Gregory stood in front of Hana, placing a hand on top of her head. “Say good-bye to your nurse, then, Mina.” Before Mina could even ask what he was doing, Hana’s body had hardened to wood and clattered to the ground as a pile of twigs and branches.
Of course, Mina thought. The only maid willing to serve a magician’s lonely wife and daughter was one Gregory had created. She should have known.
Gregory walked back into the house, leaving Mina alone with the remnants of her nurse. She stared at the pile wide-eyed, and she shivered despite the sunlight. One moment Hana had been here, real and human, and now she was nothing but kindling for a fire. Mina kept waiting for tears to come—she may not have been fond of Hana, but she had never wished her dead. But no tears came, and her lack of emotional display made her feel …
Heartless.
But that’s what I am, she thought. That’s what I’ll always be.
Mina stepped over the pile and followed her father inside.
4
LYNET
Crouching in the snow, Lynet peered into the small, dingy window of the surgeon’s basement workroom. Over the past several weeks, she’d fallen into the habit of following the new surgeon instead of attending her lessons, but she thought it was a worthwhile trade. After all, could her lessons have taught her that the surgeon’s name was Nadia, or that she was only seventeen?
Lynet watched Nadia now as she read and made sketches in her journal, pausing only to push back the strands of black hair that kept falling over her eyes. She rested her chin on one hand, her fingers turning the pages with something like reverence. Sometimes the hint of a smile crossed her face as she scribbled down a note. Lynet loved these moments of calm most of all, when the focused, serious surgeon relaxed just enough for Lynet to see the person underneath. It was during these times that Lynet wished she could watch Nadia from inside the room rather than from outside the window, that she could speak to her and know her thoughts as well as her actions.
But it was too late for that now; Lynet had spoiled it all by following her for so long. How could Lynet ever speak to her and pretend not to know who she was or how she spent her days? Why would Nadia ever agree to speak to her when she knew how Lynet had haunted her like a ghost?
A sudden flurry of movement startled Lynet as two men came bursting into the room, one of them supporting the other, holding him up because his foot was mauled and bloody. Lynet’s stomach lurched. She recognized the wounded man as a kitchen servant, and she started to turn away from the gruesome sight, but then—then Nadia reacted, and Lynet couldn’t look away at all.
Nadia rolled up the sleeves of her tunic, revealing lean but strong forearms, and knelt to examine the foot. She moved quickly but precisely around the room, fetching a wooden block and—to Lynet’s horror—a saw.
Lynet knew what would happen next as Nadia propped the servant’s wounded foot on the block. The blood, the white of bone, the look of anguish on the poor man’s face as he bit down on a rag to keep from screaming—Lynet tried to block them from her vision. But she couldn’t stop watching Nadia during the entire procedure, her stern look of concentration the one source of stability during such a terrible scene.
Just once, when the amputation was complete and Nadia was bandaging the stump, did Lynet see the surgeon betray any sign of agitation. Nadia let out a single, relieved exhale, her eyes closing briefly, but only when her head was bent, her face hidden from the servants—but not from Lynet.
Lynet decided that was as much as she could handle for the morning, and she climbed up the castle walls to her bedroom window, thinking herself a coward. Here she was, unable to speak to a girl when that girl regularly faced horrors without even flinching. She decided she would at least look in on that kitchen servant later and make sure he didn’t lose his position because of his injury.
She climbed in through the window, swinging both legs over the ledge, and nearly let out a yelp when she saw her father sitting in her chair, waiting for her.
“Lynet, we’ve talked about this,” he said.
No matter how stern or forbidding her father tried to appear, he always seemed sad rather than angry—perhaps it was the way his voice sounded like a sigh, or the dark circles under his deep-set eyes, or the way his hair and beard always seemed a little grayer every time she saw him, as though he were slowly being drained of all color. Lynet would have preferred that he scold her so she could feel indignant in response, but she didn’t know how to respond to that disappointed note in his voice other than to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Papa, I was just…”
“Just skipping your morning lessons? Just climbing in through your window despite your father’s many warnings?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, more softly this time.
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he shook his head and stood, holding his hand out to her. “We’ll talk about this later. Today of all days, we should be at peace with each other.”
Lynet frowned. “What’s today?”
He dropped his hand and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s two weeks before your birthday. It’s time for our yearly visit. Have you forgotten?”
“Oh, that’s … that’s right,” Lynet said. She had been so distracted following Nadia that she had forgotten this day was approaching—or maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember. Tiny prickles went up and down her arms, but she forced a smile and said, “Are we going now?”
He nodded, and Lynet followed him out of the room. Lynet let her father lead, walking slightly behind him so that he wouldn’t notice the deep breaths she took to calm her nerves. Normally she would have prepared herself, but this year she had forgotten, and so the dread came to her all at once, in a flood of nausea.
They passed other members of the court as they made their way down to the courtyard and around to the garden, all of them bowing their heads in solemn greeting. Lynet could see on their faces the moment they remembered what day it was and where the king and the princess were going—a slight intake of breath, a smile quickly turned to a somber frown. Today was a day of mourning.