Bran puts his hand to the door and gives it a shove. Together we peer into the night, finding ourselves looking up from the dug-out cellar door into Wolfspire Hall’s kitchen farmyard. The way is clear. Bran mounts the steps and starts to run. I am right on his heels.
We make it to edge of the sheep pens before a shadow drops like a poacher’s net from a steeply pitched barn roof. The shadow tackles Bran to the ground, pinning him soundly. The silhouette binds him with ease and then looks to me, seeming to judge whether I am going to run or join in the struggle.
It’s the saboteur, of course. I move toward her, hoping to employ the same trick I did with the wooden soldiers, to see if I can read the spell ensnaring her, but I am stopped by heavy boot-falls. A hand clamps roughly around my neck.
“Only you would try something as foolhardy as this.” The gravelly voice of the steward rakes across my ears. “It’s getting tiresome, having to fetch you puppetmasters back over and over again. If I have my way, you’ll be going straight to your own cell.”
“Please,” I plead, “if you let us go, we’ll leave and go far from here. The Margrave never has to know you helped us. We can’t let him continue to do this, to practice the old spells and harm his own people. It’s all against the old laws! You know it’s not right. It may cost me my life!”
“That’s the price you pay for being a maker,” Baldrik growls, turning me around to march me back into Wolfspire Hall. “You must do what you’re told. Your services to the Margrave have yet to be rendered, and you’ll not fail to meet them on my watch.”
The saboteur keeps in step with us and carries Bran handily over her shoulder, unconscious and limp as a sack of grain.
“He’ll be heading to the Keep. As for you, you’re going straight back to your room and I don’t envy you the consequences of the Margrave learning of this indiscretion. The young lord doesn’t take kindly to treason.”
He stops suddenly and pats me down, feeling in all my pockets. He quickly comes up with the key and utters several choice curses while sticking it deep into his vest pocket.
I failed. I failed everyone who risked themselves to save me.
“You’ll be watched now, closer than you’ve ever been watched before. And you’ll not rest until you’ve made that thing you’re building exactly as he wants it.”
“But don’t you see what he’s doing?” I cry in protest. “He’s using the very magic he claims is unlawful. And he’s using it against us all! Surely you’re in as much danger as I, if he were to turn on you!”
“I have served him and his father since he was a spindly lad, knee-high. I know my place and am well compensated for it,” he snarls, shoving me ahead. “And if you’d like to keep your head attached to your neck, little puppet-wench, you’d best learn yours.”
CHAPTER 26
THE MARGRAVE RAGES AND BELLOWS AT ME FOR HOURS THE next morning, after learning of my near escape. He’s irate about the damage done to his little whipping boy, and slices me across the knuckles with the remains of a broken, charred arm while the steward holds me firm.
“I hoped you could see the benefit of what you were doing, Pirouette Leiter. Hoped you understood the great gift I’ve offered you, to see another life given by the power of the blue moon. I would gladly do worse to you and your hands right now, if I didn’t need you to finish my bride.
“You obviously cannot be trusted. So, in addition to the guard at the door, I’ve set the saboteur to keep watch on you, so that her keen eyes may keep you at your task when my own cannot. And now,” he sneers, “you must be chained. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.”
A shackle is brought in and I am cuffed at the ankle, tethered by a long chain to one of the beams holding up the roof in the corner of the gallery. I can reach my small room to lie down and hobble over to the worktable, but I cannot go out into the observatory any longer to talk to the trees.
As for the saboteur, Laszlo seems satisfied that I am being watched by an assassin. He doesn’t realize I don’t fear her, so I cower when she draws near and he’s in the room, playing into his misconception. While she is under his spell I don’t seem to be able to affect her at all, to command her as I did the wooden soldiers, but I still talk to her when we are left alone, appreciating the company. She mostly stalks around or hovers like a black fly over Prima and me. Sometimes she returns to her cage, where she seems to be resting.
With my heart heavy and my hands smarting, I return to work on Prima. With each stroke of my chisel and blade, my despair grows. My father and Emmitt are gone, Fonso has been hurt. Bran’s been tossed in the Keep. Laszlo von Eidle will not stop until he has every last thing of mine he wants in his collection.
When the tailor is brought in the next day, I can barely look Benito in the eyes, knowing his son was sent to a cell because of me. But he seems glad to see me, ever kind and gracious despite the deepening wrinkles around his eyes and new strands of white dusting his black hair. He shies away from the saboteur crouching in the corner, trying to keep his
