Pale as she was, Isabella grinned. “What do I need to do?”
“Get behind me,” said Annabel. “Actually, all of you need to get behind me.”
“Nan, what did I tell you about hiding?”
“Not you, then,” Annabel said, smiling faintly. “But everybody else.”
Lady Caroline’s voice was sharp. “Are we retreating?”
“No,” said Annabel, using Melchior’s shoulder to climb to her feet. “The Castle has come back. Now, we are going to advance.”
Melchior didn’t tell her, as she had half expected, that it was nonsense. Nor did he mention the fact that she didn’t have any kind of magic—nor the fact that she couldn’t sense any kind of magic with that handicap.
Instead, he asked, “How do you know?”
“I don’t,” Annabel said. “The staff does. Oh, that felt odd!”
“Ah,” said Melchior, closing his eyes briefly. She saw his lips curving, and when he opened his eyes, there was a distinct glitter to them. “If I’m not mistaken, Nan, the Castle knows you’re in danger. It’s offering its own strength to shore up the staff.”
“I suppose that explains why it took so long for the castle to come back when we were in it three years ago,” Annabel said, laughing a little. “Or are in it, if it comes to that! I suppose Peter and I and you are all still in there right now. How ridiculous!”
Gregor heard her laugh, and a laugh passed across his own lips, ghostlike and puzzled.
“I knew I should have killed you,” he said. He was backing away as he spoke, and Annabel saw in astonishment that he would abandon the Old Parrasian wizards just as he had abandoned his fellow-attackers in the village. He would abandon them and return again later to cause what trouble he could. “The little one in the stables was too easy to be much fun—tell her I’ll be back to look after her when this ends. Then you and I can have a bit of fun, too.”
He raised one hand in farewell, half turning from both sides and toward the stables.
“Delysia,” said Isabella, her eyes glittering in a way that Annabel had never seen before, “where did you put that explosive garden gargoyle?”
“It’s right next to him,” Delysia said. “Only, Belle, it’s a bit unstable because—ow!”
The gargoyle, as if too impatient to wait for her words, quivered for half a breath. And as Delysia said ow!, her plump finger pressed against the trigger of an immediacy fuse by Isabella’s long, white one, it exploded.
To Annabel’s dazed eyes, a man and a gargoyle stood side by side for the space of another half breath. Then there was a roaring and a cloud of red gravel, red grass and red dirt, and a shock of air that rocked the remaining Old Parrasian wizards off their feet. Even the barrier erected by Melchior and Raoul trembled.
Annabel felt the earth move and be still once again, held in place by Melchior’s arm around her shoulders. He asked, smiling faintly, “Are you well, Nan?”
“Yes,” she said. “But don’t let go of the protection; I’m going to be busy for a little while.”
As the wizards scrambled to their feet again, Isabella, so pale that Annabel could have counted every freckle on her face, asked, “Is he dead?”
“Very, very dead,” said Lady Caro’s blunt voice. “Delysia, what did you put in that gargoyle?”
“I didn’t put anything in it,” Delysia said, her face plump and trembly with tears. “The whole thing was pure explosive.”
Lady Caro eyed the crater in the lawn with a fascinated eye, then turned that eye on Isabella. “Now, that’s effective! Did you mean to kill him?”
“No,” said Isabella, in a hollow voice. “I didn’t know it would be so powerful. I was just furious and I thought he’d lose a leg or an arm—something to stop him coming after Alice again.”
“He won’t come after Alice again,” agreed Lady Caro, with a last, lingering look at that crater.
“Good,” said Annabel. Isabella’s eyes came up to meet hers, and dropped to the pencil staff that was in between Annabel’s fingers, eraser foremost. Annabel didn’t remember flipping it, but she was aware of the thought that was still uppermost in her mind: If not for that explosion, she would have erased Gregor into oblivion where he stood, one foot poised to escape and make more deadly mischief while Annabel was kept busy with the other Old Parrasians.
Isabella swallowed, and said, “We’ll still need to look after the others, Nan.”
“Yes,” said Annabel, and she reversed the pencil staff one last time. This time, with the power of the castle behind her, she didn’t even need to draw. She simply pointed the pencil at each wizard in turn and said, “You’re stone.”
The Old Parrasian wizards vacillated before the staff, white-faced and uncertain whether to fight or run, and Annabel turned them into gargoyles without remorse and without hesitation, one by one. They would run any second now; their ranks were already diminishing with terrifying speed, and the sound of the rabble that had been rummaging around the first floor of the school building was already gone. Even the girls had stopped throwing things from the windows.
From an almost overwhelming force of magic and numbers, the old Parrasian wizards had shrunk until they were a small, outnumbered group surrounded by their newly ossified memebers.
Lady Caro, watching with a professional sort of interest, said, “I suppose we should replenish the gargoyles, since we blew one up. That one’s bit ugly, though, isn’t it? What will people think, if they come to Trenthams and see that sort of gargoyle sitting around the grounds?”
“They’re not going to stay here,” Annabel said. The lead wizard caught her eye; wavered.
He turned and ran for the stables, and Annabel stabbed the staff at him. The rest of the wizards scattered, leaving Annabel to hastily capture them as they began to flee, littering the carriageway with an uneven line of gargoyles.
Lady Caro sighed. “That’s boring. Your highness, I don’t suppose you know how we’re going to get the other girls back from the upper floors safely?”
“Don’t bother her while she’s capturing Old Parrasians,” Isabella said. “It’s impolite, not to mention foolhardy.”
Lady Caro shrugged and went to help the footman who had fainted. Annabel, turning the last Old Parrasian wizard into an immoveable gargoyle, said, “That ought to hold them in place until Mr. Pennicott gets here, oughtn’t it?”
“I should think so!” Isabella said, her voice awestruck and a little closer to its usual exuberant tones.
“I really do feel as though I spend great deal of my life seeing wizards turned into different forms,” sighed Melchior. His hazel eyes were glinting with a great deal of sarcastic humour. “I suppose at least this time I can be thankful I’m not among them.”
“And at least this time they can’t run away,” pointed out Annabel. “Onepiece is lovely, and very clever, but I can’t help feeling that he was thinking like a dog instead of a boy when he turned those Council Wizards into cats.”
“A little gratitude, if you please, Nan!” said Melchior. “If Onepiece hadn’t done what he did, you and I would never have met!”
“Good grief, yes!” said Annabel, appalled. “I might have ended up marrying Peter!”
“Remind me to bring a present to Onepiece next time we see Poly and Luck,” Melchior said. “I have certainly not been thankful enough. Nan, I hope you’re satisfied with your bloodless and stony victory—”
“—not quite bloodless—” remarked Lady Caro’s voice from somewhere behind them.
“—because I very much fear that our protective shell is about to collapse.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Annabel. “You can let it go now. They’re all stone. All the ones I could catch, anyway. I think some of them might have gotten away into the tunnels.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Melchior said, and there was a note of decidedly dark amusement to his voice. “I know where the tunnels are now; and if there’s anything I know, it’s how to stop a tunnel going where it’s me
ant to go. They’ll be safe there until Mr. Pennicott arrives.”
“Safe?” echoed Annabel, remembering the dark and perilous feeling of walking through one of Melchior’s tunnels without any human companionship.
Melchior, even more grimly, said, “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said safe. At any rate, they won’t be able to leave without ridding themselves of a great many clinging roots and quite a lot of affectionate dirt. I imagine they’ll be quite happy to see Mr. Pennicott when he arrives.”
“I suppose it’s no use trying to finish out the year, now,” Annabel said glumly to Melchior and Isabella somewhat later, when they were surveying the school grounds below from the rooftop. She felt that it would have been nice to see what Trenthams could be like under normal circumstances—or at least, as normal as a queen heir attending finishing school could find it.
“I don’t think anybody is going to finish out the year, if it comes to that,” said Melchior. He was almost offensively cheerful—had been so since they had rescued all of the girls from the Sanatorium and sent most of them home. Annabel wasn’t sure if he was cheerful because Mr. Pennicott was taking charge of the gargoyle-shaped wizards below in his usual fussy, precise way, or if he was glad that Raoul had taken Dannick back to the village. Since she now knew exactly what it was about Dannick that Melchior found so offensive, Annabel hadn’t been able to bring herself to do more than wave the guards off without being too friendly about it.
Melchior, looking more relaxed than she had seen him in some time, stretched in a very Blackfoot sort of way and added, “Half the school is missing because you erased bits of it, and the other half is peppered with explosive that no one has found yet.”
“Not to mention that the Awesome Aunts and a good half of the school staff and servants have gone missing,” agreed Isabella. “They’ll have to shut the place down just to see to repairs, and someone will have to be found to take over as principal.”
“That’s easy,” Annabel said. “Miss Cornett can do it. Until Lady Caro graduates, anyway. Then they can look after it together.”
Isabella giggled. “I’m really not sure if Lady Caro will be pleased or appalled! The explosive, now, that will be found in time—”
“I’m certain it will!” Melchior said, somewhat grimly.
“And I’ll draw back the bits I erased, too,” Annabel said, a little more hopefully. “I remember what bits I erased, and even if I didn’t, the staff would. And Jess locked Lady Selma’s maid in her room before all of this began, so—”
Melchior raised a brow at her. “It’s no use trying to stay, Nan. Not now that everyone has seen Rorkin’s staff—not to mention seeing you use it—and now that the castle is back. There are already messages shooting across the country in the message tubes.”
“It is a rather large castle,” agreed Isabella. “Nan, I really think you need to reconsider your marriage with Melchior. If you leave it until after you’re crowned, or after you finish the year at Trenthams, you’ll never manage the time—and if it comes to that, there will probably be quite a few objections—”
“I beg your pardon?” Melchior turned a cold eye on her.
“It’s no use looking at me like that,” Isabella said firmly. “You might be old family Parrasian and rich to boot, but you really can’t expect no one to object when you announce you’ll marry the queen heir! It’s expecting too much.”
“Good grief, yes,” agreed Annabel. “They’ll send letters to the newspapers and make postings in the news stands. Should the queen heir of New Civet be contemplating marriage with a former cat?”
Isabella giggled, a small splutter of noise.
“We’ve established,” said Melchior, tugging Annabel closer by the slightly grubby skirt of her dress, “that I am no longer a cat. Shall we discuss it further?”
“What I mean to say by that,” continued Isabella, as if neither of them had interrupted, “is that you should probably consider getting married before the fuss starts. Before, if it comes to that, your younger selves disappear from the castle and it becomes open to the general populace once again.”
“Firebrand, I’ve misjudged you!” said Melchior. He tugged once more at Annabel’s skirt seam, and Annabel sat down beside him on the view seat. “Certainly we should be married first!”
“Besides, Melchior is a useful kind of a person,” Isabella continued. “And since I’m sure that people will still be trying to kill you up until and after you’re crowned, it’s good to have a useful person with you all the time.”
“Firebrand, have you ever heard the phrase To leave the Happening while there’s still punch in the bowl? I suggest that you adhere to the spirit of it.”
Isabella beamed at him. “I’ve never adhered to any such spirit in the course of my life. What an odd suggestion!”
“Very well,” said Melchior, “then here’s another for you, Firebrand—make yourself scarce! There is only one seat on this rooftop, and there is certainly no room for you on it.”
“How very rude!” Isabella said cheerfully. “I suppose you want to go back to kissing Nan. Don’t you think it’s a bit too busy for things like that?”
“Absolutely not. We’ve hit a lull, which is exactly the time for kissing.”
Ignoring that, Isabella asked Annabel, “Shall you pursue Lady Selma, Nan?”
“Her, and all the others who escaped,” Annabel said, rather grimly. “The bicycle girls, too, if I can get them. I won’t have people like that running around in New Civet. They’ll just make trouble.”
“Very good!” said Isabella approvingly, and wafted away toward the stairwell. “I shall assist Mr. Pennicott in securing this end of the secret tunnel, in that case.”
Melchior seemed to sigh. “I’ll add that to the list of things that need to be fixed before the school can reopen.”
“I don’t know why you’re looking at me when you say that,” said Annabel, as Isabella slipped back down the stairs. “That bit wasn’t my fault, after all. I only erased a few parts of the school, and that was only to stop the Old Parrasians taking over.”
Melchior’s lips curled. “A little sensitive, are we, Nan?”
“Yes,” said Annabel, putting her nose in the air. “And it’s no good kissing me, either. I’m annoyed.”
“Is it not?” asked Melchior, kissing her below the ear. “What a shame! I feel like I ought to put forward my best efforts, in that case.”
Certainly by the time Isabella came flitting briefly back up to inform them that there was some species of dinner available in the ruined dining hall, Annabel wasn’t feeling particularly annoyed. She wasn’t sure if that was from Melchior’s really undeniable pleasantness as a kisser, or because it was simply so nice to sit down for a little while without anyone trying to kill her.
At any rate, she was pleased to stroll down the hallway with him, avoiding the blunderbuss-made holes in the floor and the fallen plaster, and not pick any fights. Even when one of Mr. Pennicott’s men met them partway through the hall and said rather delicately, “Mr. Pennicott hopes he can speak to you shortly regarding a certain, er acquaintance and that acquaintance’s disappearance, with regards to today’s events,” Annabel only blinked at him and smiled vaguely. She had always been annoyed when Luck smiled vaguely at her, and now she felt that she understood the urge.
“You could be wondering, Nan,” said Melchior, when he had sent off the man, “exactly when I mean to tell you about—”
“I’m not.”
Melchior’s hazel eyes glowed with instant amusement, his lips curving. “Is that so?”
“And you can stop being mysterious about it, too,” Annabel told him. “Peter has been playing with time, hasn’t he? Ever since he found out it’s definitely possible, he’s been wanting to do experiments with his tickerboxes. I suppose something went wrong.”
“Wrong, or right,” said Melchior, shrugging. “I’m never sure when it comes to Rorkin and Peter.”
“And I suppose he’s the one who h
as been leaving clues in books,” Annabel said, unsurprised. “It sounds just like what he would do. Things about Poly, and me, and the castle—oh, and that top hat of yours—”
Melchior laughed aloud. “I yield, Nan; I yield! Do try to leave me with some shreds of mysteriousness, won’t you?”
“No,” Annabel said. “I’ve had enough of mysteriousness. I’m going to make it a royal edict when I’m crowned. No More Mysteriousness. I won’t let it slide for you, either.”
“Won’t you?” murmured Melchior, lifting her over a missing floorboard. He swung her lightly back to the floor, and curled close in against the wall with one arm around her waist. “Then shall I have to persuade you?”
“Yes,” said Annabel, finding Melchior’s coat collar a pleasant way to cling to him. “Try. But I think you ought to know that I’ll need to be persuaded again and again.”
The End
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Staff & Crown Page 35