Page 12 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
Since I’ve ruined my outfit, I’m kept in the back rooms and given the dirtiest, most difficult tasks for the next hour, until I make an excuse to go to the privy.
Instead of relieving myself I run outside, determined to check the hedge again.
I know what I saw. I won’t be discounted as mad, drunk, or a liar. I’m none of those things.
Curiosity is the dagger on which we impale ourselves.
I heard that line once, in the town market. A traveling peddler had several lettered signs in his booth, and since I could not read them, I asked him what they said. Once I hear a thing, I say it three times to myself, and then I remember it forever.
Curiosity is the dagger on which we impale ourselves.
That saying unspools in my brain, over and over, as I hurry through the garden in my short skirts and blood-spotted apron, toward the living rosebush and the wounded hedge.
It’s just as the stable-boy said—the hedge is whole again. No rot in sight.
I walk the length of it, peering between the twigs. When I reach the end of the hedge, where a path leads into the open countryside, my stomach drops.
Not twelve paces away, with his back to me, stands the figure I saw earlier—the one from inside the hedge. Only now he’soutside, on the path, and I can see him clearly.
A trim white tailcoat clings to the upper half of his toned body. Dark curls of brown hair cluster close to his head. Now that I’m seeing him from the back, I can tell that the rabbit mask was concealing actual rabbit ears, long and brown, emerging from his hair. Those ears swivel slightly, as if catching the sound of my panicked breathing.
He half-turns, enough for me to see that he’s still wearing the mask. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his crisp white trousers. A silver watch chain loops across his ivory-colored vest, and his cravat is a loose bunch of ivory silk.
My mouth is dry, but I manage to say, “This is a private garden, sir.”
Without answering, he faces away from me again and strides toward a huge oak that stands beyond the garden, in an open field.
“Who are you?” I call out, hurrying after him.
He keeps walking, covering ground swiftly with his long legs, so I break into a run. When he halts by the oak tree, I manage to catch up.
Slowly he turns until we’re face to face, both of us standing beneath the bright green of the oak’s spring leaves.
“You shouldn’t be here without an invitation,” I say.
I can’t see into the eyeholes of his mask, but his lips twitch slightly. “You invited me.”
“What?” I gasp.
“The book in your pocket. I’ve been looking for it for quite some time. You spoke its name thrice and marked it with your blood. It changed ownership, from its previous master to you, and thus its concealing curse was broken and its location was revealed to me, after all these years. Whose house is this?”
“The house of Master Drosselmeyer,” I say faintly.
“Drosselmeyer. I should have known.” The man’s lips tighten for a moment. “Tell me, child, do you belong to him?”
“Yes. That is to say, I—”
“And you took the book from him? Unless he died or gave it to you willingly, the only other way to claim possession is to steal it and retain it for a night and a day without its owner noticing its absence. Then it becomes open for a mastery claim, which you secured. You are a sorceress in training, perhaps? His apprentice?”
Me, a sorceress? An incredulous laugh escapes me.
His masked head tilts aside, as if he’s considering something. He takes one white-gloved hand from his pocket and tugs at his watch chain, flicking open a silver timepiece. “I’m in a hurry. Give me the book you stole. Yield ownership to me freely, and I will allow you to leave in peace.”
I draw the book from my pocket. “Is this the book you mean?”
The man’s jaw flexes, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Yes. That book. Yield it to me.”
“But it belongs to my master.”
