by Amber Argyle
Larkin still didn’t know why the woman was coming. “Isn’t this a little dangerous for an infant?”
Raeneth picked up the basket, her expression determined.
“You think either of them will be safe if we’re caught?” Iniya said. “No, we succeed or fail together.” She eyed Larkin critically. “Let me see the limp.”
Larkin turned her foot inward and stepped on the outer blade, drawing her steps short to mimic the way Nesha walked with her club foot.
Iniya nodded in approval. “A trollop and a cripple besides.”
Larkin gritted her teeth as she came to stand beside them. “Perhaps if you hadn’t turned your back on us, we wouldn’t have been forced to make such choices.”
Iniya raised a perfectly arched, painted-on eyebrow. “Are you defending the girl now? She nearly had you killed.”
Larkin turned away as shame, humiliation, and hurt caught fire inside her.
Harben glowered at her. “Be civil or be silent, Mother,” he snapped.
Iniya harrumphed.
“Have you any word of Humbent?” Larkin asked.
“We won’t for a few days.” Iniya turned—the click, click, click announcing her retreat. “Oben is waiting.”
Larkin squared herself. If someone realized their deceit, they would pay with their lives. She flared her magic and muttered to herself, “But I’ll take down as many of them as I can before I go.”
Harben turned back to her. “What was that?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She limped past him. At the landing, she paused. For once, it was a lovely day. Brilliant sunlight filtered through the spring-green leaves. The bark was black, the moss growing on the north side even brighter than the leaves.
Larkin could have grown up here. Grown up in the beautiful house with the trees and the servants. Instead, she’d been born and raised in the mud of her family’s fields and her father’s steadily increasing drunken rages.
Dressed in a brown jerkin and wearing a guard’s sword at his hip, Tam leaned against a tree. He nodded to Larkin and hopped on the back of the carriage. Larkin felt the tiniest bit of tension drain away. She vacillated a moment before sitting beside her grandmother. Her father sat opposite, Raeneth coming in last. Oben handed the basket up to them.
Raeneth held it in her lap. Kyden sucked his tongue in his sleep, his mouth puckering adorably. Larkin looked away. There was no sense in becoming attached to the child. She never should have held him.
Oben shut the door, and the carriage lurched into motion. Larkin leaned out the window to keep from looking at any of them.
Iniya huffed in disgust. “Stop gawking.”
Larkin ignored her.
“Remember what we’re here for,” Iniya said. “The book and the tomb. As soon as we’ve accomplished those goals, we leave.”
Larkin ignored her as the carriage retraced the steps that she and Tam had made only two days before. This time, the palace’s red doors were thrown open wide. Dozens of people streamed in. One little girl skipped ahead of the rest, her hair a blonde halo around her head. She reminded Larkin so much of Sela—the old Sela—that tears formed in her eyes.
She missed her mother and her little sisters. A part of her missed Nesha too—or at least the friend she used to be. And Kyden. What kind of life would he have? Groomed by their cruel grandmother to become an even crueler king or cast aside like offal. But short of kidnapping him, Larkin wasn’t sure what could be done about it.
The crowd bottlenecked just beyond the door. Oben shouted, and people scattered, casting curious looks their way—probably trying to catch sight of the Mad Queen.
After everything Iniya had been through, could anyone blame her for going a little mad?
Gritting her teeth, Larkin studied the wide courtyard. Food vendors lined three sides of the curtain wall. Games had been set up all around, with men competing at log tossing. Children played horseshoes. Acrobats flipped across a stage, hangman’s nooses shifting in the wind behind them. The scent of roasted nuts and maple sugar filled the air.
Lording over it all was the magnificent palace, with its whitewashed walls and copper turrets. Wide stone steps angled toward the door, which were inlaid with copper crescents bisected by a thick line. These doors—red like the outer ones—were also thrown open.
Carriages lined the white gravel. The mass of people in the courtyard did not come within a dozen paces of the gravel, did not so much as look toward the palace. It was as if that white-gravel line demarcated two worlds, and one could never touch the other.
Despite the warmth, Larkin shivered. “You lived here?” she asked Iniya. The woman’s house had been overwhelming enough. This … this was so far beyond anything Larkin could imagine living in.
“My father’s palace.” Iniya’s voice trembled, betraying her.
The carriage lurched to a stop. Oben opened the door. Larkin followed Iniya out. Harben, Raeneth, and Kyden came last. Tam jumped down from the back of the coach and stepped up beside Larkin. “Ready to break the curse?”
“And if we don’t, at least we can take some druids down with us.”
He grinned. “I have taught you well.”
As one, they climbed the narrowing stairs. Two druids waited for them at the top. The one with pretty blue eyes bowed. The other had a sour expression and examined his list. “Lady Iniya, I’m afraid I only have you down for one guest.”
Iniya shot them a haughty expression. “Surely you can find a few more chairs for the Hero of Hamel, my very own granddaughter.”
Both druids’ gazes whipped to Larkin.
Larkin lowered her eyes, exactly as Nesha would have done.
“The Hero of Hamel,” Blue Eyes said in awe.
“Garrot didn’t send word of his …” Sour Face trailed off awkwardly. Because Nesha was not Garrot’s wife. Cripples couldn’t marry. “Nesha,” he finished lamely.
“And her guard, of course,” Iniya said.
Sour Face looked Tam over. “Guard?”
Tam rested his fist over his heart and bowed. “I escorted Nesha to the safety of her grandmother’s tender care”—Blue Eyes choked on a laugh and Sour Face glared at him—“and will continue my duties until Garrot returns to her side.”
Iniya looked Blue Eyes over as if memorizing his features for future retribution. He stiffened, clearly worried. He should be more than worried. He should be terrified.
“I’m sure we can find a place for Nesha. Your guard will have to wait along the wall with the servants.” The druid waved down a boy and whispered something to him. The boy turned wide eyes to Larkin before scampering back inside the palace. Sour Face waved them on.
They stepped into a grand foyer with copper inlaid in the floor. From the high, lead-glass windows, brilliant shafts of sunlight speared across the room, sending dazzling rainbow sparks across the milling people. But for all the grandeur, the space was surprisingly bare. The faintest dark squares hinted at paintings or tapestries that had once graced the walls. Family heirlooms, surely. What had the druids done with them?
A servant showed them into an enormous dining room, one wall all floor-to-ceiling windows. Fireplaces graced each end, the interior wall as bare as the one before. On one end, a single table had been laid out upon a platform. Long tables had been set with plain tin dishes. Tin. As if the druids wanted to prove they were humble.
Ridiculous. Taking down the paintings and eating off tin didn’t change the fact that they were in a palace—or that the Idelmarch served the druids, not the other way around.
The room was already filled to overflowing with druids in their black robes and their equally dour wives. Servants rushed about to seat everyone—it appeared Larkin’s group had nearly been late.
Iniya clearly planned it that way, as a hush fell across the room at their entrance. The druids’ gazes lingered the longest on Larkin, whether because her purple dress, with its embossed leather, stood out in a room full of black or because of the false pregnan
cy, Larkin wasn’t sure. All at once, Larkin remembered that this was not the first time she’d faked a pregnancy. She had to suppress the sudden urge to laugh.
Everyone stared, but no one approached—Nesha was a hero, but also a fallen woman. No one seemed to know how to react.
Resounding footsteps. The crowd shifted, Master Fenwick pushing through. Up close, her grandfather bore the look of a man bowed by an immense strain that had not broken him. His murderous gaze fixed on Harben even as he paused before Iniya.
Iniya gripped her cane in both hands. “Lay a hand on him, and you’ll live to regret it.”
“I regret everything to do with you, Iniya Rothsberd.” Fenwick’s eyes shifted to Larkin. She swore regret flashed in their depths.
An older woman, her eyes white and blind, appeared behind him, a servant flapping at her side. “I’m sorry, master. She would not be persuaded.”
The old woman took a step past Fenwick before he caught her arm and pulled her back.
She bowed her head. “Please, husband. Send them away.”
Larkin stiffened.
Harben leaned toward Larkin and said in a whisper, “Fawna, your other grandmother. She has as much backbone as soggy bread.”
Larkin searched for something of her mother in Fawna, something of herself. All she saw was clouds of defeat and hopelessness behind rheumy eyes.
Fenwick softened and took her under his arm. He whispered something to her and motioned for the servant to lead her away. The woman went willingly this time.
Fenwick watched her go before rounding on them. “Nesha, is it?”
Larkin inclined her head. “Master Druid.”
He looked pointedly at her foot. “Enjoy the dancing.” He turned on his heel and caught up to Fawna.
No matter what Nesha had done, Larkin would always loathe anyone who mocked her twisted foot. “Is everyone in my family so hateful?”
“If you want compassion,” Iniya said as she pushed past Larkin, “look among the peasants.”
A servant led them to a table near the front on the far right. Tureens were laden with dishes of early spring vegetables—fresh peas and asparagus, garlic potatoes, lettuce, spinach, and cabbage. Larkin sat with Tam on one side and Iniya on the other, Harben and Raeneth across from them.
Servants brought in fat, juicy pigs roasted with apples and onions; lambs roasted with fresh garlic and garnished with sprigs of mint. There were breads too—round loaves with a crunchy exterior and soft rolls with perfect golden tops.
One woman served Fenwick at the high table first before the rest of the servants shifted through the rest of the room. Larkin took one of the rolls in her hands. Curling wisps of steam rose when she broke it open. She could already taste it. Fresh churned butter and strawberry preserves. Just like Venna used to make. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Ancestors save us, girl,” Iniya whispered. “Are you weeping over bread?”
No. She wept over a sweet girl who’d been turned into a monster—a monster Larkin had slipped a sword inside.
Larkin sniffed and put the roll back. “How much longer do we have to stay here?”
“Long enough to belie suspicion,” Iniya said between her teeth.
Across from them, Raeneth bounced her baby nervously while Harben loaded her plate with far too many spring peas.
At the end of the room, a Black Druid stood before Fenwick’s table. “We have survived another winter with the beast clawing at our door and stealing away our weakest, our most vulnerable like the wolves thinning the flock. The forest takes her tithe, and we are left with the strongest, the best.”
Only the Black Druids knew the truth of the forest. The rest were kept beneath the shadows of the curse just like the rest of them. At least, that was how it used to be. But now even the baker had heard of the pipers. The rest of the Idelmarch must be questioning the druids now.
“How can Fenwick keep repeating that lie?” Larkin murmured to Iniya.
“If word gets out the Black Druids have been lying for centuries,” Iniya said, “the people will turn on them. He sticks by the lie or he goes down with them.”
Fenwick lifted his cup. “To those strong enough to resist the call of the beast.”
Up and down the tables, druids lifted their cups. “To the strongest,” a few said half-heartedly. Others grumbled.
Fenwick was losing the support of his druids. Perhaps Iniya would have an easier time seizing control than they’d thought.
Not wanting to appear nervous, Larkin forced herself to eat a few bites. The pork was delicious, but it turned her stomach the moment she swallowed. She forced a few bites of each dish, the meal sitting heavier and heavier in her stomach.
“The hero of Hamel,” someone shouted. Larkin looked up to see a man standing three tables over and lifting his glass to her. “Tell us what really happened in Hamel. Tell us the story of how you resisted the beast and escaped its dark enchantment.”
She swallowed, her stomach revolting.
“Is it true that the beast is not a beast at all, but men?” a young druid asked. “That men have been taking our sisters?”
Larkin glanced around the room, druids sliding knowing expressions to each other. At some point, they had figured out the truth. They knew the Black Druid’s secret: the beast wasn’t a beast at all.
Fenwick stood, his chair screeching. He leaned over the table and looked over the druids with a thunderous expression. “The Forbidden Forest has always been good at keeping her secrets—secrets an individual could only learn after the Black Rites. Because the forest has suddenly decided to spill some of her secrets changes nothing.”
“We deserve the truth!” a druid shouted.
Fenwick eyed the man. “Then you should have followed your fellows into the forest.”
The men grumbled.
“Not one of the candidates has returned yet—not one!” one man shouted in outrage.
Fenwick slapped the table. “It has always been this way. Must always be this way. You don’t believe me, ask my fellow Black Druids. Now be still or be expelled.”
Most of the shouting died to grumbling. Three men continued. Black Druids bound all three in irons and escorted them out. Fenwick sat with a huff, his face red with fury.
Servants brought around thick slices of apple pie—probably made with the last of the winter apples—a thick dollop of clotted cream sliding across the top. They didn’t notice Iniya replacing her slice with one that had been hidden in Raeneth’s basket.
Iniya gave a shriek of outrage and pulled out a mouse from inside her pie. Soaked in juices, a chunk of apple falling off its leg, it looked as though it had been baked inside.
Men and women gasped in horror and pushed their pie away.
Iniya’s face went pale, her lip trembling with outrage. She shook the mouse in Fenwick’s direction. “I’d think the druids were trying to kill me a second time, were they not eating the same slop themselves.”
Fenwick rolled his eyes. “None of us tried to kill you the first time, Mad Queen.”
Iniya threw the mouse onto the table and gagged, a lacy handkerchief over her mouth. She tried to stand and plopped down on her chair. She glared up at Larkin. “Don’t stand there staring, girl. Can’t you see I’m in need of assistance?” She gagged again for good measure.
Larkin gripped her bony elbow and helped her to her feet. They hadn’t made it two steps before a servant intercepted them, his hands wringing. “Lady Iniya, I must ask that you take your seat. The feast—”
“That mouse—” She gagged and vomited on his shoes. He jumped back, his face twisting with disgust. Chairs scooted away. Some pushed to their feet to get away from them.
Larkin felt a presence behind her.
Tam scooped the old woman up. “Find us somewhere to go, man!”
The servant glanced at Fenwick. Face twisted with disgust, the Master Druid waved him on. Behind them came a high-pitched squawk. Kyden’s face reddened, his arms and legs flailing
as he screamed. The front of Raeneth’s white dress went damp and transparent with milk.
She launched to her feet and hurried after them while Harben calmly took another bite of pie. The servant led them down a wide corridor to the nearest door, into what looked like a sitting room.
“I need somewhere to lie down, you incompetent nitwit. Do you suppose your master’s wooden chairs would suffice?” She gagged again.
The servant jumped back in alarm.
Iniya waved her handkerchief toward a door four rooms down. “That one has a lavatory and a bed, if I remember correctly.”
Without waiting for the man’s permission, Tam strode toward it and shouldered open the door. It was a bedroom, with a cheery fire spaced neatly between two large windows. The walls were lined with thick paneling.
Tam set Iniya gently on the rich, velvet coverlet on the bed.
Her back to the servant at the door, Raeneth pulled out a blanket soiled with baby poop, laid it over Kyden, and turned toward the servant. “Oh! I didn’t bring a spare.”
He blanched as he backed out the door, his hand fumbling for the knob. “I’ll fetch you a few buckets of water. I’ll just leave them outside.” He shut the door firmly behind him.
They all held their breath, waiting for something to go wrong. Then everyone moved at once. Iniya jumped from the bed. Raeneth took pillows from the chairs and stuffed them under the blankets in the basic shape of Iniya’s thin form. Larkin drew the heavy curtains, plunging the room into shadow.
Raeneth unloaded the basket of blankets Kyden had been lying on and handed Larkin a bag of torches as well as a smock. Raeneth plunged a torch into the fireplace and watched as it caught fire.
“What’s this for?” Larkin held out the smock.
“Put it on.” Iniya paused at the corner of the room and pressed a catch on the wood paneling. The bottom panel swung outward, revealing a narrow opening barely wide enough for a trim person. A damp breeze that smelled of mineral and abandonment wafted up from below.
Iniya looked Tam up and down. “The library is on the top floor, northwest tower. It should be unmanned, but if anyone asks, tell them Garrot sent you to fetch him a book. If they don’t believe you, die without giving us up.”