To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

by Hartoin, A. W.

  Even with his terror of the horen, he was still able to love Delphine. I could at least try.

  “Alright. I’ll see her, but I can’t promise anything.”

  Gerald hugged me hard and Nanny laughed.

  “Okay. Okay. Where is she?”

  “The Kaisergruft.”

  That sounded unpleasant and it was. To the extreme.

  Chapter Three

  I HAD NO idea where I was going. The Kaisergruft was a prison, but the prison was in the burial place of the imperial family, human and fairy. Like the tomb in which the cardinal’s staff lived, prisoners were supposed to feel humility and also the weight of imperial disapproval. Being imprisoned with the Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI and every dead fairy ruler since Leopold the Bold was enough to keep most fairies on the straight and narrow.

  Percy flew me to the Kaisergruft with Gerald, Leanna, Victory, and Gledit in tow, along with four anubis. Max wanted me to take eight, but I negotiated him down to four. I wasn’t too worried. I figured I’d go back to the cathedral to pack and lose them and my so-called master secretary. Leanna wouldn’t be so bad, not if she was for Iris. The three of us would be fine. I wasn’t stopping in stupid Venice or Florence. Royal or not, that was just plain crazy.

  Percy hovered in front of a rather plain building that looked more like a church than a prison or a royal burial place with an enormous cross on the plain brown wall above a circular window.

  “Are you sure this is it?” I yelled over to Gerald in Percy’s claw.

  “This is it!” he yelled.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “The Keeper of the Keys!”

  Oh, no. Not another ceremony.

  “Can’t we jus—” I screeched, not a royal thing to do at all, as Percy violently pivoted and thrust his claw, with me in it, at a fairy-sized door hidden in the pediment over the human entrance. A sluagh filled the doorway and I mean he filled it. The sluagh looked like a tennis ball with legs. His scales were bright yellow. All the sluagh I’d ever seen had been greenish-brown and muscular, so maybe he was a different type or a different species altogether. Then I got a whiff of over-cooked cabbage. Nope. Definitely a sluagh and they were the horens’ allies back in the antique mall. Not a comforting thought.

  “State your intentions,” ordered the sluagh in German.

  “I am Her Royal Highness, Matilda, Princess Royal and I wish to visit one of your prisoners.” I used wish instead of want because it sounded more royal, but the sluagh wasn’t impressed. “You’re not on my calendar. Follow proper protocol and return with your entourage.”

  The sluagh tried to turn around, but his poufy sides held him in place.

  “Wait a minute!” I yelled and pointed my finger at him. “I…I order you to let me in. Right now. This instant.”

  “Your Highness is not on my calendar. Follow proper protocol and return with your entourage,” he said.

  I looked at Gerald. “Does this happen to you?”

  “No, he just lets me in.”

  Being royal was not working out for me. Entourage? Give me a break.

  Leanna flew under Percy’s belly and said, “Give him the emperor’s message.”

  Oh, yeah! I forgot about that.

  I looked back at the sluagh’s broad backside with his tiny leathery wings. “Stop turning around! I have a message from His Majesty, Emperor Maximilian.”

  The sluagh turned back around, so slow I wanted to jump out of my skin. When he finally got right side out, he bared his jagged teeth with what might’ve been a smile or a threat. The only intention I sensed in him was duty.

  “Hand it over,” he said.

  Leanna took the parchment to him and he unrolled it like he was part slug. After he read it, he said, “I will consider your request.”

  Okay. That’s it.

  “You have to let me in. I’m marrying the emperor.” In theory, anyway.

  “How do I know you are the Princess Royal? You could be an imposter,” he said.

  I pulled off my hood. “Have a good look.”

  He shrugged. “It could be a spell.”

  “It’s not a spell.” I pointed at Gerald. “You let him in.”

  “He’s not from the palace. He’s ordinary.”

  Gerald struggled in Percy’s claw. “Hey. I’m not ordinary. I’m a genius. My mom said.”

  The sluagh rolled his eyes. “Where’s your entourage if you’re the princess royal?”

  Leanna waved. “I’m her entourage and the anubis and Gledit, her master secretary.”

  He snorted. “The emperor never arrives with less than thirty anubis.”

  Seriously? What a showoff.

  “Well, I’m not like that and if you don’t let me in, I’ll…I’ll burn your butt off,” I said.

  “Go ahead, imposter.”

  So I burned his butt. Well…not off, but he’d have some blisters. He howled and tried to grab his bottom but couldn’t reach it. “Okay. Okay. You may enter.”

  “Finally. You’re a real pain.”

  “I apologize, Your Highness,” he said, wincing. “I was only doing my job.”

  I felt a bit of guilt but not much. He did say to go ahead. “Leanna, can you do something for him?”

  The nanny-in-training didn’t look too happy about it, but she went and soothed the sluagh before he opened a passageway in the wall. It opened up like the wall was melting and revealed a plain room on the other side. I thanked the Keeper of the Keys and apologized for burning his butt before Percy flew through into the Kaisergruft and down a flight of stairs into a room labeled Leopold’s Vault. There were a bunch of human-sized caskets that might’ve been metal. Percy flew over them so fast, I didn’t get a good look. Then he went through to Karl’s Vault and I spotted the casket Gerald had described to me. I could see why it was a warning against misdeeds. If you had to be imprisoned in that monstrosity, crime didn’t pay. It was a creepy sculpture covered with lots of skulls wearing oversized crowns, flags, and weapons. There was a nude human child on top holding up a portrait with what looked like a dying woman next to him. It felt like misery. What kind of guy wanted to be buried in that? Karl had problems.

  Percy flew over the top once, probably just to bother me, and set us down on one of the skulls wearing an ugly, blocky crown.

  “So this is it?” I asked Gerald.

  He nodded. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Er…whatever you say. How do we get in?”

  Gerald flew down to one of the skull’s eye sockets and I climbed down to spare my aching wing. We walked into a dim passage lit by a few foxfire fungi and another sluagh emerged from the darkness. He waited for me to speak and I was so creeped out by the oppressive feeling in the skull that it took me a second to answer. “Please take me to Delphine Marfisi.”

  “As you command, Your Highness.”

  Gledit, Leanna, and the anubis joined us as we walked down multiple flights of stairs to a row of cells under the body of Karl VI. The feeling of misery got worse and worse the lower we got. Each cell was one step lower than the one before and I wondered if your crime determined how low your cell was.

  About twenty cells down, we turned left and continued another twenty. Then right and another twenty, spiraling down into the depths. The place seemed clean enough, but there was the faint scent of urine in the air, along with oatmeal and Frau Snigglebit’s Stubborn Stain Remover.

  “How far is it?” I asked.

  “Marfisi’s in the traitor’s block. Two more flights down, Your Highness,” said the sluagh.

  “How many traitors do you have?”

  “We’re full at fifty.”

  That was a lot of traitors and I hated to think about all the ones that hadn’t been caught. Some of the horen supporters had fled when the tide of battle turned against them. Max said that they were actively searching the city for the escapees and I hoped Gerald and the rest of my little family would be safe. They were moving into the palace, so that should help.
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br />   “Here we are.” The sluagh stopped at a narrow iron door with a small, barred window. He unlocked four heavy locks and yelled through the window. “Marfisi, stand up for your future empress.” Then quietly, he said to me, “She won’t give you any trouble. May I speak freely, Your Highness?”

  “Of course,” I replied with curiosity. I’d never been so close to a sluagh before and the cabbage smell wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. I sensed nothing but good intentions from him.

  “She shouldn’t be here. It’s too much for the likes of her.” There was kindness in his small, beady eyes, which totally didn’t go with his snaggly teeth and exaggerated underbite.

  “You don’t think she’s a traitor?”

  “Not the way I know traitors. She trusted the archduke.” He grimaced and his chest vibrated. I think he was growling because everyone else backed up. I didn’t back away. I never do. I put my hand on his muscular forearm, surprised at its silky texture and warmth. He blinked in surprise. “You can’t touch me.”

  I grinned. “Nobody tells me what to do.”

  “That’s what I heard.” He leaned in and I got a fresh wave of cabbage. “You should get her out of here. One of the jails will do fine for her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said and he ushered me into Delphine’s cell. Victory tried to jump to me, but Leanna snatched him out of the air and kept him captured in her hands. I was so grateful. I didn’t want to do this at all and Victory would only make it worse. It was already pretty bad.

  Delphine’s cell was small, the size of my bathroom in the cathedral. There was a set of shelves and a narrow bed with only a skinny, bare mattress. Delphine was curled up in the corner on the floor, wearing the dress she’d been arrested in. Her hair lay on her shoulders, dirty and lank. She didn’t look up but scraped at the stone floor with a ragged fingernail.

  “Delphine?” I’d seen her like this before, but somehow it was worse in that dark, horrid place.

  She didn’t respond and Gerald pushed past me, squatting next to her. “Delphine, it’s me, Gerald.” He patted her thin leg and she looked up to blink at him. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be in this place.”

  “I brought Matilda like I promised. Say what you wanted to tell her.”

  I’d thought about what I’d say to her. I thought I’d ask why she didn’t trust me to get Roberto back, but the waves of crushing grief that came off her put an end to that. It didn’t matter.

  I turned to the sluagh. “Can you bring me some tea?”

  A frown creased his scaly brow. “What kind, Your Highness?”

  “What have you got?”

  “The Keeper of the Keys drinks chamomile to sleep.”

  “That’ll work.”

  He left and I knelt in front of Delphine, pressing my hands to the icy floor and heating it instantly. Gerald and I lifted her onto the bed and I covered her with my cloak, wishing it was the nice velvet one. “Delphine, I can’t stay long. What did you want to tell me?”

  “Matilda?” Her blue, bloodshot eyes focused on me. “You came.”

  “I did.”

  She took my hands tentatively. They were frigid, but I couldn’t warm them without burning her. “I confessed.”

  “I know. Why did you do that?”

  “Because I did it and they were blaming him,” she said in a raspy voice.

  “Who are they blaming?”

  “Rickard.”

  I held her hands between mine and chose my words carefully. “There’s no real evidence against him except that he hates me. There was no real evidence against you. They’d have to have released you. The emperor knows you didn’t mean to tell the horen where I was.”

  “They were going to kill him,” she whispered.

  I pulled back and Gerald put a hand over his mouth.

  “Kill him? He wasn’t convicted.”

  “I heard some of the guards talking. Rickard was going to have an accident. No trial. I couldn’t let him die for what I’d done, even if he’s a nasty, mean, smarmy…”

  She ran out of descriptions for Rickard, my enemy from our first day in the cathedral.

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?” I asked.

  “No. I should’ve told you before…before my arrest, when I had the chance, but I was a coward.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “But it does. The archduke told me he would save Roberto and your parents. I believed him. I didn’t know there were horen in Vienna.”

  “I know.”

  “After I told him about you, he told me to wait in an antechamber, but I didn’t wait.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I slipped out and I heard him talking to someone in the next room. I listened because I thought he would be giving orders about Roberto, but he wasn’t. He was talking about you, calling you the kindler. Oh, Matilda, I’m so sorry. It was the horen and they were going to send word to the other horen in the United States to say they found you. The archduke caught me looking through the keyhole and he locked me in the antechamber. The battle in St. Stephen’s happened before someone heard me yelling and let me out. I think they sent a message to the antique mall. Those three horen will know you’re in Vienna.”

  I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I always knew they’d find me, but this changed everything. The horen knew where I was long before the stupid newspapers made it common knowledge. They could be in Austria already.

  Gerald began shaking beside me and I took him into my arms. Delphine watched us, tears streaming down her emaciated face. “I’m so sorry, Gerald.”

  The sluagh came in with a pot of tea and a set of gold-rimmed cups. I heated the tea with my finger and offered him a cup before I made Delphine and Gerald drink some. My fire changed the properties of any remedy, making it stronger and more effective. Soon, both Gerald and Delphine stopped crying and relaxed.

  “I knew they would come, Delphine,” I said. “I’m lucky to have any warning at all.”

  “They could already be in the city,” she said.

  “That’s okay. I’m leaving today.”

  “To go to Rome?”

  “Yes. Drink your tea.”

  She finished her cup. “The emperor is going to execute me. When you save Roberto, tell him that I loved him beyond sense or reason.”

  Gerald slammed his cup onto his saucer. “No one is going to execute you. The emperor said.”

  “We’ll see,” she said resigned. “It was the greatest mistake of my life and I will pay for it.”

  “I think you have,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do to get you out of here.”

  She shook her head. “Save your energy for Iris and the task ahead of you.”

  I smiled “I have plenty of energy.” I looked up at the sluagh, who was watching us carefully, wondering who they were. “There are three more grown horen free in the world.”

  “Yes,” he said with a slight tremble.

  “We think they know I’m in Vienna,” I said.

  “Your Highness,” he gasped. “You must return to the cathedral immediately.”

  “I will, but I want you to send a message to Heinrich Winkler of Reinthaler’s Beisl. Do you know him?”

  “Everyone knows Heinrich. He says you saved his life the night of the Abbey riot.”

  I shrugged. “It was nothing. Tell him about the horen from America and he’ll get the word out. Everyone must be looking for the horen.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Delphine began crying again and I gave her a serious hug. “Thank you. And I’m going to get you out of here. Maybe not free but out of here.”

  She nodded and I pulled Gerald to his feet. “We have to get going. The faster the better.” I hurried out of Delphine’s cell and ran smack into the last person I ever wanted to see again. Rickard, and he wasn’t any happier to see me than I was to see him.

  “Say it,” the Keeper of the Keys shook Rickard by his scrawny neck.

 
I struggled to hold Gerald back. For a lightweight nine-year-old, he was putting up a fight trying to get to Rickard. He was yelling, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Just a hint of his fury got through my worthless ears. Victory was just as bad, except Leanna just stuffed him in her pocket.

  “Say it,” repeated the sluagh. “Or I’m going to toss you in with the bad dragons and I forgot to feed them this morning.”

  Rickard sputtered and the enormous yellow hand tightened around his neck. His eyes bulged, making him look worse than he did before and that was saying something. His formerly prim suit was torn and filthy. He had multiple bruises discoloring his sallow skin and his wings were gross with crusty bald patches. Rickard made Delphine look good.

  “Get on with it,” I said, crossing my arms.

  Rickard got another shake and he finally said, “Your Highness, please forgive all my transgressions against you and your noble family.”

  Leave it to Rickard to use the fanciest word possible to describe his nastiness. I rolled my eyes and Rickard got another shake. He trembled and changed from furious to scared wingless. “Your Highness, I beg you humbly to forgive me.”

  I had to do it. I mean, it’s what you’re supposed to do, right? “Fine. I guess I forgive you.” I tried to brush past the Keeper of the Keys, but he blocked my way with his other hand.

  “Your Highness, this treacherous toadstool is released into your custody, if you’ll accept him.”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “Why me?”

  Rickard started to speak and the sluagh squeezed, turning his face an alarming shade of reddish-purple.

  “The emperor wishes it to be so. It was in the message you brought.”

  “Let me see that.”

  He handed over the parchment and I scanned it. Max wrote in about four times as many words as needed that Rickard was to go with me, that he’d been cleared of setting the horen on me, would return to service, and a bunch of gobbledygook.

  I sighed. “I guess I have to take him.”

  Rickard struggled to speak and his face changed to pure purple, a most unpleasant shade.

  “Do you accept Rickard Popel into your retinue?” asked the Keeper of the Keys.