Aldo nodded in agreement. His breast pocket vibrated and he got out his phone. “It is Lucien Galen for you, Matilda.”
A grin spread across my face and then dropped off as Lucien appeared on the screen. His waist-length grey hair was wild, whipping across his face so that he had to try and capture it to have his face seen. “Matilda, you were unsuccessful at the Vatican?”
“Yes, Lucien. I’m so glad to see you. What do you know about dragons?” I asked.
Lucien knew quite a bit about dragons, having treated quite a few during his time in Paris with Grandma Vi. He’d already consulted with Suzanne and decided my tea was the right treatment along with more spices, particularly cinnamon mixed with honey for her to eat. The brown linseed poultice would draw out the poison and she should be fine in a few days. The egg was another story. His books said she shouldn’t have held the egg in. By the look of her, it was too big to lay now.
Iris yanked on my arm. “Is she going to die?”
“Don’t talk like that,” I said. “Lucien, what do we do?”
He gave me a hard look and my first thought was the poison at the bottom of Grandma Vi’s bag. No way. I couldn’t do that. “Lucian. No.”
Lucian frowned and then his expression lightened. “No, no. Not that.”
“Not what?” asked Gerald.
A lock of hair escaped and cracked Lucian in the nose, leaving a red welt. He grabbed it and said, “A C-section. Did Vi tell you anything about that procedure?”
I backed up. “You want me to cut the egg out? I can’t do that. Suzanne?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never done it on anyone, much less a dragon, but I’ve heard that Margarite has.”
“I can’t get to her,” I said.
“You have to, Matilda,” said Lucien. “Or you’ll have to do it and it’s a tricky procedure. I can’t find the particular anatomy, but dragons have poison glands in their bellies. If you hit one…”
This just gets better and better.
I went over to Rufus and Fidelé, still draped on Penelope’s belly. They purred when they saw me and Rufus licked his eyeball. That habit always grossed me out, but since Lucian was saying I probably had to cut Penelope open, it was almost pleasant. I laid my head on Rufus and felt his sizzling heat go through my cheek.
Iris tapped me. “Lucian wants to talk to you in private.”
I reluctantly left Rufus and flew slowly over to Aldo’s shoulder. The swinging door opened again and a group of well-dressed wood fairies flew in. “Aldo!” they cried, throwing up their hands. They spoke in rapid Italian. I caught enough to know Aldo was telling them about Penelope. They made many exclamations of concern and flew past us to speak to Suzanne on the table. Aldo went out through the swinging door into a kitchen with a couple of ladies slicing long logs of rolled up pork for the lunch crowd.
He held up the phone so I could see it. Lucian was still wrestling with his unruly locks.
“What is up with your hair?” I asked.
“I’m upset,” he said, twisting it with both hands.
“Because of Penelope?”
“Yes and because Iris told me what has happened since you left Vienna. These things shouldn’t happen to children.”
Children?
Lucian captured his hair and laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re fourteen.”
“Whatever.”
“I wish I could help you,” said Lucian.
There was nothing to say to that. I was on my own, as usual. I had to find a way into the Vatican. Nobody could do it for me.
“Is that all you wanted?” I asked.
“No. I want to know what has happened to Victory. That is not the phalanx you’ve described.”
I threw up my hands. “That’s it? That’s what’s so important?”
“Yes. He’s barely out of the egg. Such a personality change is not a good sign. You are a healer. You must know this.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Lucian got close to the screen, his normally calm eyes alight with anger. “Matilda, you are his leader, his general, if you will. You must care.”
“I see how it is. Now I’m a general. A minute ago, I was a kid.”
“You’re both. What happened to that baby?” He was yelling and it took me back.
“You want information?” I yelled myself. “Me, too. Tell me about Paul-Phillipe Baudin!”
Lucian was ready to yell, but my words left his mouth hanging open.
“Yeah, that’s right. You should’ve told me,” I said.
His hair stopped moving suddenly and fell in silken waves on his shoulders. “Tell you what?”
“That he was a kindler.”
Aldo’s face dropped down next to the phone. “Kindler? Who’s a kindler?”
I wasn’t planning on letting my fire slip out, but oh well. “Me and apparently, my grandfather.”
“Paul-Phillipe was a kindler?” asked Lucian. “Who told you that?”
“Hercule Galen of Verona. He said that was why he got killed by the horen. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Grandma Vi tell my mom? He was her dad.”
Lucian stuttered. I’d never seen him so befuddled. Actually, I’d never seen him befuddled ever.
“Sorry. I thought you knew.”
Lucien was pushed gently to the right. The Great Healer, Jacqueline, came into view. Her hair was concealed under her usual silver head wrap. Without her crazy galen hair, she was the picture of serenity. “Matilda, I think you can tell that my father didn’t know that Paul-Phillipe was a kindler. I didn’t either.”
I sat down on the counter and hugged my knees. “I know.”
“Why’s it so important to you?”
“Three horen showed up at the antique mall. I don’t think that was an accident.”
She pursed her lips. “Yes, I see. Someone sold out your family. It could’ve been someone in the mall. Everyone knew who you were.”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. Who would want the horen to show up in their home?”
“The spriggans had an alliance with the horen until they betrayed them.”
“No way. Vom Nugget loves Horc. He’s his brother. I don’t think Vom would lead the horen to me. Horc could get in the way. The horen aren’t picky about who they kill.”
Lucian squeezed back into the frame. “We will find out what happened, Matilda.”
“Do you think Grandma Vi knew about her husband?”
He steepled his fingers. “Yes, I believe so. Vi left Paris as soon as she could after your mother was born. She asked me not to tell anyone about Adele or where she was going. I thought she wanted to mourn in peace. Now I think she was hiding. Vi was a traveler, a social person, but she changed. She rarely left Whipplethorn Manor and she occasionally used fake names.”
“You didn’t think that was odd, father?” asked Jacqueline.
“She treated it as a joke. Vi was always whimsical.”
Aldo tapped his finger on the counter. “Did you say horen?”
“Er…yeah, but they don’t know where I am right now,” I said.
“How do you know? The horen are deadly. We don’t want them in Rome.”
“Nobody wants them anywhere.”
“I’ve heard that a princess killed one in Austria,” said Aldo. “And she captured another.”
I avoided his eyes and he tapped again. “That was you. You are the princess. You’re the kindler princess.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t make a big deal about it.”
“It is a very big deal. That is two less horen in the world.”
“The one I killed has probably already been reborn,” I said.
“How long do they take to mature to their full evil?” asked Aldo.
“They are venomous at birth and usually kill their birth family within months in an attempt to conceal their original species,” said Jacqueline.
“They come into their full strength in a year,” said Lucian. “We have some time.”<
br />
Aldo blew out a coffee-scented breath that ruffled my hair. “And the other is still imprisoned in Austria?”
“I think so,” I said.
“And a third is missing an arm,” said Lucian.
“Matilda,” said Aldo, “you are more powerful than you appear.”
“That wasn’t me,” I said. “That was my friend, Bentha. He’s a ponderosa.”
“A powerful sword master then.”
“Best sword of the mall.”
Aldo turned the face of the phone so that he could see the galen, too. “Perhaps he can get Matilda into the Vatican to see Margarite.”
“No, he’s in Vienna, healing. The French phalanx nearly killed him,” I said.
“Do they know of your existence?” asked Aldo.
I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because there have been sightings of phalanx here in Rome.”
“You don’t have phalanx?” asked Jacqueline.
“They were expelled in 1296 after they poisoned the human pope.”
Great. That was just what I needed, Camille and his red caps coming after us.
“All the more reason to get you safely inside the Vatican,” said Lucian.
I rubbed my eyes until Aldo nudged me with his index finger. “We have a plan.”
“Good, ‘cause I don’t.”
The plan was pretty good. I wouldn’t try to get into the Vatican. Iris would. According to Aldo, they couldn’t turn her away. She was the cardinal’s choice to replace him, making her a part of the church. They’d receive her and she could talk to the pope and Margarite. I wouldn’t go.
“That could work,” I said.
“It will work,” said Lucian. “The pope may not be ill at all. He may be hunkering down with the phalanx in town. He’d know that they’d be looking for you, if he’s well-informed about your family’s situation.”
Aldo nodded. “The French phalanx have been rumored to have murdered several popes of the fae.”
“That’s not good. We need his help,” I said. “He can’t be a coward.”
“Iris will have to convince him to help negotiate with them,” said Jacqueline.
“That just got a whole lot harder.”
“To be fair, they have not killed a pope in several hundred years,” said Aldo.
I rubbed my eyes again. “But he’s still scared? He’s got guards.”
“There’s a possibility that the revolutionaries are collaborating with The Reich’s Fae to attack Italy. He may believe this is an assassin team to remove him and throw Rome into panic.”
“This is a mess. I wish I was in our mantle and I didn’t know any of this stuff was going on.”
“I know that, but Iris must get to the pope for Penelope and your family,” said Lucian.
I stood up. “Iris won’t be happy to do this alone.”
“She won’t be alone. She will take Gerald, Horc, and Victory,” said Jacqueline.
“Victory? That’s a terrible idea. He’s a nut.”
“Iris needs a nut. She needs a fearless leader at her side. It cannot be you, so it must be him,” said Lucian. “What has taken his courage?”
I hated to tell them about Maraleeza’s death. It hurt me to remember her. They nodded in sympathy through the story and I felt so sad I could hardly finish it.
“Could I have saved her?” I asked the galen.
Lucian frowned. “I can’t know without seeing the disease myself. Possibly. But you must let this go. She’s gone.”
“You must heal Victory,” said Jacqueline.
“Heal him? He isn’t sick,” I said.
“He’s sick with grief. What did you say to him after it happened?”
“Not much.”
“You blamed him,” said Lucian.
“It was his fault. I would’ve fixed it. He ordered Ovid to take the guard. That’s why she’s dead.”
Jacqueline reached out and touched the screen. There was something so comforting about the gesture, my tears overflowed. “That was not his intention or yours.”
“Mine? Of course not. I wanted to save her.”
“You have to forgive yourself for putting her there. You have to forgive Victory for overreaching. He’s young.”
“And a megalomaniac.”
“Possibly,” said Lucian. “You hatched an extraordinary phalanx.”
“That was Iris.” I was still mad about the whole “best phalanx in the world” thing, but it didn’t seem like the time to mention it.
“And that is why she needs him,” said Jacqueline. “He’s fierce.”
“He’s something.”
“Victory is the key to her success. You must help him to help her,” said Lucian.
I groaned. “Fine, but you don’t know what he’s like.”
Lucian and Jacqueline wished me luck and hung up.
“Are you ready?” asked Aldo.
“Not really, but let’s do it anyway.”
I told Iris the plan and she wasn’t happy about it. You’d think she was the deaf one, needing a pair of ears by her side. Aldo helped calm her down while Gerald worked. His planning involved going to Aldo’s library. Imagine that. I flew up to Ovid on the tomato box and almost lost my lunch. I’d seen Aldo give him a paper dish. I thought it had porchetta, which would’ve been bad enough, but it was a yark-worthy combination of rabbit hearts and baby eels in aspic. Ovid loved it. He slurped down the eels whole and this weird jelly stuff went flying all over. He went for another eel.
“No, please.” I held up my head. “Can you wait for second?”
He sort of waited. He bit off an eel head and munched on it slowly. Dragons eat with their mouths open. Did I mention that?
“Where’s Victory?”
A black eyeball fell out of his mouth, hitting the box with a wet thwack.
“Ovid!”
He ate the eyeball.
“You are disgusting!”
He waggled his head back and forth, letting his long tongue smack against his head. Nobody enjoyed disgusting as much as Ovid, unless it was Horc.
“Charming,” I said. “Where’s Victory?”
Victory climbed out from behind one of Ovid’s horns. For the first time, I realized how sad he looked. There was no fist pumping. No declarations of war or anything else. This wasn’t Victory. I kinda liked it, even though I wasn’t supposed to. He was a lot easier to manage this way.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Yes, Aunt.”
“Please come down. This is hurting my neck and I don’t want to get any closer to the eels.”
Victory leapt down, landing next to a jelly blob and walking over slowly. I didn’t know he could move that slowly. I squatted and held out my hand. He hesitated before walking on. He still fit in the palm of my hand. He was just a little phalanx. It was the personality that was huge.
“So we have a problem,” I said, holding him up close to my face.
“I have given no orders, Aunt.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
He blinked and took a step back onto my finger. “I will not make another mistake.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
“I won’t.”
“Because you’re not going to do anything?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a terrible plan. I need you to be Victory.”
“You need me to follow orders,” he said.
“That, too.”
He popped off his shell and placed it in the center of my palm.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t deserve a shell. I killed Maraleeza,” said Victory.
It was worse than I thought. I should’ve been paying better attention. He was a baby—a megalomaniac, but still a baby. I didn’t really think he understood what he’d done. Victory was always certain of his own rightness.
“That guard killed her.”
“I killed her. I ordered Ovid to grab her.”
I s
at down and crossed my legs, setting him on my knee. We talked about how bad he felt. He was Victory. He wasn’t supposed to make mistakes. If he could make a mistake, what did that mean? I told him about the things I’d done. Things I regretted. Maybe I shouldn’t have left Mom and Dad in Paris. I definitely shouldn’t have brought him to Italy. I should’ve gotten on the train with Iris alone and sent everybody else back. What was I thinking? They’d be safe in Vienna with Miss Penrose, not worried about the French phalanx or Penelope.
“We wanted to go,” said Victory.
“It was a mistake. I make mistakes all the time. Sometimes, all I do is make mistakes. I should’ve found another way to save Iris from that horen. Now another family is being destroyed.”
He shrank down. “If you don’t know what to do, there’s no hope.”
I kissed him on the top of his tiny head. “There’s plenty of hope. We never should’ve gotten this far. We beat the doge, the Montagues and the Capulets, and the de’ Medicis.”
“We lost Maraleeza, Gledit, most of the damumoto, Leanna, and Rickard.”
“But we haven’t lost everything. We’ll get them back.”
His dark eyes filled. “We can’t get Maraleeza back.”
I wished The Commander was there. He’d know what to say. Or Bentha. Or Lrag. Practically anybody but me. Maraleeza’s death hurt me as much as it did Victory. “I’ve never lost one of my people before. It’s my fault she was there. This is a lot worse than killing. Killing is easy. Losing is hard.”
“I didn’t think we’d lose,” said Victory.
“You studied Napoleon and a bunch of other guys like that, haven’t you?”
“Yes, Aunt.”
“Did they make mistakes?”
He cocked his head and I saw his brilliant white teeth for the first time in a long time with a hint of a smile. “Napoleon invaded Russia.”
“And that was bad?”
“He only returned with about 93,000 men.”
“How many did he start with?”
“650,000.”
“So we never invade Russia. Deal?”
He didn’t reply.
I poked him. “Victory?”
He tapped his chin. “It could be done successfully.”
To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five) Page 32