The people were dressed in servants’ clothes, and wearing horrible half-masks that came in sour shades of plum, cherry, blueberry, lemon, and orange. The colors made Tella think of rotted confetti that refused to fall as the servants moved about the stage, their arms and legs strung up with rope that turned them into human marionettes.
Tella cursed.
Scarlett gasped.
Julian looked as if the food he’d eaten in the barn had risen up to scald his throat.
No one appeared to be pulling the servants’ strings. The cords all moved by magic, bobbing them about the stage in a forced dance full of disturbing bows and curtsies.
Tella’s eyes latched on to the youngest forced participant, a boy with ringlets as pretty as a doll’s and a face stained with dried tears.
“No wonder we didn’t find any servants,” said Julian.
“How long do you think they’ve been like this?” Scarlett asked.
No one knew how to answer her. If the servants had been strung up when the count had been killed, it must have been at least a full day. Most of them didn’t even appear to be conscious; their heads stayed bowed as their bodies were jerked about the stage.
Tella raced toward it, hoping it wasn’t too late to save them. “This looks like Jester Mad. He has the ability to animate objects. He must have tied them all up and then used his magic on the ropes to keep them moving.”
“How do we undo it?” Scarlett asked. “When the Poisoner petrified that family, he left a note.”
But no one found a note on the stage.
“I think we just need to cut the cords, or untie them,” said Julian. Which proved easier said than done.
The poor servants’ arms and limbs moved faster with each attempt to set them free. Julian was the only one with a blade; he gave it to Scarlett. But none of them had an easy time of things. They all had to jump back more than once to avoid being kicked in the stomach or punched in the face as they worked to undo the servants’ bonds. Thankfully Nicolas didn’t employ too large of a staff.
There were only half a dozen of them. Their hearts were still beating, but barely. None of them could stand on their own legs very long once they were freed.
“The master has infection remedies for the wounds in his greenhouse,” muttered an older man as he ripped a rotted blueberry mask from his face. Tella imagined he was the butler. His eyes were the saddest of the lot, as he looked over his fellow servants all slumped across the stage.
Julian found the remedies while Tella fetched water, and Scarlett procured bandages from a small closet for the servants’ raw wrists and ankles. The entire ordeal was terribly somber. Neither Scarlett, Julian, nor Tella told any of the servants what had happened to Nicolas, and none of them asked, making Tella suspect that they must have already known. Or they’d experienced enough terror and they didn’t want to know.
There were lots of murmured thanks, but no one met her eyes, as if they were ashamed of what had been done to them. Only the boy with the ringlets looked at Tella directly. He even managed a crooked smile, as if she were some sort of hero, which she wasn’t, not at all. She was part of the reason all of this had happened. But in that moment, she vowed that she would make up for the part she’d played in freeing the Fates. “I’ll find who did this to you, and make sure he never hurts anyone again.”
“He wore a mask,” offered the boy. “But it wasn’t like this.” The child kicked at the scrap of cherry fabric that had been tied to his face. “His was shiny, like porcelain, and one side was baring teeth while the other side winked and stuck out half a tongue.”
“Jester Mad,” said Tella. “He’s a Fate.”
Several of the adults suddenly looked her way as she spoke; at least one appeared to think she shouldn’t be saying any of this to the little boy. But after what they’d just experienced, none of them contradicted her.
Tella didn’t go into the history of the Fates, or how they’d been freed from a Deck of Destiny, but she said enough so that once the servants and the boy recovered, they could warn others about the danger Valenda was now in.
It felt like an insignificant effort, but hopefully it would save a few other people