The guard rolls his eyes at me and shuts the door all but a crack, positioning his back on the other side of it.
I whirl around to see Fonso caught in the middle of the room, staring wide-eyed at the young Margrave’s marionettes. He whistles low and slow.
“I’ll be honest, Piro. It’s worse than I imagined.” He reaches out to touch the boot of an old witch whose black robes dangle nearly to the floor.
“Tell me about it. I love marionettes, but this place is not Curio.” I grip his forearm tightly and pull him to the worktable. “Don’t touch anything. Come, sit. While I set the eyes you must tell me what’s been happening. I need to know everything, how you and Tiffin are faring, how the Sorens are, what Nan’s—”
“Easy Piro, slow down, there. Take a breath. Surely we’ve got a little time.” He drops on a stool that groans beneath his weight, and lays the velvet bag gently on the table.
“Who knows how little, Fonso, if the Margrave has his way. I can scarcely scrape together five minutes of quiet ‘round here.”
Eagerly, I inch the drawstring of the bag apart and slip a hand inside. Swaddled in cloth, the glass eyes feel as heavy as jewels. I unwrap one and watch as it rolls onto the palm of my hand. The glass is cool and smooth to the touch. The iris is a deep, quenching green, the color of the woods after a hard spring rain.
“Oh, they’re spectacular, Fonso! Just what I needed!”
“How are you faring, Piro? It’s barbaric that the little duke won’t let you go outside.”
“Don’t let him hear you call him that!” I mutter, drawing my pot of glue and a pipette closer. “At least I can go out in the conservatory. I can see the sun.”
“Nanette is fairly raging to see you. She worries over you being cooped up in here.”
“You know she worries just as much over you, even if she won’t admit it. How are the others?”
It’s only been days since I left Bran behind, but already it feels like another lifetime. His false accusation against my father still plagues me like a thorn, but my heart—that most traitorous of creatures—longs to know how he is.
Using a paintbrush, I gingerly coat the backs of the fragile eyes with a special resin, and use the pipette to create a well of the resin in each of Prima’s eye sockets. While Fonso tells me all the latest news, I slowly and meticulously position each eye.
“… there were pieces of your wooden soldiers littered about in the streets, Piro. I don’t even know enough to say what happened there, but it wasn’t pretty, I’ll tell you that. Men have been stalkin’ about with torches, threatening to burn any wooden soldier that crosses their property, but the wooden ones keep coming just when we think we’ve gotten them taken care of! They keep peering in folks’ windows and threatening them with their swords, which are quite real, even if the buggers are wooden beasts themselves. I think they’re meant to keep everyone afraid, to round us up and force us to march on Brylov as soon as the Margrave gives word. But they’re frightening the children! I don’t know how he’s doing it!”
A miserable sigh escapes me. If only my father had known these wooden men were destined to harass and intimidate the village … that the Margrave is making a travesty of his life’s work. Of our work.
“Now he’s taken to having his men parse out rations instead of letting folks sell at the market. So people are mostly keeping to the village limits, shut up inside their homes to avoid the soldiers, trying to share food when they have some to spare. The smart ones are hiding what they get, storing up for the worst if winter comes early. Most are mighty nervous to go about at night, fearing that thing”—he points to the saboteur with a leery eye—“will be after them if they do anything the Margrave doesn’t approve of. It’s bad out there, Piro.”
I swallow.
“How is he doing it? It’s magic, isn’t it?” Fonso growls, his voice low. “Spells and such?’
“I don’t know exactly,” I say truthfully. “I believe he’s practicing some spells of his own, and blaming me to cover up his misdeeds.”
“You’re not to be blamed for anything, Piro,” Fonso says solemnly, putting his massive hand gently on my shoulder. “We all know that. There’s talk of finding allies in Brylov, of overthrowing the young Margrave and appointing someone of our own choosing, should the King agree.”
“Overthrowing?” I whisper. “Is that even possible?” I adjust the position of the right eye just a nudge. Despite what I said to keep the guards away, I won’t allow my princess to start life cross-eyed.
“It’s possible,” Fonso says, eyes gleaming. “The young Margrave is weak, though he’s doing his bloody best to hide it. He may have the threat of magic and your saboteur on his side, but he doesn’t have the support he needs beyond that. And surely the King would be upset to learn our young master poisoned the royally appointed Margravina of Brylov. The old lady just turned the bucket, heard it myself at The Louse and Flea.”
“And will the King learn of that?” I murmur.
“He will if the Maker’s Guild proves our worth. The tailor and Anke have some connections in Elinbruk and hope to spread the word. And also, if we have our way, your stay here will not be long.”
As his hand drops casually from my shoulder, he deftly slides a small, folded note into the front pocket of my work apron. He does it so subtly, I doubt I would have noticed had it not been right under my nose.
“Truly?” I say in one breath, and then in the other, “It’s too dangerous. Don’t waste your energy on me. Laszlo would think nothing of pulling you all away from your homes and tossing you
