“White vomit?” said Tara. “Is this White magic we’re dealing with? Witches?”
“That’s … unclear.”
“Unclear?” Clementine snapped. “Wouldn’t Keene know?”
“The magic is unlike anything Keene has encountered. He has seen nothing similar among witches, fairies, Kisscrafters, magic creatures, beasts, or plants. He doesn’t believe it’s been recorded in the histories kept by the Exalted. It seems connected to the White, but its origins are unknown. The Exalted Council has been ordered to search and to study until answers are found. We will know more, and soon.”
Syrah did not find this answer comforting. He thought once more of Olive’s vineyards and orchards, and he wondered if the Purge would spread. It couldn’t cross the ocean — could it? Again he wished he could talk to his mother. If he could warn her about what he had heard here, she might be able to take precautions.
But until he broke this curse, he couldn’t tell anybody anything.
Clementine looked as uncomfortable as Syrah felt. “Let’s bring in the oat farmers,” she said. “They’re not going to like this. Meeting adjourned.”
THE ministers filed out of the cabinet chamber, and Syrah leapt down from the bookshelf and hopped along after them, still thirsty and shaken from his earlier adventure. Maybe if he went back upstairs, Walter would give him water. It was worth a try.
When he reached Walter’s room, it was full. The triplets and their mother were all there. Walter sat at his desk with his back to the room, carefully building something out of miniature wooden blocks. Bradley and Tommy flanked him, facing Roma. Syrah hopped in and made his way to Walter’s bedside table.
“We’re not going,” said Bradley.
“Yeah.” Tommy crossed his arms. “You can’t make us.”
“Your father is very ill,” said Roma tremulously. “Things are complicated.”
Their father. Syrah felt a sinking in his guts. Calabaza unconscious meant a lot more than just a bunch of government stuff — it meant that the triplets would be scared. It meant Deli would be scared. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t put that together right away.
Roma twisted her ringed fingers. “Your grandmother thinks it would be better —”
“No,” said Bradley. “We’re not going to Quintessential.”
“But you love Quintessential,” his mother pleaded. “Cousin Sharlyn has plenty of room. You’d get to stay right on the park, and you’d get to see Clover and Linden — you know your new cousin Ella is friendly with the prince, and the family is regularly invited to the palace —”
“We’re not leaving Pa,” said Tommy.
“I built the ATC,” said Walter, pushing his chair back to reveal his extensive miniature block creation. “Look, Ma — oh!” Walter’s eyes fell on Syrah. They brightened. “Prince Frog.”
Syrah hopped from the bedside table to the desk, sidestepping Walter’s extremely detailed reconstruction of the launchball event.
“Look at this,” Walter said to him. “See? Those are the launchball rings.”
“Oh, Walter.” Roma gave a sad little hiccup. “You should be thinking about your father.”
Syrah reached Walter, who laid a gentle hand on his back. At once, Syrah ached all through with the boy’s anxiety.
Pa is sick. They said deadly. I don’t want him to die. I don’t want to go to Quintessential. I want to go back to the ATC. I wish we were still at the Royal Governor’s Inn. I wish we could go back to before Pa got sick —
“He is thinking about Pa,” said Tommy angrily. “We all are.”
“And we’re staying,” said Bradley.
“Boys …” said their mother, but her resolve was clearly weakening. She looked toward the door and her expression changed. She looked relieved.
Deli was there. Roma reached out to her and beckoned anxiously with her ringed fingers. “Help me,” she pleaded.
Deli came forward, her face tight with worry. “What’s wrong?”
“The boys won’t listen,” said Roma tearfully. “They’re giving me such a hard time.”
Deli turned on them. “Whatever she asks,” she said. “Just do it. Don’t make this worse —”
“Ma wants to ship us off to Cousin Sharlyn’s!” Tommy cried. “She wants us to leave!”
Deli looked alarmed. “No one’s going anywhere,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Bradley and Tommy together, and Walter’s energy shifted profoundly. Syrah felt his relief, equal to what his anxiety had been.
Deli will fix it. Deli always fixes things.
Syrah gazed at Deli’s determined face. She looked just like one of those ministers downstairs. Like she was going to solve this problem, no matter what it took. It was funny, but Syrah got the feeling that although her mother was standing right there, the only actual adult in the room was Delicata.
“Just for the next little while,” said Roma. “Just until your father recovers and things get under control here. Everything’s going to be so difficult —”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Deli.
Roma played with one of her bracelets. “Would you mind telling your grandmother?” she ventured. “I’d do it, but I don’t want to leave your father —”
“Fine.”
“And I have to visit the Relay,” said Roma, sounding tearful again. “Christophen needs to know. It’s going to be awful, telling him that his father is sick, when he’s so far away. You know your brother—he’s so sensitive, it will just destroy him.”
Deli’s eyebrows went up. “Then why are you telling him?”
“Because he has to sail home!”
“Come on, Ma. Marsanne is going to give birth to those triplets any day now,” said Deli. “What good can it do to —”
“I need him here!” Roma insisted. “And he’ll want to see his father,” she added.
“Then I’ll Relay him myself,” said Deli, who looked not at all pleased. “Right after I talk to Grandmother. You stay with Pa.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Roma kissed Deli’s cheek and left them.
She really was useless, Syrah thought, annoyed on Deli’s behalf. What kind of mother left all the work to a daughter who had just found out that her father was deathly ill?
“Thanks, Deli,” said Bradley. “We owe you one.”
Tommy sat heavily on Walter’s bed. “What are you going to tell Christophen?”
“Nothing,” she said. “He’s busy enough, and we don’t even know what’s wrong.”
Bradley looked affronted. “But Ma said —”
“You want Ma in charge? Then you better pack your bags for Quintessential.”
Bradley fell silent.
“Deli, look,” said Walter.
“Hey, it’s the ATC,” said Deli, coming closer to him to look over his shoulder at the reconstruction he’d made. “The floats and the diving boards and everything. Wow.” She touched the miniature version of the platform where she had stood and triumphed, with her teammates hugging her and screaming. “You’ve got every detail.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “Pa’s going to be okay,” she said.
“Is he?” Bradley demanded. “Or are you just saying that?”
“He’s got a quarter fairy blood,” said Deli. “Physic Feverfew says that’ll help him fight it.”
Syrah wished that his own family had a little fairy blood. It would have been nice to know that Nana Cava and Marsala had that protection. But none of the royal Huanuis had mated with a fairy in at least five centuries. Any fairy magic they had once had in their veins was practically nonexistent now.
“Can we eat yet?” asked Tommy.
“Soon.” Deli went to the window. “You all should get outside,” she said. “Grab your fishing poles. You’ll know it’s time to eat again when the lunch bell rings.”
“But if Pa wakes up —” said Bradley.
“Or gets worse —” said Tommy.
“I’ll come and find you. Go on.”
The boys grabbed their fishing poles, stuffed their feet into boots, and headed just north of the Thatch to where the river ran past, cutting straight through the middle of Cornucopia and defining the northern border of the Gourds’ property. Even farther north, fed by the river, there was a small lake, magic-made, where the launchball team of Yellow Country trained. East of here was the thriving downtown area, full of shops and tents and people. Here around the Thatch, though, the Gourds owned leagues of farmland, so the river was quiet and private. The triplets sat on the bank and cast their lines, and Syrah reveled in the wonderful sensation of cool water on his parched skin. He hopped and swam and floated in ecstasy, gobbling juicy minnows until his belly was nearly bursting. A distant bell gonged from the direction of the Thatch, and the boys glanced back. Walter was the first to comprehend.
“Lunch!” he said happily, and he reeled in his line at once.
“They figured out where the poison came from,” said Tommy, shutting the flaps of the basket in which they’d stowed the few small fish they’d caught. “Wonder what it was.”
“I’m so hungry I could eat a glimmerfish,” said Bradley, wiping dirt off his trousers.
“Never eat a glimmerfish,” Walter replied as they began the walk back to the house. “Or else you’ll never be able to sail again without getting seasick.”
“That’s just a myth,” said Bradley.
“I wouldn’t risk it,” said Tommy. “No matter how hungry I was. I’d hate if I could never get on a boat again.”
“Not like we get on boats anymore anyway,” said Bradley. “Ever since Syrah.”
Syrah was so startled he forgot to croak. His name. In a panic, he leapt from Walter’s shoulder to Bradley’s, and pressed himself hard against Bradley’s neck. “RIBBIT,” he insisted, since it was all he could do. “RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT —”
Bradley squealed and swiped at him. “Get off me!” he cried.
“It’s down my shiiiiiiirt!” crooned Tommy in falsetto. “It’s on my baaaaaack!”
Bradley flung Syrah into the dirt and tried to slap Tommy with his fishing pole, but Tommy dodged and hurtled toward the house, laughing crazily. Bradley chased him, and Walter scooped Syrah up. He walked calmly along until he stumbled across his brothers in the grass outside the Thatch, crouched low under a window. Bradley and Tommy grabbed Walter by the shirt and pulled him down with them, gesturing for silence.
“The boys are staying here,” he heard Deli saying. “It’s the best thing for everyone.”
“I already sent a messenger to Sharlyn,” came Luffa’s cool reply. “The boys leave for Quintessential in the morning.”
“They’re staying here,” said Deli again. “I’ll send a messenger and explain.”
The boys glanced at each other. Syrah hopped from Walter’s shoulder up onto the windowsill so that he could see what was happening. Deli and Luffa stood just outside the governor’s office, facing each other, and Syrah was struck by how powerfully Deli resembled her grandmother. Luffa’s hair was mostly gray, and her dark face was lined, but their erect posture and muscular slenderness were near mirrors of each other, and the expressions on their faces were a close match too. Resolute. The biggest difference between them wasn’t even Deli’s moles — it was that Deli’s eyes were alive with frustration, while Luffa’s betrayed no emotion.
“I arranged this with your mother,” said Luffa, when Deli held her ground in silence. “She approved their going.”
“Well, now she approves of them staying.”
“And she sent you to tell me.” Luffa’s eyes glittered. “Couldn’t look into the dragon’s mouth herself.”
“She’s sitting with my father,” said Deli.
“Isn’t she always,” said Luffa dryly.
“He’s sick.”
“Your mother is a coward, Delicata, who sent you to take the skinning for her.”
Deli’s countenance fluctuated between outrage and — was that satisfaction? Syrah thought it was.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Steelcut,” said Luffa.
Deli whirled, fists clenched. Syrah swiveled his eyes. He had not noticed the approach of Huck and Harrow Steelcut, both of whom were in their overalls, hats in their hands, like they’d just come from a morning in the fields. Harrow glittered. Huck put out a dusty hand.
“Afternoon, Madam Governor,” he said. “Your messenger said to hurry, so here we are. How can I help you?”
“Provisional Governor Pease is inside with the Nexus,” said Luffa. “Go in at once. Delicata, take Harrow elsewhere.”
Huck cast a concerned glance back at his son. Luffa followed him into the office and shut the door, leaving Deli and Harrow in the corridor. Deli looked away, obviously uncomfortable. Harrow swallowed hard enough that Syrah saw the lump in his throat bob up and down.
“Dee,” he said.
Not her name, Syrah thought acidly.
“Hello.”
“I’m real sorry,” said Harrow, and his low, slow voice gave Syrah a powerful urge to kick him, for all the good that would have done. “You had a beautiful launch. You should’ve won.”
“People are dying,” Deli replied curtly. “Sports don’t matter.”
Harrow glanced at the office door. “What happened here?” he asked. “Provisional governor? Where’s your pa?”
Deli looked up at him. Her chest hitched. “He’s sick,” she whispered. “He won’t wake up.”
Harrow’s face fell. “Dee,” he said, and he reached for her. She grabbed his hand, then seemed to remember herself.
She pulled back.
That’s right, Syrah thought viciously. She doesn’t like you anymore.
Harrow shoved his hands into his pockets, looking anxious. “Can I help with anything?”
No. Get out.
“I don’t think so,” said Deli. “I’ve got a message to send to Quintessential, and family letters to write, and all the gear we took to the ATC has to get unloaded and unpacked, plus I need to send a message to Kai —”
“I can unload carriages,” he said. “If you want.”
Deli hesitated. “I can’t put that on you.”
“I really don’t mind.”
A loud sneeze sent Syrah leaping into the air in shock. He landed on the windowsill as Deli and Harrow turned to look at him. Deli looked livid. She flung herself toward Syrah, who was so taken aback that he jumped away, out the window, and into the grass right in front of the triplets, whom he had completely forgotten were there.
Deli leaned halfway out the window, hands clutching the sill, her face as furious as Syrah had ever seen it. “You’ve been spying on me?” she shouted. “I just stuck my neck out for you, and this is what I get?”
“We weren’t trying to!” said Bradley, backing away from the window with his fishing gear. “We just —”
“You better get over to those carriages and get every single one of your trunks up the stairs right now!”
“I want lunch,” said Walter plaintively. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday —”
“Don’t you even touch lunch until you’ve unpacked your things — and clear out Pa’s carriage too! Go!”
They hustled away so fast that Walter forgot to grab Syrah, who leapt up onto the windowsill again and sprang into the corridor just as the door of the governor’s office opened. Huck Steelcut stalked out, his expression hard. “Son,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“I was going to help —” Harrow began.
“Now,” said Huck.
“I’ll come back,” Harrow promised, and he followed his father out of the Thatch.
Syrah watched him go, satisfied. He hopped his way along the corridor, intending to head upstairs and find Walter, but when he came to the foyer he saw Walter heading toward the kitchens, a large basket
in his hands. Syrah croaked to get his attention, and Walter crouched to let him hop onto his shoulder.
“Pa’s snacks from the ride home last night,” he said, holding up the basket. Syrah hopped acknowledgment. Walter reminded him a little of Rapunzel; both of them understood that Syrah was paying attention to the conversation, even if the well wouldn’t let them understand any more than that.
When Walter reached the kitchen door, he didn’t go in right away. Instead, he opened one flap of the basket and gazed down into it. There was very little food left within, but plenty of evidence that the basket had once been full. Syrah saw crumbs of chocolate cake, smears of raspberry jam, two apple cores, and the crusts of several sandwiches. One half sandwich still remained, and when Syrah opened his mouth to smell it, he nearly gagged.
“Liver pâté,” sighed Walter, who obviously felt differently. “With watercress. My favorite, just like Pa. Ma hates it, though.” He lifted the half sandwich to his nose to smell it, then set it back down in the basket. “No,” he said dolefully, picking at a bit of the watercress, which had gone very faintly brown around the edges from sitting in the basket. “Deli said no lunch until we’re done unpacking. And I don’t know what I’m allowed to eat anyway.”
Syrah croaked encouragingly. It was oats Walter had to avoid, not liver pâté. But Walter obediently closed the basket, and when one of the kitchen staff came through the door a moment later, he handed it over and went back out to the carriages to keep unpacking. Syrah rode along with him, troubled. Something was bothering him — something was out of place. It took him a moment to realize what.
The food in the basket. Why had Calabaza been eating snacks last night? Everyone had been cautioned not to eat anything until they knew what had caused the Purge — had Calabaza simply been too hungry to care? Was that the real reason why he was sick later than everybody else? Maybe those liver sandwiches had been made with oat bread. Syrah felt a cold thrill of anxiety — Walter had almost eaten that stuff, and it might have killed him.
But if the food in Calabaza’s carriage was corrupt, then wouldn’t Roma be sick too?
No, Walter had said that his mother hated liver pâté….
Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince Page 14