“No more today,” he said. “Once created, something like this will run forever.”
“But you used one to make it in the first place.”
“It is how our magic works, Foss. I can’t change that. If it helps, I didn’t harvest it myself.”
Maddeningly, I flushed, as I did whenever he said my name. It was exhausting, trying to separate my true feelings and opinions from the ones my heartsickness was giving me. I glanced out the window to distract myself, but the speed of the world slipping by in ribbons of color made me feel sick, and I shut my eyes.
“How did you find me?” I asked instead, to distract myself.
“I foundhim,” Cornelius interjected.
Sylvester gave him a startled look. I had forgotten that Cornelius’s speech was still relatively new to him. “Yes,” he said. “The cat had a long story to tell me. Which reminds me, why did you never speak to me before, cat, in all the years you lived in my House?”
“You never asked me to. And the name’s Cornelius, thank you,” said Cornelius.
Sylvester raised an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I didn’t name him.”
“Well,” continued Sylvester, “hearing the cat’s—Cornelius’s—story, I knew I had to get you away from my father. They had me locked in a room away from the others while they decided what to do with me. I suppose they thought I would patiently wait for their decision.”
“Looks like they’d already made their decision,” I said, remembering Millie. “Clarissa interceded for you, though, for what it’s worth,” I added grudgingly.
“I suppose that is good to know,” he said, staring out the window. He seemed untroubled by our madcap speed. I didn’t know how we avoided barreling into anything, but then, they were magical horses; they probably passed through obstacles as if they were no more substantial than smoke.
“I’m not sorry I killed her,” I said.
“I’m not sure that I am sorry, either,” he replied.
I burrowed deeper into the furs and shivered. The events of the past two days were finally catching up to me, it seemed, and I felt like I had to hold myself very carefully to keep from falling apart, as you would when carrying an overfull cup of water. Cornelius kneaded the furs on my lap violently, then twisted himself into a knot and fell asleep.
Despite my head being full of horrors, I found myself starting to nod off, too, by virtue of being warm and rocked gently as the carriage moved, but I roused myself to ask, “Why did you come for me? It would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it, if the king boiled my heart down to a soup and made a potion to cure all the hearts. You wouldn’t have to be in such a rush to harvest.”
What I really wanted to ask was, why bother with me? Why not just let your father have me and be rid of the nuisance I had surely become? Did I matter to you, after all?
Sylvester stared out the window and did not look at me. “You were right,” he said. “We should not be ... doing what we are doing. Harvesting hearts. It is wrong. We shouldn’t even exist. We are unnatural things, made by an unnatural master. We shouldn’t be in the world.”
“Oh.” The wind was taken out of my sails somewhat. “Well. No, you shouldn’t. But even if you give it all up, your sisters won’t. It’s getting worse. The king said that all the sorceresses will be riding out to the far villages to replace the hearts that have been damaged. I don’t know how many they are planning to take, but it has to be hundreds. Every single heart I saw in your father’s storeroom had some mold on it.”
“I know,” he said. “It has never been done before—all of us harvesting at once, in such large numbers. But my father is desperate. The heart magic sustains every part of the kingdom. It protects our borders and keeps us safe without the need for an army.”
“Fromwhat?” I asked. “Who are these mysterious enemies clustering on our borders waiting to invade?”
“I don’t ...”
“I think your father is using his magic to keep himself in power and to keep the rest of us under his thumb, and I think he treats his people like apples to be picked whenever he chooses,” I said. “And I think we don’t need an army because he hasyouand your sisters. I certainly don’t think it’s to protect us. I don’t think he cares what happens to us at all.”
“Can you keep it down?” interrupted Cornelius. “I’m trying to sleep.”
I sighed. “There’s a secret society,” I admitted. “Of people like me. People who were snagged. Sometimes they’re able to live almost normally afterward—at least for a while. Whatever you and your sisters do to them wears off after a bit, and then they drop dead. The mold made their deaths come quicker. One of them said he knew somebody who could fix the hearts. I don’t know much about it, because ...” they were all slaughtered in front of me, I wanted to say, but my mind shied away from the thought. I wasn’t ready to remember that yet.
“That’s impossible,” said the sorcerer immediately.
“Well, maybe it’s impossible with your magicks,” I said. “But your magicks might not be the only kind in the whole wide world. Your father made you for a particular purpose, like you said. Mayhap there is more than one purpose for magic, and more than one sort of magic-worker out there. This person who can supposedly repair the hearts is outside the kingdom. She’s called the Weftwitch, whatever that means. And what if it’s true? If you really want to mend what your father and sisters—and you—have done, isn’t that a good place to start?”
“It’s impossible,” he repeated flatly.
“Fine, then,” I said. “Let’s just give up. Take me back to the palace, give yourself up, and let your father do his experiments on me. How about that? Where else were you planning to hide from him, if not outside the kingdom?”
