Echo North Page 12

  I thought again of my scars, entirely erased in the worlds of the books. What would Hal think of me, if he truly saw what I was? What would I think of him?

  I took his hand, smoothing my thumb across his skin. I couldn’t imagine him as an old man. I didn’t want to. His eyes met mine as he lifted his free hand to my face. He loosed my mask, let it fall into my lap, then grazed his thumb across my cheek. Heat poured through me. I was caught in that moment, fixed, unmovable.

  “Shall we dance?” he asked me softly. “One last gavotte before midnight?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  He pulled me upright and led me back out onto the floor, his hands warm and trembling around me. I didn’t notice Mokosh, openly staring at us from within her partner’s arms. I didn’t notice Adella, ripping off her masque and throwing herself at her betrothed’s feet, begging him to loose her from their engagement.

  There was only Hal, his breath in my hair, his chest close to mine.

  We danced, until the ballroom shook and fire exploded into the night, and an army of men armed with bayonet-fitted rifles burst in, death flashing in their eyes.

  I LEFT THE LIBRARY, STILL wearing the gold dress, my ears ringing with music and the incongruous clash of battle. The corridor outside was dim and earthen, lit only with orange torches that were beginning to detach from the walls—almost midnight. I walked quickly, instructing the house to bring me the shortest way back to the bedroom.

  I rounded a few corners and it was there: the carved red door, the lantern growing a tail and floating away.

  I didn’t hear the wolf’s step behind me, just his voice: “It suits you.”

  I turned to find him watching me, his head cocked to one side, and I fingered the skirt of the gown self-consciously.

  “Did you have a lovely evening?”

  Guilt bit sharp—I’d forgotten him again, in all the excitement. I stepped through the door and the wolf came after me, nudging it shut with his nose.

  “Are you going to forgive me for pulling you into that book-mirror?” I said quietly.

  “You think I have not forgiven you?”

  “You don’t even want to look at me.”

  His amber eyes peered up into mine. “The year slips away. Already I find I cannot bear it.”

  “Bear what, Wolf?”

  “The thought of being parted from you.”

  “Why? I’ve done nothing to help you.”

  “You tend the house as deftly as I have ever seen. And you—and you have been a good friend.”

  I swallowed, thinking of his angry words in the dark. “We’re friends?”

  “Yes, Echo. Of course we are.”

  The dress weighed suddenly heavy on me, and I didn’t know how to look at him. “In the books, I don’t have any scars.” I don’t know why I said it.

  The wolf watched me, his tail flicking back and forth. “Do you hate them?”

  I went and knelt beside him; the gown’s metal embroidery snagged on the carpet. Hesitantly, I brushed my fingertips along the top of his head. He pressed his muzzle into my hand. “I don’t mind them as much, here. I’m glad … I’m glad they brought me to you.” I realized that I meant it.

  “So am I,” said the wolf. “I should not be. But I am.”

  Impulsively, I hugged him.

  I got ready for bed behind a screen in a hurry, the gold dress a puddle of silk around my ankles. I was sorry to hang it in the wardrobe, sad to bid the evening farewell.

  I fell asleep with the wolf beside me, and dreamed Hal and I were still dancing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING, THE WOLF WAS waiting for me in the corridor outside the bedroom.

  I was surprised to see him and he ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. “It is no use mourning the end of the year, when it has yet to happen. I do not want to waste any more time.”

  So we paced round the house and tended it together like we had at the beginning. I was glad of his company—some of the more unruly rooms were hard to manage on my own. We checked bindings, spun the spiders’ golden thread onto spools, collected water from the rain room and light from the sunroom.

  We spent over an hour in the room with the venomous garden—it was getting out of hand. We hacked away at the vine growing out of the well, and poured water from the rain room over the poisonous plants, which made them wither.

  We were almost finished, when the floor began to shake and a resounding boom splintered through the air. I slipped and skidded into the well, where the black vine we’d just finished cutting back was already growing again. The wolf snatched my sleeve and dragged me away before the vine could grab me and sink its sharp tendrils in.

  I scrambled to my feet. The room continued to shake, and a large crack appeared in the floor, stone grinding and dust swirling. The black vine began to scream.

  “Echo!” barked the wolf. “We have to leave. Now.”

  The shaking grew worse, the crack in the floor spread wider. We leapt across, and ran for the door.

  The black vine shrieked and wailed. Just as we passed the threshold out into the hall, the room fell away into darkness.

  I turned, heart thundering. There was no room anymore. Just coiling, echoing, blankness. Ragged threads hung from the door frame, like a piece of cloth had been ripped away. Think of the house as a quilt, the rooms as patches.

  “Shut the door!” cried the wolf.

  I yanked it closed.

  It shuddered and began to melt into the wall. In the space of a few heartbeats, the door vanished entirely, not even a thread remaining.

  “What was that?” I gasped.

  The wolf’s ears were pinned back, a growl low in his throat. “It’s started. The unbinding of the house.”

  “What do you mean, the unbinding? It isn’t even remotely close to midnight.”

  The wolf shook his head. “I do not mean that. This is more serious. The house is connected to me, and I am running out of time. I fear rooms will continue to be unbound, more and more as the days pass. I hope the entire house will not have unraveled by the time the year is ended.”

  I stared at the wall where the door had been, my pulse dull and heavy. “The entire house?”

  He dipped his white head. “I hope not.”

  “What would have happened if we were still behind the door when the room became unbound?”

  “We would have been unbound with it. Our lives. Our souls. We would have become nothing.”

  Horror shuddered through me. “I don’t mind that room being gone … but what about the others?”

  The wolf answered my unspoken question: “It could be any of the rooms. We will have to take care.”

  I was more shaken than I wanted to admit. Any of the rooms meant the library could be unbound next. I could lose access to Mokosh.

  I could lose Hal entirely. What would happen to him if he was truly trapped in the worlds of the books, as I suspected? What happened to a pressed flower if the book it was in was thrown into the fire?

  “Is there anything we can do?” I asked the wolf.

  “Be vigilant,” he said. “Do not stray too far from the door.” His ears flicked sideways. His eyes met mine. “And hope that the bedroom is the very last room to be unbound.”

  THERE HAD TO BE SOMETHING else I could do. Some kind of old magic I could invoke to save the house and the library, and the wolf and Hal, too, while I was at it. I still didn’t want to set foot in the bauble room, so when the wolf excused himself for the afternoon, I went straight to the library, determined to finally find some answers.

  I stepped into a book-mirror about a real historical king who was famous for his vast book collection. His library was huge, shelves stretching up to the ceiling, tall windows looking out over a shining moat. I glimpsed siege towers being erected just beyond the water, but decided to ignore them.

  An ancient librarian came round one of the shelves, mumbling to himself. He had wisps of white hair and a quill pe
n tucked behind one ear, ink dripping down his neck. He held a crackly sheet of parchment and was peering at it with a violent frown.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said politely, “Do you have any books about the old magic?”

  He looked up at me and somehow managed to frown even deeper than before. “Up there.” He pointed to a balcony accessed by a winding staircase. “Though I don’t know why you couldn’t read the signs.” He waved at a blue metal plate attached to one of the shelves, inscribed with swirly shapes that were maybe supposed to be letters but were wholly undecipherable to me.

  I just thanked him and climbed the stairs.

  The books were beautiful, with cracked purple or silver or indigo spines, embossed with gold and studded with gems. They smelled like roses and cinnamon. I opened one and tried to read it, but the words swam in front of my eyes and I had to put it back. A second book was the same, and a third. Disappointment squirmed inside of me.

  “You know, you really ought to be better prepared.”

  I jumped and wheeled about to see Hal leaning nonchalantly on the railing at the top of the staircase. He exuded a kind of amused boredom, but the faint sadness in his eyes belied him. “Don’t tell me you stepped into a living, breathing book to read the boring ordinary kind.” He stepped past me and plucked the volume I was attempting to decipher out of my hands. He gave it a careless perusal and stuffed it back onto the shelf.

  “Why can’t I read these?”

  “Made-up language. This library may be based on a real one, but it’s not like the author ever visited it, let alone read every volume on the shelf. Window dressing, Echo. That’s all this is. A glint of color and magic to give depth to the story.”

  I harrumphed, dissatisfied, and Hal grinned at me. He caught my eyes in his deep sea blue ones and I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  “But you should be better prepared,” he said, returning to his original theme.

  I gave him a wobbly smile. “For what?”

  He tapped the hilt of the sword strapped to his side. “Battles. You made a rather poor showing during the revolution the other night.” I flushed—Hal had pushed me behind a curtain before plunging into the fray. I’d alternately watched him fight and screwed my eyes shut against the shocking amount of blood. Mokosh had already left by the time the battle was over. “I thought you said it’s impossible to die in these books.”

  “It is, but you can get into some awful scrapes, and sometimes the book gets so wrapped up in itself it won’t let you stop reading. Always best to have some skills under your belt.”

  “Is it?”

  He grinned, not taking his eyes from mine. “Fortunately for you, I’m an excellent teacher.”

  “Hal, what are you talking about?”

  “Fencing lessons! What do you say?”

  I let my gaze drift to the spines of the magical books just behind him. I thought of the wolf and the unraveling house and the danger Hal himself was in. “Hal, I—”

  “You gratefully accept? Excellent!” He grabbed my hand and started pulling me down the stairs but I resisted and he released me instantly, a guarded expression coming into his eyes.

  “I’ve got research to do,” I explained.

  “I could help,” he offered. “What are you researching?”

  “The old magic.”

  “You can’t research that. It either is or it isn’t, you know.”

  “What on God’s green earth does that mean?”

  He laughed. “The old magic exists in and of itself. You can’t bind it in a book. And besides, you can’t actually read these books.”

  I couldn’t stop my grin. “I suppose you’re right. I guess a lesson or two couldn’t hurt.”

  He gave a triumphant whoop and we ran together laughing down the stairs.

  We started in the king’s armory, an echoing stone chamber lined with weapons of all shapes and sizes. Hal picked out a sword for me: it was smaller than his, and fit as perfectly into my hand as if it had been made for me. He taught me how to hold it, standing behind me and wrapping my fingers around the hilt, just so, angling my arm in the correct way, running one hand down my spine and telling me to stand up straighter. My face and neck grew hot. I tried to convince myself he wasn’t touching me more than was strictly necessary—I tried to convince myself I wasn’t disappointed when he stopped.

  He demonstrated fighting stances, explaining different ways to position my feet. He showed me how to raise and lower my blade, how to thrust and block. He told me fencing was like dancing, only I couldn’t let my opponent know which steps I was following.

  I mimicked his movements over and over, my arms growing shaky with fatigue, sweat dripping into my eyes. Practicing the piano definitely used a different set of muscles.

  And then, to my combined amusement and relief, the army of a rival nation burst into the armory—I recollected those siege towers I’d seen from the library—and we had to clear out in a hurry.

  “Meet me in The Thief’s Field!” Hal called as he sprinted away from me, dodging crossbow quarrels, his eyes dancing with laughter. “It’s pretty boring for half the book—we should be able to get some sessions in!”

  “Are you sure you can find your way?” I ducked as a bearded man with unnaturally red eyes swung a sword at my head. But Hal had already gone. “Library!” I cried, “The Thief’s Field!”

  I jumped into the mirror while it was still wavering into being; the sword whistled past my ear, the chaotic scene vanished.

  A heartbeat later, I tumbled out into sunshine and grass. Hal was scrambling to his feet with a bright laugh just ahead of me, and I wondered how to break it to him that I didn’t really have the energy for another lesson today. I realized I was still carrying the sword. Odd—I’d never brought an object from one book into another before.

  To my relief, Hal was tired, too, and we didn’t go more than a few rounds before he announced we were done for the day. After that, we sat with our backs pressed up against a wooden fence, staring down into a lush valley as the sun sank in a riot of yellow and orange. Every muscle in my body felt like it was made of jam and cream, but my heart sang with contentment.

  Hal grew quiet, solemn, his earlier giddy mood wholly evaporated. “Are you all right?” I asked him. I wished I dared take his hand.

  His eyes flicked across to mine, his face painted gold in the light of the setting sun. “I’m remembering.”

  “What are you remembering? And why now, do you think?” Hal turned his gaze back to the valley, drawing his knees up to his chin and wrapping his long hands around them. “You made me think. You made me wonder. I’ve been remembering little things. Quiet things.”

  I waited for him to go on.

  “My mother had gold hair. She liked to sing in the snow, and her favorite food was honeyed biscuits. She always put out seeds for the birds. Watched them from the window.”

  The sun sank lower, fading into a cerulean twilight and a chorus of crickets. Down in the valley, campfires flared orange.

  “I had six brothers and four sisters—I was the youngest of them all. I was spoiled. There were chocolates at Christmas, days skating in the winter, fireflies in the summertime.”

  “Do you remember what happened? Why you’re trapped here?”

  He shook his head.

  The darkness made me bold. “Come home with me. Back to the house under the mountain. Maybe you’ll remember more.”

  “I don’t think I can, Echo.”

  I chewed my lip. “In the real world, my face is covered in scars. People cross themselves when they see me. My stepmother would be happier if I was dead and my brother and father would be better off without me.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  I stood, something raw opening inside me. “Because I want you to know me, the real me. The me I am when I’m not here.”

  Hal rose, too, his eyes never leaving my face. Gingerly, he reached out a hand and touched my arm. The points of his fingers felt like
fire. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not here. I think I’m just a shadow, a wandering spirit. I’m not sure I even properly exist outside of the books.”

  I wanted to lean in to him, to wrap my arms around his neck and never let go. I wanted to kiss him, and the thought scared me and thrilled me all at once. But I just stood there.

  He stepped closer. He slid his hand into mine. I felt the print of every finger where they touched my skin. “Thank you,” he said. “For telling me.”

  The night was full above us, stars winking into being. “Do you imagine me very hideous now?” I whispered.

  “You could never be hideous.”

  My heart wrenched. A shooting star streaked across the sky, and I almost couldn’t bear the beauty of it.

  And then a mirror shimmered before us, the library calling me home for dinner.

  “Do you have to go?” Hal’s voice was warm and quiet in my ear.

  I would have stayed there forever, if not for the wolf. I squeezed Hal’s hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  His eyes searched mine. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  I STEPPED THROUGH THE MIRROR into a dark and unfamiliar valley, not the library as I had expected. Rain fell strangely upward; flowers grew sideways. Something like clouds floated past my knees, only they had ears and tails and wore tinkling bells around their cottony necks, giving the impression they were some kind of cat-cloud hybrid.

  Mokosh, suddenly beside me, gave a delighted squawk and snatched at my sleeve. “Echo! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m so glad you stepped through my mirror. My mother has given me permission to bring you home for a few days! We can go riding and fishing—I can show you all the secret passages in the palace. We can eat sherbet and stay up late into the night and oh it will be just wonderful, what do you say?” She seized my shoulders and whirled me around, the rain plastering her silver hair to her smooth forehead while the cat-clouds purred about her ankles.

  I was more than a little irritated that she had taken me away from Hal. “Mokosh, I—I can’t.”

  She let go of me. Her whole face fell. “Why not?”