W NTE PELL, reads the twisted silver sign over the main gate, its bars jagged with splintered ice.
‘Something’s here,’ Zara replies, making my spine itch.
‘I’m not ready,’ I say, halting in my tracks.
‘Yes you are.’
‘Zara—’
‘Stella!’ she rounds on me, and her face is fierce, her eyes glowing. ‘This is it! And I do love you for all the thinking you do, but this is not the time for thinking – this is the time for acting!’
Nobody’s ever talked to me like that before, not even Nan.
I swallow. She keeps her eyes level on me and folds her arms.
‘I don’t know what he’ll be like,’ I whisper. ‘What if he’s like Nan – just a ghost, all thin and disappearing? What if he doesn’t know me? What if he hates me?’
‘He doesn’t know you,’ she says. ‘But I do, and Yanny does. You can do this. Not because of legends, or Lost Princesses. But because you’re you!’
Her words reach into me, and moments later, nerves steeled, we rush together towards the palace, ignoring the howl of the shadow creatures around us, and when I strike at the ice that screens the vast front door, it’s not that I think I can break it with one small fist – or two . . . or even with four, when Zara’s join mine – but that I know we will. The frozen barrier shatters and crumbles before us, crashing down the steps in a great glacial tide. Sweeping over the icy rubble, I grab the tarnished silver door latch and twist it, desperately muttering the words for the charms that Nan taught me, over and over.
I catch my breath as the door swings open to another wilderness, gleaming ice roping through tarnished silver chandeliers, frozen spider webs clinging to the marble banisters, fine snow carpeting the glass floor.
It used to glow with the amber reflection of candlelight and faelight, and with all the footsteps of all the fae. I lay on it once, to feel the vibrations of all their comings and goings, to feel the bare skin of my arms against its smooth warmth . . .
The memory hits me and slows my footsteps. When I blink it away, the Stag is here, standing before us, his great antlers twisting up and out to fill the vast, bleak hallway. Teacake rushes down the stairs towards us, as the Stag flickers and disappears from view, and the tread of heavy, slow footprints echoes through the palace.
The Shadow King.
‘What did your Nan say about breaking the curse?’ Zara whispers. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We were looking for the palace,’ I reply. ‘And we found it, but there’s something . . .’ My eyes drift to the stairs that Teacake just came down. ‘I think there’s something up there.’
‘KITTEN!’ roars a voice, splitting the air and sending blasts of icy mist through the corridors ahead of us. ‘Where have you gone now? I thought you had returned to me!’
We stare at Teacake, who is perched on the marble sphere at the base of the banister. She lifts one front paw and begins to lick it. And I remember. I remember her sitting exactly there, doing exactly this. Only the sun was streaming through the open doors behind me, and my mother was laughing, because she had surprised me so.
‘This is Thalia,’ she says, lifting me to meet the kitten face to face. ‘I found her in the forest, and she followed me home.’
‘I thought we said no pets,’ rumbles my father, stalking down the steps frowning at the kitten.
‘Not a pet,’ says my mother, raising her eyes to his. ‘Far more than a pet, my dear, which you would know if you’d take the time to look closer. Besides, she chose me. As feline things will. And she will be a perfect playmate for Estelle.’
‘Stella?’ Zara whispers. ‘Shouldn’t we stay down here and face him?’
I swallow the lump in my throat. Memories come easy as clouds here, and every time they do, I lose my focus, and forget about Yanny, and what we are doing here. Is that part of the curse? I clear my mind, and something calls to me. The acorn at my throat is warm, and it’s pulling me onward.
‘Not yet. We need to go up,’ I say. ‘Teacake, will you distract him down here?’
She blinks, and drops to the floor, venturing down the central corridor.
The steps are slippery blocks of ice, and they seem to go on for miles. We stare up at them, clutching at the bitterly cold banister. I mutter a few words of magic, and as I step forward, the ice melts beneath my feet.
‘Step where I’ve stepped,’ I whisper to Zara.
‘Magical footsteps!’
‘Just . . . melting ice. That’s all,’ I say. ‘Actually, it’s making it pretty clear where we’ve been, isn’t it?’
At the top of the steps, we look back to see small footprints leading to where we now stand.
‘Let’s get rid of them.’ I gesture at the staircase, recalling the Latin word for melt. ‘Liquescimus!’
The stairs begin to drip, and the great arches of ice on the chandeliers below us glisten with melting ice. I forge on, Zara by my side, and we tread down the corridor over worn, faded carpet that glitters with frost, and my ears are stretched with listening for him, but there is only silence below.
And then the air is torn by the unmistakeable sound of dawn breaking. I frown.
‘It isn’t dawn. Is it? We can’t have been gone a whole day and night!’
‘No, it’s not dawn,’ Zara says, shifting her feet. ‘I need to go, Stella.’
‘What?’
‘Mrs Mandrake told me it might happen, if things ever went truly badly in Winterspell. I went to see her after I left you yesterday. I still had her number . . . She said Rory would use the horn if she had to – it means there’s trouble. You’ve got this.’ She looks at me. ‘Really. You have.’
‘But shall I come too? What if it’s Yanny?’
‘What if it is?’ she asks. ‘You do your bit; I’ll do mine. And I promise, Stella, I’ll explain later!’
She turns and runs back to the stairs, and I go to shout out after her but a new memory assails me.
‘Estelle.’ My mother’s voice, but pale and worn. Her face, but too thin. Standing by her bed, my hands clutching the cold sheets as someone pulls me away. Screaming. ‘My star!’ She struggles to sit and uses the last of her fire to drown out my wails. ‘Go with your nan. Live your life away from this, and when you are strong and bold, when you are grown, then you will come into your own. Then you will return.’ She reaches for the table by the bed, picks up the links of the copper chain and ties it around my neck with a whisper of words that seals it. A single silver acorn hangs at my throat.
I reach for it now, feel the heat of the golden one that has joined it – that hung at her own neck, so long ago – and I force myself onward, down almost familiar corridors, with the sense of her by my side, searching every inch for what I need.
Now I know – there were three acorns. One silver, one gold, and one of rich, dark amber.
The silver light of my cracked fae lantern casts swinging shadows all around me as I start to search in earnest. Every sound echoes. Giant swathes of cobweb drape from every lintel and hang like silent ghosts from the dull pewter chandelier on the landing, and the dust on the floor has been swept to the sides by giant scuffing footsteps.
In the eerie half-light, the palace feels like a cathedral. Every room a vast, echoing chamber with minimal wood furniture and unravelling tapestries on the walls. I work my way back, and the rooms get smaller. In one, there’s a row of pitted kettles and old pans hanging from hooks, and a fire pit in the centre with a fat copper pot sitting on a metal rack. Another is heaped with old blankets and cushions, stubs of candles set on the mantelpiece amid old wax spills that drip to the hearth.