That brought me crashing back into the moment. “He’s right. We’ll figure it out along the way. Let’s go.”
Once I was upstairs, the hallway to the dining room stretched on and on. The doorway at the end seemed to grow more distant with each step. The silver tray we’d taken from the kitchen felt heavier than it had when Nell had first helped me balance it on my shoulder.
Flames on the candelabras popped and sputtered as I passed, and cackling echoed down the hall.
I looked back over my shoulder, searching for Nell’s form, but the shadows had already cloaked her, Flora, and the changelings. The familiar clatter of silverware against plates and jovial voices slipped through the crooked doorframe. I could have been standing outside one of my grandmother’s dinner parties—they were equally likely to have monsters inside, and I was equally unwelcome at both.
“—and of course, the fool—oh, this fool—thought I was just biding my time, collecting mortal garbage for my own pleasure!”
The story summoned a fit of laughter. Someone pounded on the table. Another fiend barked, as if to egg the familiar voice of the storyteller on.
“He donned a flag and thought it a cloak! He carried a doll he believed to be his leech friend—”
Wait a moment—
Who is Nightlock talking about? I asked. You?
No! No, of course not. Whoever it is sounds like a true fool. Go in, then. Save your flying rodent.
I took one last second to steel my nerves and pushed the door open . . . only to reveal a room brimming with light and color.
The dining chamber was an octagon, each of its eight sides braced by a curving black metal bone. It was situated under a dome made up of countless stained-glass window panels. Each one depicted a different monster, but the images of snarling fangs and claws were softened by the bejeweled gowns the artist had created for the female fiends, and the fine suits the male fiends wore.
They weren’t battle scenes, or even ruminations on the many ways a fiend could kill and maim. The images were of dancing. Some even looked to be playing instruments.
It was a depiction of gleeful celebration, not war. Candles flickered in rooms on the other side of the glass walls; the movement of the flames somehow made it seem as though the scenes were moving, swaying to some unheard music.
This . . . this had been made by a true artist’s hand. Funny. Some part of me had believed real art couldn’t exist in a place like this.
This is revoltingly artistic, Al agreed. And no doubt created by elves. This room would have been perfect for storing venom, and Bune wasted it so. No wonder he never allowed me inside. He knew I would mock this travesty for centuries.
Wasn’t it also because you threatened to kill him? I thought back.
What’s murder to a family such as mine? Bune was a good sport about the assassins, likely because he managed to push me off a tower. Rather evened things out.
Speaking of Alastor’s family, there was one notable person absent from this table: Pyra. Frustration swept through me.
“You there!” Nightlock thundered from behind a stack of plates and animal carcasses stripped to the bone. “We’ve been waiting an age for someone to clear the plates for dessert! Why did you not come when called? Must I add time to your contract?”
I turned slowly, hands tightening around the empty tray balanced on my shoulder.
Decorative glass bats dangled over the long metal table, which split the chamber in two. Plump white candles had been gathered together at the very center, somehow bleeding crimson wax.
Most of the light, however, was coming from above. Glass orbs, all gleaming like black pearls, had tiny fairies trapped inside. They banged their fists against their prisons to get out, glowing with fury.
Dishes had piled high in front of each guest. A grendel stretched and stretched his neck up, the bones and joints of his back popping loudly to accommodate the change. He peered at me as I approached, his long nose resting on the uppermost plate. A line of enormous black crows screeched out a song, accompanied by crickets the size of my head.
Glide, I reminded myself, glide!
After a moment, the grendel turned back to the guest at his right. I let out a small, relieved breath, then began to search the room for any sign of Toad.
I slid my feet over to the nearest fiend—a crimson-skinned creature with ears that pointed straight up like a rabbit’s. She wore an elaborate dress that seemed two sizes too large for her.
“Finish the story! I simply cannot get enough of it—it’s more delicious than anything a dessert chef could whip up. I only wish the queen had come to hear it.”
Hobs, grendels, and goblins at a malefactor’s table! Alastor fumed. He continued to complain about this hob’s theft of that vampyre’s signature jewels, and how the grendel had terrible taste in centerpieces, and something about hoping the moths from the Festering Forest would come and eat the skin from their bones, but all those words drifted away.
My eyes latched on to a cramped iron cage on the floor, just beside one of the hobs perched high upon his chair.
Bright green eyes stared at me through the bars, alarmed. I saw the flash of white, needlelike teeth in the instant before I heard Toad’s wings flutter.
“Oh yes, yes, I do so wish she had come, but she felt needed elsewhere. We shall toast again to her honor,” said Nightlock. He had what looked like a fireplace poker in hand. Idly, he lifted it up over the table, letting its tip rest inside the nearest candle’s flame.
Once the sharp edge was glowing with heat, he jabbed it down into the cage. Toad howled in pain as Nightlock traded his poker for a goblet. I lurched forward, nearly upending the tray in anger.
“To our malevolent queen! Long may she rage!”
“Long may she rage!” the others echoed back to him.
My vision went red. The dishes clattered on my tray.
“Now, the rest of the story,” Nightlock began, interrupting himself to belch. “You see, he made it so very easy for me. All I needed to do was slip into the house where the boy was staying. . . .”
Though he wore a sharp blue cone hat and his ash-gray skin looked as if it had been sprinkled with glitter dust, I recognized those bulging yellow eyes and that round nose, as red as if he’d spent the day blowing his blue snot into a tissue. He snarfed, nearly choking on his honking laugh.
“And then—and then he told me,” Nightlock wheezed, bracing his free hand on his fine velveteen robes. There were golden rings on each of his fingers and around his single horn. “ ‘Thou may refer to me as my lord and master, or My Eternal Prince of Nightmares That Lurk in Every Dark Sleep!’ ”
Alastor began to stir inside of me, all heat and stinging humiliation. My hand filled with the sensation of burning sand.
Puny . . . clay-brained . . . scut!
No! Al—! But the tray was already tipping forward, its contents sliding right off it and onto Nightlock’s head.
The hob let out an ear-piercing squeal as a plate shattered against his shoulder, and shards of the others fell into his lap. The master of the house and guests shot to their feet, their own plates rattling with the force and speed of their movement. My heart clenched in my chest, tightening until I couldn’t breathe.
“Impudent shade!” one growled.
“This toad-spotted bootlicker! Nightlock, are you all right?”
“You! Shade! That’s another century for you!” Nightlock growled. “Clean up this mess immediately!”
I was already on my hands and knees, though, pretending to sweep the mess back up onto my tray while one hand felt around for the latch to Toad’s cage. His black paw pointed to the right, and my fingers skimmed along the metal framing until I found the hooked hinge keeping the door shut.
“Well?” Nightlock spluttered. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
The latch was rusted and dry. I struggled to slide it open. Toad’s head butted eagerly against it, urging me on.
Hang on, I thought d
esperately. Hang on just one more second. . . .
The latch squeaked, finally giving way. Toad’s eyes flared, a warning that was already too late. Before I could wrench the door open, a clawed hand reached down and clamped over my wrist.
The grendel’s grip was like a branding iron. I squirmed at the heat of it, trying to tug free as his claws pricked my skin, threatening to draw blood.
Hold still, Maggot, Alastor said. Let me take the reins. I will deal with this urchin—
“What’ve we here?” the grendel said, cocking her head to the side. Her neck stretched into a perfect upside-down U. “This is no shade! It smells like—”
The door I’d come through from the kitchen burst open with a thunderous bang. A fiend—one I’d never seen before—strode in, her shoulders back and her nose in the air. A gown of shimmering black fabric, like a night sky back home, flowed out behind her.
All the different types of fiends seemed to have at least one trait that was vaguely humanlike, but this one, this fiend, was the closest thing to us I’d seen so far.
The smooth, shell-like quality of her face was terrifying; it didn’t wrinkle, even as she bared her pointed teeth. It was the kind of pale that was nearly translucent, as if she had no blood or veins. The lines of her face were nearly nonexistent. A notch for her nose, a lipless mouth, ears that were just slightly too long and slightly too pointed. One eye was blue, one black.
Pyra.
I turned, searching the room for the malefactor’s panther form. The fiends around the table shook off their stupors, falling into bows and curtsies. Even the grendel eased her hold on me to smooth out her full skirt.
This is her true appearance. The form a malefactor takes Downstairs.
My knees locked. I glanced over at the grendel, making sure she was still distracted before trying to slide my wrist and hand through her loosened grip. My heart skipped one beat, then two.
Think . . . I could drop down under the table, get Toad out, and then . . .
“Y-Your Majesty!” Nightlock spluttered, sliding down from a carefully balanced stool. With each step toward her, he bowed. Finally, he took her long fingers in his small hand and slobbered onto her knuckles. “We did not expect you. I was told you were busy with preparations at Skullcrush. Shall I have the shade set a place for you?”
“You shall not,” Pyra said airily. “I will not be staying! I’ve come for that strange shade and the changeling. If you would please provide them, I will be on my way.”
A queen would never say please, Alastor said, his tone darkening with suspicion.
Maybe it was the distance, or the way the fairy lights were flickering in the glass orbs, but it almost looked like Pyra’s mouth didn’t move at all when she spoke. There was something off about her.
And her voice is oddly . . . piercing? Alastor noted.
“But of course, Your Darkest Majesty,” Nightlock said. He glanced behind her. “Did you come alone? Where are your guards?”
Very off. And we weren’t the only ones who noticed.
Around me, the dinner guests exchanged curious glances. The spell of the queen’s sudden arrival was quickly wearing off. Unable to get my hand free, I lifted my foot to use the heel of my shoe to get the cage’s latch open. Toad tried to help me from inside, holding the sole more firmly against it with his claws.
Almost have it . . . I thought. Just a second more. . . .
Nightlock straightened, taking a step back. “And why did you come up from the servants’ floor?”
“Because . . .” That ringing, prim voice wavered. “I chose to. That’s why. And furthermore, how dare you question me?”
Pyra’s voice was like a thread of dark smoke curling against your senses. It was regal and appropriately demanding, but it was too high, too—
The wall of stained glass across the room burst inward with a ferocious howl. Several of the fiends at the table yelped and screamed, scrambling to get away from the shards as they thwacked into the walls and clattered across the tables.
The grendel finally released me, turning to shield her face from the glass. I dropped down onto my knees beside Toad’s cage just as the howlers leaped through the new opening in the room.
From under the table, I watched as Sinstar’s lanky form stepped over the edge of the broken window frame and dropped down onto the carpet. His many-eyed gaze swept around the room.
“That’s not the queen, you imbeciles!” he snarled. “I just left her—in Skullcrush Prison!”
One second, the queen was there; the next, she was gone with a pop. In her place floated a tarantula.
Eleanor, the changeling.
Nell jumped out from where she’d been hiding behind a suit of armor, clearing her throat. Of course. She’d been the one voicing the fake Pyra. And Flora wasn’t far behind, bursting in through the servants’ door, her fists already raised to fight.
Then the latch on Toad’s cage finally gave way.
He wasted no time. The moment he was free of his iron prison, a burst of power swept out, upending the dining room table. The guests ran, shoving past one another for the door opposite the servants’.
One of the howlers charged toward Toad, only to be thrown back by the surge of magic as a monster raged out from the swirling mass of light.
Toad wasn’t just huge—he was prehistorically gargantuan. His fangs lengthened so they now escaped his lips. He towered over me, his jet-black coat no longer fluffy, but shining and sleek. With a screech, his bat wings smashed through the stained-glass dome, sending glass raining down over us.
Under the cover of his leathery wings, I turned back toward where Nightlock had been only moments before. The hob had dropped onto his hands and knees and now crawled toward the servants’ entrance as the room exploded into chaos around him.
“Eleanor!” I shouted, pointing at Nightlock. “Nell! Grab him!”
Nell was busy smashing a serving tray over the heads of the goblins who rushed at her, dinner knives in hand. The tarantula disappeared with her own flash of light, emerging a second later a hundred times her usual size. She leaped onto Nightlock, wrapping her legs around him until she’d created her own prison.
The other howler raced toward Nell, only to be batted away with a swipe of Toad’s enormous paw. The howler whimpered as he flew through the last remaining panel of the stained-glass wall, disappearing into the hallway beyond it.
Sinstar unsheathed his jagged sword, taking a menacing step toward me. “If my mistress did not want you alive, thinskin, you would be dead a thousand times over!”
“Er—I’ll go call for the ogre guard, shall I?” another goblin said, stuffing his hat down onto his head and fleeing through the doorway.
“Shades! Attend to your master!” Nightlock hollered. “Attend to me!”
Pathetic, Alastor snarled. Tell the overgrown kitten to make ribbons of his guts!
The other howler, realizing it couldn’t take on Toad, turned to a smaller, softer target: Flora. It lowered into a crouch and, with a terrifying growl, charged her, claws fully extended.
“Flora!” I shouted. “Look out—”
A streak of bright red flashed in front of her, momentarily distracting the howler. Ribbit.
Startled, the howler misjudged the distance between himself and Ribbit, catching the changeling on the wing instead of mauling Flora’s face.
The howler landed hard, skidding into the overturned table. A streak of blood lashed against the broken glass scattered across the floor. The changeling plummeted with a heart-stopping cry of pain.
Horror left an icy coat around my skin as Flora dropped to her knees, clutching the changeling to her chest. “Ribbit! No!”
A clang jarred me back to my senses. And right back into terror.
Sinstar rounded on Nell, his sword slashing and slashing as he drove her back across the room. She held up the tray like a shield, her face wild as she struggled. “Take my light—no, guide my hand, give me . . . give me . . .”
A spell. She couldn’t get out a spell to defend herself. Every time she tried to begin one, it seemed like she’d change her mind midsentence, until finally, it was nothing but a jumble of words and panic. I pivoted, searching the floor for one of the knives I’d seen, heart punching against my rib cage. Finally, my hand closed over one.
No! Maggot, stay put—
“Get away from her!” I shouted, wielding the blade as I rushed forward.
“Come on, boy,” Sinstar said, kicking Nell away. She slammed onto the floor, her breath blowing out of her with the force of the impact. “I’ll cut me off a piece of that thinskin. You only have to be breathing, not in one piece!”
The knife didn’t shake in my hand, not once, but I still felt the burning rush of needles under my skin as Alastor struggled to take over. I’m a bonny fighter, Maggot—let me carve my name into his hide!
Through the racket of the fiends’ escape and the growling, a new voice emerged. Thin, warning. “You shouldn’t have done that. . . .”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Flora flinch. In her hands, Ribbit’s feathered chest rose in shallow pants. Blood dripped down over the elf’s hands as she carefully removed a piece of glass from the wing the howler had injured.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Flora said again, her eyes glowing bright green.
“Flora . . . ?” Nell began, startled. “Are you okay?”
A dark shadow fell over the elf’s face, and her skin seemed to harden into a husk of wood. That quickly, she went from a blooming flower of a creature to a wicked thorn. Her voice deepened as if rising from some ancient darkness, and seemed to echo. An involuntary shiver passed over my skin.
“Now,” that strange voice said, “you get my distraction.”
Her . . . distraction?
She turned toward Nell, her face frighteningly unexpressive. The words rolled out of her like thunder. “Remember what I asked?”
Nell gawked at her but nodded, reaching down to touch the elf’s outstretched hand. Magic trailed out from her fingertip, whirling where it collected in the elf’s palm. Flora retrieved the small seedling from her bag, smoothing the glowing essence over its leaves. The plant flared even brighter than it had when she’d fed it a few hours ago.
The Last Life of Prince Alastor Page 16