I pull my hand back. In between the ones I recognize are marionettes carved from every color and type of wood, some painted, some plain, with only their natural grain to lend them any features. The marionettes seem voiceless here, afraid to speak. My fingers itch to lift some of them from their hooks, to shake out their strings and set them free.
“Well?” he asks expectantly.
“It’s … certainly the largest collection I’ve seen outside Curio,” I mumble, desperately trying to say something true.
Laszlo’s chest puffs. “Of course it is. The largest in all the territories.” He clears his throat in pride, a rough sound that nearly erupts into a cough. “I’ve been collecting since I was a boy. My father gave them to me, in place of real companions, since he feared contact with lesser-born children might taint or sicken me like it did Mother. And this is only the half of it, my most favorite pieces. Here,” he says, plucking a marionette of a small boy from the wall. He thrusts the crossbar control at me, this time forcing me to take it. I lift the puppet up to the light.
The face looks familiar. Too familiar.
“My father had it commissioned in my likeness when I was a child. Gephardt Leiter did it, no doubt.”
I brush my fingers against the legs of the wooden figurine, taking in the delicate features, the pale hue my father brushed on the skin, the overlarge and imploring eyes set into the small face that fits in my hands. An unusual series of deep, scarring marks span the legs and back of the puppet. The puppet’s face is unmarked, but terrible gouges and scrapes and chipped bits are visible on the back, arms and legs. This puppet seems like it was close to being destroyed—more than once. One leg hangs crookedly from the knee, the foot warped below it. An arm dangles by mere thread.
Laszlo notices me examining the damage and his jaw tightens again. He snatches the puppet back. “Yes, well. When I misbehaved, Father would have the puppet punished in my stead. A whipping boy, of sorts. One can’t very well whip the Duke of Tavia.” He sniffs. “Apparently I was a very trying child.”
Laszlo’s puppet-counterpart makes me feel sad. The real Laszlo, though, has an inspired ability to make me remember my anger.
“Why show me all of this?”
He returns the little wooden duke to his hooks, where he stares at me, a pendulous portrait of pain.
“This gallery will be your workshop. I’ve had a worktable laid out for you with some tools. You’ll have space to build here. And you’ll have plenty of company, see?” He points to a dark corner on the far side of the room. Tiffin’s rack is tucked into the shadows, and from it hangs the saboteur, returned from her spectacle in front of the village. She appears lifeless, but I know what she’s capable of under Laszlo’s spell.
“I am to build you a marionette … here? I can’t possibly! I need Curio, my own tools and pigments,” I sputter. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Even if I build you a beautiful woman of wood, how is she to become real?”
He gestures to a pair of glass doors on the far side of the gallery, unlocks them and flings them open. Warm air rushes in. He nods for me to follow and I do, reluctantly, my sense of unease growing with every step. We emerge in a steamy, elegant courtyard studded with plants greedily drinking in daylight from the foggy, glass-paned roof sitting above us like a domed lid on one of Nan’s pots.
“This is the botanical conservatory. Here I will have uninhibited exposure to the light of the blue moon. Perhaps the glass may even magnify its effects—one can only hope. I’ve done much study on astronomy and the powers of magnification. We will bring her out here for the awakening. I take it there is a set of words, an incantation?” He takes in the raise of my eyebrows. “Yes, well, your father didn’t go into specifics on that part. But I gather you know enough of what must be said and what to do so that I will be able to awaken my bride and welcome her to my side.”
“This is madness,” I dare to breathe out.
Remembering the tree woman’s words, I know it’s also a chance to release me from my curse. A wild, terrifying chance. Could it work?
“One man’s madness is another man’s magic. Nil volentibus arduum,” he says in a low voice. “Nothing is impossible for the willing, is it, apprentice? I deserve someone made just for me, a true companion.”
I fold my arms across my chest, rocking back and forth uneasily on my feet. My mind cannot wrap itself around the fact that I am in the heart of Wolfspire Hall contemplating such a feat.
“You will begin right away,” the duke insists.
I stare at him, balking at the task set before me. The trees in the conservatory cluck like mother hens; I can tell they don’t approve.
Fearing I am stuck, I look to strike a bargain. Every good maker knows you haggle before settling on a price.
“Before I can do this, can even attempt the task you ask of me, I require a few things.”
“Require?” he says testily.
“First, you must tell me how you animated the saboteur and the wooden soldiers.”
“First? Is this to be a long list?” he says indignantly.
“Why? How did you do it?” I demand.
He sighs, his patience with me running low. “I needed additional troops in reserve to take on Brylov’s men, if that becomes necessary. I also needed a skilled assassin for some special circumstances, as you’re now aware. My father has been trying for years to build an alliance with his sister in Brylov, but alas, my dear old Tante Emmaline was never cooperative. She always hated my father.
“So, I needed something to help hasten her end. Something, or someone, I should say,
