“In keeping with history, and as a demonstration of my commitment to a peaceful and law-abiding territory, let this be a warning to those of you who might endeavor to seek out the old ways.”
The trees begin to fret from their position at the edges of the marketplatz. Blood boils in my veins.
“We have among us one accused of such practices. Let it be known that I will not tolerate such flagrant disregard for the law.”
Baldrik, the steward, glares at me calculatingly from the duke’s side.
What is happening?
I grip Bran’s fingers harder, having lost sensation in my own hand.
“Bring me the puppetmaster’s apprentice,” Laszlo’s voice booms across the wide square.
CHAPTER 18
HORRIFIED GASPS ERUPT AROUND ME. BEFORE I CAN TAKE A breath, guards swarm me, their red jackets bleeding across the crowd like gashes. Rough hands pry me away from where I stand, still clutching Bran’s hand as if it were a string that could hold me fast.
No, no. This can’t be happening.
“Piro!” Bran’s little sisters cry. Nan claws at the guards, trying to grab me. Tiffin and Fonso hold her back. Bran pushes his way through the jostling crowd, following as I am dragged to the front, calling my name all the while.
My deepest fears are stripped and laid bare; years of suppressing nightmares of Old Josipa and the burn pile now rise to the surface. I failed my father in keeping our secret; now I’m cursed to be shamed in front of everyone. The trees wail in protest of my ill treatment.
The guards drop me at Laszlo’s feet, where he and the steward can better glower at me from on high. I see a blur of fear and fascination in the faces of the crowd. What I feared most, I have become: no longer one of them.
But how? Was I seen with the old tree woman? Did my father give our secret away during his time in the Keep? How has it come to this?
“If you’ve seen wooden marionettes afoot, waking and walking as men do,” the new Margrave pontificates, pointing a gloved fingertip at my nose, “she is to blame. The puppetmaster’s apprentice resurrected the old spells and bewitched the soldiers she made and delivered to me, hoping to harm me and cause dissention. They are enlivened by her charms, and have been set upon the village. It’s clear she hopes to exact revenge on any she can for her father’s death!”
“No!” I cry. The crowd answers in a wail of boos and hisses, some in fury, some in suspicion.
Bran’s face is a picture of devastation; it takes three guards to keep him from flinging himself at me.
“She’s just an apprentice!” a voice cries.
“Where’s your proof?” the tailor’s voice calls out.
“Proof? You want proof? The wooden men ambling about the village, that she and her swindling father made, aren’t proof enough for you?”
“We don’t believe it!” my makers call.
“I see,” says Laszlo, pacing back and forth in front of the podium, hands clasped behind his back. “It does seem unbelievable doesn’t it? Figurines of wood, coming to life? Well, in that case, I submit to you further evidence of her sorcery—a deadly creature made by her own hand!”
With that, he flings an arm up to the clock tower. As if by command, the clock strikes noon and the glockenspiel carousel springs to life, the creak of gears and wheels adding to the cacophony in the square. The bells, though, are silent. Emmitt never had the chance to fit that final piece.
The saboteur emerges from the tower, astride a wolf on one of the carousels. Springing from the wolf’s back, she descends the tower’s stones, nimble as a black spider, gloved claws sliding effortlessly over the stone.
How dare he use her to condemn me! He is the one using magic, not me!
I scream my innocence, but my voice is lost in the terrified cries of the crowd. No one has seen anything like her, awakened and moving. The saboteur slithers down the tower, dropping elegantly on the steps near the Margrave. She crouches with her hands on the stones, a waiting gargoyle. The crowds push back, giving her a wide berth.
She is still under his spell.
I waver, wishing I knew how to rip her from his control and fearing what her sudden appearance means for me. Laszlo holds up his hands to calm the crowd. He whispers a few commands out of the side of his mouth that fall on the wind.
Can they not see? It’s all him! Practicing the very thing he’s accusing me of.
“Fellow Tavians, do not fear. I have this situation well in hand. I will keep the soldiers, both man and wooden, under my control. For your protection, the puppetmaster’s apprentice will be taken away to the Keep. No more will she be allowed to threaten my sovereignty or ensnare our children with her witchery! For I am certain that she spews out evil magic and ancient curses with her paltry puppet stage, all while her listeners remain unaware! Have your children been seen acting strangely after hearing one of her little plays? Taken a fit the next day? I’ve seen it myself! That is all her doing. She is a public danger!”
“No!” call the voices of my friends against the recoiling crowds.
“Let her go!” Bran yells. “She hasn’t done anything!”
Laszlo turns to address him directly.
“Hasn’t she though? Did she not make these wooden creatures with her father’s help? Did she not deliver them directly to Wolfspire Hall, planting them in our midst, to ensure they would rise up to hurt me and my late father the moment she let loose her vile incantations? I have only narrowly escaped harm myself, thanks to a remedy I found in an
