“I suppose we are both tinkerers,” observed the queen, following her gaze. “Though I do not have your gift.”
Tes flinched at the mention, wishing she had never told Delilah Bard about her power, and wondering how word had spread so fast. The queen seemed to read the question in her face.
“Places this large tend to echo.” As she spoke, she crossed to a nearby counter. “To lay hands on the very fabric of the world.” She lifted a closed black box, returning with it. “What I would do,” she said, opening the box, “with a gift like yours…”
She trailed off as she looked down. So did Tes. The box was empty. A shadow crossed the queen’s face, and Tes swore she heard a name cross the queen’s lips, little more than a whispered oath—Alucard—before she snapped it shut.
“Tell me, Tes. Do you create, as well as repair?”
“Sometimes,” she said. Then, “I like to improve things. Make good magic better.”
The queen nodded in understanding. “And tell me,” she went on. “How did you come to serve the Hand?”
The food went tasteless in her mouth. She fought to swallow. “I swear, I didn’t know. I would never have taken on the job.”
“They did not recruit you, then?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “A man came to my shop. He was sick, I think. Or wounded. He brought me something broken, and wanted it fixed. I didn’t know what it was. And now it’s gone. They can’t use it against you.”
“A fact for which I’m very grateful,” said the queen. “You have protected my family, Tes. For that, I owe you a debt. Still,” she added, sipped her tea, “it is a shame, that it was lost.”
“Your Majesty?” she said, confused.
“We are creators. It is always a pity, is it not? To destroy a piece of work.”
Tes nodded, though in truth, she was glad to see it gone. The persalis had cost her the shop she loved, and the life she’d built in London. She’d been threatened, taken hostage, stabbed—twice—and thrown in prison. All because she’d done her job.
“Would you show me, how you do it?”
Tes blinked. She hadn’t noticed the queen rising, but she had stepped away and returned, carrying a small box. She cleared a space, and set it on the metal table.
“Perhaps there is a place for you here. A place for your gifts.” She gestured at the massive workshop. “I could use an apprentice. Particularly one as skilled as you.”
Tes looked down. It was a music box, its cover gone, revealing the pattern of its insides. Tes’s fingers twitched automatically; she saw at once what was wrong with the magic, the place where a few of the threads had unraveled. The repair was so simple, she knew it was a test.
“Oh, wait.”
The queen touched something to the shackles, and the lock inside them turned. The weight of iron fell away, the cuffs landing open on the table. Tes rubbed at her wrists.
“There,” said the queen. “Now show me.”
Tes stared at the box, but didn’t move. Until Bex and Calin, no one had ever seen her work. She had been so careful, for so long, disguising every gesture, every movement. It was exhausting, to keep it secret. But there was a reason for it.
“Show me,” said the queen again, but her voice was different now, the careful softness peeled back, revealing something cold and hungry. She stared at Tes, studying her, and the eyes were another color, a different shape, but the look in them was too familiar. It belonged to Serival. Serival, who looked at everything of worth like it was something to be used, or sold, or taken apart. It belonged to her father, who watched, arms crossed, inside his shop, for Tes to show him what she was worth.
The vast workshop suddenly felt smaller than the cell.
Run. The word raced through her blood, the way it had three years before, when she looked up and saw her oldest sister watching from the doorway, eyes trained on Tesali’s hands where they hovered over threads she could not see.
Her gaze scraped over the metal table, the music box open on its surface, the unfastened cuffs halfway between Tes and the queen.
“Show me,” pressed the queen, leaning forward, and so Tes did.
She reached inside the broken music box, and took hold of a broken amber thread, a piece designed to amplify the sound. But instead of mending it, she rolled the thread between her fingers, then drew it long, tracing a loop around the wooden frame.
The queen watched, as if entranced. So entranced that she leaned closer, and as she did, her elbow knocked the cup of tea, and sent it off the table’s edge. The queen jerked, turning as the cup fell and shattered on the workshop floor. She frowned.