Kizzy was already stripping off her filthy clothing as I reached her. Her curved stomach was smaller, her ribs showing through her back. She was transformed into a shape more akin to mine, and it did not suit her. Her scars shone on her arms, stopping at the elbow like gloves.
‘Don’t worry,’ she grinned, seeing my expression. ‘We’ll be better fed soon.’
‘You’re still beautiful,’ I said.
‘Don’t,’ said Kizzy, sitting beside the pool. ‘I would be glad to never be called that again.’ She dipped her feet into the water up to her ankles. Instantly, her teeth began to chatter. ‘It would’ve been too much to hope it was a hot spring, wouldn’t it?’
I quickly pulled off my dress, the wind licking over my pimpling skin as Kizzy plunged into the pool.
She came up gasping, her curly hair heavy with water.
‘Oh!’ She cried. ‘Căcat!’
Szilvie and Mira snorted with laughter above as I hastened over the rocky ground and lowered myself in too. Shit was right. It was the kind of cold that burned, licked like flames along the lengths of my calves and ate through my meagre barrier of skin, through to my bones.
But it was also exhilarating to feel my skin sing like this, with this awful glorious icy-hot pain. Even as the numbness raced from my toes to my ankles, up my legs to grip at my waist and clasp itself about my chest, I couldn’t help laughing with the relief of it. It felt like breaking the first winter ice and plunging in.
Kizzy’s hand found mine through the dark water, which swirled with tiny particles and frothed with the current sent up from below us. My toes crept over pebbles and smooth passages of rock, and I noticed the wall of the pool was built up from stone too. High above, I heard a man’s voice, and a moment later Szilvie called down to us. ‘Not too much longer.’
The air was even harsher now my hair was wet, and I wrapped my hands across my chest as the wind bit at my shoulders.
‘We need our clothes,’ called Kizzy. ‘We didn’t bring them down.’
There was a short pause, then Szilvie said. ‘Mira’s coming, she’s a better climber than me.’
We waited in the pool, our bodies dark beneath the dark water. I could see Kizzy’s fingers trembling just below the surface like tiny fish. Mira came quickly into view, her footing sure on the steps, the clean dresses and clothes flapping where she had wrapped them about her neck. She jumped lightly down the last few rungs and held out a length of grey cloth.
‘Dry,’ she said simply. Kizzy pulled herself out and hurried for the cloth, wrapping it quickly about herself and dancing about on her bare feet in the sharp wind. Mira looked away, and I kept my hands crossed over my breasts, suddenly aware of my body in a way I never had been before, even under Malovski’s scrutiny.
When it was my turn for the cloth, now damp from Kizzy as she struggled into her new outfit, I found I wanted Mira to look at me. She did not, keeping her eyes trained out at the fields.
I dried myself and took the dress Mira held out to me. It was navy like Edina’s, and more fitted than our kitchen outfits. I placed the death cap into yet another new pocket.
There were buttons to draw it closer in at the waist, and I fastened Kizzy’s with trembling fingers. Before Kizzy could return the favour, Mira’s hands were at my waist, and she deftly hooked the buttons and tied the crimson sash snugly. Too soon, she was finished, and her hands moved from me.
‘Hurry up,’ called the guard. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘We’re coming,’ said Kizzy, her feet, still bare, on the bottom rung. Mira held my gaze only a moment. I saw the glint of her teeth on her lip, her pulse fluttering like a caught butterfly beneath her ear. Then she turned and followed my sister back up to the door cut into the rock.
The holding room was about the same size as the kitchen and lit by a vast overhead chandelier, brass and gleaming, dripping wax caught in little dishes cupped around the bases of the candles. It was furnished better than Malovski’s house, with settees of upholstered wood and a fur rug on the floor still with its bear’s head. I hoped for its sake that it was the suffering bear Malovski had talked of on our first encounter, the one baited by dogs. I hoped that its pain was now at an end.
We stood in the centre of its back, and Kizzy bent and brushed her fingers through its fur. Szilvie wrinkled her nose.
‘People have trodden on that pelt.’
Malovski entered a few minutes later. She looked us up and down and nodded approvingly. ‘Much better. Hands?’
Kizzy held them out.
‘Good. Mira, you remember how to fix their hair?’
Mira nodded.
Malovski crossed the room and pulled down cloths the same colour as the wall, so I had not noticed them. Behind were long lengths of metal, polished to a shine. Mirrors, larger than I’d ever seen before. I caught sight of my shape in its tight dress. Malovski’s reflection was almost wraithlike: she glowed.
‘Back to the kitchens,’ she snapped at Mira. ‘When you’ve fixed their hair.’
Malovski shoved Szilvie out of the room ahead of her.
Kizzy and I were once again alone with Mira, and I felt I could breathe again, like the laces at my waist had been loosened slightly. The dim mirrors gleamed with a golden light, and I searched the walls for windows, but there were none. We must be on the unhewn side of the castle.
Mira pulled a cloth-covered stool from a corner, set it so it stood before the mirrors, and patted it.
Kizzy sat poised as a queen at her vanity, and Mira stood behind her, raked her hands through my sister’s hair, and began to twist its still slick sections into a low bun, as we had seen Edina and the other girls sporting. Kizzy didn’t wince once, and Mira’s face was tight with concentration. It took only a few minutes, and then it was my turn.
The feel of Mira’s hands through my hair, her calloused fingers running against my scalp, warm and careful, was close to bliss. I watched her in the burnished surface of the mirror, her white teeth coming again to her lip, eyebrows creased with effort. She, too, was so pale as to seem a spirit in the mirror, but her features held none of Malovski’s malice. Mira had an intensity to her, an intelligence that set her eyes alight with their silver brilliance, and her lips, which I had only seen before now pressed thin in pain, were full and pink.
Her eyes flicked to mine in the mirror, and I felt her hands hesitate on my hair.
‘Do you need me to help?’ said Kizzy. Her voice was light enough but when I pulled my gaze from Mira to my sister’s face, I saw she was frowning. Mira cleared her throat.
‘No.’
Kizzy nodded slowly, still looking at me quizzically, a faint expression of warning on her face. Mira did not catch my eye again.
All too soon, she had pushed the pin into place. I stood up and felt her handiwork. It was neat and taut, a precise mirror of Kizzy’s. With her newly gaunt cheeks we looked more like twins than we had in years.
‘Thank you,’ said Kizzy, and I could tell she wanted Mira to leave so we could talk. But Mira hesitated. She opened her mouth, and I caught a glimpse of the dark red inside, still swollen and sore.
‘Careful,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ said Kizzy, a little unkindly.
‘Careful,’ I said.