“You must have a family,” I said.
“There’s always just been … this.” He gestured at the sky. “For as long as I can remember.”
I studied him, thinking about the nature of the house under the mountain. Was Hal trapped in the book-mirrors somehow? Enchanted between their pages like a rose left to press and then forgotten? The library had been collected with the rest of the house. Maybe Hal had accidentally been collected with it. Although he could just as easily be stuck in Mokosh’s library, or another library entirely—there was no reason it had to be mine.
He sighed, so suddenly sad that my heart wrenched. “What about you, Echo? Tell me about your family.”
And I shut my eyes and told him about my father and Rodya and even Donia, while the wind whipped up wilder and wilder and the clouds blotted out the sun.
It was only when the rain broke, all at once, that we leapt up from the ground and bolted to the wood for shelter, slipping and sliding in the mud all around the lake.
Under the canopy of the trees, the rain barely reached us. We stood and watched it fall, turning the lake and the hillside all to mist.
A mirror shimmered into being behind me, the library alerting me, as I’d instructed, that it was time for dinner back in the house under the mountain. I didn’t want to leave Hal, but I stepped toward the mirror anyway.
From Hal’s long look, he didn’t want me to leave either.
“I’ll see you again,” I told him.
His smile was laced with sadness. “Goodbye, Echo.”
“Goodbye, Hal.”
I touched the mirror, and the library came into view around me. Stricken, I stepped intoThe Empress’s Musicianagain, but back in the dripping wood, Hal was already gone.
AFEW DAYS LATER, I went out into the corridor after breakfast and found it empty. It wasn’t the first time the wolf had left me on my own, of course, so I went about tending the house as usual. I’d checked the bindings on all the dangerous doors and was halfway through watering the plants in the conservatory when I spotted a woman’s hat abandoned on the window seat. I picked it up, smoothing my hands over the faded ribbons, and tried it on. It fit perfectly.
I still saw evidence of the wolf’s mysterious former mistresseverywhere,though the wolf tried to distract me from noticing dropped fans and torn gowns, jewels and shoes and half-finished embroidery, scattered about in nearly every room.
Was the woman the same as the force in the wood? The powerful enchantress who had collected all the rooms of the house and bound them together? It seemed likely. But I couldn’t quite reconcile the idea of her with someone who loved music, and had caused the wolf to love it, too.
Still, the mystery of the wolf was clearly wrapped up in her, and if I were to help him—as I’d determined to, no matter what he said—perhaps she was somewhere to start.
I left the conservatory, still wearing the hat.
And there was the wolf in a corridor made of flashing rubies, waiting for me.
It was too late to hide the hat, so I just fiddled with one of the ribbons, studying the wolf. “Why are you bound to the house? Where did you come from? And … and whoisshe?” I pointed at the hat.
The wolf let out a long sigh. His whole body seemed to sag. “Come with me. I need to tell you a story.”
He brought me to the Temple of the Winds, which was empty and echoing, dust swirling up from the floor.
We paced together over to the back window, which looked out into wheeling starlight, and I sank down onto the wide sill, hugging my knees to my chest. The wolf sat opposite me, and the strange stars cast fragments of green and violet light over his white fur. “I am not of your kind, Echo Alkaev. I do not belong to your world, or your time. I am just another piece of … her … collection. But my life has been stretched past what it was ever meant to endure. At the end of the year, I will die—but I will be free. I have no wish to escape that.”
I chewed on my lip, peering out into the never-ending light. It danced in my vision, sang in my ears, whispered like dew on my skin.
“Once, I had something precious. I should have held it tight, should have guarded it with my last breath, but instead I let it go. I will regret that until the end.”
He let out a long breath, and I tore my gaze from the stars to look at him. Sorrow weighed heavier on him than I’d ever realized.
A little wind rushed past us. It was warm and smelled of lilies. I closed my eyes and drank it in. “You said you were going to tell me a story,” I murmured.
He did. “The North Wind was despised by his brothers. He was the favorite of their mother the Moon, and his powers were stronger than theirs. He commanded death, and time, and could bend others’ wills to his own.”
I thought of the dark, angry force beneath the mountain. “What happened to him?”
“He traded his power for the oldest of magics.”
