“Probably,” Annabel said gloomily. From a flutter of movement in her periphery, she was aware that a great many Trenthams girls were also approaching through the gardens. Either they’d seen the pending meeting from the windows and flowed down to see it in person, or, more likely, Lady Caro had spread it about that there was about to be a confrontation. “Oh well, we might as well get it over with. I don’t want to go back into the school right now, and the girls are all coming out anyway, so I suppose no one’s having breakfast this morning.”
“Good day, Miss Ammett!” called Lady Selma. “No, don’t run away.”
Annabel looked pointedly down at the bench upon which she and Isabella were presently seated, and then back up again in time to see the impatience that flashed across Lady Caro’s face. So Lady Caro really was finding it difficult to deal with the heir she’d chosen!
“We two,” said Lady Selma, drawing off her gloves in a business-like manner, “should have some discussion.”
“This probably seems like a good time to you,” Annabel said to Lady Selma, in what she was aware was one of her grumpier voices, “but I’m having a really bad day today, and it’s actually not.”
“Since when should the Queen of New Civet care about whether or not something is at good time for one of her subjects—particularly a treasonous one?”
“I’m glad you brought that up,” said Annabel. Her tone degenerated from mere grumpiness and into sheer annoyance. “Belle, is it your opinion that the queen heir of New Civet should consider the feelings of a treasonous subject?”
“It is not.”
“Oh good,” said Annabel. “That’s what I thought. Lady Selma, I’ve had a very bad night and a trying morning, so I’m going to give you one chance to pack your bags and leave Trenthams before I have you confined to jail pending trial.”
Lady Selma laughed, a light, brittle thing that seemed aware her followers only barely matched those that were beginning to gather around Annabel. “What nonsense is this? I’m the real queen heir!”
“If you’re the real queen heir,” Annabel said, in a voice very clear and carrying, “you ought to know about the staff.”
There were a few murmurs of agreement from Annabel’s side, and a mutter of “Honestly, who cares about Rorkin’s Staff nowadays?” from Lady Selma’s side of the courtyard.
“People who care about New Civet lasting a bit longer than Parras did,” said Delysia, daintily shouldering her way to the front of the crowd. “So there, Elvira!”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” instantly retorted Elvira. “You’re only a third daughter of a Mister!”
“I might only be the third daughter of a Mister, but I’m as much a New Civetan as you are,” Delysia said promptly. “In New Civet, one can say exactly what one likes, so long as one is prepared for the consequences.” She looked Elvira up and down, and added, “You might want to think about whether or not you’re prepared for the consequences of what you say, El! Did you know I can make pottery that explodes?”
Elvira squeaked. “I’m not saying Miss Ammett isn’t the heir!” she protested. “I’m just saying that the staff is outdated and our government is more stable now than when the idea of the staff was first brought up. If we’re going to bring back the monarchy we ought to be able to choose who we want on the throne without consulting a staff!”
“I,” said Lady Selma, ignoring the larger part of that speech, “am saying that Miss Ammett isn’t the heir!”
“That’s all very well,” Annabel said, “but there’s still the matter of the staff, isn’t there? I thought that was made pretty clear on the badminton field a few days ago, actually.”
“What about it?” Selma asked. Her pale blue eyes were even harder to read this morning; Annabel couldn’t tell if she really didn’t have anything prepared and was going to bluff it out, or if she was so confident in her preparations.
“Rorkin left it so that there wouldn’t be any insecurity about who’s the rightful Heir,” Annabel said. “And you agreed with that on the badminton field, too. So let’s see it. Your version of the staff. We might as well get it over with while it’s a bad day already.”
“My version?” Selma said. “It’s not a version, it’s the real staff! Well, show me yours, if you’re so certain of yourself!”
“You’ve already seen it,” said Annabel, drawing the pencil staff out of her pocket.
“That thing?” asked Lady Selma scornfully. “Oh well, if you call colluding with the Old Parrasians to make it look like you’ve got the real staff proof—!”
Isabella stifled a laugh. “Good heavens, really? Oh, Nan, this is no fun! It’s far too easy!”
“You won’t find it so easy to dissemble this time,” Lady Selma said, and there was enough coldness in her voice to make Annabel gaze at her, frowning. The other girl smiled and displayed an elegant wand, gold-toned and beautiful. “Shall we see what the real staff is capable of, Miss Ammett?”
“Go ahead,” Annabel said, sighing. Lady Selma was going to do exactly what she wanted to do anyway; Annabel might as well wait and see what there was to undo once Lady Selma finished. Perhaps she could put an end to this uncertainty once and for all.
Lady Selma, smiling, gestured daintily with her pretend staff, and at least half of the girls present gasped.
Oh dear, thought Annabel. Lady Selma was obviously a very good magic user. There was a brief rustling behind Annabel, and before she knew what was happening, every girl on her side of the courtyard was snatched up into the air. There was a volley of screams from both the suspended girls and some of those on Lady Selma’s side, and a wild rustling of white petticoats and flailing feet.
“What are you doing?” demanded Lady Caroline, wheeling on the other girl. “They’ll be hurt if they fall from that height! Let them down at once!”
“Shall I?” Lady Selma smiled coldly at her, and the girls above them dropped three feet, shrieking.
Isabella’s voice said doubtfully, “I really hate to be a bother, Nan, but I don’t find myself enjoying this turn of events.”
Annabel, with her eyes on the suspended girls, felt for her sketchbook; and, drawing it out, began to sketch.
Lady Selma laughed. “Is that all you’re going to do? I think you’ll find your drawings are no match for the staff, Miss Ammett. It’s really very powerful, and if you’re not inclined or able to save the girls, may I suggest that you leave?”
“I’m not going to leave,” said Annabel, busily sketching a strong, invisible floor below the girls. Perhaps it was because she had already been scared out of her wits last night by Melchior’s brush with death, or perhaps she had simply worn out her store of emotions earlier this morning, but now she only felt faintly annoyed.
“Really? You might think better of it, Miss Ammett, when I tell you that if you don’t return to the school and pack your things to leave right now, I shall allow your supporters to fall from where they are. Miss Farrah is a bouncy kind of girl, but do you really think she’ll survive a drop from that height?”
Lady Caroline turned on her with dark, wrathful eyes. “Lady Selma—!”
“This is just ridiculous!” Annabel snapped, dropping the sketchbook as she stood. She wasn’t prepared for a battle of magic—she wasn’t equipped for it, and if it came right down to it, she wasn’t inclined to go through any such farce when she could avoid it altogether. She reversed the staff and erased Lady Selma’s pretend staff in a businesslike manner.
“Don’t!” cried Lady Caro, but the pretend staff was already gone.
The girls above them, their petticoats ruffling in the breeze, dropped an inch and stopped abruptly.
Lady Selma’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do? How dare you erase my staff!”
“I really think the question under your consideration ought to be whether your own side will scrag you, or if you’re content to wait until the rest of us get back down there,” said Isabella, from above. “Those are the questions that spring imme
diately to my mind. Of course, one of life’s beauties is that each of us has a differing point of view, but I fancy the point of view on this is pretty similar all around.”
Delysia, tapping one foot gingerly against the invisible platform on which they all stood, called out, “Miss Ammett, Miss Marriot says please could you possibly get us down now because she didn’t wear her long drawers today and it’s a bit breezy.”
There were stifled giggles from above, and Miss Marriot could still be heard protesting when Annabel retrieved her sketchbook and drew in some slightly more visible stairs by which the stranded girls could descend. She left it to Isabella to encourage the more frightened girls down from their platform, and turned her eyes on the girls behind Lady Selma.
“You,” she said to them. “Are all of you really going to keep standing behind a person like that?”
There was a shifting and a murmuring. Lady Selma, her face pink and stiff with outrage, said, “You’ll regret this, Miss Ammett.”
“I really don’t think so,” said Annabel, her voice hard. “Go back to your room and start packing your things. Don’t bother me again. And if I see you put another girl’s life in danger while you’re still here, I’ll erase your legs until someone can come to lock you up properly.”
Lady Selma’s face went perfectly white. She picked up her skirts and fairly ran across the lawn toward the school, bringing to Annabel’s attention the fact that most of the teachers were spilling from the school, Melchior with them.
“Don’t thank me!” she said to the rescued girls who were crowding around her, safe and excited and chattering, “just make sure the teachers don’t catch up with us!”
“Oh, are we fleeing?” asked Isabella in high amusement, as the girls flocked toward the teachers as one. “It’s all very undignified, but all right!”
They ran for it while the other girls surrounded the teachers, circling back around by the taller hedges until it was clear to slip through the library window to safety.
Once there, Isabella, retying her bustle and rearranging her skirts, said cheerfully, “Well, Nan what shall we do now that we’ve thoroughly routed the Pretender Heir? Shall we go and find Melchior?”
“No,” said Annabel, repressing a shudder. She found that she would still prefer to face the problems brought about by the Old Parrasians. “Why do you think we ran away?”
“I thought you believed in facing your problems immediately,” said Isabella innocently. “How dreadfully disappointing!”
“There are still problems from the Old Parrasians!” protested Annabel. “Alice is still unconscious, and you heard Lord Tremare—!”
“Oh yes,” said Isabella, immediately serious again. “If he wasn’t simply trying to make Lady Selma and the others feel better, they’ve really found a way into Trenthams. No doubt that’s why Alice was hit on the head—she must have caught them at it.”
“Yes. And if Lady Selma is inclined to make trouble, she might try to get a message back to them.”
“Ah.”
Annabel watched the flickering of thoughts as they passed over Isabella’s face, and said, just as Isabella’s face lit up, “Belle, do you suppose that Delysia has finished with—”
“Her explosive?” Isabella’s face sharpened in a combination of enjoyment and consideration. “A very good question! A more important one, I believe, would be if she has finished making it explosive from a safe distance.”
“Exactly,” said Annabel, nodding. “And I think we’re going to need as much as we can get.”
It was well past midnight when Annabel returned to her suite. She had very carefully tried not to think about Melchior while she was helping Delysia to package explosive in small, palm-sized amounts with a pretty ribbon around the top of each package. She tried not to think about him while she planted explosive all over the Trenthams lawn in the chirping darkness, and she tried even harder not to think about him while she helped Isabella scour the stables for any sign of hidden passages through which any Old Parrasians could clandestinely enter the schoolgrounds.
“That’s no good,” said Isabella at last, when they were both wearied of horses and manure. “There’s not a sight of an outside passageway! I’m beginning to doubt that even Alice could have found one. Never mind, Nan; we’ll keep making preparations, just in case. I’ve no objection to becoming smelly and stained in a good cause, but this does seem like a useless endeavour.”
“Yes,” Annabel said listlessly, following her back to the school building. “Completely useless.”
Completely useless to think about Melchior, or that kiss, or anything really. Certainly he had kissed her back, but what use was there thinking about that? He had probably been surprised—he had spent the last few months rebuffing any attempts at closeness from Annabel. Or, dreadful thought, he hadn’t been surprised, but had taken pity on her.
And that was the worst of it, thought Annabel gloomily, as she bathed quietly in the darkness of the suite, conscious of Isabella’s upright figure at her own dressing table. The worst of it was that she had kissed him, and that she had probably wanted to do it for quite some time now. No, the worst of it was that she had probably been in love with him for as long as she could remember—that Melchior, apparently realising that, had begun to push away her affections.
“Useless,” muttered Annabel again, to the shifting water in her wash basin. “Completely useless.”
19
“Well, Nan,” said Isabella, when Annabel opened her eyes the next morning, “I think we can say your engagement with Lady Selma was a complete rout!”
“Good grief,” said Annabel, rubbing her eyes. “Why are you awake? Why are you sitting on my bed?”
“To give you the good news, naturally!”
Annabel sat up and yawned. “She actually left?”
“No one has seen her since your meeting yesterday morning,” said Isabella, nodding. “I really congratulate you, Nan! You should allow yourself to be perturbed more often; it leaves you ruthless to the more mundane things in life—though I believe I would consider kissing a certain someone to be more mundane than a magical battle. That’s all a matter of perspective, however, I dare say.”
“Yes, it is,” Annabel told her balefully. “Never mind being funny about that now, Belle—what do you think the Old Parrasians will do once they find out Lady Selma’s gone?”
“Chase her, I shouldn’t wonder,” Isabella said. “Bring her back and give her more money.”
“No,” said Annabel slowly, “I don’t mean that. I mean—well, she and the bicycle girls were just like Melchior and Raoul. She was on the inside, and the bicycle girls are on the outside. I saw the bicycle girls out there last night, waiting at their spot. I don’t think she told them she was going.”
“Ah,” said Isabella. “That is unfortunate.”
“That’s what I thought.” Annabel, who by now had some reason to know the general unreasonableness and quickly lit nature of Old Parassians, pinched her lips together. “If the bicycle girls don’t get a message to take, and they come back and see that she’s not here—what will they do then?”
“Yes, I see your point,” murmured Isabella. “If she didn’t send a message, they’re bound to think she’s had an accident.”
“Yes, I thought that, too. And they’re the sort of people to attack first and ask questions later. Especially if they think we’re holding her prisoner in here somewhere.”
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing we’d already begun our preparations for incursion,” said Isabella. “Do you think, Nan, that Delysia will have finished with the second lot of explosive by now?”
“I hope so,” said Annabel devoutly. “I’ve got an awful feeling that we’re going to need it. If only Alice could tell us what she knows!”
“That being the case, I really do think we ought to let Melchior know what’s happening. It’s best to make sure we’re all prepared, after all.”
“Ye-es,” Annabel said uncertainly. “Yes
, but can’t it wait a bit longer, Belle?”
“I shouldn’t like to leave it much longer,” Isabella said. “And it’s no good asking me if I’ll tell him, either, for I shan’t.”
“You’re an awful adjunct,” said Annabel, scowling at her. “All right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it! But not until after breakfast! And I won’t go to classes today!”
“Neither will I, if it comes to that,” Isabella said reflectively. “Nan, do you think there’s enough explosive spread around the grounds?”
Annabel groaned. “If I never have to dig another hole—!”
“Very good. I’ve been stockpiling a few useful things, and I’ve passed the word that if anything…unexpected…happens in the next week or so, that everyone should gather in the first floor dining hall. It’s good to be prepared, I find.”
“Are we sending in excuse notes today?”
“Funnily enough, Nan, none of the classrooms are usable.”
“Aren’t they?”
“The doors don’t seem to be able to open,” mused Isabella. “I’m not entirely sure how that happened—”
“Oh, aren’t you.”
“I very carefully outsourced the job to three or four very creative and gleeful juniors with access to glue, screwdrivers, and a motley assortment of other goods,” said Isabella. “As it happens, I’m not aware of the measures they’ve used, simply that none of the classroom doors will open, and that it doesn’t seem to be magical in nature. The Awesome Aunts would usually have announced a cessation of all classes for the day by now, but Miss Cornett doesn’t seem to have seen them this morning, so all the girls are still in their rooms or in the dining hall.”
In surprise, Annabel asked, “Do you think the Awesome Aunts have run for it, too?”
“Goodness knows, but I shouldn’t be surprised! I haven’t seen Lady Caro at all today, either.”
Annabel eyed her in some awe. “How long have you been up this morning?”
“Oh, an hour or two. When I’m motivated I find it difficult to sleep, and I am quite well motivated at the moment, Nan! Isn’t this fun!”
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