enough. We require one more. A special kind of soldier.” Laszlo watches me carefully.
“One more … soldier?” I swallow, feeling a rising dread that I will never be free of the horrid things.
“Yes. Not a foot soldier, though.”
“I see,” I stutter. What other kind is there?
“What I need next, Pirouette Leiter,” Laszlo says, drawing my name out, “is a saboteur.”
I blink, wondering if I’ve heard him correctly. “A saboteur, My Lord von Eidle?”
“Remind me again, lad, why we need such a thing?” the Margrave whispers none too quietly beside him.
Laszlo ignores his father. “Yes, a custom-built marionette, made in the same manner as the foot soldiers of course, life-size, with the utmost care given to the nimbleness of arm and leg. For this one, I desire it to be everything a saboteur should be: all in black, fully masked, sleek and light as a panther.” He sits back and waits for my response.
A saboteur is a night shadow. A killer.
It is the strangest request I have heard in all my years at Curio, and I am oddly grateful my father isn’t present to hear it. I hate the thought of him groveling at the feet of
