Felix took one end of the rolled-up map, but Mina didn’t release the other end. “You won’t be going with them,” she said quietly, waiting for him to look up at her in surprise or confusion.
But he kept his eyes on the map. “No, I didn’t think so,” he said. “Not after last time.”
“I have another task for you,” she continued. While the surgeon had drawn the map, Mina had been thinking of where to put Lynet, where she would be contained and isolated, but safe. She couldn’t imagine putting Lynet in a dungeon, but she thought of another place that would be similarly effective. “I want you to board up the window in the North Tower,” she said.
She let him take the map from her now, waiting for him to go, but instead he lifted his head to look her directly in the eye. “You won’t do it,” he said.
Mina had wondered if he would say something to her about her plans, but even so, his words were a surprise. “I won’t do what, Felix?” she said coldly.
He twisted the map in his hands. “You won’t harm her.”
It was strange speaking to him now and not seeing her own feelings reflected on his face. Strange to know that he had become something apart from her. “And how can you be so sure of that?” How, she continued silently, when even I’m not sure?
“Because I know you,” he said. His voice was different too, richer, deeper—the difference between an echo and a human voice.
“But things have changed, Felix,” she said, brushing her thumb against his cheek. “You’ve changed. Lynet has changed. Would you rather I die instead? Do you want a younger queen to serve?”
He flinched away from her, eyes narrowing with an anger that she had never seen in him before. “You believe the worst in everyone, even yourself.” He turned and stormed out of the throne room, and this time it was Mina who watched him go without stopping him.
30
LYNET
Lynet ran her thumb over the folded piece of parchment in her hand. This was all she had now, this letter to Mina, but the paper seemed so thin. If she dropped it in the snow, it would likely dissolve, and then she’d have nothing but herself.
She was several feet away from the road, but with Nadia’s guidance and her own red clothes announcing her presence here among the trees and the snow, she knew she’d be found easily. And she kept reminding herself that she wanted to be seen, to be found, despite the fear that seemed to be a living thing nestled inside her body.
They came after nightfall. Lynet heard the horses first, the pounding of hooves that echoed her pulse, and she held on to the letter like it would keep her safe from all harm, the paper creasing under her grip. Her legs started to buckle as she fought the instinct to run, but she kept still and tucked the letter into the sash at her waist. When the horses appeared, she immediately looked for Mina among the riders, but saw only four soldiers, no queen in sight.
The soldiers surrounded her, two of them dismounting. They didn’t draw their weapons, but she kept her distance, focusing on the snow in her mind, thinking of what she could shape to help her.
She backed up against a tree, the soldiers closing in on her. She noticed that the huntsman wasn’t among them, and she didn’t know if she should be relieved or disappointed. She didn’t recognize any of the blank faces around her, but she knew by their glassy eyes that they belonged to Mina.
It was so tempting to run, to have the snow fight for her, but she needed to speak to Mina. If she wanted her stepmother back, she had to have faith that the years they had shared together hadn’t been a lie. She had to trust that she knew Mina better than Gregory did. The shriveled heart she’d seen in Gregory’s laboratory was no more Mina than the body she’d made out of snow had been Lynet. And if Lynet wanted to prove that, then she had to stand still for once and make a choice—just as she had to trust Mina to make her choice. Only their choices would determine who they were in the end.
“I’ll come with you freely,” she said, stepping forward. One of the soldiers approached her and bound her wrists with a cord, which she had expected, but then another soldier snatched the letter from her dress. “No!” she protested, but now her wrists were bound, her balance unsteady as she tried to move toward them. “I need to keep that.”
“You’re to have nothing with you,” the soldier said, his voice flat and impersonal.
“But please, it’s just a letter, you can’t—”
He was already turning away from her, and she knew there was no use arguing with a man who wasn’t really a man. Even the huntsman had seemed more human, more alive. These soldiers had their orders, and they would obey them no matter what Lynet said.
The soldier who had bound her wrists started to push her toward the horses, but she kept her attention on the one who’d taken the letter, trying to find some source of connection. “Please keep it safe,” she said to him. “Don’t destroy it.”
He blinked at her, and whether he was responding to her plea or not, he tucked the letter into his belt. Lynet eyed it nervously as she was lifted up onto the horse, and then a cloak came around her body, a loose cloth sack over her head, and she lost sight of everything.
She went over different possibilities: The soldier would keep the letter. Mina would find it. He would lose it. He would toss it away. Maybe the letter didn’t matter at all. Maybe it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Maybe it was all too late. Maybe Lynet was enough without it. Lynet spent her blind ride back to Whitespring trying to reason herself out of her worry, but none of her grasping thoughts could replace the feel of the letter in her hands.
When the sack was removed again, she was in the North Tower, the window boarded up to keep her from climbing out. There were still patches in the roof, though, and she could feel under her skin the snow on the roof, waiting for her command. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but she was glad she wasn’t entirely helpless.
The soldiers started to leave, but one of them paused at the door, talking to someone outside of Lynet’s view. And then he opened the door wider to let the huntsman step through, shutting Lynet inside the room with him.
All that had happened to her since she’d run from Whitespring was gone in an instant, and she was once again lying in the snow, looking up at a man with empty eyes who wanted to kill her. The huntsman stepped toward her, and she started backing away until she hit the boarded-up window. Cornered again, just like last time. Just like last time …
Had Mina sent him?
The huntsman was shaking his head, holding out his hands, but his hands were weapons themselves, so Lynet wasn’t reassured. She swept her eyes around the room, looking for something she could use as a weapon, wondering if she should call to the snow.…
“I won’t hurt you. I’ll go outside, if you’d prefer. We can talk through the door, but I must speak with you,” the huntsman was saying. “I must ask your forgiveness.”
His words finally caught Lynet’s attention, and she tried to push her panic aside as she took in the huntsman’s appearance. After her first terror had passed, she noticed a change in him, subtle but undeniable. He seemed … substantial in a way he hadn’t before, not the looming specter she had always feared. There were worry lines on his forehead that made him look older than she had ever seen him. And his eyes—she saw nothing of herself in them as he pleaded with her now.