The Snow Queen's Shadow

her jump. A lone mouse stood in front of her wardrobe, balanced on his hind legs. The animals had always known her mood, coming to comfort her in the darkest times of her childhood. Danielle thought them friends sent by her mother’s spirit.
    She dropped to one knee as the mouse darted closer. Drawn by friendship, or by some instinctive fairy allure? “The Duchess is right about one thing,” she whispered. “Every moment I waste, Snow takes my son farther from here.”
    The mouse jumped back and waited, whiskers quivering. Its pose reminded her of a soldier awaiting orders.
    “Thank you, but I’m afraid you can’t help me in this.” She grabbed her sword and headed for the chapel. Nobody stopped her as she crossed the courtyard. Perhaps something of her mood showed upon her face, because while several people started toward her, each one swiftly turned away.
    She yanked open the chapel doors, taking in the scene in a single glance. Armand lay asleep on the altar. Gerta and Father Isaac had stopped talking in mid-sentence with Danielle’s arrival. “How is he?”
    “Unchanged,” said Talia. She appeared disheveled, her hair a mess, her clothes rumpled and sweaty. A glance at the bench beside her explained why. A red cape, lined with wolfskin, sat in a pile on the bench. The cape had once belonged to the assassin known as the Lady of the Red Hood. Talia must have tried using the cape’s magic to track Snow and Jakob.
    “Did you find anything?” Danielle asked.
    Talia glanced at the cape. “Snow’s scent vanished from the workshop. I picked her up again near the main gate, but lost her outside the palace. I think she took a carriage, but I couldn’t say where she went.”
    “Damn.”
    Talia was studying Danielle’s face. “What’s happened?”
    “Nothing.” This wasn’t the time to talk about the Duchess’ revelations. Danielle marched past, toward the altar. Gerta took a step back. Was Danielle’s frustration so apparent? “What have you found?”
    “Very little.” Gerta was clearly exhausted, her eyes red and shadowed. She had nearly frozen to death below the palace, and hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since . . . ever, really. “Neither exorcism nor summoning rituals have helped. Everything is coming from within the prince. As far as we can tell, the demon isn’t controlling him. It’s simply changing the way he sees the world. It’s fascinating, really.”
    Father Isaac cleared his throat, and Gerta blushed. Her enthusiasm reminded Danielle of Snow. Her eyes shone with the same excitement when she talked about magic. “We have to remove the splinter from his body.”
    “It moves each time we try to examine it,” said Father Isaac. He had unbuttoned the prince’s shirt, and pulled it open to show new bruises along the right side of Armand’s chest. “I’ve kept him asleep, but the splinter acts like a living thing. I’m afraid if we try to cut it from him, we’d only send it deeper into his body.”
    “Where is it now?”
    Gerta pointed to Armand’s lowest rib on the right side. In a soft voice, she said, “Had it remained in his arm, we might have been able to amputate.”
    Danielle forced those images away. “Snow could destroy her mirrors at will, reducing them to powder. Can you crush this splinter?”
    “Even if we did, the pieces might still carry the curse,” said Father Isaac.
    Gerta chewed her lower lip as she studied the bruises on Armand’s side. “If we bled him as soon as the glass was crushed, we might be able to remove most of it. Like sucking poison from a wound.”
    “Or we could spread the poison throughout his body,” Isaac countered.
    Danielle turned away. “A single sliver took my husband from me. My father was a glassmaker, but never have I seen a mirror as large as Snow’s. What we’ve seen in the palace is only the start. We have to know if this infection can be cured.”
    “There are others we could attempt to free,” Isaac said. “I could have one of the prisoners brought from the dungeon—”
    “They’re not prisoners, they’re people. Friends. You mean to tell me their lives are less important than Armand’s? That their families will grieve less over their loss?”
    “He means you don’t risk the Prince of Lorindar to unproven magic,” said Talia.
    “I could trap it,” Gerta said suddenly. She brushed her fingers over Armand’s chest. “Crushing the splinter isn’t enough. I need to isolate it from the prince .