Stealing Snow (21 page)

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I bet it matters to the other girls here. It’s Magpie, isn’t it? Magpie is Margot’s daughter? You saw her at Whittaker. You had to have.”

Jagger didn’t confirm or deny. He remained infuriatingly noncommittal, which made me more sure. I had finally taken something from Magpie. I had taken her place in Algid.

“I could take only one of you back. You were the better find. Margot understands. We’ll find another way for Magpie. Robber Rules: we are not allowed to be sentimental,” Jagger said finally.

I highly doubted that Margot really thought this trade was okay. But I held my tongue.

When we stopped in front of a silver door, I didn’t know what to expect. But I knew the room wouldn’t have the simplicity of Whittaker or the stark beauty of Kai and Gerde’s cube house. Jagger pushed open the door with a soft touch.

Every inch of the round red room was decorated—even the wall—with tufted fabric. The floor was carpeted. A canopy bed hung from ribbon-covered wires that stretched up to the ceiling. Next to the oval window stood a dressing screen and a wardrobe adorned in floral cloth. Through the window I could see a red forest against white snow.

“I’m staying in a padded room,” I said under my breath. The irony wasn’t lost on me. “I won’t stay here without answers. Why am I here? What do you want from me? What is this place? I know you steal things, but what do you want me for?”

“This place holds magic—magic we’ve stolen from the King and anywhere else we can find it. But not only that, the Claret runs on magic,” Jagger explained, “and we need more of it. You have magic. From where we’re sitting, you’re the mother lode. You will become one of us, a Robber, and you will give us magic.”

“And in exchange, you will help me get Bale.”

“Yes, we will.”

“It doesn’t work like that. You can’t bottle what I have.” I was still figuring out my snow, but given my lack of control, I was more likely to freeze him to death than “give” him my gift of snow.

“You’d be surprised. Not all magic requires bottles.”

He produced an old-fashioned watch on a chain from one of
his pockets and clicked open the top. On one half of the case, there was a clock, and on the opposite side, a pill case.

Jagger held up the timepiece, put a pill under his tongue, and muttered something under his breath. My insides protested. The mere sight of a pill, any pill, made me knee-jerk to my own seven dwarfs. But as he took this one, it was immediately apparent that it wasn’t a Whittaker cocktail. His features began to shift, and I heard the sound of bones cracking underneath his skin. I watched his nose flatten with a crush before building up again, more pronounced and somehow familiar. His eyes clouded over and changed from silvery gray to blondish brown to red and then from emerald green to amber. Before I knew it, I was staring into the one face I had been longing to see.

“Bale! My Bale?” I shouted in disbelief.

Jagger examined himself in the pocket watch’s sliver of a mirror. “I saw him in the Other World. No offense meant, but there was nothing special I could see. What did he do to make such an impression on you? To make you come from one world to another for him? To put yourself in such incredible peril?”

His look was insecure, as if he did not know that in one breath he had insulted Bale—and me, for choosing him.

“You should know. You were spying on us, right? For how long? How much did you see?”

I was mad, but seeing Bale’s face again made my anger melt away. I reached out and touched Bale’s face—Jagger’s face. I wanted Jagger to shut up, if only for a few more seconds so I could pretend that this was real, that magic didn’t exist, that Bale was here with me.

But Jagger was no more capable of being quiet than I was capable of controlling my temper.

“I meant no harm,” he said. “I was just curious. No one’s ever crossed worlds for me…”

Looking at his impossibly perfect face, I almost said that I was surprised.

“Don’t fret about it, Snow. It’s all water under the bridge. Now, let’s see who you want to be—”

Jagger began to mutter a new spell. He handed me the timepiece, but I wouldn’t take it.

“No, please, I don’t want it.”

I couldn’t explain to Jagger that I didn’t want to be someone else looking at Bale—even though I knew that Bale wasn’t really here. It was all a trick, magic.

He put the watch away—and then Bale’s face rearranged itself into its original configuration: Jagger. My heart fell.

“All of us in the Claret take on new faces. It’s the Robber Rule.”

“So you never show your real faces? Why?”

“You can’t betray a person whose face you don’t know. Think of us as a family. But we don’t pretend to trust one another.”

“How progressive of you.”

“I think it’s liberating.”

“And what about Margot’s daughter? Wasn’t she family? It’s okay to just leave Robbers behind in other worlds when you see a better score?”

“Margot’s daughter ran away of her own volition. But you’re
right. Our code does not lend itself to rescues. We often steal as a group. But if you get caught, you’re on your own.”

“Some family,” I said under my breath. But remembering my mother who had me committed and my father who apparently wanted me dead, who was I to judge?

“Is there a list of these rules?”

“More of an oral tradition, I’m afraid. But you’ll catch on.”

I accepted this for now, but my mind reeled from what I had seen. Something clicked about the redheaded Robber girl in the Throne Room.

“The girl out there who curtsied? I had this weird feeling when I saw her. Like déjà vu. I think I saw her in the circle in town. But she had green hair and a different face then. Was it her?”

He nodded. “It’s the eyes. You can change the color and the size. And even the shape. But if you look closely enough, whoever you are is still there. Luckily no one looks that closely.”

Ironically, he was looking at me closely, as if he were memorizing my eyes for later, in case I ever took him up on the new face thing. At Whittaker, I was the queen of staring contests, but I looked away.

“You should watch out for Fathom. You should watch out for everyone, really…”

“Except you?”

“Especially me,” he said. “Margot will give you a spell tomorrow. You don’t have to use it, but you should take it. You don’t want to offend her.”

He turned as if ready to go.

I fought an urge to ask him to stay. Jagger was a liar and a thief, but I wasn’t ready to be alone in this strange new space yet.

“Good night, Princess,” he said, and disappeared into thin air. I chalked it up to leftover magic from his transporting spell. Even so, it felt like Jagger was showing off for me.

When I woke in the morning, it took me a moment to orient myself in the round red room. Glancing out the window didn’t help matters much. The red trees that had surrounded the palace last night were gone. In their place was a field of unblemished snow and a dark-purple range of mountains in the distance.

I blinked hard at the glass. Had the castle moved in the night?

“Snow?” Jagger knocked on the door and pushed it open before I could answer.

My pulse raced at the sound of his voice. I knew I shouldn’t trust him, but a very small part of me wanted to. Even though he had told me not to.

“What’s wrong, Snow?” he asked when he saw the look on my face.

“What happened to the trees?” I asked him. “There was a whole forest of red trees. Did we … Does the Claret move?”

I waited for confirmation. I waited for him to tell me that he
was seeing the same thing I was. I waited to know that I wasn’t losing it.

“Fear not, Princess. The castle didn’t move.”

“Then what?”

“It’s a cloaking spell. We change the surrounding of the Claret so that no one will find it. Margot tried to move the castle once, but apparently there isn’t enough magic in all of Algid to do that. This is the next best thing.”

I turned away from the window, relieved.

“I brought you some things,” Jagger said, and nodded toward the wardrobe.

A scarlet red dress hung in the wardrobe. It was beautiful and the same style as the dresses the other Robber girls wore.

I remembered the joy I’d felt when I’d gotten my first dress from Gerde. But I liked this one, too.

I changed behind the room’s dressing screen. The garment didn’t fit. The arms were too long and the gaping bustline reminded me that I was just south of a B-cup.

“I think I need something a little less…”

“Just give it a minute,” Jagger said almost impatiently.

I looked down as the fabric began to move on its own. The sleeves of the dress shortened. The bust was ruched in and lifted and separated and made things look a little larger than they actually were. The excess fabric cinched itself along my waist, and the material that grazed the floor hemmed itself up.

Astounded, I exited from behind the screen.

“See? A perfect fit.”

“This dress is amazing!”

“You’re overdue for a little surprise after all those years in Whittaker,” he said in jest.

But he was wrong. I’d had enough surprises in the last week to last my whole life. I didn’t want any more. But I guessed that was not something I could prevent.

Jagger led me through a couple of corridors. We crossed a glass bridge that looked over an indoor greenhouse that was every bit as lush and thriving as Gerde’s. Then we started across a rope bridge suspended over a small pond.

Jagger didn’t look down, and for a split second I wondered if he was afraid of heights. I quickly shook off the idea, thinking he was probably not afraid of anything.

Fluorescent scales slid under the surface of the water. They made me think of the River Witch. Distracted, I bumped into Jagger halfway across the bridge.

“Careful,” he warned, his voice sharp, “and hang on.”

Just then one of the fish leaped out of the water. It had pointy teeth.

“Why do you have piranhas?”

“Believe it or not, they are a delicacy. They also provide an added layer of protection. We have magic, and we don’t want to lose it. We have been hiding our magic from your father. Everyone who uses magic in Algid has to be careful and secretive. It’s a dangerous thing, magic. And mirrors—even more so.”

“Wait, are you talking about the pieces of the King’s mirror?”

“Yes, I am. We know who has one of the three pieces, and we
want to steal it. The Duchess has it hidden away. You know, the Duchess Temperly. She’s your cousin.”

“The Duchess?” I asked, remembering that the River Witch had said the coven protected the pieces of the mirror. How did the Duchess get a piece? And my brain was confused doing the family tree math, too.

“Yes, your cousin. She has a piece of the King’s mirror, and we need it. In fact we need them all. I hope that won’t be a conflict of interest for you,” Jagger said, stepping off the bridge.

“I have a cousin? The River Witch never told me,” I commented, following Jagger.

“She’s the King’s niece.”

“Is she evil? What’s she like?”

“She always wears a mask. Always. It’s rumored nobody’s ever seen her face. She’s pretty smart but dull.”

A masked Duchess? She sounded pretty glamorous and mysterious to me. Not even
The End of Almost
had one of those.

“Um, how can you be both those things at once?”

“She doesn’t have any magic of her own.”

“But neither do you.”

“I steal mine. Your mission, my dear, is to steal something very important from her. She keeps the mirror under lock and key. We need it. In return for that, we will help you rescue your sweet Bale.”

“What do you need it for?”

“To keep doing what we do here. We need magic for that. And for something else.”

I knew there was more to this. I might be the ultimate score for the Robbers. But why not just trade me to the King?

“Like what?”

“The King did something to all of us. And the only way to make him pay is to take what he holds most dear.”

“What did he do to all of you?”

Jagger didn’t answer.

We crossed into a rectangular room as I processed the idea that I had a cousin and I was going to rob her. And that for all the Robbers said, there was much more to their story than they were telling or were willing to tell.

Secrets were everywhere in Algid, it seemed. The River Witch wouldn’t tell me where the three pieces were.
Whose piece is this?
I wondered.
Which of the Three? And how did the Duchess get it?
My mind swirled with questions. I thought about asking Jagger but wasn’t sure he actually knew the answers.

Jagger interrupted my thoughts when we got to the Bottle Room. It had a domed ceiling, and the walls were covered with bottles of every size and color. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of them, and they illuminated the darkness with a bright glow. These were the magic potions the girls sold in the square.

“It looks like you have enough magic,” I commented.

Jagger shook his head. “There’s only the tiniest bit in most of the bottles. It’s not enough.”

Enough for what?
I wanted to ask. But even if I did, I wasn’t sure I would get a straight answer.