“How in the world,” said Keeper, snapping his cloak behind him as he swept to her, “did you get back in here? Alone? Mmm?”
Jessamine’s eyes shone bright with fear, but she did not back away. A touch of defiance sparked in them.
“My father says,” she whispered, raising her chin. “My f-father says…he says…if you hurt us…he will box your ears.”
Keeper stared down at her trembling figure. A smile grew on his face.
“Oh, did he?” he said. “I am shaking in my boots, I assure you.”
He knelt in front of Jessamine and took her tiny hand in his.
“Let’s play a game,” he said. “I’ve heard some children do it with crickets, but it is so much more fun with people. I was so dearly hoping to do it to your father, but, alas.” Keeper sighed. “He is not here. Shall we begin with your thumbs?”
He grasped her thumb with a black gloved hand and—
Was soundly thwacked across the face.
The punch came from nowhere, and it echoed across the ballroom. Keeper fell back, colliding with the marble. There was a very satisfying crack of his head smacking against it.
He had been boxed in the face!
CHAPTER 27
Immediately Keeper sprang to his feet, massaging his cheek. His eyes narrowed to slits, searching.
“It seems we have a guest.” Keeper gave a half smile, showing one long dimple, but his eyes glinted hard. “Welc—”
Thwap.
Keeper smashed to the floor again.
“Oh, we shall see about this!” he growled. With catlike dexterity, he jerked about and lunged at nothing. His hands caught on something invisible, clawing it to the ground, wrestling. A twist, and the invisible something had slammed Keeper to the floor again.
The wraith cloak!
Mr. Bradford! Azalea’s heart jumped.
But no—the invisible figure’s movements were…stiffer. Firmer. Harder.
“Sir!” cried Azalea.
Keeper clawed at the air, tearing it, revealing a floating head with blood smeared across the cheek. Another hard yank, and Keeper tore away the rest of the old, tattered cloak, revealing the King.
The King managed one more resounding punch to Keeper’s face before Keeper, with great effort, thrust the King into the drapes, two windows away from Azalea. In a moment, the golden rope cords bit into his suitcoat, restraining him tightly. It must have hurt, but the King made no sound. Instead, bound to the drapes, he glared at Keeper with such a look in his eyes as Azalea had never seen before.
“Well, well, well,” said Keeper, breathing heavily. “What a marvelous surprise, Your Grace. And a wraith cloak! I welcome you both heartily.” Keeper gave a mock bow and paced around the King, scrutinizing him. He smiled. His teeth gleamed. “So pleased to meet you at last. We’ve been having a marvelous time, these past months, your daughters and I. You know, you really shouldn’t have raised them to be so trusting.”
Keeper leaned in to the King, just inches from his face, breathing quiet words on his skin. “I’ve waited hundreds of years for this moment, thinking of all the ways I could possibly hurt you most. This will be amusing.”
The King did not reply. His face was so taut Azalea could see veins and muscles.
Keeper strode to Azalea, untangling her from the cords, and dragged her in front of the King. He grasped her hard around the waist, her hands in back, the pain keeping her from writhing out of his grip. She managed a good kick to his leg.
“Eldest to youngest,” said Keeper. “If the ones in the mirror don’t die first. That is the unfortunate side effect of the mirror charm. You leave them in too long, and they die. Pity, pity. And now, I remember a very pretty curtsy Miss Azalea once did. What was it called? Ah, yes…the Soul’s Curtsy…”
He snapped Azalea about to face him, and the world spun in her vision. She swallowed a yelp. Her trembling hands were grasped tightly in Keeper’s long fingers, her hair tangled over her face. He twisted her fingers and bent them back, pain coursing to her shoulders, and her knees gave way. She fell hard to the floor. She gave a choked cry.
“What fun—”
Crack—snap—CRASH!
Keeper released Azalea as the drapes and rod ripped from the wall, gilded iron, thick bolts, heavy velvet and all crashing to the floor. Azalea collapsed to the ground as the King tackled Keeper and threw him against the marble.
Crack.
A pistol’s shot, from beyond the twisting bushes, ripped the air.
The world exploded.
The sharp sound of smashing glass burst through the air. From all sides, the velvet draperies billowed. Hooves clacked against the marble, crunching over the smashed glass, and the curtains struggled in the form of velvet-horses and riders, fighting against the inky branches that snagged and cords that tangled.
Far on the right, a horseman broke free, revealing none other than Minister Fairweller on LadyFair. At the same time, through the window nearest the ballroom doors, Mr. Pudding had ripped a rod from the wall and contended with the snaring, scratching branches at Thackeray’s feet.
Sir John fought through, and next to him, branches gouged a gentleman, untangling them from his mount’s neck. Mr. Gasperson, Lord Teddie’s steward! Azalea only just had time to recognize him, when Lord Teddie on horseback bashed through the window next to her, face scratched, trailing tangled branches after him. Determination was written across his face. He kicked the branches away, and they broke to pieces, splintering across the floor like glass.
And then, at the window over her, Dickens’s hooves smashed through, mounted by Mr. Bradford. Azalea caught a glimpse of hard stoniness in his face, a pistol flashing in his hand, snow whirling around him. The dappled light of the falling glass reflected in fragments across the wall. The ballroom blasted in bright, shouting, chaotic pieces, glass grinding under horses’ hooves, gentlemen and horses alike scratched and bleeding.
Azalea managed to push herself upright, dodging the discord of horse and glass. A hand grasped her wrist, and though the grip was not hard, it still hurt. Azalea swallowed the cry when she saw it was the King. His face had jagged claw marks across it, bleeding.
“Do you still have it?” he said.
Azalea knew precisely what he meant. She dove for the handkerchief across the ballroom floor, pain rippling through her, and rushed to the mirrors.
Delphinium shivered in the first pier glass. Her lips were purple. The King grabbed a fire poker from the stand by the hearth and wrapped the handkerchief at the tip. Azalea took it by the end, and the King’s sturdy hands wrapped around hers. Pulling back, she let the King’s force guide her hands to bash the mirror to pieces.
Shards crashed, revealing a tarnished backing. Terror seized Azalea. But as the mirrored pieces of Delphinium fell to the marble, each one left a bit of her behind, forming a real Delphinium, as though she had been huddled in front of the mirror the entire time.
Immediately the King’s suitcoat was around Delphinium’s shoulders, and he pulled Azalea to Eve. Eve drew back as they swung, hammering the mirror with the poker. The pieces smashed to the floor.
It felt a blur after that. Eve’s teeth chattered as she searched among the shards for her spectacles. Mr. Pudding wrapped his own ragged suitcoat around her and brought her to the ballroom fireplace, where a fire had been stirred to life. The next mirror crashed to the floor, and Lord Teddie wrapped Ivy in his suitcoat and carried her to the fire, for she was too cold to walk. Hollyhock was carried as well. The twins cried when they were released, sobbing in fits and starts. Clover next, with Kale and Lily, who seemed to fare the best of all of them.
By the time Azalea and the King reached the last mirror, their strength flagged. It took five hits to smash it, pieces of Bramble gliding together as shards fell. Bramble bent over, coughing, white as death. She had enough Bramble in her, though, to say, “Az, you look awful.”
All the girls huddled by the fireplace, crying and trembling. Azalea fell against the w
all, feeling the sharp, snowy wind blow over her from the broken windows.
The King’s hand dripped blood, and his face colored a sallow green. Still, in his formal, measured way, he plucked the handkerchief from the end of the fire poker, his eyes combing the ballroom.
“Confound it!” he seethed.
A visual sweep of the ballroom confirmed what the King was confounding. Keeper was gone. And, after another sweeping glance of the bright gray-white ballroom through the pawing horses and broken glass, Azalea realized the cloak was gone, too.
“He can’t leave the palace,” said Azalea as the makeshift cavalry gathered about the King. “The handkerchief won’t let him. He hasn’t much magic to do anything.”
The King nodded.
“We will make a search of the palace, then. Sir John—” The King pushed away the doctor, who tended to the King’s hand. “The ladies first. They’ve got to be taken somewhere warm.”
A harried discussion ensued. They wanted to take the girls out, to Lord Teddie’s town house or to the Silver Compass Coffeehouse, but the King, his eyes passing over the shivering and blue-lipped girls, refused.
“It’s too cold,” he said. “We haven’t enough horses. And I will not let them from my sight. Lord Haftenravenscher, Mr. Gasperson—scout for an unmagicked room.”
Lord Teddie gave a gangly salute and bounded out the door in an instant. Mr. Gasperson followed after.
Exhaustion fell over Azalea as she started to feel the heat of the fireplace. Her body felt one all-encompassing throb. She leaned against the wall, but not even that could support her, and her legs gave way.
Mr. Bradford caught her.
“Are you all right?” he said.
Azalea nodded, too tired for words, but she smiled. She allowed a portion of her fear and pain to ebb as she leaned on his steady arm. A warm sort of glow replaced it. He helped her to a velvet chair next to the fireplace, made certain she was well enough, then tended to his pistol. She watched him as he reloaded it. He did so in a businesslike way, though he was only in sleeves and a waistcoat—blood streaked and disheveled at that—his face taut. It was easy to see him as a regiment captain here.
Azalea pieced the events together in her mind. She imagined Mr. Bradford helping the King search for her, telling the King about Keeper, then forming whatever cavalry they could when they saw the thorny branches about the palace. Azalea curled her toes in her boots (even that hurt) and smiled at Mr. Bradford. He caught it, and gave a crooked one back.
Lord Teddie came lolloping back into the ballroom with shockingly long strides. Mr. Gasperson clumped after him.
“The library, sir!” he said, breathless. “Just across the hall! It hasn’t been touched, and there’s an ember going!”
The King gave a short nod and, though bleeding, scooped up both Kale and Lily with one arm. The other gentlemen began to help the girls up. Lord Teddie thrust his hands out to Bramble. His linen shirt was stained rusty red with his blood, but still he beamed.
“What are you doing here?” said Bramble, cringing at his bleeding hands.
“Helping you up,” he said.
“Shove off,” said Bramble. She looked near tears. “If you’d stayed in your stupid country you wouldn’t be…all cut up right now—”
She tried to stand, but shook so badly she couldn’t. Lord Teddie jumped in and helped her.
“Eep!”
The simultaneous scream sounded from the twins. Both clasped their hands over their mouths, their eyes wide with horror. Azalea followed their gaze.
There, in patches of light, a scratched-up Fairweller held a weeping Clover in his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder. He murmured into her ear.
Delphinium screamed.
“Oh, Clover, how could you?” said Eve.
“Is he a good kisser?” said Hollyhock.
The King had no words as he strode to them. In an instant he had torn Fairweller away from Clover, wound up, and boxed Fairweller straight in the face.
Fairweller stumbled backward and fell to the floor, glass crunching beneath him.
“You may fill out your resignation paperwork tomorrow,” said the King. “Ex-Prime Minister Fairweller!”
The group of limping, ragged girls and gentlemen stumbled and were carried to the library. Azalea trailed at the end, wishing for everything to be over so she could fall into a deep, deep sleep, snuggled in pillows and downy blankets. She rubbed her lip, which stung, and her hand brought back blood. Instictively she fumbled for her handkerchief, and in a panic, realized she didn’t have it.
She ran back through the entrance hall to the ballroom, her gait uneven, trying to recall if the King had unknotted it from the end of the fire poker. She scuffed the shards of glass, searching among the fallen drapery.
Just as she spotted the fire poker, by the last mirror’s mounting and decidedly without the handkerchief—Azalea now remembered the King plucking it from the end—a hand slapped across her mouth and yanked her backward.
At least, it felt like a hand. She couldn’t see it. Another invisible arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her off her feet. Azalea kicked and struggled against the invisible force. Keeper!
“Yes, cry out,” said a chocolate voice in her ear. “He will come looking for you. Compassion or some tripe like that. And when he does—”
His hand shook over her mouth, and Azalea took courage. He hadn’t strength at all—surely he had very little magic left! She spun on one foot, snagged at the invisible force with all her might, feeling the coarsely woven fabric in her grip. She leaped and rolled, clutching the end of the cloak, biting her lip to keep silent.
Keeper appeared headfirst, and clawed the end of the cloak before the rest of him appeared. He yanked. Azalea held tight, sliding across the marble. She twisted the cloak around her wrists for a better hold, sending reams of pain up her arms.
“Ah!” said Keeper. “You want to dance the Entwine? This is a rather untraditional dance position.”
He pulled Azalea to her feet, and Azalea leaned back. Keeper let the cloak go slack. Azalea, with wavering balance, spun and ducked as he slashed at her, across the ballroom floors, to the windows.
“You know,” he said, panting, “I really did invent the dance. No lady ever won. As hard as they tried. You came closest, I think.”
Keeper pulled the cloak to him and boxed Azalea weakly across the face. It didn’t blast colors in her vision as it had before, but her grip wavered as the world around her spun. She leaned back, nearly out of one of the broken windows, dizzy. The breeze and snow swept through her unpinned hair. Keeper yanked—
—and slipped.
Hairpins clinked across the ballroom floor. Keeper’s feet swept out in a great arc from under him, and he fell back onto the marble. Azalea toppled through the window with the cloak, falling into the spiky broken branches.
It took a moment for the blotches to clear. Azalea had to steady her breathing and calm her pain. Every part of her ached and stung. With shaking hands, she slowly untangled herself from the bushes. The horses, which had been shooed out the windows and into the front court, watched Azalea’s valiant fight with the thornbushes with lazy horsey indifference. LadyFair even came to the bushes and nosed Azalea’s hair, sniffing with great nostrils.
Azalea pushed LadyFair’s nose out of the way with the same vigor she shoved the prickly, scratching branches aside. Her hand was smeared with blood. She managed to push herself back through the window, remembering the wraith cloak just in time, before Keeper could leap at her.
She threw the torn, ragged fabric over her shoulders. A flickering shudder ran through her body, and her skirts disappeared. The world blurred in a glass weave.
She braced herself for Keeper’s assault, but it did not come. Azalea looked about her.
The ballroom was empty.
The oath. He was going to use his last bit of strength on the King, and he already knew they had gone to the library. Gripping the cloak at her nec
k, Azalea gathered her skirts and ran.
CHAPTER 28
Invisible, Azalea brushed past a forlorn-looking Fairweller at the library door. The warmth of the library engulfed her, burning her nose and cheeks. She took in the scene by the draped piano and walls of books. Sofas had been moved in front of the fire and were crowded with girls, their black dresses limp. They wore gentlemen’s coats and suitcoats about their shoulders. They were still shaking with cold but their color had greatly improved.
And the King! Azalea exhaled slowly. He was all right. He stood by the desk, talking to the rest of the gentlemen with a low voice. Blood was smeared across his face, but he was all right. Keeper wasn’t here.
Azalea breathed a sigh of relief. She made to fling off the cloak, until she saw Mother.
She stood among the girls at the stiff striped and flowered sofas, her voice clipped and low. Mr. Bradford stood next to her, looking distracted and speaking to her in an equally low voice. Azalea slipped closer, and her heart yelped as she realized that the square jaw and the touseled, unpinned auburn hair wasn’t Mother’s—
It’s me! Azalea’s mind screamed.
Keeper!
Azalea dove at herself—then pulled up so sharply her skirts engulfed the back of her legs. The slight gust of wind ruffled the girls’ hair. Her copy image held a flash of steel in her hand. Mr. Bradford’s pistol!
Gritting her teeth, she proceeded with caution. Her vision still blurred from the hood of the cloak, she neared Keeper carefully. It was odd, to walk without seeing her skirts in front of her. She pussyfooted to just by Mr. Bradford, next to the twins’ sofa. They watched with wide eyes, whispering among themselves.
“…don’t think I can?” Keeper clutched the pistol and held it to her—or rather, his, Azalea-like chest, keeping it from Mr. Bradford’s outstretched hand. Azalea wondered if that really was her own, ghastly pale face—and if it was, she certainly didn’t look a picture, all scratched up and bruised, trembling all over.
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