Glittering Shadows Read Free

basement.
    “I suppose you think we deserve to be hanged?” Mrs. Rasp asked.
    “Shh,” Mrs. Baum said, stroking her boy’s hair when he stirred a little.
    “Of course not,” Wilhelmina said. “I know why we did what we did. But—” She shook her head and glanced at Marlis again. “You might as well have a seat. I know
you won’t sleep. For now, we can only wait.”
    Marlis pulled out from under her dress the necklace her mother had given her as a child—gold in the shape of a real human heart. Mother had loved science; Marlis thought of her every time
she rubbed the familiar shape between her fingers.
    The women sat, talking sometimes, falling into heavy silence other times. At some point in the night, the power flickered. Wilhelmina had candles at the ready. The workers underground had
managed some of the electric plants. But the power remained on—for now.
    Marlis finally fell into fitful sleep in her chair. A child’s wailing woke her again. More women had joined them. Now Mrs. Alberti sat at the piano. The ornate cuckoo clock on the wall
said it was six in the morning. Some of the wives had gathered at the table around a pot of coffee, speaking in hushed tones.
    Marlis rose, shaking off her bleariness. “Has there been any news?”
    “Not much,” Wilhelmina said. “It sounds like we might be down here longer than we thought, though. We haven’t seen your father, but I spoke to my husband. The military
have their hands full, so they want us to stay under guard.”
    “Did he say what’s happening out there? Have they found the Valkenraths? Freddy?”
    “Roderick is dead,” Wilhelmina said. “They found his body underground. That’s all we know of him. Apparently the streets are madness—fires and riots. People beat a
police officer to death in Langstrasse. They’re trying to get it under control.” She spoke calmly but looked pinched. Beside her, Mrs. Baum dropped her face into her hands.
    Marlis went into the hall and paced. Down here, she heard nothing, felt nothing. What did the world look like outside these walls? When she stepped into the light of morning, would it be
transformed? She wanted to be at her father’s side, hearing every detail. Here they were, all the ladies crowded in a concrete hole, like inanimate valuables tucked into the cellar for
safekeeping.
    I can’t bear this blindness
.
    Marlis tried to go up the stairs. A guard stopped her at the top. “Sorry, Princess. Your father said not to let you up.”
    “I won’t bother him. I won’t say a word. I’ll stay outside the meeting chamber. It can’t be any more dangerous up there.”
    “I wouldn’t be so sure,” the guard said. “The crazies might just find a way to storm the Chancellery. I heard they have more magic than anyone expected.”
    Her heart beat faster.
    “But don’t worry.” He spread a hand hastily. “The military’s out in force.”
    The door above the guard opened. Volland! He would always spare her a moment. “What’s going on?”
    “It’s bad, dear,” he said gently, walking past the guard. “All of the workers are dead. It happened a few moments ago, at sunrise. Freddy must have ended his
magic.”
    “He
chose
to kill all those people?” She adjusted her vision of the world outside—now seeing the streets littered with bodies.
    “It’s possible he may have been killed himself. Although we had protection spells on him, spells can be broken. If he dies, his magic dies with him. But for it to happen right as the
sun rises does suggest a deliberate action to me—that he, or his captors, chose to end the workers’ lives at dawn. We can only speculate for now.”
    Marlis clenched her fist, smothering just how disturbed she was at the idea of losing not just Ida but also Freddy. She’d grown up with both of them. “Freddy never got to…I
mean, he was so young.”
    “He may have betrayed us,” Volland said, but he sounded sympathetic.
    “Even if he betrayed us…it’s our