Authors: Jim C. Hines

The Stepsister Scheme (10 page)

BOOK: The Stepsister Scheme

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“Must be a very small troll,” Danielle said.

Talia grabbed her lockpicks and knelt in the water. She used a straight steel rod to probe the hole, then drew out several more picks. A short time later, Danielle heard a clicking sound.

“Done,” said Talia.

Snow’s forehead wrinkled. “So where’s the door?”

Danielle turned. “Behind us.”

On the opposite side of the bridge, the damp, moldy stone had disappeared. A wooden door swung soundlessly inward. The hinges appeared to be made of some sort of silver rope. There was no latch or handle. Dirty water darkened the dirt at the doorway. The tunnel beyond was dark and smelled of mud and dead fish.

“Lovely place,” Talia said.

“He’s a troll.” Snow kept one hand to her throat as she stepped through the doorway.

Talia followed, her knife ready. Danielle shifted her bundle so she would be able to draw her sword at need. Not that she knew how to use it. She shivered as she stepped through the doorway.

A few steps in, she noticed the water trailing from her trousers and boots, streaming along the floor like raindrops dripping down a window. The same thing happened with Snow and Talia, leaving the floor within completely dry.

“Nice,” said Snow. She ran her fingers over the hard-packed earth of the walls. “Witchcraft. Some kind of potion blended into the dirt to repel the water.”

Shadows enveloped them as the door began to shut. Talia whirled, and her knife flew through the darkness. The blade buried itself in the dirt at the edge of the doorway. The door hit the hilt, pressed it to the doorway, and stopped, leaving only a thin crack of light.

“Trap?” Talia asked.

“Probably.” Snow’s choker began to glow.

Danielle walked onward, marveling at how fast Talia had moved. By the time Danielle had realized what was happening, Talia’s knife was already there, blocking the door. “How do you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“The way you move and react. When you fought the wolf, it was like you knew what was coming before it even attacked. And the way you threw that knife. I’ve never seen another human being move like that.”

“Fairies,” Talia said, her voice flat.

“I don’t understand.”

“My parents bribed the fairies to come to my naming ritual. Haven’t you heard the story of Sleeping Beauty?” She grimaced at the name. “How they gifted me with extraordinary grace, the ability to dance like a goddess, beauty to make me the most desirable woman in the world. What’s fighting but another kind of dance?”

“But you’re not—” Danielle bit her lip, but it was too late.

“Beautiful?” Talia snorted.

“No, you’re beautiful, it’s just . . .”

“Not like her, I know.” Talia cocked her thumb at Snow. “Well, beauty is a little different where I come from. Back there, people would think Snow too pale and skinny. And tastes change over a hundred years.”

“If the fairies gave you beauty and strength and grace, why do you hate them?”

“Your stepmother gave you food and shelter and clothing. Why do you hate her?” Talia turned away without waiting for an answer, following the tunnel as it veered to the left.

Eventually, wooden floorboards replaced the dirt, and the tunnel took on more of a square shape. Danielle could still see roots penetrating through the ceiling, like tiny clusters of dirty white thread.

“Shouldn’t we be in the ocean by now?” Danielle asked.

“Trolls are geniuses when it comes to tunneling,” said Snow. “He could dig within a finger’s width of the open sea, and we would be as safe as if we were in your room at the palace. Safer, really, considering what happened this morning.”

The hallway stopped at another door, nearly identical to the first. The only difference was a glass sphere mounted in the center of the door. Talia searched for another keyhole, but she found nothing.

Snow pressed her eye to the glass sphere. “There’s a curtain covering the far side.”

“Do we knock?” Danielle asked.

“He’ll be suspicious either way. Trolls hate the sun and the daytime,” said Snow. “His customers would know better than to come before dark.”

Talia pounded the door. When nothing happened, she drew back and gave it a good, solid kick.

“Tough door,” Talia muttered, leaning against the wall to flex her knee and ankle.

Light appeared through the glass sphere. A hugely magnified yellow eye appeared, flitting this way and that. A gravelly voice said, “Come back at a respectable hour. Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Snow peered through the sphere. “Very well,” she said. “I just thought you’d want to know that Queen Beatrice will be sending letters to the king and queen of Fairytown, telling them how you violated Malindar’s Treaty.”

“What’s that? Move out of the way, you. Let me see who else is with you.”

Snow obeyed, and the yellow eye studied them all more closely. “Ah. So which one of you little treats is the one they call Cinderwench?”

“That would be me,” Talia said, before Danielle could answer.

The troll chuckled. “I don’t think so, my dark-skinned muffin.”

Danielle kept one hand on her sword, more for comfort than anything else. “I am Princess Danielle. Are you the troll who helped my stepsisters?”

“Brahkop, at your service. As for that other matter, I’m afraid my transactions are confidential.”

“Charlotte tried to murder me,” Danielle said. “They killed my mother. If you know who I am, you know we can pay whatever you ask.”

“She doesn’t mean that!” Talia grabbed Danielle’s wrist and yanked her back. “Are you mad?”

Danielle tried to pull free. “If he can help us find Armand, I’m sure the queen would—”

“No fairy bargain is as it seems,” Talia said. “Nor do they often ask for money. Your soul, your joy, your future . . . whatever he wants, you don’t want to pay it.”

“Now that’s plain unfair,” Brahkop said. “To judge all those of fairy blood based on the nasty tales your kind spread about us. And what’s all this about Malindar’s Treaty? You can’t prove I had anything to do with those girls. Even if I did, they’re the ones who tried to kill the princess here.”

“You called me Cinderwench,” Danielle said. “Charlotte and Stacia are the only ones who call me by that name.”

“Did I say Cinderwench? I meant . . . oh, dragon farts. You caught me.”

Danielle stepped to the door and stared through the sphere. She could see nothing beyond Brahkop’s eye and the distended bulge of an enormous nose.

Before she could speak, wisps of gray and white began to fall from the ceiling, drifting down around her head and arms. At first she thought they were more cobwebs, and she waved an arm over her head to brush them away.

The strands tightened, catching her arm and pinning the elbow by her head. She tried to duck beneath them, but bumped into Snow.

“It’s a net of some sort,” Snow said, her voice calm and curious. The strands were all but invisible. Danielle could see indentations in the skin of her arm as the net pulled the three of them closer together.

Talia dropped to the floor. Her legs glided to either side as she attempted to slip beneath the net, but the lower edge caught her chest and face, pressing her back against Snow’s legs. She pulled out a knife and sliced back and forth at the strands. “Good net,” she muttered. “Snow?”

“I’m working on it,” Snow said.

“I promise a quick death, if it’s any consolation,” said Brahkop. “You’ll barely feel the cuts as my net slices you into nice, bite-sized pieces. It will be quite a mess, but it’s not the first time I’ve had to defend myself against trespassers.”

Danielle twisted and hunched her shoulders. The net quickly tightened, but she was able to get her right hand to the hilt of her sword. That blade had killed the demon when normal steel failed; it might be able to cut Brahkop’s net as well. She tried to pull the sword free, but she couldn’t move her arm back far enough.

The mirrors on Snow’s choker fogged over, and the strands slowed. Before, Danielle had barely noticed their touch. Now they grew cold, like blades of ice pressing into her skin.

“Not bad, my little morsel,” said Brahkop.

Snow’s elbows ground against Danielle’s ribs as she fought Brahkop’s net. Talia was still squirming on the floor, her head pressing hard against Danielle’s knee.

“Talia, can you reach the blankets on my sword?” Danielle asked.

“Maybe.” Talia’s knife dropped to the floor. She squeezed her hand up the net, and her fingers closed around the end of the blanket. She pushed the blanket back, exposing the tip of the blade.

Danielle pushed the sword as hard as she could, trying to bring the edge into contact with the nearest strands of the net. The net dug into her fingers, drawing thin lines of blood. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder.

The blade touched one line, which snapped and curled away. A second broke a moment later. Danielle drew her hand back and twisted the sword to cut one of the crosswise strands.

“I’m not sure how much longer I can hold this,” Snow said. She sounded mildly annoyed, like she was describing a stain on her blouse. “The spell is almost alive. It acts like one of those constrictor snakes. Every time I try to adjust my magic, it tightens a little more.”

“I know you have stronger spells than this,” Talia complained. “Can’t you just destroy this thing?”

“Sure, but I thought you wanted to survive.”

Danielle swiveled the sword back and forth, cutting a larger hole in the net. “Hold on,” she said.

Talia snorted. “Like I’ve got anything better to do.”

Danielle thrust out through the hole, then shook the sword until the blanket fell away. She cut downward, being careful to avoid Talia. She was halfway through a crosswise cut when the whole thing seemed to die. The net fell apart, leaving limp strands over the three of them. Danielle shuddered and brushed them away.

“Do you know how long it took me to make that net?” Brahkop complained. “All those tiny knots . . .”

“Move aside,” said Talia. Danielle and Snow backed away. Talia rapped on the sphere.

“That’s elven crystal,” said Brahkop. “Cost me a good bit of change, but it’s well worth the price. Completely unbreakable, unless you’re an elf with the secrets to—”

“Who wants to break it?” Talia spun and smashed her heel into the glass. There was a popping sound as the sphere broke loose from the door. The force of Talia’s kick drove it squarely into Brahkop’s waiting eye.

The troll screamed.

Calmly but quickly, Talia shoved her arm through the hole. Her body pressed against the door, and there was a clicking sound from the other side. “There we go,” she said. The door swung open.

Beyond was a great open room lined with shelves. Lanterns hung from gold hooks in the ceiling, casting a sickly green light over various pouches, bottles, books, and scrolls. Green and brown herbs hung drying on the far wall. Coils of glimmering rope filled an entire corner, stacked as high as Danielle’s waist. Weavings made from the same shiny thread decorated the walls.

Doubled over near the back, both hands clutching his face, was Brahkop the troll.

Danielle stared. “Are all trolls so hairy?”

Brahkop straightened. At his full height, he was half again the size of a man, and twice as broad. Of the troll’s face, only his nose was visible, a pale blue potato poking through waves of silver-white hair that hung to his ankles. Some of the hair had been braided, with beads and other trinkets clicking together at the ends each time he moved.

A great, meaty hand emerged from beneath the hair. Brahkop reached toward Talia. “So you plan to make me work for my meal, eh? Very well, let’s see how—”

Talia scooped up the crystal sphere with both hands and smashed it against the troll’s knuckles. He drew back, cursing, and Talia flung the sphere directly into his nose.

Brahkop staggered. Danielle hurried to join Talia, her sword ready. She tried to mimic the cold, determined expression on Talia’s face.

Brahkop sniffed and held up his hands. “Enough.”

“Are you sure?” Snow was browsing through the shelves. She pulled down a small vial of thick purple sludge. “I wanted a chance to try this. I’ve never seen what coagulated wyvern blood does to a troll.”

Dark blue blood dripped from Brahkop’s nose and slid down his hair. “I’m sure!”

Talia folded her arms. “In that case, I believe the Princess Danielle was asking for your help.”

“I can’t,” said Brahkop. “I made a deal.”

“Snow?” Talia said.

Snow smiled and began to work the stopper loose from the vial.

“No need to get violent, ladies,” said Brahkop, wiping his nose.

Danielle stared. “You were going to eat us!”

BOOK: The Stepsister Scheme

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