Chapter One

The Wintermarket

Esteemed members of the Decemvirate, my name is Norret Gantier. As I am Gaitan, I trust you to redact my name from these proceedings, or simply delay publication until such date as I am no longer alive or likely to become so again. Yet despite this need for anonymity, I hope that this missive and the secrets contained within will be sufficient to earn me a place in your august Society.

That said, let me lay out the matter of "The Bone dust Dolls" as it transpired. Spring had come early to Isarn. It was the morning after Merrymead and its attendant costume balls, and everyone was nursing hangovers, at least in the Eglantine House. My friend and occasional paramour Mistress Philomela had engaged my services to build the temple of Calistria a still to turn their copious supplies of young mead into a Five Kings Mountains liqueur that translates from the Dwarven as, roughly, "you've been mauled by a bear." Certainly that is what it felt like. Dr. Orontius-the noted arcane scholar and one of our oldest tenants-and I were taking as tonic a bit of the bear that mauled us while we lounged in his apartments.

"The Osirians do not hold the record, however," the good doctor, still dressed like a sphinx, pontificated on his latest metaphysical tangent. "While some of them believe the soul may be divided into five parts-six if you count the body, and nine if you go with certain heresies-there are philosophers in Tian Xia who say the soul can be divided into two, three, ten, or even a dozen separate pieces. However, losing one or more ofthese parts generally results in some significant handicap-being without one's shadow, one's conscience, even the ability to die no matter how much one might wish it." He ticked offhis points on the claws of his lion-pawed gloves. "Have you read of any of this in your studies of alchemy?"

"A bit," I admitted, omitting the fact that since my brother Orlin's resurrection, he had been suffering some metaphysical peculiarities. "My scholarship in Tian alchemy is sadly lacking."

"As is mine," Dr. Orontius commiserated. "The older I grow, the more lacunae come to light. That said, the most tantalizing fragment of necromantic knowledge I lack is held by the Jadwiga, the witches of lrrisen. The common folk whisper that by their craft-the otherworldly secrets taught by their ancestress, the witch queen Baba Yaga-the Jadwiga can steal the tiniest shard of a soul, so slight that the former owner will scarcely mis s it."

"You make it sound like a cook sneaking out a sliver of cake, then icing it over before serving." The speaker was Orlin. Just turned twelve, he had become a fair chef. He was back in his usual clothes rather than his costume from the night, before when he had gone as Gigas Minor, the young giant.

I am tall as well, so had gone as Gigas Major, all the while acutely aware that I was wearing nothing more than a loincloth fashioned from a swatch oflionskin from before the Revolution. I suspected my club was still in Philomela's chamber.

Orlin set a Merrymead ring on the coffee table between us.

I winced, but Dr. Orontius perked up at the prospect of sultana- studded yeast dough and honeyed frangipane. "A very astute metaphor. Indeed, the ancients baked soul cakes, and a cake may be divided into layers or slices. But the more pressing question is this: Which piece hides the bee-eater?"

He referred to the custom whereby votive trinkets were baked into the Merrymead ring. Getting the songbird in one's slice obligated the finder to buy the next honey cake.

The good doctor dithered until the knife flew up of its own accord. It cut a slice that levitated onto a napkin and into his paws.

I believe I mentioned my brother's "metaphysical peculiarities." The main one of these was that, since his resurrection, he had been haunted by Rhodel, the spirit of an aging prostitute. Orlin also has a propensity for manipulating objects without using physical touch. Either of them might have been responsible.

I flipped down a lens of my monocle to ascertain which, but all I saw was my brother with his soul's hands where they should be. Rhodel's shade stood beside him, appearing in her preferred form as a beautiful girl of fifteen. She smiled at me, head cocked and hands clasped in a classic attitude of feigned innocence.

I flipped the lens back up. Dr. Orontius nibbled his honey cake in the awkward silence that ensued.

"You were mentioning witches stealing souls?" I prompted.

"Oh, yes." The wizard brightened. "According to what I have read, the Jadwiga store the shards in exquisite jewels or filigreed phials."

"To what end?"

"To what end indeed? The Pathfinder Society believes it may have something to do with the dancing huts, the fowl legged sentries that guard Irrisen's borders, or perhaps the porcelain crone dolls rumored to dwell within. But even the witches' formula for porcelain is something that the winter kingdom keeps a closely guarded secret." The old scholar took another sip of golden liqueur from a pre Revolutionary crystal flute. "Your late duke made some inquiries into Irrisen's porcelains, did he not?"

I cursed my loose tongue and then cursed it further with another sip of liqueur, the liquid burning like a honeyed bear claw. "That is true," I admitted, "but even he was unable to pry loose the secret."

I had sometime let slip that I had come into possession of the alchemical formulary ofArjan Devore, the last duke of Dabril. He had journeyed to Irrisen with his young bride, the infamous Anais Devore. While there, they had hoped to produce a "magical child"-standard alchemical code for the stone of the philosophers-and thought they might gain aid in this endeavor from "the mistress of the ivory tower."

The last was likely an oblique reference to the white elixir, one of the two penultimate substances used to form the philosopher's stone.

My brother cut a slice for himself and perched on the arm of a sofa. " So," he said to Dr. Orontius, "you're working your way up to sending us after one of these phials."

The good doctor nearly choked on his honey cake. "Am I that transparent?"

"You are when you're drunk."

"Well," said the old wizard, flustered, "it's a bit more than that. I am a Pathfinder venture-captain, emeritus. And while I long ago retired from that august body, I find it tragic that a city as great as Isarn currently has no Pathfinder lodge, even in secret. Yet this house would make an excellent one, so I have made inquiries to the Decemvirate-mentioning those of your brother's past exploits I am privy to, and others I suspect-and they have indicated that, as Norret is not a known operative and thus might more easily mingle in Whitethrone society, they hope he would undertake an inquiry of utmost urgency on behalf of the Society."

"Getting you a soul phial," Orlin surmised.

"Not just that," said Dr. Orontius. "We've recovered a number of porcelain phials, but all they held was bone dust. It appears the common folk of lrrisen keep these as mementos of those who have passed into Pharasma's Boneyard. Similarly, all the dolls we have examined, while finely crafted by the artisans of that cold realm, appear to be nothing more than playthings for the idle rich such as we used to have in Galt, and that still exist in decadent lands such as Taldor. None were the slightest bit magical or even in the form of crones. As for the porcelain shards we sent out for analysis, all our consulting alchemists could tell us was that they were unusually hard, brilliant, and lustrous." I raised a finger as a point of order. "I believe I also posited that the sample you gave me came from Irrisen."

"And that is what caught the Decemvirate's eye!" the old wizard exclaimed. "Having a man tell you that the hardness, luster, and translucency index matches what is known of Irrisen porcelain from the time of the Forge War, after simply turning it over in his hands? That's impressive."

I shrugged. Modesty is sometimes the best cover for secrecy, but in point of fact, I had been trained in the science of alchemy by Powder master Davin, a dwarf with an almost gnomelike pas sion for porcelain figurines. "You hadn't mentioned who I was doing that analysis for. All you told me is that the job would pay handsomely if your contacts were pleased."

"And indeed they were!" Dr. Orontius's eyes sparkled. "The Decemvirate is so pleased, in fact, that they have deputized me to make a most unusual offer: If you complete this mission, they will grant you a Pathfinder field commission-full membership, with all rights and privileges. Indeed, I myself will induct you, and pay your way south, should you wish to visit the Grand Lodge of Absalom."

I fortified myself with another dose of liqueur. Every child in the Inner Sea, even in Galt, dreamed of being a Pathfinder, of following the open road and searching for lost treasures. Or at least I did, before going to war and viewing countless horrors. Or creating them myself.

The drink burned, doing what it could to salve my conscience.

"So Norret gets to join the Pathfinders if he swipes a soul phial from the witches," Orlin concluded.

My brother has a crass method of summation, but he did put a fine point on it.

Dr. Orontius was not perturbed. "What the Decemvirate requires is not just a soul phial, but knowledge of the relevant rites and information on how they relate to Irrisen's porcelain trade, the crone dolls, and ultimately the dancing huts." The old wizard took a tiny bird-shaped charm out of his mouth and looked rather crestfallen. "Oh, look, I have found the bee- eater," he said. "Did you know that in Irrisen, rather than almonds, they stuff their Merrymead rings with poppyseed paste?"

Orlin was unimpressed. "We're not journeying anywhere with a drunken wizard."

"That can be remedied." Dr. Orontius stood with great dignity-especially impressive considering his costume with the eagle's wings and lion's tail in the back. He proceeded to a cabinet and removed a crystal flask. "Do you have that formula I asked you to prepare, Norret?"

"Yes." He had given me a recipe for some effervescent salts but no notes as to their use. "Right here." I may have forgotten my club, but an alchemist never goes anywhere without his pack. The giant's bag made a good place to conceal mine.

He took the foolscap I retrieved and expertly poured a measure into the clear liquid in the flask. It foamed violently, and he replaced the stopper just before it overflowed. Then it settled, becoming clear and sparkling as champagne.

He poured a glass for each of us. "May Calistria and Cayden overlook the indulgence." Our glas ses rang, and then he downed his draught in a single swallow.

I followed suit. It was extremely refreshing. Invigorating, in fact. Then I belched, and with the carbonation came a huge wave of alcohol fumes.

"I trust you kept some in reserve," said Dr. Orontius. "It is a formula every Pathfinder should have handy."

I was aware that somehow I had accepted Dr. Orontius's mission without ever quite formally agreeing. But the old reprobate knew me and my curiosity too well. I had gone on far more perilous errands for less.

Orlin scowled. "How long will we be gone and what should we bring?"

"Oh, perhaps a week? I understand the Frosthall Theater is mounting a revival of Kostchtchie the Deathless, and I was meaning to catch that anyway. They found a frost giant who can act! Can you imagine? Beyond that, simply wear your warmest clothes. Pretend it's the heart ofKuthona and then double that." Then to me, he added, "Bring your perfumer's sample case and any fireworks left from All Kings Day. The witches ofWhitethrone are starved for novelty and luxury. You will find doors opening to you as a purveyor of both."

It seemed reasonable. I left and changed into my winter traveling clothes, packed a spare bottle of spirits for good measure, and came back to Dr. Orontius's suite to find my brother swathed in what looked to be the entire scarf collection left behind by the late Madame Eglantine, whom I will not speak of other than to mention that she was known for her knitting.

"You look like a Varisian carnival," I told my brother.

"It's Merrymead. Who's going to notice?" Orlin shrugged. "Besides, at least it should be warm."

Dr. Orontius had donned an over-robe, fur-lined mittens, and a matching peaked hood. He had his owl Muco upon his shoulder. "Don't count on that." He turned to face a wall crowded with landscape paintings, reached out with his catoblepas-headed walking stick, and touched one frame.

Dust disappeared and the gilding began to glow, illuminating the scene within and the brass title plaque. "Market Square, Merchant's Quarter, Whitethrone, "the catoblepas head bleated in a tinny voice, reading it aloud.

High buildings faced the square, their slate roofs and gables frosted with snow. Market stalls lay below, tented over with swags of white canvas like snowdrifts. Lanterns punched with stars spangled the scene with white lights like the drifting snowflakes . They began to move and dance, then swirled out of the painting and around us, whirling in a blinding whiteness. Then they cleared.

I felt cold creeping through my boots. The Katapeshi rugs ofDr. Orontius's parlor had become a carpet of snow. The chill in the air was so sharp I gasped in surprise, my breath turning white.

Orlin offered me a muffler from his collection. I gratefully took it, winding it over my mouth and nose. My monocle protected my left eye, but tears started from the right. Dr. Orontius waved his cane expansively. "Behold, the Wintermarket! "

The market appeared much like in the painting, but it was day instead of night. The sun slanted low in the east. Morning had just come to Whitethrone.

Wizards and sorcerers were appearing about us. Here was a Taldan, dressed in robes embroidered with the imperial lion, escorting a cadre of young nobles. There appeared a woman in a black gown dagged with red, an imp on her shoulder, accompanied by a group of halfling porters bearing an ironbound chest.

No one was taking any note of this, so I could only assume that it was just another morning in Whitethrone's Market Square.

Behind us stood the iron statue of a crone, a broomstick in one hand, a bundle of sticks on her back, and a plucked rooster at her waist.

"Till anon." Dr. Orontius saluted with his cane and stepped away. Orlin pointed a finger straight up, then jerked his head to the statue and walked off as well. We had a standard procedure when splitting up-the gesture meant we would meet here at noon.

"Gahan knitting!" my brother cried. "Fine scarves and hosiery! Knit by the brave women of Isarn before the guillotine itself"

I admired his initiative. I had thought only of my own handicrafts. I hadn't considered that anything quintessentially Galtan might command a good price.

A light snow was falling, just enough to leave a sparkle in the air, and here and there roared open flames that drew folk like moths. One was the merry brazier of a pine nut-toasting cart. Another was the flame ofa forge, a dwarven smith before it, ringing his hammer on the anvil in a familiar rhythm. A third was the flame beneath a bright copper cauldron steaming in the winter air, filling it with a heady scent. Three lapis-eyed maidens in veiled headdresses and heavy brocade pinafores danced around it singing a madrigal.

The words became clear momentarily:

Bilberry, blueberry, blackberry brew!

Sweetened with honey and cardamom too!

Come warm your mittens!

Come buy our sbiten!

Come to our cauldron-we brew it for you!

Their stall was festooned with garlands of bees and wasps, fashioned from wirework and tinsel. Merrymead was indeed celebrated in Irrisen as it was in Galt, if in a somewhat different fashion. I moved over to the cauldron, warming my gloves before the life-giving blaze as they bade me. After I had thawed a bit, I took my lidded tankard and passed it to one of the maidens.

She examined it, taking note ofthe pewter lid and cobalt diamonds of classic dwarven salt glaze-it was a gift from Powdermaster Davin-then nodded, deeming it fit. She held it as her sister ladled the hot drink and passed it back with a smile in exchange for silver.

I took a sip, tasting to identify any unmentioned herbs or spices in case their alchemical virtues were needed for an infusion. I detected red clover, which could impart industriousness, and melissa-sometimes known as lemon balm-which was popular among Calistrians and the witches of Galt. Cinnamon and ginger from Jalmeray? Warming spices whichever way you looked. I unbuckled my trusty nutmeg grater and added shavings of a few other reagents to improve the concoction's function as a catalyst, then downed the tankard.

As warmth moved through my veins and the ice melted away, sensation returned to my extremities. I tossed the maidens another silver coin to refill my mug and a third as thanks for a more pleasant winter warmer than what I had brought with me. Citizen Cedrine, former confectioner turned grenadier captain, had taught me the acclimatizing infusion, as well as the importance of using local supplies.

I loosened my scarfand sipped the sbiten, this time just savoring it for its flavor and the delight of discovering another culture.

The market was indeed doing a burgeoning business in imports, and while it was odd to see the fruits of early spring in the middle of winter, it was odder yet to see the peaches of late summer and the apples of fall beside them. I realized I had wandered into the fruit merchants' row.

A white-haired woman who was far too scantily clad for the season-flaunting the same immunity to cold I possessed rather than concealing it-made a great show of displaying some exotic fruit. It looked like a large golden pinecone topped with the crown of an aloe. "Calistria's crown," she declared, drawing a curved silver knife, "brought at great expense from the farthest corner of the world, but now grown by our arts in the Hidden Gardens. Who shall have a slice? A coin of gold for a piece of our golden fruit."

The price was ruinous, but as a Galtan, I was used to absurd prices for food. I tossed her a gold piece and was rewarded with generous wedge, yellow as Mistress Philomela's favorite silk gown and almost as perfumed. "The bottom is the sweetest," the witch confided coyly.

I took a bite. The flesh was dense and sweet, juicy as a peach, acid as an orange, with the scent and aftertaste of a sun-warmed apple.

I was growing to like Whitethrone already.

Other shoppers clamored for a taste of the dainty. I sucked mine down to the last bit of the leathery skin, which I folded in oilcloth and stowed for later analysis. The rest of the sbiten went well with a salmon-and-buckwheat pastry from the next aisle. I noted Dr. Orontius in line at a baked goods stall with a signboard in the shape of a cat sitting before a hearth.

"I believe this should be a lucky one," Dr. Orontius said softly as he passed me the white paper box prettily tied with red string and marked with a gray cat.

Wizards could be cryptic, so I stole a peek inside. The Merrymead rings of Whitethrone were apparently saffron dough dagged to reveal poppyseed filling, these sections forming the abdomens of Calistria's wasps, with gilded marzipan for the wings and bodies, and toasted pine nuts for eyes. Then I glanced at the signboard and nearly dropped my monocle. The tokens baked into Merrymead rings-the Whip of Vengeance, the Fan of Deception, the demon Kostchtchie, and all the rest-were usually tinted tin, sometimes gold-washed silver, occasionally true gold. Before Galt's Revolution, decadent nobles sometimes had them wrought with precious jewels, making the divinatory cakes a gambling game as well.

The witches of Irrisen had done them one better, for the signboard promised that some trinkets bore actual witchcraft.

Enchantments aplenty were on display in Whitethrone's market. Here an ice-eyed Jadwiga man modeled a traditional kaftan embroidered with folk motifs, hounds and horses and the like, only more threadbare and tatty. He ripped a loose applique off one sleeve and tossed it to the ground. All at once it sprang to life, becoming a tiny animal I first took for a white rat, but which rapidly expanded, increasing in size like an image projected on fog when the magic lantern is pulled back. A white mule then stood there in the snow, saddlebags and all, twitching its ears and looking at the witch in the kaftan both crossly and expectantly.

Not every enchantment in the market was so quaint or charming, however. One crone sold severed hands, some ancient and mummified, others as fresh as when they were separated from their rightful owners. I flipped down the relevant lens of my monocle as I walked past, but was not surprised to see the bloody aura of necromancy.

What I was not seeing were dolls.

Stalls sold witches' wands and warriors' swords, wizards'staves, walking sticks and musical instruments, even an assortment of broomsticks and besoms. A white-haired matron held up on of the latter, swearing it would fly me through the air with the grace of a goose.

Then I saw the mammoth. Two giants were admiring it, inspecting its ears and tusks and patting its shaggy flanks the way a person of normal stature would a pony. Then one lifted a young giantess, half again as tall as I am, and placed her atop it. She clutched a porcelain doll the size of a human child.

I suppose I should have mentioned the monsters. Along with the giants, blue-skinned trolls and white wolves the size ofhorses mingled freely with the humans and dwarves and other denizens ofthe cold realm, cheerfully inspecting the bales of tea and other exotic wares of a caravan that could only have come over the Crown ofthe World.

I was considering the wisdom of asking the giants where they had bought their daughter her doll when a gaggle of frost-blue goblins ran by, gabbling in delight, pointing out a sight that delighted me as much if not more: a Tian fireworks dealer. He was just setting up his display, and his wares were covered in the exquisite papers ofTian Xia. I recognized the familiar dragonfly rockets and witches'candles, a complicated Shelyn's rose pinwheel labeled Chrysanthemum Lady, siren fountains, sparklers, strings of firecrackers, and a large assortment of the fireball launching goblin brands that had the goblins so exited.

Two guards with wolfhounds and wicked halberd sidled nearby. I surmised that these were from Whitethrone's storied Iron Guard, and that the alchemist had paid them to keep an eye on his wares.

What I did not see were hop-frogs, the tamer and more festival-friendly version of the venomous toads Powdermaster Davin had taught me to make for the battlefield.

An alchemist's trade is in secrets, but fortunately the alchemist spoke better Taldane than I did Tien. He was interested, but desired a demonstration.

I set a hop-frog in the snow and touched the fuse with a sulfur-tipped Asmodeus match. It burned down and disappeared inside. For a moment, the frog sat there, doing nothing. Then the folded paper of its throat sack expanded and it let out a croak, to the delight of the goblins. This was followed by its mouth opening and its long pink blow- out tongue flicking in and out, the last time with a sparkling dragonfly attached with flames shooting out of its tail. The squibs in the frog's legs then caught fire, causing it to hop as per its name before finally retrieving the struggling dragonfly. Then the jewel in the frog's forehead went bright as the Eye of Aroden, and all at once it exploded-presumably not like Aroden, as I doubt the dead god vanished in a swarm of flaming fireflies and green smoke perfumed with lime blossoms.

The smoke dissipated and the fireflies burned out in the snow, leaving scorch marks and cinders-and a crowd of delighted goblins, each of whom wanted to buy a dozen. More to the point, the alchemist wished to obtain my formula. While of course he could see the individual components, it would take a long while for him to reproduce the effect on his own. We then set to dickering, and he named one secret or another, all of which I either knew or were beyond my price, until at last he whispered, "You know perfume. But do you know the formula for the famous Tian Wash, an elixir for the banishment of evil?"

That I did not, and I imagined that in a place like Irrisen, banishment of evil might be exceptionally useful.

We traded notes, and I had just tucked my formulary back inside my greatcoat when I heard the scream.

It was not a human sound, but rather the sound we in Galt knew as Liberty's Cry. Wolves howled or whined and pawed their ears, but I looked high into the air and saw the blue plume of smoke mixed with the light snowfall.

Soldiers of my regiment used Blue Liberties as signal flares when they were in distress. I had made sure to entrust one to Orlin.

The stalls of the market, however, were a maze.

I looked at the goblins, grinning at me with their perpetual expres sions of wicked delight. "A hop-frog for whoever takes me to where that flare came from."

The goblins grinned even wider.

Chapter Two

The Cocoa Pot

We ran down an aisle and an alleyway, cut through a stall selling painted boxes and other knickknacks, ran past a regiment of the Iron Guard relaxing around a tea stand's samovar, and came out onto a wide boulevard on the edge of Market Square. Winds funneled by the high buildings gusted down the round white cobbles, fluttering the backs of the tents and blasting snow in stinging bursts. The street was almost deserted except for a few young Jadwiga coming from a costume party and a gang of trolls leading a group of children in chains.

"Here!" cried the goblins. "Screamy rocket come from here!"

"Here!" cried one, reaching into the snow, so cold it flowed like sand . She held up a spent match.

I tossed her the promised hop-frog. She squealed in delight.

"Let go of me!" Orlin cried.

Near the trolls, an old woman wearing a dark dress and a wicked-looking knife at her belt held my brother by the ear. "A foreign child!" she cackled. "All on his own. Will anyone notice ifhe goes missing, I wonder?"

"Just wait till my brother finds you! " Orlin threatened .

"But he's not here," the crone hissed. "All that's here is this stick." She shook a broken broom handle under his nose, "and it'll beat your hide black as your hair if you don't march with the other slaves!"

I was in fact "here," but neither the crone nor Orlin had noticed . The snow was beginning to swirl around them, making their ghostly faces appear and disappear in the whirling flakes.

I believe I mentioned my brother's "metaphysical peculiarities." These tend to display most strongly when he is in distress.

"I'll beat you, you ugly hag!" Orlin reached for her stick, but she cackled and held it out of reach. I reached for a bomb . Then the broom wrenched itself out of her hand. The woman turned and the broom handle hit her in the forehead with a sharp crack!

Spectral snickers echoed from the shopfronts, seeming to issue from the cobbles themselves. The hag stood there, stunned. She glanced up the street to where the Iron Guards stood taking their tea, then back to Orlin, hovering a foot above the ground . His ear dripped blood onto the snowy cobbles.

Then her stick hit her in the face again. "Mercy! " she cried, falling to her knees. "Mercy, young master! How was I to know you were a witch child? Your hair is dark, and your accent foreign!"

The goblins laughed maliciously. "Guards! Tell guards!"

"No," said a thin but authoritative voice. "Someone much worse has already heard."

One of the young Jadwiga stepped forward. With the turban on his head, the white monkey on his shoulder, and the extraordinarily besequined vest, harem pants, and curl-toed slippers, he could only be Abu-Fazim, the famous rug merchant from The Tales of Katapesh. But he said, "I am Poskarl Elvanna."

"And I am his cousin, Irynya Elvanna," said a maiden in the astoundingly befeathered gown. It had to be some modiste's conception of the Parrot Princess from the same tales. She had even accessorized it with a rainbow colored parrot.

"I'm Olya Elvanna! " the parrot chortled. While I did not think it likely that a parrot was a member of Irrisen's royal family, this was undoubtedly Irynya's familiar, so it could claim what it liked.

The white monkey, which was wearing a tiny fez, chattered and waved an admonishing finger at the hag.

Somewhere in this, my brother calmed down. At least his feet now touched the cobbles. The broomstick still floated high in the air.

The trolls shuffled their huge feet and the line of shackled children looked on in mute horror. "This is a grave crime," Poskarl intoned. "How do you intend to make amends?"

"Mercy, good sire!" cried the woman. "I am but a poor crone! I possess little gold and these thralls are all spoken for save one . And she is but a worthless thing I was going to sell to the Bone Mill..."

"Could this creature serve as a whipping girl?" Poskarl mused, stroking his wispy beard.

"If-if the witch child would wish it..." The hag turned to Orlin, her eyes plaintive.

"You'll sell her to the Bone Mill if I don't?" My brother stood aghast. "What's a Bone Mill?"

"It is where those who serve no use in our ancestress's realm can serve some," Irynya explained.

The trolls licked their lips.

"Yes," Orlin said quickly. "Yes. She'll be my whipping girl. Now."

The hag gasped like a drowning woman. "Don't just stand there!" she snarled at the trolls. "Unchain her! Unchain her now!" The trolls hastened to comply.

The woman dragged a girl forward, tugging back her hood. "Its parents called it 'Pyatinka.' They sold it for a bushel of moldy wheat."

Pyatinka was a pale strawberry blonde with large eyes a green so light they were almost gray. A few freckles dusted her cheeks.

"It doesn't speak, but it does cry. Sometimes."

"She's mine now," said Orlin.

"And so she is," said Poskarl smoothly, "but a slave minder is little use without her goad." He looked pointedly toward the stick, still floating in the air, then at Odin's new whipping girl. "Unless you care to make use ofit first?"

Reluctantly, Orlin floated the stick back into the old woman's eager grasp. "Why would I?" he said coldly. "I've done nothing wrong."

Poskarl and his cousin laughed. The parrot and the monkey joined in, followed quickly by the goblins and the trolls-possibly even some of the children, though they no doubt would pay for that later.

I patted my brother's back. "Well done."

The crone and the trolls retreated with their charges as I extended my hand to the Jadwiga. "I am Norret Gautier of Galt. I believe you've already met my brother, Orlin."

Poskarl Elvanna laughed. "Well met." He pointedly ignored my hand. "Allow me to introduce my cousin's lovely friend, Valya Morgannan. Oh, and the big lout is Kyevgeny, her 'little' brother." He gestured to a huge man dressed in an equally huge white bearskin cloak with an owl-feathered mantle and beaked hood.

I am tall enough myself that it is rare for me to look up to see another man's eyes, let alone look him straight in the chest. He leaned down and his mittens enveloped my hand in a bone-crushing grip. "Welcome to Whitethrone."

His voice was unexpectedly light for such a large man, and I tried to place where I had heard the name Morgannan before . It was not Elvanna, the current dynasty-perhaps it was one ofthe other Jadwiga families who had ruled Irrisen in the years between Baba Yaga's centennial returns.

Valya moved forward in a Galtan walking gown of sprigged muslin, her feet in sandals, her ice-blonde hair done up in a pre-Revolutionary band ornamented with artificial cherry blossoms and a stuffed song thrush. She appeared older than the others, though still somewhat younger than mysel£ I was uncertain what her costume portrayed, but she was certainly another witch, her attire far too slight for the season. It also matched the porcelain doll she bore in her arms, a fashion doll made in the form of a maiden. "And this is Madenya," she introduced her doll, "and Koliadki," she added with a touch to her headband.

The thrush twisted its head and peered at me upside down. Another familiar.

The monkey chattered angrily until Poskarl laughed. "And this is Lychee, the wise and learned, a great scholar among the snow monkeys of Minkai."

I was reminded of the time the members of my regiment decided to name their weapons, until Citizen Cedrine put a stop to it.

Then the child beside Orlin spoke. "I am Tinka," she said, and promptly fainted.

"She is bone- chilled," said Kyevgeny, looking a bit cold himself. Even his monstrous costume or shamanic garb could not compete with witchcraft or alchemy or Gahan knitting and white-hot rage. "The wind here is too great for those without witchcraft. We'd best get her to somewhere warm unless you want to take her to the Bone Mill immediately."

Poskarl chuckled. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"The Cocoa Pot is nearby." Kyevgeny picked up the child easily. "Follow me."

He loped off with great strides. Orlin ran after-half, I think, from the cold, half to keep track of his new ward.

Poskarl and Irynya looked bemused but seemed to have nothing better to do, and followed at a more sedate pace.

Valya linked arms with me and led me up the street. "Cocoa goes wonderfully with Merrymead cake." She touched a bare finger to the red string on my bakery box, then added conspiratorially, "The Gray Cat bakes for the Royal Palace, so Poskarl should have no cause for complaint, though he always does."

I didn't know what to say, so of course said nothing.

The Cocoa Pot was a large white building edged with blue. Its signboard displayed a peculiar porcelain pot with the handle set at a ninety-degree angle to the spout, like a teapot crossed with a coffeepot.

More of these pots were in use inside. Galt's wars had made imports unpredictable at best, and the chocolatiers' art had suffered accordingly, but Citizen Cedrine had nonetheless made certain I understood the bean's properties and how to compose potions as bonbons in case I encountered a reliable source.

I did not know whether the Hidden Gardens were amazingly abundant or if it was the result of Irrisen's eon long trading alliances and stockpiles, but there was no shortage of cocoa on display. Blue-haired gnomes wearing crimson felt caps tended the machinery, the roasters, the winnowers, the granite millstone and conching rollers, and the coal-powered furnaces that fueled the devices. The air was warm and deliciously perfumed with cocoa.

A brass-edged glass wall separated the chocolate-making side from the shop and parlor. Tables and sofas clustered around several fireplaces and potbellied iron stoves with cheerful isinglass windows.

Kyevgeny had placed Tinka on a fur rug before one of these and removed her mittens, and was now rubbing her tiny hands between his own huge paws. His owl-beaked hood was back, revealing a beardles s youth, his hair gold rather than platinum. His eyes were the same striking lapis blue as those of the other Jadwiga.

"Back at the palace, we have wood fires," Poskarl sniffed.

"They have wood fires here too." Valya pointed to neat stacks of firewood and a slate listing prices for each type. I polished my monocle, wondering whether condensation had added a few decimal places. It had not.

Poskarl held his nose in the air, disdainfully regarding the coffered ceiling that resembled an inverted chocolate mold. "I do not recall this as an establishment to run a tab."

For you, Irynya mouthed to Valya, and both girls giggled.

Orlin stood before me. "Where are your smelling salts?"

"Here." I removed a vinaigrette from my bandolier. "Let me administer them." I knelt down and uncorked the vial. The active ingredient of sal volatile is spirits of hartshorn, but I had adulterated this with camphor and tarragon vinegar. It had the desired effect. The child promptly inhaled, then sat up. Then she began to weep.

"Why are you crying?" asked Orlin.

"You're a witch. You're going to beat me..."

Orlin looked shocked, then grim. "No," he said. "No one is ever going to beat you again." He picked up a sliver of wood from on of the stacks and pushed it through one of the iron stove's air intakes. "As this burns, so may the hag's stick burn."

The twig blazed alight on the other side of the isinglass.

I was impressed, and s o were the Jadwiga. I doubted Orlin had the power to actually effect such a curse, but he had been learning the principles of sympathetic magic from observing Dr. Orontius, and his conventions were sound.

There was an exchange oflooks, then at last Irynya said to Poskarl, "Well, you wanted firewood."

"That I did," Poskarl laughed. "And now I want cocoa. And some of that cake he's carrying."

I smiled. 'Tm certain that can be arranged."

"I'll get the cocoa," offered Kyevgeny.

"And I," said Valya, "will show you something a little bird told me."

"Oh?" said Poskarl, feigning boredom but betraying interest.

She turned to Orlin. "Would you like me to mend that cut on your ear?"

My brother looked to me. He knew I could brew an infusion that could heal it, but he also knew our mission. "What would it cost me?"

She laughed. "What would you offer?"

Orlin considered, then reached into Madame Eglantine's knitting bag and withdrew a pair of stockings. "Knitting for knitting? You knit my flesh, I give you some fine Gahan hosiery?"

Valya's pupils widened at the sight of Madame Eglantine's stockings. "You have a bargain." Holding her doll in the crook of one arm, she reached into her reticule with her free hand and took out a white lace handkerchief. It looked like a giant snowflake. She moistened it with spit, then reached out to Orlin's ear while her thrush clung to her band's cherry blossoms and softly chirped in hers. She nodded, then recited,

"Baba Yaga's faitliful wolfhound

Saw the blood upon the snowfall,

Saw her pup had torn his dewclaw.

Lovingly she licked her houndlet

Smooth and clean as winter's snowfall.

Blood to blood and bone to bone,

Joint to joint, let all be joined."

As she spoke the charm, the blood disappeared and Orlin's wound with it. Even the blood on Odin's shoulder vanished, leaving it as clean and unblemished as Valya's snowflake handkerchief.

Orlin presented her with the stockings.

"I would like to learn that charm," said Irynya.

"So would I," said Olya, her parrot.

Poskarl huffed haughtily, but his eyes betrayed him, as did his monkey. Lychee punched him in the shoulder and chattered angrily while pointing to Valya and her thrush.

Kyevgeny had returned with the cocoa and had also seated Tinka and poured her the first cup. I placed the bakery box on the table and cut the string.

Being Galtan, my first instinct was to divide the cake equally-but being Gaitan, I had also seen a starveling child wolfher food till she choked or gorge till she vomited. I cut a modest slice and placed it on a plate for Tinka. The plates were snowy porcelain in the shape of snowflakes, but with an opalescent overglaze Powdermaster Davin had taught me was known as "Winter's Kiss"-as much of a mystery as Irrisen's formula for porcelain itself.

A blizzard of smaller snowflakes made up Tinka's cup, which she took hesitantly, then sipped slowly. As she did, I saw a small blue mark on the bottom. Cobalt glaze, four tiny curved brush strokes. Taken together they gave the impression of interlaced mammoth tusks or a buttressed tower or a stylized M.

The child put down her cup, her upper lip darkened with cocoa, but appeared too fearful to ask for more no matter how desperately she might want it.

I pushed the slice of honeycake toward her, picking up another plate as I did and stealing a glance at the bottom. An ivory tower... Did the "M" stand for "Mistress"?

"Admiring the porcelain marks?" Irynya inquired.

"Um... yes," I admitted. I'm trying to remember if I've seen this sigil before."

"Pay it no mind." She waved dismissively. "It's just the seal of some old dynasty from the early days of the empire, of no power or consequence in the modern age. I doubt anyone even knows who they are now, much less cares."

"Oh stop it, Irynya," Valya said, giggling. "You're utterly terrible."

"I know," Irynya tossed her head, making the rainbow colored feathers of her fascinator dance, "but I'm an Elvanna. It's expected." She looked at me pointedly. "And you are certainly a Galtan, serving a thrall before those of royal blood." She paused and added, "Don't worry. I find it deliciously scandalous."

"We are stilyagi," Poskarl explained. "We do not follow Whitethrone's arbiters of fashion, and we admire the customs of foreign lands. Some customs." He smiled, displaying teeth that were exceedingly white. "I would still like a piece of cake."

I nodded and cut a generous slice. I doubted Poskarl had gone hungry a day in his life.

He accepted it with a nod and passed it on to Irynya. "For you, my dear cousin." She took it then passed it to Valya. "For you, my valued companion."

Valya smiled and nodded, then signaled to Kyevgeny, who brought a tray from the lower shelf of the teacart he had wheeled over. On it was a miniature cocoa service, including the peculiar miniature pot . She proceeded to cut tidbits from her larger piece, placing them on plates and serving them in turn to Irynya's parrot, Poskarl's monkey, her thrush, and finally her doll, Madenya, which she had seated upon her bag, making it look like a has sock.

"Where is your helper?" Valya asked Orlin.

"My what?"

"Your familiar," Poskarl said. "We've seen you work witchcraft. You're not like poor Kyevgeny there, picking lint out of charm bags in hopes of finding even a crumb of magic."

"Indeed," agreed Irynya. " Surely you must have a toad or hedgehog hidden in one of your pockets."

"Oh, my spirit guide," Orlin said. "Rhodel's used to serving herself. She's Gahan, too."

On cue, my knife levitated, Rhodel cutting herself a slice, followed by the cocoa pot levitating and pouring her a cup as well. The spare chair next to Tinka pulled out.

The little girl's eyes went wide, and then, when nothing horrid occurred, looked hungrily at the cake. Rhodel slid her portion over.

She then proceeded to play hostess, serving Irynya, Poskarl, Kyevgeny, Orlin, and finally myself.

"So," Irynya said to me, "we saw you use that revivifying phial to wake the child . Where is your helper?"

"I don't have one yet," I admitted, "though I've been thinking of making a homunculus ." Four sets of lapis-blue eyes gave me mystified looks, so I explained, "It's a familiar made out of various materials-mostly mandrake root."

"Oh, a mandragora!" Irynya exclaimed. "We have an aunt who has one of those."

"Nasty creature," said Poskarl. " Spawned from demon blood from what I heard."

Irynya raised an eyebrow and took a sip of cocoa. "Are we talking about the mandragora or Aunt Lubov?"

Poskarl grinned. "You tell me."

Irynya took a diplomatic sip of cocoa instead.

Kyevgeny asked, "So you can farm mandragoras?"

"That's theoretically possible, but a homunculus is created in a laboratory. It's an alchemical process."

He leaned forward intently. "You know alchemy?"

"Some. I make perfumes and fireworks. Would you like to see my samples?"

"Didn't you have that dreadful Revolution?" said Irynya. "I heard that Galt once had truly fine perfumes, but since?" She rolled her eyes. "The fashion at court is for the perfumes of Tian Xia anyway."

"I thought you stilyagi set your own fashion," said Orlin.

"In town, yes. At court? Well..." She waved her fingers and gazed upward.

"Our grandmother once had some Gahan perfume," Kyevgeny mentioned. "She might be interested."

Poskarl rolled his eyes. "Your grandmother..."

This was not going as well as I liked. "Well," I said, making conversation, "did you at least have a pleasant costume ball?"

"Costume ball?" echoed Poskarl.

"For Merrymead. You're dressed as Abu-Fazim, the carpet seller, yes?"

Poskarl's pale cheeks turned pink, then bright red, then almost purple. Irynya burst out laughing. "I told you, cousin! I told you! The turban was simply too much!"

Poskarl fumed, then turned to me, demanding, "Very well, then. But what does she look like?"

"The Parrot Princess from The Tales of Katapesh?" I hazarded.

Irynya looked shocked, and then began to laugh, as did her parrot.

Valya arched a pale eyebrow at her friend and took a dainty sip of cocoa. "Next time you will allow me to design for you rather than patronize the Frosthall's wardrobe mistress." She paused, then inquired of me, "What did you think I was dressed as?"

"An elegant lady from before the Revolution?"

"Oh pooh," she pouted, "I knew those fashion plates were outmoded."

"This is why we find foreigners refreshing," Irynya laughed, then paused, daintily raising a napkin to her lip s . A moment later, she removed a sliver of gold, then wiped the last poppy seed free and unfurled it. "The Fan of Flirtation! I shall be lucky in love!"

I toasted her with my mug o fcocoa, then took a sip. Rich and creamy, it tasted of calcium, the mineral found in everything from eggshells to limestone.

"I found one, too," said Tinka softly. "I was never taught the witch marks, but I know what this must say." She placed a tiny charm on the tablecloth, a whip made from a length of gold braid. "I must give this to my master, for I am a whipping child now."

"Nonsense," Poskarl admonished. "That is the Whip of Vengeance. It is terribly unlucky to give away a Merrymead trinket. You must set that whip on one who has wronged you." He smirked at Orlin. "Looks like you may not want to beat her for a while."

"I wasn't planning to," my brother said drily.

"You wear it until you need it." Irynya showed off her bracelet, one of its charms a tiny fan, its scurrilous inscription now furled.

"I have no jewelry," said the child.

"Pick up your bauble," said Kyevgeny.

She did as she was bidden. He picked up the red string from the bakery, threaded it through the loop at the base, and tied it around her wrist. He examined the trinket. "If anyone wrongs you, throw this and say, 'The wasp stings until she is satisfied."'

The child mouthed the words but did not say them aloud.

Different words were being said in my head. It took me a moment to realize the voice was inside my mouth : Norret I shall be attending 'Kostchtchie the Deathless' next Fireday. Meet me on the Frosthall steps afterward. Use this talisman to reply if needed. Orontius."

I reached for my napkin and discreetly spat the Merrymead token out into it. Orontius had apparently had ulterior motives in giving me the cake.

"Did you say something?" asked Poskarl.

"I think he said, 'Kostchtchie the Deathless,'" said Irynya. "Does anyone have tickets? Poskarl traded ours."

"Grandmother has her box," Valya said. "Sometimes she favors us."

Irynya snorted. "Your grandmother reads the harrow for her dolls."

Valya covered her doll's ears. "Don't listen to her, Madenya."

Poskarl glanced to Kyevgeny. "At least you had the sense to leave that foolish little barbarian doll at home." His monkey nodded in agreement and sipped its cocoa.

"Klaufi isn't foolish!" Kyevgeny protested.

Poskarl was about to respond when he glanced my way.

"Ah! You've found the Bee-Eater!" He pointed to the bird shaped charm in my napkin.

Irynya laughed like her parrot. "It's a year of malicious gossip for you unless you buy the next cake!"

"Who's 'Kostchtchie the Deathless'?" asked Orlin.

"A foolish barbarian," said Poskarl.

"The patron spirit of frost giants," said Irynya.

"A demon who eats bad children..." whispered Tinka.

"All true," Kyevgeny agreed. "Would you like to hear the tale?"

"Please," said Irynya. "Your shows are always amusing."

Kyevgeny was an exceptionally large man with a voluminous cloak. I should not have been surprised when he reached in and produced a Clever Nella theater.

The proscenium arch, while painted paper, looked like sculpted ice. The curtain, instead of red velvet, was iridescent silk.

And then it was not. Kyevgeny had just freshened our cocoa, dimmed the fishy-smelling table lamp, and moved it behind the toy theater when the silk changed to red velvet. The curtains parted, revealing a screen of silk, shimmering like frost on a windowpane, and moving shadows that shifted, becoming real. A window into the past.

As we watched, the shadows told the story of Kostchtchie, an Ulfen man forced by his father to murder his mother and sisters, and who then murdered his father in turn. From there, he became a terrible warlord, becoming so powerful that he eventually challenged Baba Yaga herself, demanding the secret of immortality. The Witch- Queen agreed, but not in the way he expected, twisting his form into that of a hideous giant and hiding the last fragments of his soul away in a magical tore. Shamed, Kostchtchie fled to the Abyss and became the patron of frost giants. From there, he plots against Irrisen, hoping to recover the tore containing his former soul so that he might reverse his condition.

"An interesting tale," interrupted a voice, "and an intriguing method of presentation. A screen made from the silk of dream spiders? How novel. And moral. Most people, when they obtain such a substance, brew it into a valuable drug. But of course, you wouldn't know anything about that."

I turned. Beside me sat a wolf with blue eyes and silver white fur. Then he was a man with the same colors. Then a wolf. Then a man. Back and forth, one after another, like the pages of two different flipbooks interleaved.

I looked down at my cocoa and realized I had been drugged.

Chapter Three

Porcelain Street

An alchemist learns the use of drugs as part of his work with poisons. With most, deadliness depends on dosage.

I had grown complacent. Orlin has a unicorn's talent for detecting poisons, gained from an alicorn fragment I used in his resurrection, and I had come to rely on his warnings. A les s than lethal dosage of a poison, however, would not register; elsewise, unicorns would be known for trampling foxgloves rather than skewering evil creatures.

Though I had never encountered it personally, I knew that dream spider venom could be used to brew "shiver," a potent narcotic and hallucinogen. Nobles imported this exotic vice to Galt, and even after the Revolution, nests of the monstrous arachnids had been found lairing in forgotten archives. Powdermaster Davin had warned me that the webbing itself was psychotropic.

A theory was coming together. It was said that some Katapeshi storytellers used majoun, a drugged sweetmeat, to enhance their performances. Why couldn't an Irriseni storyteller do the same? A drop of shiver in the cocoa, a shadow puppet theater screened with the webbing, and Kyevgeny's frankly mellifluous voice, trained in the charms ofWhitethrone and heir to his famous ancestress? He might not be a proper witch, but Kyevgeny had found more than a crumb of magic in the charm bags Poskarl accused him of plundering.

I had more than a crumb in my bag as well. Along with the alicorn fragments, I had found a greater treasure, the unicorns kin glove of Duke Devore, with its inset a ruby posses sing a number of virtues. The most pertinent was its ability to neutralize poison.

Of course, alcohol is a poison, and the inability to get drunk made for a less than merry Merrymead.

I swapped my left glove for the unicornskin one.

I felt the gem's familiar weight. Kyevgeny's theater lost its luster, the colors muting, changing from a window in time to a pretty but unremarkable toy. My theory of a mild hallucinogen was correct.

Or not, since ifthe unicorn's jewel had rid me of poisons, why was the being beside me still flickering back and forth from wolf to man?

I observed this phenomenon. As an alchemist, I had drunk more than my share ofpotions. It was to be expected that I might see things that might or might not be there.

I saw Rhodel lift the cocoa pot and pour a cup, then take my knife and cut a slice of cake. The man and the wolfboth stared. It was clear that they were seeing something other than a pretty girl setting Merrymead cake before them.

"Who se witchery is this? " asked the man. The wolf said nothing.

"Orlin's," Irynya said brightly, gesturing to my brother. "He has a ghostly helper. Isn't that marvelous, especially for one so young?"

"Who's your friend, Kyevgeny?" his sister asked.

Kyevgeny sat up straight, no longer hunched behind his toy theater. He was an absolutely huge youth, and being lit from below by the table lamp should have made him look sinister, but in that moment he looked even younger than my brother.

Poskarl looked younger than Tinka and far more frightened. Lychee, his monkey, was even more expressive, his mouth open in a grimace of horror, his hands clutching Poskarl's turban and pulling it askew as he tried to hide behind it.

"You may call me Silvertooth, my dear." The man grinned, revealing that one of his front teeth had indeed been replaced with silver. The wolf snarled and his right fang was silver as well. "I am sorry if I interrupted your amusement, but I have business to discuss with your brother and his friend." He indicated Poskarl. "If you could find some errand to take you elsewhere, it would be well."He then glared at Orlin. "I do not care for cocoa, thank you."

I knew from Cedrine that chocolate was poisonous to dogs . Perhaps the same held true with all canids.

I also discovered the reason for my double vision. The lens that let me see Rhodel had fallen halfway across my eye during Kyevgeny's puppet show. Apparently its interaction with the shiver-laced cocoa allowed me to see a shapeshifter's true form.

I flipped it up. All I saw was a white-haired man in a wolfskin coat.

I dropped another lens. Silvertooth's silver tooth glinted jacinth, the color ofAndoren poppies. Clearly magical.

He turned to me. "Might you also have business elsewhere?"

I flipped the lens up, looking into the eyes of a wolf in the head of a man.

I was the first to look away. "I, um, yes." I spotted Madenya clutched in Valya's arms. "I was meaning to purchase a doll. Tinka needs one. Do you know-"

"Porcelain Street," Irynya supplied quickly. "You buy dolls on Porcelain Street. We'll show you the way. The boys can meet us later."

Poskarl and Kyevgeny still looked stricken but nodded, to which Silvertooth said, "Splendid."

Rhodel boxed up the Merrymead cake, including Silvertooth's slice. She made a show ofreturning my knife past the wolfman's nose. He bared his teeth at me until I left with Orlin, Tinka, Valya, and Irynya.

"Fly, my pretty," Irynya told her parrot once we were outside the building. "Fetch us a sleigh."

Olya took wing, a burst of color against the snow. Irynya turned to Valya. "What was that about?"

"We don't want to know, but we need to anyway." She reached up to her hairpiece, taking Koliadki onto her finger. "Hurry, little one," she whispered. "Tell grandmother everything."

The thrush bobbed its tiny head and fluttered off across the rooftops.

A minute of awkward silence was broken by Olya's screeching: "There is my mistress, Irynya Elvanna, great grandaughter of our glorious queen! Serve her well, Varki man, and you shall be rewarded from the palace purse!"

Below the fluttering parrot tromped a team of reindeer pulling a sleigh driven by a dark-haired man wearing a blue tunic trimmed with red and yellow ribbons. His feet were shod in reindeer-hide moccasins. He assisted Irynya first, then Valya and me, giving us seats in the back, then placed Orlin and Tinka with himselfin the driver's box.

Olya attempted to perch on a reindeer's antlers, but the deer kept tossing their heads. "Porcelain Street!"

The driver shook his reins and the reindeer pulled the sleigh at a merry clip. We passed other wintry conveyances drawn by reindeer, horses, and dogs. A mammoth pulled a sled carrying a giant.

We came into a snow-filled plaza. Trolls were shoveling while goblins used long-handled rakes to pull snow off roofs.

Orlin turned to face us. "Where does all the snow go?"

"Some goes into the lake, some into the hot springs," Irynya explained.

"What about the snow outside the city?"

"A word ofadvice," Irynya cautioned. "Those who ask too many questions have their skulls used to repair the Bone Road, the street where we first met." She smiled wickedly. "It leads from the city gates to the palace barbican, is often widened, and is the one street in Whitethrone always kept well swept."

"Those were skulls?" Orlin said, followed quickly by, "That's not a question!"

"Indeed," said Irynya, "it is not." She laughed then. "But here I am acting too much a member of the royal family. A stilyagi should like impudent questions. Ask me your most impudent and I shall answer as best I can."

Orlin thrust out his lower lip, thinking. "So if it's always winter in Irrisen, do you still have Crystalhue?"

"A most impudent question!" Irynya's parroty cackle echoed in the cold air. "Yes, winter rules eternal in Irrisen, yet time still passes, and we still have holidays. It is now Merrymead. In other lands, I hear they mourn the return of soggy springtime. In Whitethrone, we celebrate the first of the caravans from Tian Xia." She chuckled. "As for Crystalhue-we have few Shelynites here, but it's still a time for proposals and courtships."

Valya grinned slyly. "I think Irynya's looking forward to this next one in particular."

Irynya flushed bright pink, and I turned from whatever scandal was brewing in their aristocratic circle in order to observe the impressive sights passing us by.

To our right, out of great blocks of snow, rose a huge ice sculpture shaped somewhat like Kyevgeny-if he were bearded, wielding a giant ax, and taller than a frost giant.

Goblins clambered up the sculpture with knives clenched in their teeth, carrying trussed sheep. A large crowd looked on.

Orlin and I are used to the sight of blood on snow. But unlike the goblins' butchery or what I had witnessed and perpetrated on the battlefield, the guillotine is a humane and scientific instrument. Tinka did not need such sights. "Do not look," I called out. She dutifully hid her eyes.

"Indeed," agreed Irynya. "Sheep? What is the Frosthall corning to, that it needs to advertise its plays so?"

"Kostchtchie the Mutton Butcher," joked Valya.

"Kostchtchie the Mutton Monger," Irynyajested back. Her friend fell into a fit of giggles at the ribald pun. "Porcelain Street, driver," the ice princess instructed. "No need to tarry."

I noted the steps where Dr. Orontius wished us to meet him next Firesday, memorizing the façades of neighboring structures.

Our sleigh left the plaza, but not before the sheep began to scream.

We proceeded down a wide boulevard edged with the businesses one finds adjacent to theaters-restaurants, taverns, fashionable rnodistes-and turned right onto a street so calculatedly picturesque the effect could only have been achieved with witchcraft. Even the snow seemed manicured.

Covered walkways with elegantly turned posts and balusters joined shop porticos into a grand promenade on both sides of the street. Shoppers could stroll in their finest clothes unsullied by snow or soot. A precise tracing of hoarfrost ran around the edges of the windowpanes that, rather than obscuring the wares within, framed them to best advantage.

One small shop specialized in mugs and steins. A group of richly dressed dwarves eyed them covetously. A larger shop's windows boasted full porcelain services in an assortment of patterns, from the tasteful snowflake ware used at the Cocoa Pot to baroque holiday sets, such as an elaborate tessellated pattern of interlocked bees, wasps, and daggers, obviously intended for some witch's Merrymead feast. Others sold busts of Queen Elvanna in assorted sizes, biscuit jars in the shape of goblins, vinegar cruet trolls with removable heads, figurines and decorative plates of every description. But mostly Porcelain Street sold dolls. Hundreds of dolls lined the street, watching from windows like Galtan children curious about the tumbrel carts on their way to the guillotine.

"The Four Tusks, driver." Valya pointed to Porcelain Street's most elegant shop.

The Galtan in me insisted I shake the driver's hand, slipping him a few coins. It is an honor to serve the Revolutionary Council, but risky to ask payment. I presumed Queen Elvanna's palace operated similarly.

The doors of the shop were opened for us by Ulfen guards almost as tall as Kyevgeny. Between them, the trolls, and the giants, Whitethrone was conspiring to make me feel positively short.

We were met by a balding, middle-aged Ulfen man sporting a kaftan of spotless white, sewn with seed pearls in a pattern that resembled four tusks, an ivory tower, or a monogrammed M-the same mark as on the back of the porcelain. "Lady Morgannan!" he greeted Valya. "What an unexpected delight! And Madenya too! Such a pleasure!"

"It is good to see you as well, Ermutt," Valya squeezed his arm, "and before you ask, Holgrim is getting on very well. Grandmother has promoted him to Kyevgeny's valet."

"Oh, good! Oh, I am so happy. Oh-" He froze with the look of a frightened deer as he glimpsed Irynya.

"Lady Irynya," Valya supplied, "great-granddaughter of Her Majesty."

Ermutt bowed so low his carefully coiled forelock fell off his bald spot and onto the floor.

Irynya stifled a giggle. "You may rise." He did. She giggled more as he hastily brushed the hair out of his face and onto his head where it sat like a pile of golden cobwebs.

"Shall I clear the shop so you may browse in private, your ladyship?"

"No need." She stepped to one side and gestured to Orlin. "This talented young witch has acquired a whipping child, as is proper," her eyes flicked to me, "and his brother thought that she might want a doll." She dimpled, obviously stifling a laugh.

"Of course, your ladyship." Ermutt betrayed no impropriety. "Was your companion wanting a particular style of doll?"

"Oh, he's a stranger to Irrisen." Irynya laughed lightly. "Just show us everything."

"As your ladyship pleases."

The Four Tusks catered to the nobility. Tables displayed platters and punch bowls in the "Icicle Crown" pattern created for the coronation of Queen Elvanna, reserved for members ofthe royal family, and dismissed as "Oh, those," by Irynya. Vitrines on the staircase landing showcased porcelain miniatures of the wild creatures of Irrisen: a panoply of snow geese, snowshoe hares, pine martens, white harts, and gray boars. One corner curio displayed a large number of gray house cats in various charming poses.

Upstairs, hundreds of dolls-girls and boys alike watched unblinking. Most were gold- and copper-haired Ulfen children or platinum-tressed Jadwiga, but there were a number of dark-haired Varisians and Chelaxians represented, some Tians and Kellids, and a few from races even farther from Irrisen's borders.

"You will note," said Ermutt, proudly displaying his wares, "most of our children wear the traditional clothing of Irrisen. But some wear their native costumes, like this fine fellow in his Varki gakti," he gestured to a doll wearing a blue tunic like our sleigh driver, "and others in more exotic garb. See this lovely? She depicts one of the geishas of Minkai." He pointed out a Tian girl in an elaborate silk robe and sash, her black hair pinned up withjewels, her face painted with white lead. I didn't know what a geisha was, but she resembled a handmaid from before Galt's Revolution.

I glanced about, seeing if l could see any more mature dolls. I was rewarded with a case of older fashion dolls and a shelf with no less than a dozen crone dolls.

Ermutt followed my gaze. "Ah yes. We also have the mothers for all our sweet little children, and of course our babushkas, the grandmothers, whom no proper Irriseni home is without."

I regarded the crones. While the faces of the child dolls and the middle-aged dolls had been cast with a range of expressions-happy, sad, mischievous, petulant-they were all some variety of pleasant.

The crones wore an assortment of evil expressions conniving, furious, gloating, malicious, disapproving, grim. All were dressed like the statue of Baba Yaga from Market Square: broomsticks in one hand, bundles of sticks on their backs, and plucked golden cockerels at their waists along with silver sickles, garlic braids, various roots and herb pouches-the tools of the witch's trade. The crones' sarafans were the moss green of woad overdyed with weld, their blouses the contrasting purple that came from the costly Taldan dye murex. Instead of kokoshniks or crowns, they all wore black leather skullcaps over their snow-white hair. Their eyes were silver and ultramarine and frighteningly intense.

Tinka pointed to one bearing a particularly haughty expression, her finger shaking. "Mother and Father kept ours beside the hearth. We told Baba Yaga when our chores were done and left her an egg cup filled with cabbage water every night." Tears welled up in the child's eyes. "But I spilled it! And Mother sold me to the thrallmistress!" She looked in horror at the dolls all around us. "The thrallmistress said the Bone Mill would grind my bones and turn me into a doll!"

Valya gasped. "The old woman said that!?"

Tinka nodded, eyes wide.

"Something should be done about that," Irynya sniffed. "First trying to make a witch her thrall, next telling ridiculous lies?" She shook her head. "I've heard of magic mills that churn out salt, coffee ... even gold! But complete dolls ? Preposterous!"

"It would greatly simplify the process," Valya snorted, "but it's completely untrue." She knelt down, facing Tinka, her face serious. "This is Madenya." She held up her doll. "She doesn't believe a word of it. Do you, Madenya?" Valya must have had some of Kyevgeny's puppetry training, for she made her doll shake her head in an exceptionally lifelike way. "You mustn't believe a word of it," she told Tinka. "Nor repeat it to anyone else. Do you understand?"

All at once, Tinka brightened. "I don't believe a word of it!"

"Good." Valya stood, the child as good as forgotten.

Orlin locked eyes with Irynya. "Then what does the Bone Mill grind the bones for?"

"Oh, various things," she dismissed. "The nicer skulls are used to repair the Bone Road, choice bits are sold to necromancers or made into furniture, but mostly they're just ground for bread for the ogres and trolls."

Valya nodded in agreement. " Some of the poorer wolves too, though don't let them hear you saying that. It's a horrible insult to a winter wolf to accuse them of looking for scraps around the Bone Mill."

"Especially if it's true," Irynya added impishly.

"Exactly." Valya stood up. "No one eats troll bread or ogre sausage except the trolls and ogres. And sometimes the giants."

"And the goblins," Irynya added, "but goblins eat fish heads, so that scarcely counts."

"Troll bread!" squawked Olya.

Irynya mock-glared at her parrot. "Yes, and you too, but you're a featherbrain." She kissed her familiar on the cheek.

"You won't feed me to the trolls?" asked Tinka.

"Of course not," scoffed Irynya. "You're not my whipping child." She looked to Orlin.

"I'm not going to feed her to trolls!"

"There you are then," Irynya concluded. "I expect he will keep you as a pet, and you'll only be whipped when your master does wrong. If you are very good, when you're older, you may earn some trusted place in his household."

Ermutt nodded. "My son Holgrim is now a valet," he said proudly.

"Better that than bodyguard," Irynya snorted. "Can you imagine?"

Valya chuckled. "He was Kyevgeny's whipping boy."

I sighed. "I take it that whipping children don't generally get toys."

Irynya dimpled. "Not new ones."

Valya nodded. "Generally they get our cast-offs."

"You could get a new doll, Valya," Irynya suggested, "and give her Madenya."

"No!"Valya cried fiercely, hugging her doll. "Grandmother gave her to me after Mother died birthing Kyevgeny. She even had Madenya's wig made from Mother's hair!"

lrynya mouthed the last words, rolling her eyes, then turned to other sport. "Mostly we give our whipping children our old clothes. Though this was especially funny with Holgrim," she explained. "He's short for an Ulfen, and looks positively ridiculous in what Kyevgeny's outgrown. Which is everything."

"We Morgannans are an old house," Valya reminded her friend. "Kyevgeny takes after our ancestress Sudreyskr is all." She looked to me and explained, "Jadwiga marry Jadwiga to keep the lines strong. The exception is when there's a fosterling, a witch of impressive power from another race such as Orlin here-who is taken into one of our families and raised as our own. Sudreyskr was one such. There have been Morgannans since who inherited her stature or golden hair."

"A pity Kyevgeny didn't get her magic in the bargain."

"Says the girl who didn't find her familiar till last year."

"I found her," Olya corrected.

"That you did." Irynya kissed her parrot again. "No matter. Poskarl is a year older than Kyevgeny, and he's barely had his monkey since Crystalhue. There's time for your brother to catch up."

"Indeed ... " Valya looked pensive, turning toward the windows so I saw her in profile. She was quite pretty, with fine angular features, and resembled her doll, Madenya. That was unremarkable, for the doll had been crafted in memory ofher mother. What was remarkable was that, seen in profile and serious, both bore a striking resemblance to what I had taken to be a bust of Queen Elvanna. But it was not. It was the bust of another woman, one who looked close enough to Elvanna to be a sister, but instead of wearing the crown ofiron icicles, wore a tiara formed off our ivory tusks.

I flipped down my telescopic lens. The inscription read as I expected: Queen Mor11annan. The prongs at the front ofher tiara formed a stylized M. I now knew who "The Mistress of the Ivory Tower" in Duke Devore's journal referred to.

A sharp tapping on one of the windows startled me out of my reverie. Valya rushed toward it, opening the casement.

A thrush flew in, landing on her hairband's cherry twigs and frantically chirped in her ear. "Grandmother!" she called out the window. "We are upstairs!"

A minute later Kyevgeny loped up the staircase, his owl beaked hood flapping back.

"Where is Poskarl?" Irynya demanded.

"At the palace," Kyevgeny wheezed. "We left him at the palace barbican."

A minute later, a green-eyed gray cat with fur as thick and dense as plush padded purposefully up the steps, glanced at each of our faces, then sat on the top step to one side.

The woman who came upstairs could only be Grandmother Morgannan. She appeared far older than her ancestress at her prime, but had the same fine features, the same regal bearing. Her ivory M, instead of being the forepiece of a tiara, was a device worked into the front ofher kokoshnik. Her cape was white sealskin, and her sarafan was embroidered with countless seed pearls forming a beaded mosaic of an ossuary. A thousand skulls peered out from the rows of pearls. In one hand she held an ivory staff, the haft was a tapering spiral that could only be the horn of an enormous unicorn.

She surveyed us like her cat, then said, "Koliadki has told me everything." She looked to Irynya first. "Lady Irynya, I am certain you are anxious to rejoin your cousin, Lord Poskarl. I offer transport in my sleigh if you would deem it meet. The Royal Palace is but a slight detour."

"Is he well? What's happened?"

Grandmother Morgannan inclined her head slightly. "I have found it prudent over the years not to inquire too deeply into matters which do not concern me, especially where House Elvanna is concerned. Suffice it to say that I made it clear to the wolf Silvertooth that my grandson was no part of his and Lord Poskarl's business, whatever that may be. I also noted that while I may be an 'old bitch'-to use the wolfish honorific-I find this preferable to being transformed into a chipmunk."

"Grandmother, you didn't! " gasped Valya.

The old woman smiled sweetly, revealing a number of teeth repaired with gold. "No, I did not. But I left the possibility open to be revisited in the future. Wolves are very much ruled by power and the perception of the same, and while a curse may be broken, one could never live down the shame of being a tiny prey animal scurrying about the trees stuffing his face with pine nuts."

"And Poskarl?" Irynya asked.

"I offered him the same as I do you: transport in my sleigh to the palace barbican."

"I accept, Lady Byanka." Irynya made a brief curtsy. "My thanks."

"The pleasure will be mine." She turned and looked at Orlin, then reached out a sealskin-mittened hand and tipped his chin up, then nodded. "You must be Orlin Gantier; the young Galtan witch I was told 0£ It would be my pleasure if you would dine with us this evening at Morgannan Abbey and allow us to show you some ofthe family splendors."

"Okay," Orlin said, eyes wide.

Grandmother Morgannan's old lapis eyes flicked to Tinka standing halfway behind Orlin. "This, however, will not do."

She glanced to Ermutt. "I believe you have some of the clothes we keep for the larger dolls?"

"Of course, ma'am." Ermutt held out his hand to Tinka until she took it.

Grandmother Morgannan's eyes then went to me. She looked at me for a long moment, then glanced down to my left hand, the glove of unicorns kin, and the ruby cabochon winking dully on the back. She smiled. "Duke Devore, so lovely to see you again. I congratulate you on having regained your youth. How is your clever young wife?"

"My wife?" I was conscious of everyone looking at me.

"I am sorry, dear lady. You have me mistaken. I am Norret Gantier."

She paused, then said, "I am seldom mistaken." She raised her walking stick and revealed the handle. Her lapis blue eyes were magnified by the lenses of an ivory lorgnette.

She lowered the stick. "We are among friends here. There is no worry of word getting back to Galt and-" She paused then. "Your wife? She did not survive?"

"Duchess Devore has not been seen in years," I said truthfully.

The awkward silence was broken by Ermutt returning with Tinka, now dressed in lrrisen finery. "Doesn't she make a perfect doll?"

"Oh yes," said Grandmother Morgannan, taking her in. "Yes, she does."

Chapter Four

The Bone Bridge

Being Galtan, I was familiar with the idea of being mistaken for a nobleman. Before the Revolution, it was a favorite among playwrights writing romantic comedies.

Nowadays it usually ended i n a date with the guillotine.

I didn't know which applied in Irrisen, but I had been looking for an entry into the noble houses. While I had planned to go with peddling perfume and fireworks, being mistaken for a long- dead duke miraculously restored to youth and health would work.

I wondered if Dr. Orontius, who collected pre-Revolutionary art, possessed an early portrait of Arjan Devore, Duke of Dabril, and had noted a resemblance to myself. It wouldn't even be that much of a coincidence-as the joke went in my hometown, there were only five men in Dabril, repeated with variations ofhairstyle and age.

I then kicked myself mentally. Forget some damned portrait: Dr. Orontius was old enough to have met Arjan Devore and know all about the duke's formulary, ruby glove, and alchemical honeymoon to lrrisen. He could have been at the wedding.

I had the guest list. Orontius's name was not on it, but then again, "Dr. Orontius" was a wizard's craft name if there ever was one. If he hadn't reinvented himself after the Revolution, I'd eat my liberty cap.

We emerged from the Four Tusks. "You will remember this from your last visit."

Grandmother Morgannan-should I call her "Byanka," I wondered?-reached into her sealskin muff and produced an ivory statuette. A goat. It lay in the palm ofher mitten, its horns and hooves bright gold like the repairs on her teeth. "You had such a lovely word for this," she said. "'Chryselephantine.'"

"Chryselephantine?" Orlin echoed.

"Ivory accented with gold," I explained. "Ivory for flesh, gold for everything else. Popular among the ancient Taldans."

"And you pretend to be a different man, 'Norret Gautier,'" Grandmother Morgannan chided, taking her albino peacock feather fan and tying its strings to the goat.

I wanted to protest that I had simply heard the word somewhere-Devore's formulary? Powdermaster Davin's figurine collecting?-but could not immediately recall where.

The fan was chryselephantine as well. The ivory handle formed the peacock's head and body, with the eyes, beak, and guardsticks composed of gold. Grandmother Morgannan snapped the fan open and tossed it and the statuette high into the air over Porcelain Street.

While not especially conversant in the exotic language of the fan, said to have originated in the distant east, I knew that throwing one meant I hate you! I could only imagine what it meant when the fan was tied to a goat.

Perhaps it only meant that the language of the fan had not made it as far as Irrisen. The feathers caught the air, spinning like a whirligig, causing the toy to drift gently down. "Trip-trap-trip!" Grandmother Morgannan doffed her right mitten and snapped her fingers thrice. "It's time to dance and skip!"

It sounded like a rhyme from a children's game. The goat grew larger, as did the peacock. Its tail fanned out, the golden guard sticks clutched in its claws growing along with it. A moment later, four golden hooves landed in the snow, followed by the golden runners of a peacock-shaped ivory sleigh. A shaggy white mountain goat capered about in the golden traces that had once been fan strings, dancing as if for sheer joy at suddenly being alive. The peacock sleigh sat proudly aloof, its albino plumes billowed out into an overarching canopy. It remained impassive as the goat pulled it around to the steps.

Kyevgeny assisted Irynya into the front bench, then aided his grandmother and sister. ''I'd best take the middle." He scooped up Tinka, placing her on his huge lap as he took his seat in the back. The gilded leaf springs bowed with his weight. Orlin went around the left while I squeezed in on the right. Soft-feathered lap robes blanketed us against the chill.

A cloud of color alit on the goat's golden horns-Irynya's parrot. "To the palace, billy-boy!" it cried.

The goat danced about, apparently considering this more merriment, until Grandmother Morgannan shook the reigns. "As the parrot commanded!" The goat took off.

"My lady," Grandmother Morgannan glanced to Irynya, "would you find it presumptuous for me to remark that you have an extremely silly familiar?"

Irynya paused, waiting until the moment a gray cat launched itself from the last railing of Porcelain Street, only to land squalling, scrabbling, and sliding down the neck of the albino peacock. "Not at all, Lady Byanka."

The cat suddenly levitated, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, dropping it in Grandmother Morgannan's lap. Her familiar clutched her for a moment, eyes wide, accusing all of us. Then it settled down to washing its ears and ignoring everyone, especially the peacock.

"My thanks." Grandmother Morgannan glanced over her shoulder to Orlin. "Murzik may thank you as well, but he is a cat."

Orlin nodded.

The journey to the palace took us back past the Frosthall, east along the edge of the Merchant's Quarter, then south on the Bone Road. The snow began to fall more heavily. Bewitched winds whisked it from the street.

I looked down at what I now knew was a river of skulls. I was uncertain whether to be appalled or just recognize that ifthe Gray Gardeners were to grind up all the skulls in Isarn's catacombs, we could pave every street in the city.

The palace barbican appeared to be built from solid ice, as was the palace itself, rising high out of the lake on its frozen pillar and connected to the rest of the city by only a heavily guarded crystalline causeway. Here the Bone Road ended, the only skulls present those in the heads of traitors on pikes atop the gates. I felt sorry for the ravens; Irrisen's eternal winter forced them to peck at frozen meat.

We bid adieu to Irynya and Olya, and Grandmother Morgannan invited me to sit in the front. "It is a pity I have a goat rather than a griffin. Otherwise, we could simply fly home." She pointed her spiraled ivory walking stick through the snowfall to a white tower beyond the roofs to the west. Looking through a gap between buildings, I could see a great gulf between our isle and that of the tower. "It is a lovely sleigh ride, anyway."

We went north, out of the district she called the Floes, around the splintered islets and cliffs at the south of Whitethrone, back around past the Frosthall, then south along the cliffs overlooking Glacier Lake. The snowfall lifted as we rode, and the wintry sun peeked out through the clouds, leaving Whitethrone bright and clear for the first time that day.

To our left stood a small isle, an outcropping that would have been truly impressive if not for the specter of the royal palace rising from the waves to the south. On the nearest end rose a buttressed tower with a familiar shape, supported by four immense tusks that appeared to be from two of the titanic elephants sometimes spoken of in legends. I suspected their origin was more mundane and that the Morgannans had created them via plating with ivory panels.

Then again, Irrisen was founded by a witch who traveled the worlds in a hut dancing on giant chicken legs. Taking the tusks of cosmic mammoths as souvenirs was hardly impossible where Baba Yaga was concerned.

A number oflarge buildings occupied the center of the island. At the far end sat another tower matched by its mate on this shore; the pair looked like the rooks from an immense chess set made of bones. More rooks perched on the merlons or wheeled in the air, mixing with ravens and crows.

"As you may recall, our family built the Bone Road," Grandmother Morgannan noted, recalling history about which she had doubtless bragged to Arjan Devore half a century before, "and after Queen Morgannan was called away by Baba Yaga, we were allowed to retain Morgannan Isle." She waved her alicorn walking stick toward several buildings in turn. "There is the Boneworks, where our serfs make the boneware. There is the Hall of Porcelain. There is the Pearl House. And there is the old Palace of Bones-Morgannan Abbey now-where we hosted you last time." She indicated a long building with flying buttresses protruding like ribs, making it appear to be some great beast that had died long ago.

"It is hard to believe that ours was once the highest tower in Whitethrone, but even the tallest turret ofthe Royal Palace will soon be overshadowed-at least if the Iron Tooth is completed before Baba Yaga's return." She pointed beyond the Ivory Tower to something glittering in the distance.

I dropped a series of monocle lenses and closed my right eye, bringing it into focus. I saw iron bars that looked like toothpicks upon which walked humans the size of aphids, trolls the size ofants, and frost giants the size ofladybugs.

"You didn't see that the last time you were here."

"No," I agreed semi-truthfully.

"Do you remember me now?"

I opened my right eye and flipped up all but the smoked lens on my left. I saw a stunning woman halfway in age and appearance between Valya and the bust of Queen Morgannan.

"How could I forget?" I forced a light laugh. "You look as lovely as ever, Byanka."

"Well, not all the time." She slipped a silver compact back inside her sealskin muff. "But a witch has her charms ... " She smiled coquettishly.

"Grandmother!" Valya protested.

Byanka pointed a finger at me. "How old do you think this man is, my dear?"

Valya glanced, uncertain. "Perhaps twenty?"

"He was far older than that when he visited fifty years ago, seeking keys to the riddle of the alchemists. Witches aren't the only ones who know how to regain youth's charms."

Valya stared at me, looking betrayed, then turned on Orlin. "How old are you?" she demanded.

"Um ... older than I look," Orlin admitted bashfully.

"I brought him back to life," I explained.

"With a philosophers' stone," Byanka hazarded correctly.

"A what?" asked Kyevgeny.

"A wondrous gemstone," his grandmother explained. "Alchemists use them to turn lead into gold and for all manner of useful tricks."

The philosophers' stone was actually a chunk of sooty rock that looked like anthracite coal. At best it could be polished up for jet. But mourning jewelry was not its main use. If broken open, it held a measure of philosophic mercury that turned lead into gold and iron into silver. Mixed with a healing potion-easily brewed with an alicorn fragment-it resurrected the dead.

I had found a stone left by the duchess. Whether she had acquired it for study or made it herself was a question I puzzled over in the odd hours of the night.

"Do you have any more of these wonderful stones?" Kyevgeny asked.

"Alas," I lamented, "it was my duchess's prize from the tree of the philosophers . I chose for mine eternal youth." If I was going to be a fraud, I might as well pick a lie that would take a while to disprove.

"Yet you cleverly joined your life with hers so you might both share your prizes," Byanka pointed out grandly then trailed off into mortified silence.

"I-" My voice caught, more from trying to get out the lie than any true grief. "I lost Anais long ago. I try not to dwell on it."

"I understand." Byanka laid a sympathetic hand on my arm. "My Rezny died fighting the barbaric Linnorm Kings. Not a day goes by that I do not find some reminder of him." She squeezed my arm. "I know how you and your duchess were linked. It takes time to pick up the pieces of a broken heart."

I nodded, hiding my lack of tears with Arjan Devore's unicornskin glove, surreptitiously popping the cork of my smelling salts. Sal volatile made tears well up like actual grief.

I brushed away my false tears, pushing up my smoked lens as I did. Byanka Morgannan caught my hand before I could drop the lens back. "Your eye," she wondered, "it is as silver as a mirror ... "

"Philosophic mercury," I explained. "It got in when I brought my brother back."

"I wonder if anyone else looks out of it," mused Valya.

Byanka glared at her granddaughter. "Valya, be good enough to tell Yelchev to lower the bridge. Have the tower ready to receive guests once we have toured the factory."

"Yes, grandmother," Valya said humbly, then took her thrush down from her hairpiece, whispering frantically.

"I know, Valya," Koliadki chirped. "I know. I know."

"Then fly, little one," she said, casting him off the cliff.

The thrush spread his wings, winging across the waves and whitecaps of the channel that led to the lake. I dropped my telescopic lenses and watched until he flew through an arrow slit in the farthest tower of bone. A minute later, a whistle screamed. A plume of steam erupted from the tower's crenellations as one side began to lower, like the gros sly distended jaw of a monolithic troll skull. The nearer tower screamed in answer and the facing side lowered as well. Crows, rooks, and ravens took to the air, croaking, as the two spans of the bridge came down.

The goat trotted gaily along the clifrs edge until we neared the tower ofbones. The goat skipped right, cutting a graceful arc in the new fallen snow, then tripped across the cobbles inside the arch of the tower itself. The slats of the bridge were human femurs. The sleigh's runners chattered across them like wooden slats, its peacock head still proudly aloof.

Standing at the far side of the bridge, blocking it easily with his mas sive bulk, was a huge troll. While most of his kind wore little in the way of clothing, this one was encased in layers ofheavy bone armor. His eyes peered out from beneath a helmet made from the skull of a walrus, its tusks sliding down to either side ofhis own. He leaned on a huge whalebone club.

"Who seeks passage to the Isle ofBone?" he recited ritually.

Byanka reined in the goat and we skidded to a stop. I became quite conscious of the bridge having no railings. She stood. "You know my sleigh, Yelchev. It's my bridge you guard."

The troll's expression didn't change, nor did he move aside. Byanka sighed heavily.

"I am Lady Byanka Morgannan, head of House Morgannan in Whitethrone, descendant of Baba Yaga herself. I claim right of passage across the Bridge of Bone."

Nodding, the troll stepped aside. As the sleigh passed, Byanka sighed again. "Trolls. It takes forever to train them, and then you find you've trained them too well..."

We parked the sled and toured the Boneworks first, the air white with bonedust, frosting everything thick as talc. Serfs carved ivory chess pieces and made hat racks out of rib cages.

The Pearl House smelled worse. Great piles of bleaching mussel shells surrounded it, as did cawing, incontinent corvids. Inside I covered my nose with the duke's glove, still scented with the duchess's perfume. Serfs shucked mussels, putting the meat in crocks. Occasional cries of jubilation accompanied the discovery of a pearl. Foremen tallied these, taking them to the more breathable side of building to be sized, graded, and strung. Other serfs polished shells and punched buttons from them, filling the air with powdered nacre, like pearlescent bonedust. I wondered if this were the secret ofWinter's Kiss.

At the Porcelain Works, I spied the unfired parts of a doll. The vaunted clay appeared to be ordinary kaolin, grayish-white and unremarkable.

Powdermaster Davin, being a dwarf, had taught me the surest test of any earth was taste. I leaned upon a counter, peering closer at the unfinished doll-a little boy-then stepped back and bit the finger of my glove, musing. The unicornskin had picked up crumbs of clay. It tasted smooth and earthy, but with an unexpected creaminess.

Calcium.

It tasted like the Cocoa Pot's cocoa, minus the cocoa powder.

That richness I had attributed to milk. But calcium had other sources.

Limestone.

Shell.

Bone.

I dusted my fingers with a handkerchief, folded it, and tucked the specimen back in my pocket.

Our tour continued to where the bisque-fired porcelain received its first glaze, then into the room where glazed pieces were graced with porcelain paints before the second firing.

Painters added tiny gold spiders to a service netted with scarlet spiderwebs. I knew the secret of the ruby glaze to be more gold dissolved in aqua regia. Byanka called the costly service " Scarlet Spinner"-a commission from someone called the jorogumo, a group of spider-women in a far-off province of Tian Xia.

I had had quite enough of spider women already, thank you, but professed an interest in porcelain painting. Byanka let me decorate the center of a sugar bowl's web with a vignette of spiders from Galt. I painted a garden spider crawling on a spray of eglantine, adding a rainbowed raindrop as a flourish. I licked my brush to a point between each color, tasting.

"Ah, you still have Shelyn's hand!" Byanka cried delightedly.

I paused, the ruby winking on the back of my glove, then smiled in genuine appreciation. Shelyn, goddess of beauty, was Dabril's patron. It came as no surprise that her last duke had been a devotee. I had his formulary. His watercolors were exquisite, his penmanship exemplary. I had made a conscious effort to refine my cruder talents to something approaching his.

Byanka smiled back, still a beauteous young witch, only the gold-filled cracks in her teeth betraying her age. "Koliadki has informed us that tea has been made ready."

The sleigh took us to the Ivory Tower. A footman almost as tall as Kyevgeny helped Valya and Byanka alight. Once all were out, Byanka snapped her fingers, calling, "Trap trip-trap! It's time to take a nap!"

The golden-horned goat promptly yawned and bowed its head, eyes shut. The peacock folded its tail, the canopy collapsing, the benches disappearing beneath the ruffled feathers of the lap blankets, then tucked its head beside one wing. Both dwindled.

The tall footman retrieved a toy goat and an albino peacock feather fan, presenting them to Byanka.

She led the way inside the tower, which was indeed made of ivory. Mwangi hippo-tooth doorknobs. Walrus tusk candle sconces. Beautifully scrimshawed paneling. A tinkling of the ivories as a duet for harpsichord and pianoforte drifted from floors above. And a grand staircase made from the tusks of a mammoths' graveyard spiraled around a central chandelier fashioned from a thousand spiraled ivory horns. A thousand alicorns.

I nearly fainted, from both the enormity of the wealth represented and the crime. A thousand unicorns murdered for their horns.

Orlin, returned to life with unicorn ivory, stared at the chandelier, stricken. Some of the horns were burning.

"Oh good," Byanka said softly, her words punctuated by a harpsichord solo, "we had enough spermaceti." She moved behind Orlin and placed her mittens on his shoulders. "You must think us terribly extravagant, my dear, but I as sure you, we Morgannans are not that rich." She gave me a knowing wink.

She wanted me to explain. Correction: she wanted Arjan Devore to explain.

I racked my brains. Arjan had written a great deal about unicorns, as they were part ofhis armorial bearings. Then I remembered.

"Those are narwhal tusks," I told Orlin, "and twisted spermaceti candles, both from the Erutaki whalers atop the Crown of the World."

"There's quite a trade in false alicorns," Byanka said. "And they do make a lovely chandelier."

"Isn't it a crime to kill a unicorn?" asked Orlin.

"Without a permit, certainly," said Kyevgeny. "Unicorns are reserved for the Crown."

"Please don't bring it up around Irynya," begged Valya. "You wouldn't believe how she goes on about her family's unicorn hunts. She hasn't been to one since she was eight!"

"Ah," Byanka warned, raising a finger. "Even an unfavored Elvanna is still more favored than us. Never forget that, my dear."

"Yes, grandmother." Valya bowed her head, chastened, making her familiar flutter aloft.

"Tea is in the gallery?" Byanka asked the thrush.

"Yes, grandmother! " Koliadki chirped.

"Marvelous. Let everyone know."

The thrush winged his way up the grand staircase to the next floor. We followed.

Halfway up the stairs, the music stopped.

When we came onto the landing, I stopped as well. Around us were a thousand dolls, all sitting in doll-sized chairs, posed with tiny teapots or little plates of dainties. One sat before a child's pianoforte, another before a virginal-a tabletop harpsichord-both composed of ivory.

Then I blinked. There were somewhat fewer dolls than I thought. Mirrors paneled the gallery's walls, yellowed by centuries of candlesmoke, reflecting the narwhal-tusk chandelier, multiplying everything. Four oriel windows, set at the cardinal points, provided panoramic views of Whitethrone. The one to the west showed the sun setting behind a snow-capped building. The fireplaces flanking the window seat were lit, isinglass screens before them.

A few human-sized furnishings stood nearby, as well as one Kyevgeny- size chair built from sturdy whale teeth. Koliadki perched on the finial of a three-tiered tray bearing pastries and finger sandwiches beside a silver samovar and an ivory basket stacked with golden pears.

I wondered where the servants had gone, particularly the musicians. I had not recognized the composition. I as sumed one of the mirrors concealed a door leading to a servants' passageway.

Kyevgeny loped to the refreshments table. He had almost touched the topmost pear when an ivory walking stick tapped the inlaid ivory floor resoundingly.

He sheepishly took back his hand.

Byanka turned to me. "I find that dolls make the perfect children. Always quiet and mindful, never needing to be told twice what's expected."

I nodded then paused, seeing a movement, a reflection of a reflection.

A soldier learns to be watchful. I turned and locked eyes with a doll. Not a Jadwiga with lapis eyes and silver hair, nor an Ulfen child with blonde or ginger locks and eyes of turquoise or jade. This was a Gahan doll, her eyes hazel like my natural shade, her chestnut tresses loose in artless dishabille. Her face was one I had seen before, a mixture of the features of Arjan Devore-or myself-and the face of his wife.

"Anais ... " I breathed softly, snapping my fingers both from recognition and force of habit. The duke's formulary appeared in my hand, summoned forth from the enchantments worked into the glove.

I acted as if this action were unremarkable, for why shouldn't Duke Devore consult his formulary?

I flipped through the relevant sections, rites for the alchemical wedding of Anais and Arjan, the white queen and the red king. A diagram of the Crapaudine, the toad's diamond set on the back ofAnais's glove, and the Unicorn's Carbuncle, the legendary gem on Arjan's. Both donated a chip, the shards united via intarsia, the gemcutter's art, forming a diamond-ruby doublet-the heart of their "magical child." Beside the duke's watercolor of the babe, I perceived the faintest silverpoint script, a note in the duchess's hand. A name: "Emilie."

"You recognize her," Byanka said approvingly. "I was worried. Last you were here, your wits were fading. After you asked for our arts to bewitch your glove and carbuncle, they faded further."

Bewitched? I had assumed wizardry or sorcery. Then I remembered Dr. Orontius's words about how the witches of Irrisen could take a shard of soul and hide it in an exquisite jewel, as Baba Yaga had done with Kostchtchie.

Or Arjan Devore and the ruby in his glove.

I then realized than Arjan and Anais had both taken fragments of their jewels, chips of chips of souls, joining them to create a new jewel. A new soul.

"Papa?" said the doll. "At long last my papa has come for me?"

There was a gasping of breath, as if a hundred dolls had opened their mouths then stayed silent.

"Yes, Emilie," Byanka answered. "Your papa has returned. And as it has been over fifty years, I will overlook you speaking before outsiders. This once." She glanced to the assembled dolls. "This man is an old client. He has paid to know our secret. This boy is a witch likewise permitted. This girl?" Byanka paused, musing. "Well, she knows. We shall simply have to deal with this. Feel free to speak, children."

"What a happy occasion!" Madenya exclaimed, still in Valya's arms. "For Emilie, I mean," she added quickly to me. 'Tm so sorry you lost your wife."

"As am I," I said, unsure. "She was... a remarkable woman."

"All women are," proclaimed Madenya. "I raised Valya myself after the poor dear lost her mother. At least until we got Klaufi to help." She turned to Kyevgeny. "Where is Klaufi? He should be here!"

"He's in the theater working on a special project."

"I know," chirped Koliadki. "I sent Holgrim to fetch him!"

A half-eaten pear fell to the floor with a splat. "You did what?!" Kyevgeny boomed.

"He's your valet!" the thrush chirped. "I showed him where you hid the key!"

"Did he wear the cloak and slippers?"

"What cloak and slippers ?"

"No!" roared Kyevgeny, rushing up the stairs.

Everyone exchanged glances, apparently as confused as me.

Then Tinka screamed, pointing.

The situation became clearer and exponentially more horrifying as a hundred Tinka-sized blue and-yellow spiders appeared in the mirrors. One descended by a silken thread down the stairwell.

Byanka pointed her ivory cane and hissed two words in a language I didn't recognize. Neither sounded particularly vile, as curses go, but the spider immediately shivered and shrank, losing legs, becoming drabber and furrier until all that was left at the end of the thread was an extremely surprised chipmunk.

"Children," Byanka ordered, "grab your knives and follow me." The dolls did.

Chapter Five

Web of Secrets

At first there was a mad dash up the stairs. Byanka led the troop of dolls, winding her way up, cursing another blue-and-yellow spider into a chipmunk that Murzik chased down a hallway.

I followed. I have charged into battle alongside dwarves or halflings, their heads coming up to my chest or waist, but not dolls . Few reached as high as my knees. It would not do to trip over one's comrades . Luckily, the spiral stairs were wider at one side than the other. I ran up the center while the dolls took the portion toward the inner bannister. I felt like a giant among halflings, even though the stairs to my left were grand enough to accommodate ogres and trolls.

One brown-haired doll ran onto the steps in front of me, but before I tripped over her, she leapt up. "I will help you, Papa!" she cried, clambering to my shoulder as familiarly as Poskarl's monkey.

"Hold tight, Emilie! " I steadied her with my left hand, the duke's ruby winking on the back. I dimly noted that the "magical child" of Arjan and Anais Devore was costumed as a Gaitan shepherdess , or at least a pre Revolutionary fantasy of one, all furbelows and frippery, ribbons and lace. Having known actual shepherdesses, I knew the only accurate detail was her crook, which some shepherdesses did decorate with bows. Emilie had tied a three-pronged lemon fork to the end of hers , forming a makeshift trident.

I spotted a spider behind a potted palm. Partially camouflaged by the striped shadows cast by the chandelier's twisted candles , it lurked there, waiting. I dropped a lens and peered closer. The arachnid's brindled markings were like indigo inkblots on saffron silk.

All at once the threads tied together: Kyevgeny's shimmering silk screen in the shadow theater; the shiver laced cocoa; Silvertooth's insinuations.

"It's a dream spider," I warned the dolls . "Don't let it lure you into its web. The strands are drugged."

"We can't be drugged," a porcelain crone pointed out.

"Poisoned, then."

" Silly Papa!" exclaimed Emilie, patting my cheek with her porcelain hand. "We can't be poisoned either!"

"That should prove useful..." I reached to my bandolier. "Use this."

I unstoppered a wide-mouthed flask, the aperture suitable to accommodate knives or sword points.

Lemon forks fit too.

Emilie hurled her crook like a fishing spear, a trail of ribbon spooling out behind. The prongs flew through a palm frond's slots and pierced the spider's mottled flesh. It spasmed for a moment, then froze, paralyzed.

"What is that?" Byanka inquired icily.

"A dream spider," I repeated. "A monstrous arachnid from the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse."

"Interesting. Potentially useful. I meant the poison."

"Oh," I said, "giant wasp venom, concentrated, adulterated with venom from the tarantula hawk."

She raised a pale eyebrow.

"Not some wizard's hybrid monstrosity-a wasp from Qadira. Apricot wings, ebony body, absolutely excruciating venom. The Poisoner's Guild ofDaggermark has it smuggled through Galt. But it still serves its original purpose as a paralytic agent for arachnids." I couldn't quite suppress a shudder. "I've had unpleasant encounters with spiders before."

"Did you bring enough to share?"

"Indeed."

Flatware was envenomed, and while I had never considered what a gang of dolls wielding ivory-handled cake knives would do to a giant spider, I had seen wasps swarm one before.

The effect was much the same.

We continued upward, past a schoolroom filled with tiny chairs and a slate bearing the word DEPORTMENT in pretty cursive script, past a miniature confectioner with jars of nonpareils and boiled sweets, past a hospital with pots of paste and sawdust alongside a shattered porcelain arm, and ascended a few more floors.

The high doors at the end of a landing stood open, shadows and darknes s within.

Byanka touched the knob of her cane to an oil lamp in a niche, and it blazed alight with blue witchfire. It floated out of its niche, spinning like a gyroscope, and assumed a gentle orbit over Byanka's shoulder.

Valya touched her finger to the lamp in the opposite niche, causing it to glow a soft rose.

Orlin took a candle stub out ofhis tinderbox, showed it to Tinka, then fit it in the lid's holder. He saved a match by having it float over to the chandelier.

I borrowed it on the way back. While my army-issue bullseye lantern may not have been as convenient as witchcraft, it did have the advantage of a directional beam.

I scanned the doors first. The twin ivory panels opened out, the beam revealing scrimshawed images of princes in kaftans and princesses in kokoshniks and sarafans skating on the surface of a frozen lake. I then directed the beam inside, revealing a forest festooned with opalescent cobwebs.

Not a real forest. The trees were paper-mache and pasteboard cutouts . What appeared to be a beautiful trembling aspen was in fact a collection of bleached vertebrae and finger bones wired together in semblance of a tree with painted leather leaves . A clutter of newly hatched spiderlings the size of plums seethed over it.

We entered. Large marionettes dangled from the ceiling like halflings swinging from the gallows: witches and woodcutters, winter wolf pup s and dancing bear cubs, even a wooden hut the size of an outhouse with limply dangling chicken feet. We moved through the forest of puppetry and scenery, avoiding contact with the shimmering iridescent webs.

I then beheld the stage and a great silver screen glowing with an incandescent illumination. On it was a shadow spider so immense it filled half the screen, locked in mortal combat with the shadow of an equally immense warrior, his cloak flying, the blade of his axe striking again and again. The sounds of battle accompanied this sight, but were more muffled than such a titanic struggle should warrant.

The shadow titan's axe struck again, but this time it was accompanied by a terrific boom!

I spun, for the sound had come from behind me.

I shone my lantern back the way we came. One of the two- dimensional trees lay toppled over. I saw a quaking of the bony aspen's leaves, so I aimed the beam up.

A tall figure pushed the uppermost branches out of his way as he ducked-not downward, but upward. The figure dashed acros s the ceiling upside down, dressed in an assas sin's shadowy silks. I did my best to follow with my light as he drew a cutlass and struck. A moment later, a sandbag hit the stage as he grabbed hold of another set. He rode them down and the silver screen rode up.

I quickly closed my right eye and dropped all my smoked lenses on the left. Silhouetted before the unshielded glare of a blazing limelight stood a spider, not titanic, but almost as large as me, locked in battle with a halfling dressed like Kostchtchie from Kyevgeny's puppet show. His fur cloak flew wildly, the ends of the otterskin wrappings on his wrists and j oints did likewise, and the limelight dazzled acros s a golden tore worn on his broad bare chest. He swung his great axe with mighty thews again and again-yet they did not quite move as mighty thews ought.

I then realized this was because they were not flesh, but porcelain. The halfling barbarian was a halfling-size doll-an Ulfen warrior who bore a more than pas sing resemblance to Kyevgeny.

"Oh Klaufi! Be careful!" called Madenya, riding Valya's shoulder as Emilie did mine.

Then the black- cloaked figure's hood fell back and Kyevgeny's blond mane shook free.

"Kyevgeny, you too..." Valya clenched her hands before her chin in an attitude of fright and concern.

Byanka pursed her lips . I guessed she had spat her last curse.

It would be a distance to hurl a dart, but fortunately an alchemist is not without resources . In this case, substances as common as soda ash and vinegar, mixed in my mouth and catalyzed with spittle, produced an excess of air to jet through my blowgun.

Giant spiders scream remarkably like stuck pigs when stung with tarantula hawk venom. Of course, rather than two evil beady eyes glaring at you, spiders have eight. I decided what was needed was more darts. I confiscated the shepherdes s 's crook from Emilie, still tied with the lemon fork. This I envenomed again, placed into the blowgun, and shot with considerable force. The expanding gas puffed out my cheeks like those of Calistria on Irynya's scurrilous little fan charm.

The lemon fork's tines skewered a lemon-colored blotch on the spider's abdomen. The monster screamed again, then trailed off into a gurgling froth as it froze in place, ready for a tarantula hawk to lay her eggs in it.

"Where's Holgrim?" Kyevgeny demanded of the halfling- size doll who I as sumed to be Klaufi.

"There! " Klaufi pointed to a shadowy corner of the ceiling and what I had as sumed to be another cobwebbed puppet. My lantern revealed it to be a boy.

Kyevgeny dashed up one side of the proscenium arch and cut his valet free, swirling his cloak and rappelling down via silken threads from the cloak itself.

We ran to where he descended. I didn't have to tell him to strip the cobwebs. His hands, gloved with more black silk, bundled the webbing with supernatural alacrity. "Holgrim..."

"He's poisoned," Orlin declared unnecessarily.

" Someone fetch a leech jar," Byanka snapped. "Valya, you know-"

"I have this." I knelt down. Holgrim looked like a younger version of Ermutt, his hair already starting to thin. I placed my glove on the boy's face. I felt an electric tingle through my fingertips as the duke's glove leeched the venom, the unicorn's carbuncle on the back swirling like an opal as it consumed the spider's poison before subsiding to its usual sanguine hue.

"Help him," begged Kyevgeny. "Wake him up! "

I felt Holgrim's skin through the fine leather. He was still warm, but the room was too, pleasantly heated by some means. The ceiling would be nearly tropical given the physics of heat. I felt behind his ear for the pulse of life but found none.

I f he was asleep, he was not dreaming. The eyes move beneath the eyelids when a man dreams.

I pulled them open and shone my lantern in, looking for any response from the pupil, a contraction of the iris. Holgrim's were pale blue-gray, the color of twilight on a frozen lake. They did not move. When I released his eyelids, they stayed open.

I sat back, looking to the concerned faces above me. "I'm sorry. He is dead."

"I'll be the judge of that," snapped Byanka. She hunched down, removing her compact from her sealskin muff. She popped it open with a thumbnail and held the mirror before his mouth, examining it for breath. Then she held it before his dead staring eyes and examined it again. She checked his pulse.

"The alchemist spoke correctly," she told her grandchildren. "Your playmate is dead. But there may still be time. What would you sacrifice to save him?"

The brother and sister's lapis eyes exchanged frightened looks.

Valya spoke first. "I would give my mother's ring." She held forth her right hand upon which sparkled a beautiful diamond heart.

Byanka nodded. "And you?" she asked her grandson.

"Anything," Kyevgeny begged. "Everything. Whatever I-"

Her palm struck his cheek with a resounding slap. "Foolish boy! Never promise such a thing! You never know to whom you might be speaking! Be thankful it was your grandmother who heard your rash offer-but all I will take from you are your secrets. I will have the whole truth, all of it-no lies , no omis sions, no deceptions. Swear it! By powers we both will respect!"

"I swear it by the Three Riders, and by our ancestor Queen Morgannan, who walks the worlds forever with Baba Yaga."

Byanka nodded, then placed her fingertip on Kyevgeny's lips. "I will have your truth later. For now we must gather Holgrim's soul while it is still close." She pointed to Orlin. "You, witch child-you have a familiar spirit. Can you see souls ?"

"No," Orlin admitted, "I only smell them, sometimes. But Norret can spot them with his monocle."

I swapped the relevant lenses. "On it."

I looked about the theater. I could see the brightness of my own aura and the nimbus of light around Byanka and the others, the smaller aureoles around the familiars and dolls, and the glows around the spiders-not dead, only paralyzed.

Holgrim's body had no aura. It was only meat.

Rhodel waved frantically, pointing near the boy's head. I looked, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I saw it-a tiny mote oflight, dancing like a moth in the lantern-light. It was already fading, the last vestiges of the mostly departed soul detaching from his body.

"He's here," I said. "But fading."

"Quickly," ordered Byanka. "Give me the lantern and the ring. There's little time left."

I placed my bullseye lantern on the floor before her as Valya handed her the ring. Byanka placed it on the ring finger of her left hand, the heart worn inward toward her palm. She placed her compact on the floor, angled so it reflected the beam to the diamond.

She turned the lantern's knob, adjusting the wick. The light dimmed. She began to chant.

"Blood to Blood and Bone to Bone,

Eye to Eye and Heart to Heart

By these Four, Ensoul this Stone!

By these Four, I Bind my Art! "

Byanka produced a penknife and nicked her ring finger, the one whose vein ran to the heart. Heart's blood dripped onto the diamond. She lay the tip of her ivory walking stick against it. A tear splashed down from her cheek, intermingling.

She reached out and turned the lantern's knob.

A final flash burst from the lens, drawing the tiny soul fragment toward it like a leaf being drawn along in a stream's current. Holgrim flew into the diamond. Byanka closed her fist.

The witch let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping, as if exhausted by a great effort. She opened her hand again.

Valya's diamond shone with a beautiful light. It radiated out of the facets , and in the lens of my monocle, it seemed to proj ect a dozen spectral images of Holgrim. One looked kind. Another proud. A third wary. A fourth mischievous. Happy, sad, confused-all facets that might make up a boy's life.

"We've saved as much as we can," Byanka said. "Most of him has gone on. But we have enough."

"What about the spiders?" asked Tinka, hugging close to Orlin.

" Spiders tend to hole up when it gets cold," my brother said. "Could we just open the windows?"

Byanka looked to me. "Would that work?"

"In theory," I said. "You'd need to have someone hunt them down while they're torpid."

"We can do it!" Emilie pressed her cool porcelain cheek against mine. "Dolls don't get cold!"

Fires were doused. Windows were opened. The Ivory Tower very quickly became as cold as the air outside, far below freezing, for the sun had now set on Whitethrone.

The mortal staff was sent to Morgannan Abbey for the night. The dolls, except for a few favorites, went off to hunt spiders and egg sacks while we retreated to Byanka's private attic.

The layout was much like the round gallery where we had first been, with the same placement of windows and fireplaces, but in the center stood a firepit with a great copper cauldron of ancient design, burnished to brilliance. The now familiar "M" sigil of the Morgannan clan was hammered around the rim, and four cracked, smoke-blackened tusks served as its tripod.

Kyevgeny sat on the edge ofthe firepit and sobbed. "It was Poskarl's idea," he moaned. "I had the cloak and slippers from the jorogumo ladies, but the scarlet spiders they sent were just like the rabbits-none of them wanted to be my familiar. But Poskarl bought an egg sack for dream spiders and said we could get rich. They were easy to raise-I gave them storybook pages to line their nests and they liked puppet shows-but they grew so big and so hungry! They ate all the geese! And now they've eaten Holgrim!"

"And you were doing all this to make drugs," Byanka concluded. Her face was cold, as hard and pale as the ivory lining the walls.

Kyevgeny nodded. "They were so expensive! Poskarl already ran through all his pocket money and every bit of credit the Elvanna name can buy. He said the recipe was supposed to be simple: just spider venom, webs, water, and alcohol boiled together."

"Kyevgeny always has been good at mixing things," Valya offered in defense ofher brother.

"Some brews are more difficult than others, my dear," her grandmother said, then asked me, "Have you made sense ofanything yet?"

I was looking through Kyevgeny's notes. Witches may not need spellbooks and formularies, but I knew the scribblings of an amateur alchemist when I saw one. There was some brilliant work here, the youth having tried experiment after experiment to create shiver. Properly brewed, the drug was a potent narcotic that knocked the imbiber into a hypnagogic trance. It was also exceedingly addictive.

Kyevgeny had failed to create it, but in the process had made some marvelous alchemical discoveries, including a formula for hallucinogenic gas and notes on the illusory effect of combining a homeopathic dose of venom in cocoa while listening to a storyteller and looking at shadows projected on a screen woven from dream spider webs.

I looked at his huge hands. "How did you weave the silk?"

Kyevgeny looked stricken, then Madenya spoke up. "I did that." We all looked at Valya's doll. "He asked me. There's nothing I wouldn't do for my sweet children."

The fervency with which she said it made me pause. Then I had an epiphany. "You're their mother."

Madenya's mouth fell open, but she was mute. Her porcelain head turned toward Byanka.

Valya's head turned as well. "Grandmother!" she gasped. "You captured her soul-shard for a doll, then forbade her to ever tell us?"

It was Byanka's turn to look stricken. "I-I was waiting until you were the right age."

I looked at Klaufi, the toy barbarian who sat next to Kyevgeny like a bodyguard. 'Tm gues sing that Klaufi is their father."

"No," said Kyevgeny, "our father is in the Iron Guard. We seldom hear from him, but he still lives."

"No," corrected Valya, "my father still lives."

Kyevgeny stared.

His sister explained, "Your father was Kurteis, mother's bodyguard, who was once father's whipping boy. You have his hair and his height. I heard them quarrel when you were three and I was six. Father left. I never saw Kurteis again." She looked to her grandmother. "You gave Klaufi to Kyevgeny not a week later."

"It's true," said Byanka stiffly. "I made Klaufi with a shard from Kurteis's soul. It was a tattered, divided thing, but stronger for all that. Your father did not deserve his loyalty. You children did." She looked grim. "You are Morgannans."

She held up her hand, the diamond heart glowing against her fingers. "I captured part of Holgrim's soul. He was a good boy and did not deserve his death, but we can give him new life. It is high time you both learned the secrets of the family business." She looked at me. "The duke already knows many of them. His brother is his blood." Her eyes flicked to Tinka. "Whipping child, do you know how to play towers?"

Tinka shook her head, eyes wide.

"Then it is time you learned. Baba Alechka can teach you. Klaufi and Madenya? You should play as well."

"Come with us, child," said the babushka doll who had spoken earlier on the stairs. "I will be your partner." She pointed a walnut- spotted porcelain hand toward a low game table checkered with ivory and black horn and set round with cushions, Katapeshi-style. A stack of gilt edged ivory harrow placards waited beside pawns and other game pieces.

Tinka went hesitantly, but soon was sitting on the pillows as Klaufi shuffled the deck and Baba Alechka explained the rules.

Byanka turned to me. "Do you have any questions, 'Norret Gantier'?"

I thought. "You are going to make what's left of Holgrim into a doll." This was not a question but a statement. "His hair into a wig, his bones ground and mixed with the clay, his blood and flesh mixed with some of the glazes, yes?" My last word met with no answer, simply icy silence. "When you made Emilie fifty years ago, what did you add to the clay? I believe I left Irrisen with all my bones."

"Think. Don't you remember, Duke Devore?"

I thought of what I knew of Dabril's duke, what I had read in his formulary. The mascot of House Devore was Patapouf, the unicorn who had saved my hometown of Dabril by killing Coco the cockatrice, but had been petrified in the process. Most adults as sumed the story was entirely mythological-and certainly it had become a ribald favorite over countless generations ofretellings. Yet the jewel in my glove matched the one said to grow from the base of Patapouf's horn, and I had found fragments of alicorn in the duchess's laboratory as well.

"Unicorn ivory," I said.

"A marvelously useful substance," Byanka agreed, "but for one descended from the unicorn? Well, the marrow holds the blood, the blood holds the soul." She reached out and tugged the stubble of hair on my chin, which would be an impressive goatee if I let it grow.

Lately it had been getting more impressive still.

"'You can always tell a man of Dabril by his beard.' That's what you said." She reached to my glove and stroked the silky fringe.

I put my hand to my chin, stroking it on reflex, realizing that the posture placed the fringe where my beard would go. Patapouf's beard.

Could I actually be related to Duke Devore? Moreover, could I be related to the town's patron unicorn-the living product of risque tavern tales? Or was it simply that Arjan Devore had placed a fragment of his soul in the glove's gem, which in turn, by the laws of sympathetic magic, bore a trace of the unicorn's soul? Pretending to be a man long dead was twisting my mind in unfamiliar ways, making me wonder ifl even knew myself at all.

Then Byanka dropped the other shoe: "Emilie may of course leave with you, as she is bought and paid for and her soul is not oflrrisen. But sweet little Tinka is a child of Baba Yaga's lands, and I would not wish to explain to my ancestress that I let her go, especially with all the secrets she's heard."

"You're going to turn her into a doll," Orlin stated flatly.

"Only if you leave," Byanka admitted. "Dolls are utterly dutiful." She picked up Murzik and petted him. "But if you choose to stay and allow me to tutor you in witchcraft, she may remain as your whipping child."

Chapter Six

The Ivory Tower

Two chipmunks dwelled in a cage on the mantel. One stuffed its cheeks with pine nuts. The other hid in a nest of storybook pages.

The fact that both recently had been monstrous spiders was less disconcerting than the revelation that one of my forebears may have been a unicorn.

Before, the only peculiarity I had entertained was some elven heritage, Dabril being acros s the river from Kyonin. I earned a couple black eyes before I learned that "whores on" and "half- elf" were not synonymous.

The only other complication I had contemplated was a drop of noble blood. The Unicorn's Carbuncle, ancestral jewel ofHouse Devore, supposedly only shone on the hand of a true heir.

The telltale ruby glowed indiscreetly as I scraped the unicorn's beard of shaving cream from my chin, rinsing my razor occasionally.

I examined myself in the mirror. Was my face a bit more equine? Did I stand a fraction taller? My beard had certainly grown heavier. But that happened with many young men, even ones who did not swill mutagenic tonics.

This was the trouble. Before I had discovered the Devores' treasures, I had been a crippled wreck. The duke's formulary had helped me heal my body. The duchess's stone? My heart. So I could empathize with Arjan Devore, slowly losing his faculties.

Having witches put some of him in a gemstone seemed almost common sense.

"You are very handsome, Papa," said Emilie. "Even more than your portrait."

I turned, wiping my face with a towel. "Which portrait?"

Emilie, garbed in ivory samite three centuries out of fashion, perched on the dresser, playing with a scrap of iridescent silk. "The one you and mama left." She put on her hennin, the conical cap once popular among Galt's gentlewomen, and tossed her head, the silk now forming the cointoise, the pennant veil. "I memorized all of it, along with the other gifts you left me."

"Remind me," I said, "what were they?"

"Silly Papa," she laughed, "don't you remember?"

"I want to hear you say it."

She recited like a schoolgirl, "You gave me your joy of discovery. Mama left me her love of learning. Together they made me." She looked sad. "Will we never see her again?"

"I have not seen her since the Revolution," I lied truthfully. "It was a tumultuous time." I put on a cheerful face and changed the subject. "When we're in Galt, you must be careful to not let others know you're alive."

"Oh, yes!" Emilie nodded, fluttering her cointoise. "That was the first lesson Baba Alechka taught in Deportment: When a person enters, unless he is our master, a Jadwiga, or one who knows the secret of the dolls, we must hold perfectly still. Like this." Lightning fast, Emilie snatched a pair of tiny spectacles out ofher pocket and jammed them on, simultaneously taking out a miniature book thumbed open to a familiar page. Her mouth froze open in a round 0 of wonderment while her eyes went wide with delighted surprise. Her face was the visage of a wizard discovering a spell or an alchemist cracking a formula.

I had an epiphany as well: This was how Emilie looked before she was brought to life.

She smiled then, putting away her book and glasses. "The only times we are allowed to move are when we need to protect ourselves or someone we've been ordered to guard. Or ... " She trailed off and a pink blush of glaze rose in her porcelain cheeks.

"You're not supposed to say because it's another secret."

"Yes," she admitted, "and Lady Morgannan hasn't performed the Rite ofAdoption yet, so you are not properly my papa yet. Even though you are!"

"If I guess, are you allowed to say?"

"Well ... we are allowed to use our judgment."

I mulled it over for a moment. "You're ordered to kill someone."

"Only the bad dolls do that!" Emilie exclaimed, then clapped her hands over her mouth.

'Tm gues sing the bad dolls are another secret."

Emilie nodded. "They're horrid. They've been torturing the spiders." She glanced about the guest room, then confided, "The wicked and unruly dolls take separate classes from the sweet and mindful ones. Lady Morgannan doesn't want us getting into fights."

She did not say any more, but I could read her expression. "And you spied on the bad dolls' classes."

"How did you know?"

I grinned. "Because it's precisely what I would do."

"It's been fifty years, papa! " Emilie exclaimed. "Mama sent letters for the first ten. She said you were unwell, but as soon as you were better, she would send for me. But then that horrid Revolution came and the letters stopped! I had to do something! There's nothing worse than being an unwanted doll!"

She began to cry then, real tears down porcelain cheeks.

"There, there." I picked her up, putting her head against my shoulder and patting her on the back. "Let it all come out."

Fifty years of bottled tears poured down my shoulder. While I wondered where the water came from, I also wondered where the food the dolls ate went. It was like wondering where the snow went and why Irrisen was not buried under a glacier after a thousand years of snowpack. Witchcraft. No further explanation was needed.

A more troubling question was what had transpired with Duke Devore. So far as I had heard, he died of old age shortly after his marriage, a decade before the Revolution. That death was not one from which anyone ever "got better"-unless, of course, you considered undeath a preferable state.

Then again, I had resurrected the dead with alicorn shavings and the duchess's philosopher's stone. If the equally fabled sun orchid elixir were added to the solution?

But there were more pressing questions. "So, what did you learn from the bad dolls' classes?"

That got her to stop crying. "Oh, tricks too wicked to tell," Emilie demurred, then confided with an embarrassed grin. "My favorite is the one where you pretend to be a mundane doll but move a person's possessions around when they're not looking to make them think they're going mad!"

I was curious what other tricks they'd taught, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Are you ready?" It was Valya.

"Just a moment!" I called. Some of Duke Devore's clothes from his last visit had been located. A richly embroidered kaftan and silver fox fur coat aired on a clotheshorse before the fire. They smelled of cedar chips, but the fit was good. I unlocked the door.

Valya now wore an ivory sarafan, trimmed in pale rose, and a kokoshnik, Koliadki perched on the crown. Madenya wore the same ensemble. After a moment, the doll declared, "You look wonderful!"

"Terribly old-fashioned," Valya added, dimpling. "But wonderful."

I didn't know enough oflrrisen to know what part of my ensemble was out of date. "I suppose I'm that kind of man."

I fetched my alchemist's pack, now transferred to a handsome white boarskin bag, and let Emilie clamber astride, riding my shoulder.

When we reached the round gallery, I heard the laughing screech of Lychee and the monkeyish snickering of Poskarl Elvanna. He wore a kaftan as well, but with a radically different collar and hemline. I also realized he was wearing his coat with the fur turned in and the brocade turned out.

Byanka Morgannan, her apparent age again grandmotherly, hid her mouth with her peacock feather fan then lowered it, saying, "I'm afraid I did you a discourtesy, Duke Devore, when I allowed you to forego a valet. I thought you might recall the manner in which the clothing of Irrisen is worn." She glanced to Valya and Madenya. "Why didn't you inform him that he's wearing it inside-out?"

Madenya said politely, "He's a spellcaster of great power. I thought he had turned his coat to repel gremlins, or something similar."

Byanka merely gestured for the tall footman. "Please assist the duke."

I set down my pack with Emilie atop it. My coat was taken off, turned, and redonned. I modeled it. "Well?"

More snickers is sued from Poskarl and Lychee. Parroty laughter came from Olya and Irynya. Kyevgeny let out a bearlike guffaw while Valya and Koliadki whistled and the gallery was filled with the tittering of dolls like porcelain bells.

"Oh dear," Byanka's fan dropped to swing from her wrist, "I had completely forgotten you had procured that shuba."

I looked over my shoulder and examined the brocade. Beautifully woven, it showed a landscape of snow-covered pines. Pulled threads created the silhouette of a fox below a branch with a crow holding a piece of holed cheese.

"Children, I would remind you that the Fox and Crow was once the height of fashion!"

"Duly chastened, Lady Byanka," Irynya noted.

"My abject apologies to House Elvanna." Byanka appeared mortified. "I was speaking to my grandchildren, my dolls, and my apprentice."

"I didn't laugh," said Orlin. Tinka hid behind him, looking fearfully at Byanka's hard-edged fan.

Byanka looked at him, then Tinka, then me. "This is a joyous occasion. I suggest that, within these walls, we act as if nothing were untoward." She glanced to Irynya. "Lady, are you prepared to stand as godmother to this child?" She gestured to Emilie.

Irynya looked amused, but answered, "Yes, Lady Byanka."

"I suppose I can be godfather," deigned Poskarl, "unless you would prefer Lychee?"

Byanka appeared to be considering it, at last saying, "We Morgannans are a very traditional house, Lord Poskarl. I am afraid I would find that improper."

"I could be godfather," offered a muffled voice.

Byanka looked about the room. "Who said that?"

"I did!" The muffled voice appeared to issue from between Orlin, wearing the snowy white robes of a witch's apprentice, and Tinka, standing closely behind him.

A doll stepped out from between the two. He stood just above knee-high with a mop of fine blonde hair and the pearl-buttoned livery ofHouse Morgannan. His blue-gray eyes were the color of shadows on a frozen lake.

A punch cup shattered on the floor. "Holgrim!" Irynya gasped.

"What did you call me?" asked the doll.

"His name is 'Hotisnarr'," Byanka corrected. "And he is supposed-"

"You bound Holgrim's soul into a doll?" Poskarl inquired gleefully.

"I'm not a doll!" The Holgrim doll stamped his foot indignantly. "You're all cloud giants!"

"Cloud giants?" echoed Poskarl.

"White skin, white hair, three times the height of a man, surrounded by luxury?"

"He's got us there." Poskarl grinned like his monkey, then pointed to Kyevgeny's blond mane. "So what's he?"

Holgrim thrust out his lower jaw. "Either a very large frost giant or a very pale storm giant." He paused. "I had a friend who looked like him in the world below."

Kyevgeny stared at the tiny model ofhis friend, then softly began to weep. Irynya reached out a hand and placed it on his enormous shoulder. "Oh Kyevgeny... it could be worse..."

<"Kyevgeny, yes!" cried Holgrim. "That was my friend's name!

Byanka looked like she could use a stiffer drink than punch. I took out my flask and topped her off.

"Thank you, Duke Arjan," she said softly. "You are a gentleman and a scholar." She downed it in one shot, then held it for a refill. I obliged.

"I'm sorry, Holgrim," Kyevgeny whispered, tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"As am I," breathed Valya.

"His name is 'Hotisnarr'," Byanka corrected.

"That's a stupid name," said Holgrim.

"And he will be silent, for I command it, as his maker."

Holgrim opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He tried to speak again, but was still mute. Then he ran up and kicked Byanka in the shins.

There were gasps of a hundred dolls and the clattering of silver on porcelain.

Byanka raised her ivory cane. "What I make I can unmake!"

"No!" cried Kyevgeny and Valya.

Byanka brought the knob down swiftly, only at the last moment changing its trajectory. " Sit there or be smashed!" She pointed to an empty doll chair.

Holgrim leapt to the chair and sat as if glued to it. He struggled to free himself, then proceeded to gesture. It was not sign language, but rather the rude gestures every boy learns.

Orlin moved t o block Byanka's view, but she had already looked away.

"Please ... " Irynya asked.

Byanka paused. "Of course, Lady." She swigged the liquor, then appropriated my bottle and refilled her cup herself She took another sip and coughed. "Night's black balls, what's in this stuff?"

Poskarl snickered.

"I was meaning to perform an elegant ceremony in honor of our friend, the duke," she said, "but given the events of the past week-"

"What events?" asked Poskarl.

"Morgannan family business, Lord Poskarl." She fixed him with an icy stare. "We had an infestation of spiders. They were dealt with, yet not before poor Holgrim perished."

"What sort of spiders?"

"It hardly matters. They're dead."

Poskarl turned slightly green at this. "All of them?"

"All," Byanka lied brazenly, not mentioning the cages in the boiler room or the two chipmunks in my bedchamber. "We burned the egg sacks as well. Evidently the jorogumos misunderstood my letter. Rather than sweet little scarlet spiders Kyevgeny might have used as a familiar, their eggs hatched some horrid monstrosities from Shenmen. Is that not right, dear?" she inquired of her grandson.

Kyevgeny nodded, not telling how the dolls wove dream spider webs into silk the past week, nor of me showing his grandmother how to brew shiver in case he was addicted and needed a safer source than Silvertooth and his ilk.

"It's been a very tiring week," Byanka concluded. "As such, I am hoping Duke Devore will pardon the breach of protocol and allow the bare bones rite."

"By all means," I said.

Byanka turned. "Emilie, I am not your creator but I inherited autocracy over your soul from my mother when I became head of House Morgannan. I hereby transfer it to House Devore-"

"Gautier," I corrected.

"Or House Gautier, as it's now known after Galt's unpleasantness." She waved curtly. "This man, whatever he calls himself, will be your new master."

"Papa?" said Emilie. "My papa is truly mine?"

"Yes," said Byanka, "and you also have godparents in case House Gautier perishes." She glanced to the Elvannas. "Lord Poskarl, Lady Irynya, I had so looked forward to being your hostess at the Frosthall this evening. Yet I am afraid that troubles in my own household mean that I must beg your indulgence and postpone the honor." She glared at Kyevgeny and Orlin, then reached into her sealskin muffand withdrew a pair of gilt-edged scraps of ivory pasteboard. "Yet as I know you have honored others with your own passes to the royal box for the opening night, I am hoping you will accept these if you still wish to see 'Kostchtchie the Deathless.'"

"Thank you, Lady Morgannan." Irynya took them with a pained glance at Holgrim. "Ifyou would just have a servant crack a window, I will have Olya fetch a sleigh."

Byanka nodded, gesturing to the tall footman who took a long pole and opened the vent window atop the western oriel. Olya flew out.

I paused. My plan was for Orlin and myself to attend, then slip away with Dr. Orontius on the steps afterward, taking Emilie and Tinka with us.

Byanka laid a gentle hand on my arm. "I must apologize to you, Duke Devore. I know how you looked forward to tonight's performance, but I cannot in good conscience allow a guest ofHouse Morgannan to be seen in a 'Fox and Crow' shuba!"

"Surely we could find another coat," I protested.

"Possibly, but there's a fine line between 'eccentric' and 'scandalous' and you shan't be invited to any reputable Jadwiga houses dressed like that. Besides which, there is a matter of discipline for my grandson and your brother. A willful apprentice does not last in Irrisen. Missing a social outing is the very least punishment my ancestress might respect." Byanka looked to Orlin. "I should probably turn his whipping child into a chipmunk as well..."

"Please don't," I said. "This is supposed to be a joyous occasion, after all."

Byanka nodded. "A fair point." She then turned to Valya. "What about you? Do you wish to go to the theater with your friends?"

Valya looked torn, but at last nodded.

Byanka produced one more pass. "Go to the Bone Bridge with the Elvannas and have Yelchev lower it so you may await their sleigh."

They left, and an exceedingly awkward celebration began-the culmination of Duke and Duchess Devore's extravagant purchase a half-century earlier. There were cakes and frozen confections, little turnovers and tiny crepes topped with sturgeon roe which was the one bit of seafood Byanka considered fit to eat. I passed out small tabletop fireworks from my sample case, which the dolls were allowed to light on silver tea trays or set off in one of the fireplaces. A few rockets were shot out the windows.

Finally, Orlin used Kyevgeny's shadow theater to put on a Gaitan play, "The Imp and the Match Safe", one of Dari Jubannich's farces. Though the characterization of the wicked nobles was broad and the plight of the enslaved peasants was clear, the dolls watched impassively excepting Holgrim, still bewitched to silence by Byanka's command.

Byanka looked unamused, but still spiked her punch until Orlin returned and refreshed her cup. "There," she commended, "that is a proper apprentice-though that was a most improper play." Byanka downed half the punch and reached for the flask. "You are fortunate Queen Elvanna-" She slumped forward on the table.

The room was dim, candles snuffed for the shadow theater, but I noted Kyevgeny sprawled in his chair, Klaufi trying to wake him. Then I saw Byanka shiver, a most uncharacteristic activity for a winter witch-but a classic indicator of a certain drug.

"The goats," Orlin whispered. " She keeps them in her muff"

I blinked, then reached out hesitantly and took hold of the sealskin. Her cat familiar looked up at me and hissed, but clearly wasn't about to challenge me on his own.

Orlin took the fur roll from me, whispering, "Get Emilie, but give me that potion you got from the fireworks dealer."

He was speaking of the Tian Wash, the elixir for the banishment of evil. I handed it to him and watched him dump the contents over Holgrim who immediately stood up, the air filling with the scent oflemongrass.

I should have explained I had formulated a concentrate, but it was too late. The perfume spread out, the aroma designed to dispel all manner of evils, including charms and bewitchments. As we disappeared downstairs, I heard a childlike voice say, "Look! They left the bottlerockets!"

The sound of childlike laughter had become thunderous by the time we made it out the front door.

Orlin turned to me, holding an ivory goat in his hand. "Did you grab her fan?"

"No."

"Bother. We'll squeeze." He tossed the toy to the ground, calling out, "Trip-trap-trip! It's time to dance and skip!"

The toy skipped. It danced. It grew in size-then continued growing, bigger than a bull. The goat reared up, dancing on its hind legs, rampant, its hooves burning the blue of alcohol flames. Its eyes glowed and it breathed fire the same color.

"That's not the same goat," I observed.

Orlin reached into the muffand pulled out another caprine figurine. He recited the charm again. This goat grew bigger than a warhorse, but was not breathing fire or rolling wicked glowing eyes like some shiver-addled herald's nightmare.

I put Orlin, Tinka, and Holgrim atop it, climbing astride the hellish goat with Emilie myself. "To the Bone Bridge! " Orlin commanded and the goats took off.

I pulled the bee- eater charm out of my pocket, whispering frantically, "Dr. Orontius. Meet us outside the Frosthall now. We are on our way. Norret."

I tossed the trinket in the air and it came to life, winging its way across the fjord.

The bridge was down, its bony planks spanning the gap, the way clear to the other-except for Yelchev the Troll. He stood in the middle, huge in his ivory armor.

"Who seeks passage-" he began.

That was as far as he got. My brother's bull-sized goat charged across the bridge, one of its horns having come free and transformed into a glowing lance. My brother held the oversized weapon awkwardly, yet it slammed into the astonished creature's chest at the same time as the goat's head met its midsection. The troll was thrown backward, past the rail-less edge of the bridge, and into empty space. Then he was gone.

"Orlin Gantier!" my brother cried. "That's who!"

I didn't know if the troll could survive the fall. Trolls were generally unkillable except by fire. That said, the indignity of being defeated by a human child-magical assistance or not-would likely make any troll consider self-immolation.

"To the Frosthall!" Orlin cried, reholstering his lance, which shrank to become his goat's left golden horn.

My own goat's horns were exceptionally large and razor-sharp, and I had no interest in touching them. Nevertheless, a blur of color shot out of the sky and alit on one of them.

"Help!" shrieked Olya, Irynya's parrot familiar. "Lies! Treason!"

It was only to be expected that someone would notice our escape. I made to backhand the offending bird-but was stopped short as it turned imploringly to me.

"Duke Devore, my mistress has been ambushed! You must save her!"

"What?" I gasped. "Who? Where?"

"The wolf!" cried Olya. "Silvertooth! Follow me!" It burst into flight again.

"Follow the parrot!" I called to Orlin, who relayed the command to the goats.

We dashed down the nighttime streets of Whitethrone, down a bright boulevard illuminated by lampposts topped with skulls with flaming eyes, then careened into a dark alleyway lit only by the hellish eyes ofmy goat, the lanterns of a sleigh, and the blue glowing eyes ofa pack of wolves.

Orlin charged. As he did, his goat didn't so much bleat as roar, a horrifying sound. Half the wolves turned tail and fled, tripping over snowbanks and pissing themselves in terror as the goat passed between them. Mine disemboweled a troll, breathing fire into its empty guts and setting the remains alight. This made it easy to toss in a fire grenade, which blew offthe upper half.

The troll's lower torso stumbled about blindly, terrifying the other trolls, who ran after the craven wolves. There remained only the braver wolves and Silvertooth, who held Poskarl Elvanna up by the front of his kaftan. The boy was still alive, but bleeding onto the snow and missing several teeth. Irynya and Valya, unharmed, huddled in the sleigh with the Varki driver. The reindeer had all been torn apart, except for one that stood rimed with hoarfrost, frozen as a block of ice.

Seated on the front end of the sleigh was the old woman who'd tried to capture Orlin upon our first arrival, Poskarl's monkey familiar dangling lifeless from one hand. She grinned. "So the boy is back! But your Jadwiga owe Silvertooth a great deal of money, child. Perhaps they'll sell you to pay their debt?"

Tinka had the answer to that: "The wasp stings until she is satisfied!" the child cried, breaking the string on her wrist. She tossed a sparkling trinket toward the hag.

The Merrymead charm grew and grew, becoming a great golden whip. It stung like a wasp, striking the woman's hand, causing her to snatch it back and drop the monkey. Then it struck again, lashing about the crone, coiling about her like the string of a child's top. I half expected it to whip away and send her spinning, but apparently the Savored Sting was satisfied.

Holgrim was not. He leapt to the larger goat's head, pulling offits right horn. This became a golden greats word, sized for a doll, but still long enough and sharp enough to do the job.

The old woman's head fell to the snow.

Silvertooth howled, taking wolf-shape, but his howl was answered by a new howling from the far end of the alleyway. Above it, the voice of Valya's thrush familiar trilled, "Guards! Here they are! Here!"

Silvertooth glowered at Poskarl. "This isn't over, boy." Then he turned tail and fled, his fellow wolves running after him.

Poskarl cradled his monkey, moaning, "Lychee! My little Lychee! Oh Valya, heal him!" He then looked up at me. "Don't let that villain get away!"

I nodded, and we charged on in the direction the wolves had gone. Solving Poskarl's drug- dealing debts was the least of my concerns, however. As soon as we were out of sight, I turned us away from the canine tracks. A minute later, we thundered into the plaza where Dr. Orontius waited at the foot of the ice sculpture ofKostchtchie.

We dismounted, Orlin pronouncing the charm to reduce the goats to chryselephantine curios.

"Desna's wings!" Dr. Orontius exclaimed. "Is this all of you? Very well then. No time for frills. To Absalom!" he cried.

And then we were somewhere else entirely.

That, members of the Decemvirate, is my report. While my notes on the dancing huts are lacking, I hope I have explicated the mystery of the bonedust dolls to your satisfaction. Emilie will be returning with me to Galt, but Holgrim-while uninterested in being a historic relic in your vaults-is interested in applying for apprenticeship.

I would recommend him. He is very brave.

Sincerely,

Norret Gantier

About the Author

Kevin Andrew Murphy is an American novelist and game writer from Northern California. He is a graduate of University of California at Santa Cruz and has a Master of Arts from University of Southern California. He has written gamebooks for Steve Jackson Games and White Wolf. He is one of the contributors to the Wild Cards book series edited by George R. R. Martin. His first solo novel, Penny Dreadful was released in 2007. He is also the designer of several fonts on the theme of witchcraft for Scriptorium Fonts.