Stealing Snow (24 page)

“Snow …,” another voice called.

Jagger’s voice took me out of it and back to the shadow of the Claret. I needed another minute and another second more. I needed a few more seconds with Bale. A few more seconds to pinpoint exactly where he was.

“Snow,” Jagger said again, his arms on mine, shaking me gently.

It took me a second to focus on him.

“What just happened?” he asked, studying me closely.

“Just seeing through my missing boyfriend’s eyes. Or at least I think that’s what was happening.”

“Where was he?” Jagger asked.

“A dark room. I think he was in pain. There was a triangular room like this.”

I drew the image into the frosty air, excited that my control over my powers was progressing. Worst-case scenario, it was a cool party trick.

“The King’s dungeons,” Jagger said almost proudly, taking this as proof that he was right about where Bale was. The fact that he didn’t care what shape Bale was in made my fingers twitch, with snow.

Stuffing down the urge to freeze his mouth shut, I asked, “Do you really not care about anyone?”

“Everyone cares for someone,” he said, sounding sincere for a moment. “If you’re lucky, more than one someone,” he added, as if remembering that sincerity was not what he wanted me to see.

I sighed heavily. I was tired of his charm. I was tired of the Claret’s shabby beauty.

“You’re probably marked,” he said as if he could sense that I had reached another in a series of breaking points. “That’s why you and Bale are connected. Why you can see him.”

“Is this part of the prophecy?” I asked.

“No, it’s part of Algid. When you love someone—really love someone—and you have magic, it’s possible to imprint each other. But it’s just a legend. Then again, you were just a legend until I met you.”

Imprint? I’d seen a movie once where a teen werewolf had fallen in love with a girl and he imprinted on her, linking them forever. Were Bale and I imprinted?

I ignored what I thought was a compliment and tried to unravel the point. “Like in fairy tales? Like when princes wake up princesses with kisses from magically induced comas—like that?”

Jagger looked at me as if the idea was completely foreign to him. He was not familiar with Sleeping Beauty, apparently.

“Of course, it might not be the mark at all. Maybe you’re more like your father than you want to admit.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“King Lazar claims to be able to use his snow to get inside the good people of Algid’s heads. Or at least that’s the rumor. I think it’s just bull-thorn, personally. Just another way of making the people fear him…”

“If I had mind control powers, you would not be talking anymore,” I said evenly.

He considered this with a smile and went back to his first theory.

“Usually, the imprint is accompanied by some kind of physical marking.”

I drew the mark I’d seen on Bale’s arm in the air. The image hung there for what seemed like an eternity.

“Like I said, I’ve never seen an imprint before, but I think that the legend says it’s specific to the giver. Every one is supposed to be different.”

“Like a snowflake,” I finished, sarcasm dripping from the word.

He shook his head. “I was going to say like every love is different. But your metaphor works, too.”

“The symbol—it looks like something on the Tree, Jagger.”

“Your mom and the other witches made the Tree to get you and her out of Algid. It’s probably your rune.”

“Rune?”

“I hate to say that I have never been much for symbols—Fathom’s the one you should talk to—but the witches carve them into things for all sorts of reasons, mainly protection.”

“And I carve them into people?”

“You are special, Snow. You’re the product of a King and a witch … Like the prophecy says, you might just be the most powerful thing ever. Why wouldn’t you love more powerfully, too?”

Jagger’s words hung between us like my drawing had. I fought the urge to look away from his unrelenting stare.

“So either I am tied to Bale in my mind, or I have freaky mind-control powers over everything…”

“I kind of hope it’s neither,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I hope that you aren’t channeling your boyfriend. That you aren’t capable of freaky mind-control things, as you call it.”

“You would prefer that I have lost my sanity and I am just having waking dreams of my kidnapped boyfriend? Why?”

“Two reasons: One, I don’t love the idea of your being psychically hitched to Fire Boy.”

“What’s it to you who I’m psychically hitched to?” I interrupted.

“Which brings me to reason number two: I don’t love the idea of your getting into my head and figuring out what I was really thinking.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re thinking?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he answered.

“When I first kissed Bale and he melted down, I was so drugged up. I thought … I thought the kiss … I thought I had actually made him crazy …,” I blurted without looking at Jagger.

He reached up and took my chin and made me face him.

“You are a force, Snow. But I would never believe that.”

He released me.

I looked away again, more grateful than I wanted to be. And more affected by his touch than I liked. Especially with Bale’s consciousness so close to my own.

Perhaps I had for once penetrated through the layers of Jagger’s charm, and then he said something that stunned me.

“The connection would go both ways, Snow. Bale can see you, too. If he’s in the King’s dungeons, maybe this will give him hope. Keep him going until…”

“Until we get him out? I’m in. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. You want me to be a Robber? I’m a Robber.”

Margot appeared suddenly beside Jagger.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said with a smile.

I didn’t know how much she had heard. But I still needed to negotiate terms.

“You’re spying on me now?” I demanded, squaring my shoulders for once. My ire was up. Outside the window, I could hear my little snow tornado knocking down a few of those trees.

“I have done my duty for the Claret,” I said. “You promised me that you would help me get Bale back and that I could go home if I gave you my blood, and I have.”

“Snow, you were to give me blood imparted with magic. Your blood has secrets that elude me. So, no, you have not held up your end of the bargain entirely. I will not help you until I hold the Duchess’s mirror in my hand. We thought we could transport your blood and take it with us, but for the spell to work, you might have to be present. The blood might have to come directly
from your body. Or at least that’s what Fathom hopes. Of course, first we need to know that your blood works.”

“Fathom’s the resident blood expert?” I asked.

She nodded. She wanted me to stick my hand into the trap for real this time. No chalice.

She rolled on, as if I had already agreed.

“And so it seems, Jagger is right. We must turn you into one of us or you will never get past the Duchess. Contrary to what my children think, you could drink every drop in every bottle and steal a thousand mirrors and
still
not be a good Robber. It will take hard work. But you are the Snow Princess. I have no doubt you will be up to the challenge.”

“There’s something else that I want,” I said, an idea forming.

“Robber Rules: you must learn that there are no gifts, my dear.”

I knew that before I got here
, I thought. I thought of the mittens my mother had given me the day before I left for Algid. They now represented a lifetime of guilt and secrets on her part.

“I just want to know one thing. I have spent most of my life not knowing anything. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.”

“What are you asking, exactly?” she said.

“I want to know how it works. How I work. Teach me. Teach me how to wield my magic,” I said, standing in front of Margot.

Margot leaned against the doorframe and said, “I wish I could. But I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“Then I want something else. I want anyone other than Jagger to teach me. Keep him the hell away from me.”

Jagger looked at me, surprised. Margot just laughed and said a single word: “No.”

A few minutes later I sealed my deal with the Robber Queen. We went back to the vial room, and this time I stuck my hand inside the lock. It drew my blood, and the knives clattered to the ground.

“Of course, there is a rumor that the lock changes on a daily basis.”

“And the lock maker couldn’t confirm this?” I asked, suspicion rising.

“Unfortunately, the lock maker died before he could share that information.”

She disappeared with a satisfied smile. I walked back to my room, wondering if I had made the right choice.

I had agreed to become a Robber. It was the only way I could protect myself. And the first step to becoming a Robber was finding out exactly what that meant and what I would have to do. It was time to make peace with the Robber girls.

I found Fathom in a cold, fluorescent-lit room that reminded me of the medical or scientific labs I had seen on TV.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Fathom dared.

“What is this place?” I asked, taking it all in.

Something growled from the corner of the room. I swiveled around to see a Snow Wolf trapped inside a glass box. The ani-mal was strangely alluring. I had only seen Snow Wolves when they were chasing after me and there wasn’t enough time then to get a good look. I couldn’t help myself. I walked over to the box.

When I got closer, the Snow Wolf lunged at the glass and disintegrated into a gazillion flurries, which fell onto the floor of the cage. After a second, the flurries came back together again, re-forming the Snow Wolf. It lunged at me again, repeating the process.

“I’ve never seen it do that before,” Fathom said, wrinkling her nose. She looked from the glass case to me and back again, trying to figure out the connection.

“Why do you have a Snow Wolf?” I demanded.

“It’s a hobby. Nothing in the Claret is free. Margot allows me my hobby in exchange for my services.”

“What services?”

Fathom flicked a switch, which turned on a light at the far end of the room. There were bodies of women laid out on wooden slabs.

“Did you ever wonder how we get the faces?” Fathom asked.

Stunned, I looked from her to one of the corpses. It had the same face as Fathom.

“I never really …” I hadn’t thought about the faces they borrowed. I just assumed that each Robber made one up.

“We steal the faces,” she boasted. “You have to have some part of them, like hair or blood, in order for the magic to work.” She walked over to her face twin. I remembered how Jagger had borrowed Bale’s face. That meant he had taken something from Bale. But when? How?

“Do you kill them?” I asked, fearing Fathom’s response. What the River Witch had said about sacrifice came back again. It seemed that perhaps the less magic you came by naturally, the more sacrifice you had to make.

“Not usually. Think of it this way: after they die, some part of them gets to live on. That’s something, right?”

“But where do you find the bodies?” I asked, hoping and assuming she was joking about the killing part. Finding dead bodies was creepy enough.

She sighed. “Grave robbing, of course.”

That’s better than the alternative
, I thought. But I felt the already slippery world of the Robbers turn on its axis toward an even darker reality than I’d imagined.

“You can come with me if you’d like. We can pick out something pretty for you,” she dared, almost sweetly.

What had I gotten myself into?
I shook my head and walked out of the weird morgue. Once I got out the door, though, I began to run.

When I got back to my room, there was a dress laid out for me on the bed. It was prettier than the collection of day dresses that had appeared in my closet after my first night at the Claret. It had feathers all over it. And it was a stunning silvery lavender color that reminded me of the trees tonight.

I touched the dress.

“Wear me and come to the roof,” a voice whispered in my ear.

The door slammed shut a second later. The voice belonged to Howl, the girl who was singing in the Throne Room.

She must have used an invisibility spell. But to what end? Would the dress suffocate me to death when I put it on? Was it a trick? Was it a trap?

I stared at the dress for a few minutes before I slipped it on and headed up the stairs. With every step I took, I reasoned that I was doing the right thing. But the truth was I couldn’t sit alone with that dress a minute longer. Maybe it was all that time
at Whittaker not being able to do things that other kids did. But a ball gown and an invitation to mystery could not go unanswered.

When I got to the roof, all the Robbers, save Margot, were standing in a circle around a strange symbol scrawled on the rooftop. It reminded me of the markings on the Tree.

The girls wore feather dresses like mine, only theirs were in iridescent pastel colors. A couple of the girls stepped aside, and I spotted Jagger just outside the circle. He dragged his hand through his hair, messing it into tousled perfection, and smoothed down his suit, which was covered in feathers, too: black ones. The fashion statement shouldn’t have worked for anyone, but Jagger’s good looks had a magic all their own. He could wear anything. And he still looked good, even when I was mad at him.

Each Robber held an unlit candle.

I realized this was some kind of initiation. All this was for me.

“You can’t be serious?” I asked.

“When you first arrived, we didn’t get to properly welcome you into the Robber fold,” Fathom said.

She was clearly in charge of the girls in Margot’s absence.

“So what happens now?” I said impatiently.

“Tomorrow you train. Tonight we welcome you,” Fathom said with a flourish.

I was more than a little surprised. These girls had made it pretty clear they didn’t want much to do with me, and I had made it pretty clear that I didn’t want anything to do with
Jagger. I hadn’t even bothered to get to know all their names, because I thought I wouldn’t be staying long enough for them to matter.