Winterspell by Claire Legrand

enraged.
    â€œWho is Anise? Who’s coming , Godfather?”
    In answer something clattered across the roof. A large weight fell onto the second-floor terrace.
    Godfather took from the statue’s side a long, slender sword with a hilt of black stones. “Here, Clara. You’ll need this. I made it myself in one of my first experiments with their magic.”
    This elegant weapon was no wooden play sword of the sort she and Godfather had practiced with. As her hand curled around its hilt, the part of her that came alive in the safety of Godfather’s shop thrilled at the weight of the sword; it felt as though she was meant to hold such power in her hand. Etchings along the blade echoed the markings carved intothe statue, repulsing and fascinating her simultaneously. How were these elements connected, and what did it mean?
    An inhuman scream sounded from the direction of the stables, followed by another, and then eerie silence. Godfather cursed.
    â€œThe horses,” Clara whispered, the sword forgotten, replaced by dread. “Was that the horses?”
    Godfather moved her toward the statue. “They’re here.”
    â€œWho?”
    Scratching sounded against the doors; a blunt force impacted the boarded-up windows.
    â€œLoks,” Godfather spat.
    â€œLoks? What is that?”
    â€œYou’ll see soon enough. I’m sorry, Clara, to request such a thing of you.” He pressed a fierce kiss to her hand. “But you will be glorious, ferocious. This is what we’ve been working for, you and I. To fight whatever comes our way, and then . . .”
    He paused, put his forehead against hers, chuckling under his breath.
    She held his cheeks, forcing his gaze to hers. “And then what?”
    â€œStay still. Don’t move.” He withdrew three clockwork dragons from his coat and sliced open his palm with a serving knife.
    Clara grabbed for his hand. “Godfather, you’re—”
    â€œBleeding” was the word, but it would not come, for the liquid now coating his hand was not red.
    It was silver.
    â€œWhat is that?” She pointed at it stupidly. Things were clawing at the windows, smashing the glass, shredding the wood, but she could look only at his hand. “Godfather, your blood, it’s—”
    He ignored her, smearing his bloodied hand across the dragons and then throwing them across the ballroom floor. One went straight, the other two to the sides; they skittered along the floor with flapping clockwork wings and whirring jaws, chomping up the wooden slats beneath them. Each of them spit out behind them another, identical dragon, andanother and another, until a black sea of them roiled across the entire room.
    They scattered like crazed spiders, wings and talons snapping with a familiar whir of gears. It sounds like the back room, Clara realized. She had never been allowed there, and now she understood why.
    In the wake of this dragon sea, the ballroom metamorphosed into a forest of black metal, iron, and glass. Staircases became jagged mountains, shining in the dim, wintry moonlight; strategically placed chairs became mazes of spindly towers. Godfather’s toys, scattered across the room, grew into enormous versions of themselves—skeletal, winged horses; a squadron of clockwork soldiers, gears turning inside their gaping chests. Garishly painted bats and monstrous raptors darted up from the floor to perch on the chandeliers that now filled the entire room with drooping tangles of wire. Godfather’s electric lights sizzled white. The grandfather clock in the corner tolled midnight, each chime lower and deeper than the last as the entire mechanism swelled to five times its normal size.
    Likewise the Christmas tree grew until it reached the ceiling, where it erupted into a forest of iron needles. Oversize ornaments spun, throwing moonlight across the ceiling. The barricade surrounding the statue transformed into a maze of