Azalea ran in a maze of gaudy, unfamiliar halls, searching in vain for stairs or anything that would lead her to the library or the ballroom, which was the only room in the household that had more than one mirror. The portraits had been magicked, and old parliament members and great-aunts leered down at her with bloodred eyes. Voices murmured and whispered, beyond her conscious mind.
In a swirling golden hall, which may at one time have been the portrait gallery, Azalea caught a flicker of light coming closer.
“Oh!” she called, taking a step back. “Who is that?”
A small clickety click click sounded as the candle drew nearer, far too low to be held by anyone. It moved on its own. The little brass dish had been split and the ends curved to points beneath it, giving it legs. It looked like a toddler, its candle to the nub, and it stumbled around in lost little circles.
“Oh…there now,” said Azalea, leaning just in front of it. It reminded her of the sugar teeth. “Do you know how to get to the ballroom?”
The candle went foof.
“Ack!” said Azalea. She smothered the fire in the folds of her skirt, leaving the odor of smoked fabric. The candle skittered away on its ungainly brass legs. Azalea made to chase after it for a good kick, but stopped. A much larger clickety click click sounded at the end of the hall. In fact, it was more of a clankety clank clank clank.
The tiny candle fled behind a sofa leg. Light flared up at the end of the hall, and a giant mass of tangled iron clanked into view. Candles dripped from it. Azalea recognized the old chandelier from the north attic.
Azalea jumped to the fireplace in a billow of skirts as the chandelier sprang at her. She overturned the poker stand and snatched up a hearth brush. The chandelier dove at her, flame first. Heart screaming, head throbbing, Azalea jumped aside and smashed the hearth brush against it. Two candles went out, then sprang to life again.
The chandelier reared up. Azalea ran, leaping in bounds.
It smashed after her, onto the long, thick crimson rug—
Snap!
The rug encased the fixture in a smooth, snapdragon movement and curled in on itself, smothering the light and crushing the chandelier with a sickening crunch. Azalea panted as the last glowing light in the rug died.
“Right,” said Azalea, relieved she had jumped over the rug instead of on it. “Let’s not touch that.”
The tiny candle clickety clicked to her, timid. Its flame was low, as though apologizing.
“Have you seen the King? Or the girls?” said Azalea. “The ballroom?”
The flame sprung to life and took off, little legs skittering like mad. Azalea, hope blossoming through her, ran after it.
Minutes later, through twisted golden halls of gaudy ornamentation and staircases with whispering pictures, Azalea skidded through the entrance hall and into the ballroom. This portion of the palace, she was relieved to see, had not been magicked at all; they remained the boring paneled wainscot white-ceilinged rooms they had been before.
She ran to the first ballroom mirror and nearly screamed.
Delphinium stared back at her. Tears streaked her cheeks, and she hugged herself, shivering. Her eyelashes were frosted. On her pretty, peaked face, next to her ear, slashed three jagged scratch marks. They bled.
Keeper! thought Azalea. She pressed her hand against the glass, and Delphinium’s quavering hand met it.
“Delphi,” said Azalea. “Bear up. I’ll get you out of here. Where are the others?”
Delphinium spoke, but no sound came. She shook her head and pointed to the next pier glass.
Eve quavered from the inside of the next glass. She held her spectacles, which had frosted over, but her eyes lit with hope when she saw Azalea. Azalea managed some soothing words, then ran to the next mirror, which held Ivy. She huddled on the reflection’s floor, her cheeks tear stained, chewing on a strand of her hair. Azalea pressed her hand against the glass, trying to comfort her.
In the next curled Hollyhock, rolled up in a little ball, her hands tucked up her sleeves. Then Flora and Goldenrod, hugging each other to keep from quaking. Clover, Kale, and Lily pressed close in the mirror next. Clover had wrapped both the girls up in her shawl and had her arms about them to keep them warm. When she saw Azalea, like the other girls, her eyes lit.
Jessamine worried Azalea the most. She huddled alone in a ball, unmoving, not even shivering. When Azalea spoke to her, she did not stir. Only when Azalea knocked on the glass, hard, did Jessamine’s eyelids flicker. She was so tiny—only four. She couldn’t keep warm for long.
A knocking sound came from the eighth and last mirror, and Azalea found Bramble, hands pressed against the glass and long red hair coming unpinned in strands. Her thin lips were purple, but she looked determined. She gestured feverishly at Azalea, her lips pursing even thinner all the while. She held her hand out flat and pretended to scribble across it.
“Write…a letter?” said Azalea.
Bramble nodded. She pretended to shove her hands in pockets she did not have, and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, before breaking into silent chatters.
“To Lord Teddie?” said Azalea.
Bramble, trembling, nodded.
“Yes?” said Azalea. “To say what?”
Bramble swallowed and opened her mouth, then closed it, then swallowed again. She shivered, keeping her yellow-green eyes on her feet.
She mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” and shrugged. There was a tear streak down her cheek.
Instinctively, Azalea brought up the handkerchief to wipe Bramble’s face. It seemed to put a light into the mirror, and Bramble’s eyes lifted. She warmed her hands near it, as though it were a flame.