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But it was no messenger who came, but the Wizard himself, his blue and brown robes streaming behind him, his long hair twisted and gray, a heavy iron collar hanging around his neck like a noblewoman’s jewelry. He seemed not to notice it—and he carried a second one, alike in weight and color, in his veined hand.
“There are three girls in this house, yes?” he said imperiously, looking down his aquiline nose at my stepmother. She bent her shining head in grief.
“My daughters all perished in the first snows. A chill took this house; I was lucky to keep my child, so many died—”
“Oh, stop it.” He interrupted, his voice cutting across hers like a ship slicing through a foamy wave. “I don’t have time for this. There are three children in this house, and if you do not produce them, I certainly can. I can hear two of them scratching at that great closet like hungry little mice. Want to come out, hungry mice? I won’t hurt you, and if you are good girls, I may give you a nice cheese.”
The armoire cracked open. My sisters were nothing if not curious, curious and stupid. Hesitantly, the golden-curled girls stepped out of their hiding place and clung to each other, staring shyly at the floor.
Iolanthe’s face showed nothing. She bent even lower, nearly bowing to the tall man. “I meant no dishonesty, you must believe me,” she wept, and genuine tears splashed onto the flagstones. “What I told you was true—the frost took my eldest daughter, who was dearly beloved in this house. I could not bear to have either of my other girls, clever as they are, risk trying for your honors—I could not lose them, too!” My stepmother actually crumpled into a heap at his feet, crying pitifully and clutching at his boots for mercy. I could almost laugh, but I was not as stupid as my sisters.
The Wizard seemed to believe her, as he drew her up to her feet again and wiped the tears from her face. “There, there. You are very ugly when you cry, you ought to try not to do it. Let us see about these two lambs of yours, shall we?” He held up the iron collar and Iolanthe flinched ever so slightly. “It is a simple test. Each of them will try my collar, and if it should be fortunate enough to fit one of them, she will come with me and learn all sorts of wonderful things and live a life that even a queen would envy. That does sound nice, doesn’t it, girls?”
My sisters nodded, but they trembled with fear like leaves blown across an empty street. He approached them as a man will approach a horse he wishes to break, and his long, pale fingers settled first on Imogen.
“Please, sir,” she whispered, “I don’t want to.”
“Well, little girls must learn to do things they don’t wish to do. It is the way of the world,” the Wizard said comfortingly, and opened the latch of the gray collar, fastening it around her neck.
It hung loose, limp as cabbage, around her collarbone.
“See? That wasn’t so awful. You are far too weak to be of any use to me. Next!”
Isaura nearly vomited on his feet. “Please, sir,” she begged, “I don’t want to.”
He chuckled and did not waste his breath on an answer. He clasped the collar around her slim little neck, soft as a swan’s.
It was so tight she could hardly breathe, and I saw that the collar was special, that it chose, and not the Wizard, for it shrank around my sister’s neck like a fist until she cried out and began to claw at it in desperation.
With an exasperated sigh, he removed the collar in one swift movement. “Let this be a lesson, woman. Lying nets nothing, just as spoons catch no fish.”
He turned on his heel to go, and I saw relief ripple through Iolanthe’s body. But my sister—oh, Imogen, you little viper!—my sister cried out after him.
“Wait!”
She glanced at Isaura for reassurance, and for a moment seemed to think better of herself.
“Yes? Is there something, little love?”
Imogen squeaked, and could not speak. Isaura let go of her sister’s hand and stepped forward as though reciting lessons.
“Mother lied. Magadin didn’t die—nobody died. She’s under the stairway, hiding like a rat.”
I believe that at that moment Iolanthe might have throttled her own child to death. But she did not protest; what protest could she offer?
Isaura bounded across the room with glee and threw open the wooden hatch that covered the space under the stairs.
“Hello!” she crowed.
“How could you?” I hissed.
“We are tired of your airs and your stupid black fingers and your secrets. You are a beastly girl. No one wants you here any longer.”
“Yes!” cried Imogen in her piping voice. “We hope that horrid collar does fit you, and you go away and never, ever come back! It’s what you deserve!”
“Why?” I asked, still crouched in my hiding place.
“You stole her from us!” Imogen cried out miserably, like an infant bird falling from the nest. “She is our mother, not yours, and you took her away! We were happy before we came to this awful place! And now she has another baby—she w
