Magic Under Stone Read online

“What will you do with Erris Tanharrow when you find him?”

  “Depends what shape he’s in.” Luka sounded weary, but beneath it was hard resolve. “Why don’t you bring him here first, and then I’ll decide.”

  Chapter 1

  I’m not sure what is worse: failing to save someone or saving him only halfway. That question kept me awake nights and followed me into the mornings, when I awoke to the weight of a silver key around my neck.

  I still wore my nightgown as I slipped from my room into his. Erris was sleeping-if you could call it that-on his stomach, clothed except for his jacket. His shirt was slit down the back to expose a keyhole surrounded by clockwork that was mostly concealed by the shirt.

  It was hard to believe that just weeks ago, he had been a true automaton, with a painted wooden face and articulated fingers that moved stiffly along the keys of a piano. His soul, the soul of the lost fairy prince, had been trapped inside, unable to speak. He had been my secret, a tragic secret that tore at my heart, and yet I had never had a secret like that. It made me feel alive. I would be the one to set him free from his prison. I would be the one to summon the Queen of the Dead and give Erris life.

  I hadn’t realized my efforts would gain him only a half life and make me the keeper of his prison. His face and hands looked supple as flesh, felt supple as flesh, and he moved like a living man, but beneath his clothes he was still just clockwork, and every night when he wound down, he had to trust that I would be there in the morning to help him wake. It was not exactly the romance I had hoped for.

  Each morning, a wave of profound loneliness swept over me. The key was a burden no one would understand.

  He was still, like someone who had passed away in his sleep. Not a breath or a twitch. I put the key in the keyhole and twisted five and a half times, the length we had determined would give him a full day before he wound down. The key, as always, almost seemed to have a mind of its own once it was slotted in place. There was none of the tension a clockwork toy would have.

  I pulled out the key and slipped from the room. I was out the door in three ticks.

  I used to wait while he awoke. I thought he would want to see a friendly face. But sometimes he cried out as if he had seen something awful in the realm of dreams. Other times he lay motionless, haunted eyes staring before they met mine. He never seemed to come to peacefully. At first, he would try to smile and tell me of his nightmares, of his lost family or being chased by strange beasts or any number of other awful things, but one day he snapped at me not to ask him what he saw ever again. So I started to leave and he didn’t tell me to come back. I think it made it easier for him to pretend he woke like a normal person.

  I returned to my room. Karstor’s maid helped me dress in a fetching silk gown of dark blue with green velvet trim and cummerbund and pulled my hair back in soft wings over my ears, with a knot at the nape of my neck. Even fine clothes weren’t enough to make things feel proper and normal anymore.

  I joined Karstor at the breakfast table. He had a book opened against the rim of his plate, but he looked up from it when I entered the room.

  “Good morning, Nimira.”

  “Good morning, Dr. Greinfern.” Erris called him Karstor, and that was how I thought of him, but of course I was not so presumptuous to refer to the head of the Sorcerer’s Council, the ambassador of magic, by his given name.

  The table was already spread with good, simple food: a basket of bread, a plate of large slices of golden cheese, a crock of yellow butter, and a pot of coffee. I could hear the cook, Birte, singing in the kitchen as she often did.

  Erris wouldn’t join us; his clockwork innards would not accept food.

  “Ready to set out tomorrow?” Karstor asked.

  “I suppose so. I will miss you, sir.” I had known, of course, that Karstor was a busy man. He had just ascended to the head of the Sorcerer’s Council after the revelation of the crimes of his predecessor, Mr. Smollings. He had never expected to take in boarders, I was sure, especially not a long-lost fairy prince. It would likely be a conflict of interest, considering the political tension between the people of Lorinar and the fairies. Still, some deep-down part of me had hoped he would look upon us as the children he never had, because it stung to go away.

  “I will miss you too,” he said softly. “But Ordorio Valdana will know more than I do.”

  “Is he the most powerful sorcerer in Lorinar, do you think?”

  “He is, at least, the most powerful necromancer,” Karstor said. “And that is what you will want. Besides that, he was involved in the war when Erris was cursed. Maybe he will know something.”

  I put my hand to Hollin’s letter. I kept it in my dress pocket at all times, even though I knew every word by heart now. If anyone knows how to help Erris, it might be Mr. Valdana. They were not the most hopeful words, with the “if” and the “might.” The suggestion had come from Hollin’s wife, Annalie, who could commune with the spirits. The spirits told Annalie that Mr. Valdana was once married to a fairy woman. Melia Tanharrow… Erris’s sister.

  I wished it were Erris’s sister we were going to see, but she was dead. His whole family had died during his years imprisoned in an automaton.

  “Don’t despair,” Karstor said, noticing how I had begun to pick at my food. “Look how much you have already done. You have helped Erris so now he can move and speak.”

  “Yes, but…” I stopped. How stupid I would sound, to say what I worried was true-that Erris seemed to care for me more before I helped him.

  “He needs time to grieve,” Karstor said. “It takes time.” Karstor had lost something too, I reminded myself. His dear friend Garvin had been murdered by Smollings.

  I almost wished I had something solid to grieve. Every day I told myself to be strong for Erris, but it was hard to be strong so unceasingly. “I know,” I said.

  “It’s not all you have done. You helped prove that Smollings murdered Garvin, and removed him from the council. You can’t know how much that means to me, Nimira. Have I ever thanked you properly?”

  I made a vague sound. I couldn’t remember. “I didn’t do anything with the thought of being thanked.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “But you should remember that your bravery helped more people than just Erris. You brought me peace, knowing that Garvin was avenged, and that is no small thing.”

  I smiled, just a little, at that. Sometimes my bravery only brought me trouble, and it was good to know that it could bring someone peace.

  “I know it all must look a little bleak right now,” Karstor continued. “But we never know what fate has in store for us.”

  It was true. A year ago, I was just a foreign girl of no importance, dancing in a cheap show, and today I was having breakfast with one of the most powerful men in the country. Tomorrow, I would be on a train north to find a man who would, I hoped, be more powerful still.

  Chapter 2

  The train brought us as far as Cernan, the northernmost stop on a route that stretched almost the entire length of the coast. This place was a far cry from where we had begun, the grand station in New Sweeling, with its golden halls and stairs, statues and glittering gaslights.

  There was no one to meet us, of course, although plenty to stare at us. The train station was hardly more than a shack, and the few people who had gotten off with us were quickly met by their relations. At least, I assumed they were relations because they looked the same, but as I glanced at one lean, weather-beaten, dark-haired individual after another, I wondered if the entire town wasn’t related.

  I halted to check my map. “I didn’t think this town would be so small. I hope we can hire a hack.”

  Erris was quiet, as he had been for most of the journey. We had started out talking about the sights flying by our windows, and he had made jokes, but I could tell he was relieved when I fell silent for long stretches.

  A young man approached, perhaps only a year or two older than my seventeen years. He hitched up his trousers with
the hand not grasping a cigarette. “You people looking for something?” He placed a subtle emphasis on you people. I wondered if he could tell Erris was a fairy, but perhaps not, for I was the one who seemed the focus of his scrutiny. Fairies looked much like Lorinarian humans, but my black hair and brown skin marked me as a foreigner.

  The man at the ticket counter, the porter, the families greeting each other-all their attention subtly shifted to see what we would say.

  “Yes, we are,” I said, folding my map halfway. “Ordorio Valdana.”

  You could have heard the trees growing in the ensuing silence.

  An older man who had just stepped off the train marched into the conversation. “Ordorio Valdana? What would you want with him? What’s going on?”

  Erris finally spoke. “We’ve come a long way, from New Sweeling, looking for Mr. Valdana.”

  We could have told them the ambassador of magic himself had sent us, but the less talk we left in our wake, the better.

  The younger man took a drag on his cigarette. “The minute I saw them, I said to myself, I bet they’re here to see that old lunatic. Well, he’s not even home, so you might as well get right back on that train.”

  I had grown sadly accustomed to being condescended to ever since I’d arrived on these shores. They’d have to do better than that to get rid of me. “When will he be back?”

  “Probably not until spring,” the older man said.

  The older man’s wife had been waiting behind him, but now she joined his side and the conversation. I half expected the man in the ticket booth to abandon his post and trot out his opinion as well. She said, “You know that man sold his soul to the devil?”

  “Come again?” I didn’t know if she meant it literally, or if the fact that Mr. Valdana was a necromancer had biased the town against him.

  The men nodded. “You don’t want anything to do with him if you know what’s good for you.”

  “What’s good for us?” Erris repeated. “No, we certainly don’t know that. Where does Mr. Valdana live?” he pressed.

  The townspeople exchanged looks, as if deciding to wash their hands of our fate. The old woman pointed toward the bald-topped mountain looming north of the train station. “On the shore by the mountain.”

  “Thank you,” Erris said, bowing in a courtly way that left them flustered. “Come on, Nimira.”

  I was relieved to see him taking charge, but then, finding Mr. Valdana was the only thing he cared about since learning that his sister had been married to the man. Melia’s husband was, in a sense, the only tie Erris had to what once had been a boisterous royal family of ten children. Yet, I was terrified that after we met Mr. Valdana and heard the fate of Erris’s sister, he would have nothing else to live for.

  I didn’t delude myself that I might be enough. Never mind that he was all I had too. It had been a long time since I’d had anyone to care for.

  Erris carried both our bags to a waiting hack. “We’re headed for the shore, by the mountain.”

  The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Valdana?”

  “Yes.”

  The driver snorted. He could have been a brother to the old man we’d spoken to a moment before; they shared the same large nostrils and jutting chin. “You’ve got money?”

  “Of course.” I patted my pocketbook.

  When the man pointed his eyes forward again, we took that as permission to board. Erris gave me a hand. He touched me only sparingly now, perhaps ashamed of what he was, and yet every time our skin met, my body betrayed me with tingles.

  I settled my skirts as Erris climbed up beside me, the weight of the clockwork skeleton beneath his clothes making the bench groan, but the driver didn’t notice.

  “You young folks know that Mr. Valdana’s sold his soul to the devil, don’t you?” he said, snapping the reins.

  “Truly?” I asked. “How do you know?”

  “His parents were good people,” the man continued. “But Valdana was always a strange one. When he came back from New Sweeling after all those years with that half-fairy baby-”

  Erris leaned forward. “Baby? Half-fairy baby?”

  The driver stiffened and withdrew like a lumbering old tortoise pulling in his shell. “Who are you folks, anyway?” he said. “I’m sure you heard he isn’t even home.”

  “We just want to look at the place,” I said. “We heard he’s a legendary sorcerer, and we’re… curious.”

  “I’m a sorcery student,” Erris added. I was glad he had offered a good explanation. Women were not permitted at sorcery schools in Lorinar, so I couldn’t think of much reason I would seek out a famous sorcerer myself.

  No response from the driver, but I didn’t think he believed us. We made such a strange pair I doubted any explanation would legitimize our presence.

  I was a little surprised no one recognized us from the papers, for that matter, which showed how far we had traveled. Just a month ago, the story had been on the front page of the New Sweeling Times: the lost prince of fairy, Erris Tanharrow, found trapped in the body of a clockwork man, thirty years after the war in which he had disappeared! Here, we were anonymous again, if not unnoticed.

  The carriage jolted along the surprisingly well-maintained road, past trees just beginning to turn color. Autumn began early this far north. The cool sea breeze felt pleasant now, but I could tell winter would be long and bitter-already the air whispered a warning of things to come.

  We drove through thick forest around the foot of the mountain, turned a corner, and there, visible in the distance where the land jetted toward the sea, was a formidable stone house with red trim around arched windows, giving it a surprisingly fanciful air. I knew it must belong to Mr. Valdana.

  “There it is,” the driver said.

  “I didn’t expect it to be so fetching,” Erris said, which prompted a sharp grunt from the driver, as if he scolded Erris for appreciating the house of such a man.

  There was barely a driveway carved through the trees. Some of the windows were open-a white curtain even fluttered outward from one-but there were no signs of life.

  “Shall I wait here while you satisfy your curiosity?” the driver asked.

  Erris was already climbing down. “No,” he said. “We’ll be here a while.”

  “Mr. Valdana isn’t home!” the driver said, sounding almost angry that we would want to spend time there.

  “But someone is,” Erris said, offering me a hand again.

  Curse the electricity of desire that shot from my fingertips to my heart at his touch! My body didn’t seem to know that beneath his clothing, Erris was nothing but clockwork.

  If that were ever to change, Mr. Valdana was our only hope.

  Chapter 3

  Overgrown grasses brushed my skirts as we approached the door. I put a hand to my hat as a strong wind, scented of the ocean, swept over us, almost roaring as it stirred a million leaves. Erris stopped for a moment and looked around, a strange expression on his face-half wonder and half sadness.

  I can’t feel the trees anymore, he had said to me, the first day after he had been granted a kind of life again.

  He knocked on the door.

  We waited long enough that I took a turn knocking. Someone was home, but would they ever answer the door?

  “Maybe we should try walking around the back,” I was saying, just as the ancient hinges creaked and the great slab of carved wood swung open with a groan.

  A girl looked out at us. I couldn’t help but notice her scar before anything else-it spread across her cheek, leaving the skin red and mottled, suggesting an accident with a lantern or candle, perhaps. Without it, she might have been lovely. She was almost as dark as me, with glossy hair the deep brown of pine bark and bold, round eyes. She was tall and slightly plump, in a simple blue dress and apron, no corset.

  “Who are you?” she said. She was holding a broom, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t hesitate to strike us with it if she felt the need.

  “Erris Tanharrow. My s
ister was Melia Tanharrow.” Erris cupped his hands in a fairy gesture I’d seen him make before. It seemed to indicate a plea.

  Now the bold fire in the girl’s eyes was replaced with something welcoming. The change was startling. She held the door open for us. “Oh, yes. Of course. We had hoped you’d come!”

  There was a chill in the dusty room, which had a museum quality to it-the tapestries on the walls were faded; the chairs were ornate and obviously fine, but the fabric seats were frayed. A few newer needlepoint pillows were strewn about and looked quite out of place. There was a sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace and, above it, a painting of a lovely woman carrying a beacon in one hand and a sword in the other. Candles lined the mantel, unlit but dripping with wax.

  “The Queen of the Longest Night,” I said softly, gazing at the painting. She had been the one to grant Erris life. Necromancers sometimes worshipped her, for she led spirits into the next world.

  “Er… yes,” the girl said. “I’m sorry it’s so dusty. I try and keep up with it during the summer while Mr. Valdana is here, but…” She shrugged.

  I assumed she must be the housekeeper, then, and she appeared to have no help keeping up the house. She looked about my own age.

  “Mr. Valdana told me you might come,” she continued. “Maybe… maybe you can be of some help. I’m Celestina.”

  “What is it you need help with, Celestina?” Erris asked. “We are actually here to ask for Mr. Valdana’s help ourselves.”

  “Oh, he won’t come back until spring, I’m afraid,” Celestina said.

  “Is there any chance he might?” Erris persisted.

  “Or maybe we could go to him,” I suggested. “We can’t wait until spring.”

  “I don’t know where he’s gone,” Celestina said. “He travels the world. He might be overseas, he might have crossed the gate into fairy. The northern gate isn’t far at all.”

  Erris frowned. We didn’t dare go to the fairy lands just now. Although Erris was the direct heir to the throne, his cousin had ruled for the last thirty years and would not be happy to see Erris.