Iron and magic did not mix, Dora remembered with belated dread. Everything else seemed to have come with her in some fashion, as she scryed this strange place, but the scissors had stayed behind with her body.
Lord Hollowvale smiled, and Dora knew that he had an inkling of her vulnerability. He took a few languid, graceful strides towards her, as Dora closed her eyes tightly and sucked in her breath.
Think of the vanity, she told herself. Think of the wood beneath my hands. I must think of absolutely anything else but this.
A cold hand settled upon Dora’s shoulder. The slight touch drove all the air from her lungs in the space of an instant. Something very important snapped in Dora’s chest, with the same terrible sort of finality as a piano wire being cut.
“How very good of you to visit, firstborn child of Georgina Ettings,” said the marquess. “Please, allow me to welcome you to the Hollow House.”
Chapter 15
If Dora had been anyone else, she was certain that she would have been panicking. As it stood, there was a deep and terrible dread in her heart; but since she could not possibly react with anything other than calm, she opened her eyes on Lord Hollowvale and asked: “What have you done to me?”
Lord Hollowvale frowned at Dora consideringly. “I have taken the rest of my debt,” he told her. “This half of your soul shall return to the mortal world no longer. But what a problem! I had imagined that you would be one person again, and that does not seem to be the case.”
Dora looked towards the other version of her which still sat at the pianoforte. The other Dora leapt to her feet with a furious cry. “You must let her go at once, you monster!” she exclaimed. “Are you not content with what you have done to me already?”
Lord Hollowvale tsked at the other Dora. “Your manners!” he sighed. “How can they still be so awful, Theodora? After all of my labour to increase your virtues, you remain incapable of maintaining a lady’s composure.” His pale blue eyes flickered back towards Dora, whom he still held in place with his hand on her shoulder. “But I see now! So long ago, I took the more passionate half of your soul. If I can knit the two of you together again, I shall have a proper English daughter for certain!”
Dora’s stomach turned at that. “Daughter?” she whispered. “I am not your daughter. Surely not.“
“Oh, but you are!” Lord Hollowvale told her pleasantly. “I make it a point to own at least one of every English thing. I told your mother that I wished to own an English child, and she sold you to me well before you were even born. As you grew, she insisted that you were of even more incalculable worth. Why, I must have given her a fortune in faerie gold! Before she died, she declared that a daughter was in fact a priceless thing to have.” He laughed at this, as though it were a joke. “But now I have an English daughter, and I will be the subject of absolute jealousy! I was already much envied for owning only half of one.”
Dora looked towards her other half. I shall call her Theodora, she thought. For I must call her something other than ‘me’ if I am to stay sane at all. Theodora was indeed much more passionate than Dora was; even now, tears streamed down her face with ease, and she was flushed and trembling with anger. For just a moment, Dora envied her, before she realised how silly a notion that was.
“I cannot stay here,” Dora informed Lord Hollowvale evenly. “This is not where I belong, and I have things which I must do. You must send me back at once.”
Lord Hollowvale shook his head at her, bemused. “My dear Theodora,” he said. “Both halves of you are impudent after all. But do not worry! I am an incredibly generous lord, as you will come to find. I will see that your virtues are increased a thousandfold! You shall be the most envious English daughter that ever a faerie lord had—all patience and sweetness and discretion!” He patted her fondly on the cheek. “You may ask your other half. I have found her all of the very best lessons, have I not?”
“So many lessons!” Theodora sputtered. “And never any time for rest! You left me three days to play the piano once and forgot about me, and my fingers began to bleed!”
“And you are quite the accomplished pianist!” Lord Hollowvale sighed proudly. “I do hear that is a mark of virtue in an English daughter, and so you are even more virtuous now than when I first brought you here!” He turned Dora around by the shoulders to face her counterpart. “Alas,” he said. “I must see to a previous appointment very shortly. But as soon as I return, I am sure that I shall find a way to make you a single person again. In the meantime, do become reacquainted with yourself, Theodora!”
Lord Hollowvale released Dora and turned back towards the door. Before she could protest, he had closed it behind him. There was the distinctive sound of a key turning in a lock—and then, the sound of retreating footsteps.
Dora tried the knob anyway, rattling it violently. She pushed her shoulder against the door, and even tried to kick at it with her foot. All of this accomplished less than nothing: the door refused to budge.
“It will not open,” Theodora told her, with a heavy, mournful sigh. “I have tried so many times.” Dora glanced back and saw that Theodora’s lower lip had begun to tremble. “Oh no, I am likely to cry again. Why am I like this all of the time? Did I somehow leave all of my patience with you when he tore me away?”
Dora turned to consider herself calmly.
