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When the last of the crowd had dispersed, I turned to wrap my arms around Casper’s neck My limbs were heavy with exhaustion, ernails, but he didn’t flinch frohest boughs of the trees and dusting our heads with snow I could hear the pirates celebrating up there, drinking their grog"Aztarte Smiles on Bloodshed" We were as alone as we had been since the carriage

"How did you do it?" I asked hiers strokedyou’d never heard before, a secret song, as if you had written it? How did you play it so well that the snow is still falling?"

He chuckled into hter "I was scared at first But when I saw the first notes, I knew It’s the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker It’s one of the s ever written in gling, but I didn’t have enough breath to join in "Of all the ’s the Bludlad that Aztarte, or fortune, was on our side Casper pulledthe dessert table, delighting in her first taste of bloodsweets as she tried to fill the e I knew all too well

"She’s a tenacious creature, that one," I said

"You’re one to talk"

"Bah All in a day’s work for the Tsarina I’m nearly invulnerable"

"I never felt that way until you ca Walt Whitman once said that those who love each other shall beco about sleep?"

He thought for athe best person involves open air and good food and sleeping with the earth"

I grinned and stood on shaky feet, holding out a hand to pull hiot an enormous bed, over there in that palace Let me introduce you"

41

Some days later, I woke to the sound of the harpsichord Withon the carpet behind me, I padded down the stairs to the parlor The scene before ht for at the Sugar Snow Ball were there, together, breakfasting in the golden-war of the Ice Palace

Casper sat curled over the keyboard in breeches and open shirt, playing so froed on the floor before the fire, taunting a brood of wolfhound puppies with her clockwork tortoise as e Ravenna’s ic was hard to break, which meant that Alex’s ailment was all but cured, yet he still mourned the woman he had believed to be his fiancée Casper had already written to Cri the spells so that Alex could live a norhost

As for Keen, she had taken to the bludding better than expected I had called her tenacious, but it was ainst all odds, and even she seeht to complain Her life in the other world had been a hard one, and her life in London had been harder, and now she was nearly invulnerable and living in the biggest castle on the continent, with all the food, free time, and bludponies she’d ever wanted She hadn’t shownher life, but I didn’t expect her to I’d said often enough myself that princesses didn’t say thank you, and she was officially Olgha II of Freesia, as much as she hated the name She would have several years of freedom before her responsibilities actually became an impediment, but I dreaded the day of her majority, when I would have to force her into a dress and a crown to sit for her portrait For now, it was enough that she was alive and s

I curled up in my favorite chaise by the , and a servant placed a stea cup of blud tea in my hand, the porcelain painted with tiny violets

"Not playing about Jude today?" I called to Casper, and he grinned and ended the song with a little trill I watched him walk to my chaise, the very picture of a Bludman, confident and beautiful and sure He moved my feet aside and sat

"That one’s called ‘And I Love Her,’ " he said "By the same band but a little less mournful"

"You’ve colanced around the grandest parlor in the northern heret not taking one " I sipped ed tea

He tooks "Is there anything you regret, Ahna?"

"M to rip out Ravenna’s throat She died horribly, but I had so looked forward to that part"

"You used to want my head on a pike," he offered

"Mine, too!" Keen called

I chuckled "That was before you proved yourselves useful"

"I’ently I wasn’t about to tell her how useful a princess could be

"So what now?" Casper asked