The huntsman—Felix—took an uncertain step away from her. “Is the king dead?” Was there a faint note of hope in his voice?
“Not dead,” Mina said, “but hardly alive. The surgeon did a fine job of closing him up, but it’s … it’s like he wants to die. He keeps asking for her, for his dead queen. I think he means to join her.”
“I’m sorry, Mina—”
She laughed, a brittle sound. “Are you? I don’t think you know what it means to be sorry.”
“I only know what you know. What you want me to know.”
“And do you know how to hurt? How to destroy? Have I taught you that?” She grabbed his arm and pulled up one of his sleeves, revealing the scarred skin of his forearm. “Look at all these scars. Did you receive one today, when you tried to slay my husband?” Felix flinched, pulling his arm out of her grip, but Mina didn’t relent. A terrible silence hung over them both, and Lynet kept her hand over her mouth, afraid she would reveal herself by some small sound.
“Mina,” he said at last, “I promise you I didn’t kill him. It was a stag. We were separated. I wasn’t there to help him.”
“You weren’t there, but you saw it happen, didn’t you? I can see it now in your eyes.” She lay her hand on his chest, and then Lynet witnessed something extraordinary: cracks appeared on the surface of the huntsman’s skin, cracks that branched all across his neck, moving up toward his face. The huntsman stood completely still, not even breathing. Was Mina doing this to him? How could that be possible?
“What did you do, then?” Mina said, her voice dangerously quiet. “I already know the answer, but I want to hear you say it.”
“I thought of you,” he breathed, and he buried his head in the crook of her neck and shoulder, his arms encircling her waist.
The cracks on his skin disappeared as Mina returned his embrace, one hand digging into his back, the other tangled in his hair. Lynet felt an unexpected pang in her chest. She had always thought that she was the only one who saw Mina’s private self, the woman behind the stately queen, but now she understood that she had never seen the real Mina at all.
“Oh, you fool,” Mina murmured against the huntsman’s neck. She pulled at his hair, bringing his face level with hers. “You sweet fool. You’ve ruined everything.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “He didn’t love you. He made you suffer again and again.”
“Oh, Felix.”
He pleaded with her like a hurt child, begging her to understand him. “I wanted to see you smile, as you once did,” he said. “I wanted you to look into my eyes and see yourself as you are, smiling and beautiful. What did I do wrong, then?”
“When the king dies, I will no longer be queen.”
“And what of it? Weren’t we happier before then? Before you chose him over me? It was when you became queen that you began to look so unhappy, so different from the first night I saw you.”
He reached for her, but she flinched away from him. “That was when I had nothing to lose. Now I can feel it all slipping away—my youth, my beauty, my crown. Even if Nicholas lives, he’ll give Lynet all my power, piece by piece, until I’m left with nothing but the glass heart my father gave me.” Her fingers curled over her chest, and she grimaced. “She’ll replace me.”
The huntsman tilted his head slightly, frowning a little in thought. “Do you want me to kill the girl?”
The silence that followed was as thick as the darkness in the crypt. Mina’s silence was worse to Lynet than anything else she had heard. It was the silence of thought, of doubt—and no matter what Mina answered, Lynet would never be able to forget the pause that preceded it.
“No, Felix,” Mina said at last, her voice hoarse. “You can’t—I can’t do that.” She turned away from the huntsman, looking up at the stained-glass windows like they might speak to her. Through the windows, the moon threw dappled shadows on her face, reminding Lynet of the strange cracks that had appeared on Felix’s neck. Mina was walking toward Lynet’s altar now, and Lynet shifted to hide herself better—and then she heard Mina inhale sharply.
A moment later, Lynet learned why—the moon had changed positions since she’d first hidden here, and so she was now casting a large shadow that had moved with her.
Mina’s voice, strong but slightly fearful, echoed through the chapel. “I know someone’s there.”
There was no point hiding anymore. Better she should stand and reveal herself than be caught crouching in fear. Lynet stepped out from behind the altar, trying not to wobble on her cramped legs, and Mina’s face crumpled when she saw her. Lynet knew that Mina was going over everything she had said to the huntsman, everything that Lynet must have heard. And perhaps, like Lynet, she decided she would rather face this moment directly than cringe away and be dragged out into the open.
Before Lynet’s eyes, Mina became the proud queen again, standing tall. She held up an imperious hand to Felix, gesturing for him to stay where he was as she approached Lynet with measured steps. “You’re always snooping and spying, aren’t you, Lynet?” Mina said. Her tone was sharp, but with a fearful waver underneath that she was trying to control. Mina reached out to touch Lynet’s face, and Lynet couldn’t help turning away as Mina brushed her cheek with the backs of her knuckles. “What do I do now?” Mina whispered. “What do I do with you now? You’ve heard so much. You’ve seen—”
Mina drew back, her hand going to her throat, her eyes darting to the huntsman, and at the same time that Lynet realized what the cracks on the huntsman’s neck had reminded her of, she remembered what Mina had said about having a glass heart that her father had given her. She hadn’t understood before, but now she wondered … if one girl could be made of snow and never feel cold, then perhaps …
“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Lynet said. “You’re made of glass.”
Mina shuddered and bowed her head, her hair hiding her face. When she looked up again, she truly did seem like she could be made of glass—cold and sharp, her eyes as unreadable as the huntsman’s. “My heart is made of glass, Lynet, but I’m not like you.” She grabbed Lynet’s wrist. “Did you think you were my father’s only experiment? His only success?” Mina held Lynet’s hand against her chest, over her heart. Lynet waited, too confused and too scared at first to understand what she was feeling—what she wasn’t feeling. There was no heartbeat, no sign of life pounding underneath Mina’s flesh. Lynet gasped, and Mina laughed at her.
“There, do you see? When I was a child, my heart stopped, so my father cut me open and gave me a heart of glass. Do you remember what I told you about your birth, Lynet? About my father’s blood? Blood is what makes you real, but there is no blood in my heart. It serves its function and keeps me alive, but it cannot love, and no one can ever love a heartless thing like me.”
Lynet wrenched her hand away, her own heartbeat wild and frantic. There was so much defiance in Mina’s voice that Lynet almost missed the fear hiding beneath. It was there, though, waiting for Lynet’s next move, her next word. With each second that passed, Lynet knew she had to do or say something if she wanted to prove that she wouldn’t look at Mina differently now, that she wasn’t afraid of her, that she still loved her stepmother. But there was nothing to say, no words capable of breathing life into Mina’s heart, and the truth was that Lynet was afraid. Mina was a mystery to her now; how could she claim to know her stepmother’s heart better than Mina did?