Stealing Snow (28 page)

“You don’t know where she keeps it? What kind of heist is this?” I sighed. This sounded about as imprecise as the prophecy.

“Any more questions?”

“What will you do with the mirror, exactly?”

“The King’s mirror piece will give us enough power to move the Claret forever. We will be protected until the end of time.”

Margot raised her red eyebrows as if to ask if that were all.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You want me to break into my cousin’s house and rob her of her mirror piece. This mirror piece belonged to the King, my father, who’s trying to kill me. And the last time you tried to break in, your Robbers got caught …,” I recounted, realizing how completely insane this was. Knowing more had not exactly calmed my fears.

“Precisely,” she said with a smile.

All the mirrors in the Bottle Room frosted over at once as I felt the enormity of what we were attempting.

“Soon, you will be done with your part of the deal and then it is our turn. May I offer you some free advice?”

I shrugged.

“I can’t pretend to know what happened to you on the other side. And I can’t pretend to know how to wield snow. But I know from experience. From mine and my girls. And even Jagger’s. You don’t have to forgive, but you have to move on. Everyone here—we are moving on from something. Everyone here has chosen this place,” Margot said simply.

“Or they didn’t have anywhere else to go,” I countered.

“Sometimes, my dear, that is still a choice. You don’t have to embrace the Robber life. But embrace something. This entire land has been ravaged by what happened a long time ago, but we do not dwell; we live. Sometimes we have to steal our future. In my experience, it is never given freely. No one is handing it out. You and your Bale? You could have a place here at the Claret.”

“We are going back to New York,” I said firmly.

“Very well. You will be missed. By one Robber in particular more than most.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised by her sentimentality. Perhaps all the daughter talk was getting to her.

“I wasn’t talking about myself,” she countered with a laugh.

And in a flash, I knew exactly who she was talking about. And the thought made me blush.

Thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two different things.

Kayla Blue had said that on
The End of Almost
when she was on trial for murdering her husband. But we weren’t just
thinking
about robbing the palace. We were actually doing it. As I stood in the Throne Room alongside my Robber sisters and Jagger, it finally felt real. And a lot more involved than our Dessa raid.

I looked down at the gilded table covered in architectural drawings of the Duchess’s castle. We all crowded around the table with Margot at the head.

Markings appeared all over the plans. There were circles where we were supposed to go. Margot moved the ink around by raising her hands. On closer inspection, I could see that there were beautifully drawn representations of each of us on the paper. As she spoke and instructed the group where to be and when, the drawings shifted as well. Mesmerized, I watched as the
ink drawing of me moved from the ballroom up the stairs to the Duchess’s bedroom.

I couldn’t help but notice that there were more blue markings than ones of any other color. The Duchess’s guards would be everywhere.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a tower on the map.

“We have people in there,” Jagger explained.

I squinted and saw drawings of tiny Robber girls behind the barred window of the tower. I reached out and touched the window, feeling for the Robber girls stuck there. A tiny room with no way out.

Jagger caught my eye with a small smile, bucking me up and reminding me of the no-sentimentality Robber Rule.

“We may as well get them out while we’re there,” Margot said leisurely. And a murmur of assent went around the table.

“I thought you weren’t in the business of saving people? First Cadence and now them? Robber Rules …,” I challenged.

How much is Robber bravado, and how much is true?
I wondered, looking around this place where everyone claimed to be out for themselves. At the end of the day, it seemed like they wanted to help one another. They just didn’t want to admit it.

“Princess, you will go with Jagger in disguise into the palace and mingle with the guests. The rest of the Robbers will be there in disguise, as well. Jagger will keep the Duchess entertained, and you will sneak upstairs, find and open the vault, and get the mirror.”

Snow formed between my fingers at the thought of putting my hand in the lock again.

“How will I find it?”

“The prophecy says it will reveal itself to you. But I am guessing it will be in the Duchess’s quarters. People keep their treasures close.

“Then we will double back with the Robbers after you return to the ballroom and find Jagger.”

I must not have nodded vigorously enough because Howl was taunting me again.

“Maybe the Princess has a problem robbing her family?” Howl asked.

“Why would it be a problem? She’s a stranger. I don’t know her from the Fire Witch.”

A laugh went up, and we went back to planning. The other Robbers seemed to accept this.

I followed up with a question. “I still don’t understand how the Duchess got a piece of the King’s mirror in the first place. Why would one of the coven give it to a regular human?”

“The way of the witch is the exception to every rule, I’m afraid. Unpredictable as snow itself. We don’t know how or why. We only know the mirror is at the Duchess’s because we stumbled upon it when we were robbing the place a few months ago.”

Margot said, “Hence the prisoners … who you may as well save. The mirror has an effect on all magic. And ours went a little haywire that night.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Robbers have a lot in common with heroes.”

“Then you don’t know us, either!” screamed Howl.

Even though Margot and the Robber girls had a plan, they were leaving nothing to chance. Howl took charge of the coins we’d taken from Dessa. What was more interesting was the fact that she was adding magic to the coins—though she wouldn’t say what for.

Meanwhile, the other Robber girls were busy trying out new potions of their own. There was a magic bottle to make you smarter and one that made you remind the mark of their favorite thing—anything from a tea biscuit to a field of flowers to a pile of gold bars.

When I wasn’t working on my robbing skills, I’d sneak away from the Claret and work on my snow. This time, I had managed to channel my power into making ice arrows.

“Snow,” Fathom called. “Look at this.”

“Please don’t tell Margot. She wants me to suppress it. But I need to figure it out.”

“I won’t tell. It’s amazing. Almost as amazing as what I have to show you.”

She showed me a little bottle of snow and a vial containing blood.

I guessed it was mine.

The snow was moving around.

“Tell me that isn’t part of a Snow Beast,” I said.

“No, it’s a mini Snow Puppy.”

A second later the Snow Puppy formed. It was kind of adorable except for the giant claws and teeth.

“Now watch this.”

Fathom took a drop of blood and dripped it into the bottle. At first, the Snow Puppy repelled, moving upward. But a second later, it attacked the drop of blood. The Snow Puppy slammed itself against the glass sides of the bottle and then exploded into a flurry of flakes.

“Um, how does this help us? I already know that Snow Beasts are never going to be my BFFs.”

Fathom looked at me blankly.

“Best friends forever?” I said.

“I think you can freeze Snow Beasts—their hearts and limbs and brains. Your power, once you unlock it, is limitless.”

“Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“It would. It could help us defeat the King.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I think I’m on to something.”

We began to walk back to the Claret. The world went black again.

I could suddenly see myself in the common room at Whittaker. It was Bale’s point of view again.

“Maybe in the spring,” I said.

I knew immediately what memory this was. Bale had asked me if we could run away. And I had said, “Maybe in the spring.”

He had stood by me every time I had done something awful at the institute, without blinking an eye. But the one time he had asked me for something, I had said those words.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. It was that I didn’t know what our monsters would do outside their cages. I thought Bale would burn something down. I thought I would do something equally awful. But we were out now. Just like Bale wanted. Only we couldn’t be farther apart. And Algid wasn’t burning. And my monster, my snow, had taken a whole other form than either of us could imagine.

There was another flash, and I saw Bale’s little white house again. This time from the outside. I glimpsed a reflection of teenage Bale in the glass windows staring back at me. Not afraid, smiling with a kind of mad glee.

Another flash. And it was the triangular room. Through the window, I saw the North Lights, which looked almost gray. This time he was quiet. He didn’t say my name. He didn’t say anything at all.

“Snow,” Fathom called, and I opened my eyes.

I was lying flat on my back in the snow.

“Hey, you just fainted or something?”

“I’m okay,” I said. But I wondered if Bale was.

When we got back to the Claret, Margot was waiting for us.

“What is it?” I demanded. Having seen Bale again, my patience with her had become threadbare. I was mad at myself for not getting to Bale yet. I was mad at myself for how close I had gotten to Jagger.

She ushered us inside. She wanted us to look at the plans for the heist again.

“You look pale, Your Highness,” she assessed.

I pushed past her into the Claret without answering.

That night, I fell into a deep sleep. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I had drunk one of Margot’s sleeping potions.

Somehow I was in Jagger’s room. It looked like mine, only his bedding was a dark navy ash. And along one wall was his personal stash of magic bottles.

“You know, when I imagined you in my bedroom, it wasn’t exactly like this,” Jagger quipped, suddenly beside me.

I whipped around to face him. “How could you?” I asked.

“Look, whatever I did, I am sorry,” he said lightly. “Robber Rules, by the way. You should not be here unless I invited you. But let’s consider you invited.”

He moved toward me flirtatiously.

My breath went shallow. And my heart was in my ears.

“This doesn’t feel like a dream. You seem so real,” I said with wonder.

“That’s partly true,” Jagger said smugly. “You are dreaming, and I am in your dream. I took this.”

Jagger held up a shiny silver bottle and continued, “This magic lets me walk inside your dreams.”

I had wanted to kiss him. And I had cared enough not to. And now this. A betrayal. I had not drunk a potion. He had.

“You were worried about kissing me. We can do anything you want here. No consequences.”