With the saboteur loose among the people again, I consider that it might be best if Prima is not awakened after all. Alive, this princess may be even more powerful than I anticipate … or more deadly.
Still, selfishly, I have to consider that waking Prima is also my best chance at being freed from my curse, at leaving that last vestige of my past behind. Yet what good is it to be set free from the splinters only to be trapped here the rest of my days? I have no guarantee Laszlo will release me when I’m finished. For all I know he intends to keep me installed in the gallery permanently, a lifetime sentence as his own personal puppetmaster. The thought curdles the remains of my supper.
Or if I stay and the spell works, I fret, what if the grief and rebellion in my own heart causes her to be cursed, to suffer as I do or with a malady far worse? What if by repeating the blue moon’s magic, I am cursing another to suffer in turn? It’s not fair!
Oh, Papa. What do I do now?
Thinking of my father only causes more doubt. I know the moon’s magic will exact a price, just as it did for him. What if the price the blue moon demands is one I am not willing to pay?
Flocks of questions haunt me unceasingly, a swarm of ravens returning to pick at my carcass, tearing me apart piece by piece. The weightiest fears land on my chest after the clock strikes twelve.
What if, instead of building a masterpiece … I am making a monster?
Knowing what’s become of the saboteur, the most formidable question of all claws its way into my heart.
And if I am capable of making a monster, what does that make me?
CHAPTER 24
THE NEXT DAY, THE DOOR TO THE GALLERY BURSTS OPEN LIKE the advent of a winter gale and Laszlo strides noisily forth, shutting out the guards in the hall.
“Look what’s just arrived,” he crows, placing a small wooden chest on the worktable.
Wiping my hands on a rag, I come over to inspect the object. A stab pierces my heart. I recognize it. It’s from Curio.
“Open it,” he gloats.
“But, don’t you wish to open it?” I stammer.
“Already have. I want you to see it. Something new for my collection.”
The Margrave is positively giddy, which I take as a bad sign. Tentatively, I drop my rag and use my thumbs to shift the outer locks on the wooden chest. I lift the lid carefully.
“Oh!” I gasp, unable to keep the memories from rushing in.
Gently, I lift a marionette I had long forgotten from the crinkled paper wrapping. A queen, an exquisite puppet my father made years ago—far older than me. She has jet black hair and a delicate face, smooth as glass. She’s clad in a gown the color of milk, studded with pearls and lace, and remains untouched by the years that have passed, looking just as fresh as when I last saw her. This was a marionette Gephardt created to please his late wife, a portrait of her in puppet form.
“The Lady Cosima,” I whisper.
“Is that what she’s called?” Laszlo asks, swooping in with greedy hands to snatch her away. “Funny! Leave it to the puppetmaster to have a piece like this stashed away in the muck and damp somewhere. No doubt she was rescued from Gephardt Leiter’s stores where she would surely gather dust and rot. This one should most certainly be on display in my collection, where she can be truly appreciated!”
He walks to an empty rack on the gallery wall, one right next to the small puppet version of himself, and drapes the Lady Cosima triumphantly over a waiting hook.
My father only ever showed her to me once, when I was asking questions about his wife and what she was like. Papa unswaddled her with great ceremony from her wrappings high in the large wardrobe in his room, opening the rustling onionskin paper as delicately as if he were handling gold leaf.
“How did you—” I falter.
“A gift! Delivered by hand from the Maker’s Guild. In honor of my newly acquired position as Margrave, or so the note read. And, I suspect,” he says with a dark smile, “a peace offering, an attempt to get back into my good graces after the glassblower’s accident. Perhaps you are not all as thick-witted as you seem. At any rate, I am never one to refuse a new marionette, especially one so fine as this. She deserves to be with me, rather than locked away in a box. Look at those hands! Those eyes! That dress!”
His eyes light up. “That dress! We must send the tailor revised instructions immediately. The dress my own bride will wear should match this one exactly!” He stops to laugh a second, looking from the Lady Cosima to Prima and back.
“Why, it’s uncanny! The resemblance! Have you noticed it? How perfect,” he says, stroking Prima’s smooth cheeks. “If you ever misbehave for me, darling,” he croons, pointing to Lady Cosima’s small hanging form, “we shall have your own whipping girl at the ready. How splendid!”
I stare at Lady Cosima, appalled.
“Now, I have some important matters to attend to. Pick up the pace, Pirouette. The days are waning. Send them in!” Laszlo yells to the guards out in the hall.
Nan and Tiffin are brought in by the guards, laden with materials and tools. They must have been waiting in the hall all this time, after handing over the marionette. Laszlo looks them over with a shrewd eye while they quietly ready their things to begin constructing the princess’s hands just as he ordered.
Earlier this morning he was berating me for the princess’s own cheekbones being, in his opinion, too wide.
