by Anna Sheehan
Will could see it in her eyes. Ginith was really going to kill her. A burbling spring inside Will sank to her stomach, and she felt ill. All her strength was gone, all her wit was bound, all her fascinating, pretty, useless spells, none of them could save her life. She closed her eyes, awaiting the blow.
Then she heard a scream. A collective scream, as every one of her attackers cried out in alarm. She opened her eyes to a sudden inferno of orange-white fire, so bright it nearly blinded her.
Fire engulfed the hallway, and Will’s captives scattered in panic through the flames. Many backed away, one fell to her knees, crying and trying to smother the flames which surrounded her body. Out of the blinding fire a hand grabbed the back of Will’s dress and hauled her backwards. She shrieked and lashed out, trying to escape this new captor. He cursed and cuffed her lightly, grabbing her roughly by her bound hands. ‘Come on!’
It was only then that she recognized the voice. Reynard? She would have called the name out, but she was gagged. Was it Reynard? What was he doing here? Will let him take her, then, though she was barely able to walk.
Reynard dragged her down a corridor and into an alcove three turns from her pursuers. It was the kind of alcove where courtiers had sinister intrigues and secret assignations, so there was a convenient bench which Reynard threw her ungently into. ‘There,’ Reynard said. He knelt down and bit at the binds which held her wrists shut. To Will’s surprise, they parted under his teeth. ‘You undamaged?’
Will pulled the foul-tasting gag from her mouth the moment her hands were free. She spat and scraped her tongue against her teeth. ‘Yes,’ she said, her mouth pulled in distaste. ‘Well enough, anyway.’
‘Can you walk? That won’t keep them forever, and they’re probably already looking for you.’
Will poked her head out of the alcove, but he had made too many turns, and she saw only darkness up the corridor. A tiny tongue of orange fire was flickering from her hand. ‘The fire doesn’t hurt,’ she said, examining it. ‘You did this?’
‘No, I suspect it arriving exactly at the same time as I called it down was a complete coincidence.’ He looked at her flickering hand. ‘Just shake it off. It sticks to magic.’ He ran his hand down hers and the cold flame died.
Will felt a little shaky. Between nearly being killed and then suddenly being engulfed in an inferno, she supposed that wasn’t overly surprising. ‘H-how did you do that?’
‘It’s only foxfire,’ Reynard said. Will suppressed a smile. Of course Reynard knew foxfire. She’d seen a spell for it in one of her books, but she hadn’t been able to make it work. ‘It’s harmless. My sister does it better than I can – mine always die quickly, and stay small. I didn’t want to deal with repercussions if I actually hurt them.’
‘No, that’s great,’ Will said. ‘For all of me you could have killed them!’
He blinked at her. ‘I could go back,’ he offered. Will wasn’t sure he meant that or not.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d rather stay with you.’ He scoffed at that. ‘I’m just glad to get away from them,’ she clarified.
‘Did they really mean to do what I thought they meant?’
‘To kill me?’ He nodded, and Will laughed shakily. ‘I think some of them did. I think some of the others just meant to teach me a lesson. But if it had continued, I’m pretty sure it would have gotten out of control.’
‘And you didn’t have a single spell that could help?’ The scorn in his voice was clear.
There was nothing to say to that, so Will just raised a hand in defeat.
He frowned. ‘Why were they after you?’
She sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘You think I don’t have time?’
‘I think you’ll probably agree with them.’
Reynard scoffed. ‘If I agree with the majority of anyone who lives in this palace, I want you to hunt me down and hang my skin on the wall.’ He glared at her. ‘Honestly, Princess, how bad can it be?’
Will swallowed. ‘They think I cursed my sister with the Sleep.’
Reynard raised his red eyebrows almost into his hood. ‘Oh,’ he said. He paused for a long moment. ‘Seems a bit unfair. It would seem I was right to stop them, I suppose.’
Will laughed giddily. ‘Aye,’ she said. The burbling spring which had sunk to her stomach came burbling up again, causing strange fish to come swimming through her chest. She caught her breath and tried to laugh again, but no laugh came out. Just a hoarse, shaky wheeze, and her vision seemed grey.
Will only realized she had sagged because Reynard suddenly had to hold her upright. ‘Oh, hells,’ he said. He propped her up and made her rest her weight on him. ‘Is there anywhere you feel safe?’
‘My chambers, I think,’ she said. ‘I was on my way there, when … when ….’
Reynard interrupted, impatient. ‘Aye, and where is it?’
‘This way.’ She pointed.
Reynard draped Will’s arm around his shoulders and barked at her, ‘You will walk!’
Will didn’t know if the words carried some kind of spell or if it was just his irritation, but she found herself walking – shakily. ‘Wh-where are you taking me?’ Her voice shuddered along with her body.
‘Somewhere safe where you can sit down. You’ll need some water and food, if you can get some, and somewhere quiet for at least twenty minutes.’
She felt very ill. Her cheeks were hot and her breath came hard. Her heart was still beating wildly in her chest, and everything had taken on a sharp edge. She could see farther down the corridors, and she could hear everything. A mouse scuttling along the passage made her head jerk toward the sound. ‘I think I’m sick.’
‘You’re not. Not really.’
‘How do you know? What’s going on?’
He frowned. ‘My sister calls it going Chase Crazy. It’s a type of panic you feel only after you’ve gotten to safety. Haven’t you ever been in mortal danger before?’
‘No.’
‘Figures.’ He turned the corner she had indicated and looked down the corridor. ‘Which door is yours?’ he asked. Then he stopped. ‘Oh. I’d wager that one.’ He began leading her toward her door.
It didn’t take much to see what had tipped him off. Some of Will’s things were still strewn in the corridor, and her door hung open. Moreover, it had the word ‘Murderer!’ scrawled on it in an unsteady hand. ‘You gamble well,’ Will said.
‘One of my many gifts,’ he said with a black humour. He shook his head. ‘Don’t you have better security than this?’
‘Not enough guards,’ Will panted. ‘They keep falling asleep. And they don’t want to help me.’ She looked around. There was no sign of her chambermaid, though most of Will’s more valuable things had been heaped in a pile by the foot of her bed. How very considerate of her.
Reynard grunted and pushed Will through the door, then closed it behind them. He still had her arm around his shoulder. It was very strange having her arm around someone who was tall as she was. Particularly as she always thought of Reynard as small, since he hunched so. As valiant as it seemed, he shrugged her off onto the couch without ceremony, as if he wanted her off him as quickly as possible. That seemed doubly certain as he then began brushing off the arm which had held her, as if she had lice.
Fortunately, the maid had lit the fire, so the room was at least warm. The warmth was bringing the rose scent out of carpets, and Will saw Reynard sniff, rubbing at his nose. He looked very irate and uncomfortable, like he wished he was someplace else. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘What do you think?’ he said irritably. ‘I told you I’d come get you when I knew how to find Mistress Cait. I’m here.’
‘Just in time, by the way. Thank you.’
He paused. ‘For what?’
Will swallowed. ‘I’m pretty sure you just saved my life.’
He rubbed his face. ‘Oh, the irony,’ he said with a groan. ‘Aye, I suppose I did. Too bad that doesn’t change a thing.�
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‘It does for me.’
‘Not for me.’ He seemed very angry at her for some reason. He didn’t seem like the man who she had met at the monument. He was more like what he’d been around his sister. She wondered if he’d been putting on an act when she saw him at the monument. She opened her mouth to ask him what she had done to make him hate her so, but he cut her off before she could speak. ‘As soon as you stop shaking we can go.’
‘Go?’
He scowled. ‘To Faerie Caital’s. That is why I’m here, after all.’
‘You really found Mistress Cait?’
‘You think I’d have risked my life to come and see you if I hadn’t, Highness? No thank you, I’m not so fond of your company as all that.’
Will blinked at that. ‘How did you get here?’
He lifted up a rip on his rumpled russet tunic. ‘With some difficulty,’ he said. Will supposed that meant this rip was new. She suddenly noticed stains on his russet jacket. They were almost the same colour as the dye, so she couldn’t be sure, but she thought they were blood. Damned thorns. Before she could mutter sympathy, he went on, ‘And I’m counting on your little stilling spell to get you out.’
‘But you found Mistress Cait. Why can’t she just come here?’
‘She won’t,’ Reynard barked. ‘She said to bring you to her. I said I would, because I’m a blasted fool, and I’ve a promise to keep. So let’s go.’
Will shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean? I see no chains binding you to the walls.’
‘But there are bars made of blood-sucking briars.’
‘So? I made it past them. It isn’t all that difficult.’
Will shook her head. ‘They have a taste for royal flesh. It takes a troop of men armed with swords just to get any of us through the main gates now.’
‘So, get your troop of armed men and let’s go.’
‘I can’t.’
He took a deep breath and spoke slowly and patiently. ‘You see, I’m not sure I follow you, Princess. I spend weeks trudging through a forest, risking my life, I nearly get murdered by your mother’s guards, and when I finally find your precious Mistress Cait you say you won’t go.’
‘I didn’t say won’t. I can’t. They’ve outlawed magic. Even Mistress Cait is almost a criminal now.’
He brushed off his hands. ‘So, you won’t break the law.’ He started walking backwards with contempt on his face. ‘But here you are sitting with a criminal, which must be a great trial to you, so I think I’ll get that worry off your hands.’ He put his hand on the door.
‘I think the law is senseless,’ Will said.
He scoffed. ‘You’d be right.’
‘But I can’t ask my mother to give me the troops to get me out the main gate. Even Mistress Cait is under house arrest.’
‘What? Whatever for?’
‘Because she hasn’t come to help. They’re calling it a mild form of treason. If they see her, they’ll bring her in in chains.’
He nodded. ‘Oh, aye. That’ll surely get her wanting to help you.’
Will threw up her hands, exasperated. ‘I told you I thought it was foolish. I don’t even think this was Mother’s idea. King Lesli has been poking her left and right.’
‘Lesli?’ He froze and then took a few steps toward her. ‘Lesli, Hiedelen Lesli?’
Will nodded.
‘What’s he to do with this?’
‘He’s been here since before the Sleep. He wouldn’t leave. At first he said he wasn’t afraid, and then the quarantine went into effect, so he’s still here.’
‘He didn’t argue the quarantine?’
‘None of his men have succumbed,’ Will told him. ‘I think he thinks he’s immune. He’s not of the Lyndar line, and he’s royal. Royalty could walk through the Sleep.’
‘The old Sleep,’ Reynard said with a sly anger. ‘This is a new one.’
‘I know,’ Will said. ‘But he’s here. Amaranth is … I don’t know what she’s thinking, actually. There were treaties involved with Lavender marrying his son Dani, and now he’s almost up in arms. This injunction on magic was his old law—’
‘I know.’
‘—and now he’s managed to bring it back. Which means that Caital won’t be permitted to help, which means the Sleep will keep getting worse.’
Reynard frowned. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘I think ….’ Will sighed, and then voiced her suspicions. ‘I’m pretty damned sure he’s hoping for another interregnum.’
‘Why?’
‘He could be regent again. Lyndaria would be his.’
‘Hiedelen’s laws.’ The words were a growl. Will wondered what annoyed him so much. He didn’t look much older than Lavender, so the Hiedelen laws couldn’t have affected him. Maybe they’d imprisoned a family member.
‘Well, it’s Lesli’s guards at the gate now. Most of ours are asleep.’
He looked at her. ‘Couldn’t you give them some excuse? Some reason you have to leave?’
Will shook her head. ‘Not tonight. It’s no secret I’m not thrilled about the ceremony tomorrow. They’ll think I’m trying to run away.’
He dismissed that. ‘We could use magic,’ he said.
She shook her head again. ‘It’s illegal.’
His eyes narrowed and he stared down at her. ‘Does that really matter?’
‘No,’ she said, realizing as she said it that she meant it. ‘But I don’t know any spells that’ll help me sneak past the guards and the thorns at the same time. I know a shadow spell, but the gate is always flooded with torches, there are no shadows to hide in. And the moment the thorns smelled my blood they’d be on me like a pack of ravenous hounds.’
‘Doesn’t your stilling spell work?’
‘Not very well. My secret exit is grown over, and now there’s a veritable forest of briars. By the time I’m halfway through the spell is fading, even with the extra power you put on it, and there I am surrounded by man-eating briars. I can’t get all the way through.’
He seemed thoughtful. ‘But you do have a secret exit?’
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘It used to work wonderfully. Took a bit of running before you augmented the spell.’
A wicked grin suddenly brightened his features. Will was taken aback. He was both frightening and very seductive in that moment. He squared his shoulders. ‘I can get you through the hedge,’ he said slyly.
‘You can?’ Will looked him up and down, with his rumpled clothes and his angry freckled face. ‘How?’
He gave a bit of an uncomfortable sigh. ‘Not honestly,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t do it alone, I’ll need help.’
‘I’ll give you any help I can.’
‘Not from you,’ he said, annoyed. ‘Not directly, anyway. I need a tool.’
Will shrugged. ‘All right. What?’
He hesitated. ‘How serious are you about the breaking senseless laws concept?’
Will thought about this. ‘So long as no one, and I mean no one, is getting hurt … pretty serious.’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘I need to see Mistress Cait.’
‘I need to steal something.’
Will raised an eyebrow. She’d always known he was a thief, but for some reason this surprised her. At the same time, she didn’t hesitate. She stood up. ‘What are we going to steal?’
He looked her up and down. ‘You’ll need your shadow spell.’
She didn’t hesitate. She breathed all eight lines of the shadow spell and felt the darkness close around her instantly.
He grinned at her. ‘Well done. Come with me.’
Chapter 13
* * *
It shouldn’t have surprised me that the princess knew the shadow spell. It wasn’t all that difficult a spell, and she did have a veritable library of magic books. She did not protest as I led her down the corridors, until we came to the vaults. Only then, as we gazed upon the barred cell that contained the ro
yal jewels, did she baulk. ‘I’m not stealing the crown.’
I glared at her. ‘I don’t want your fool crown.’ I turned, pointing to the darkly glowing spinning wheel that waited patiently to be loved. ‘I want that.’
‘That?’ The shadow of the princess cuddled up beside me. ‘You want the spinning wheel?’
I nodded. Reverently, I realized.
She looked at the wheel, and then at me, thoughtful. ‘Why?’
‘No concern of yours!’
‘If I’m about to steal it, then yes, it is.’
‘I need it, all right?’
‘You know that’s a national treasure.’
‘It’s wood and pins.’
‘With a history.’
I sighed. ‘As much as I’d like to, I’m not going to take it with me.’ I grunted, annoyed. ‘Someone should, though. It’s not right to let it go to waste.’ It always made me wonder what the wretched law did to the economy of the country. ‘Does it really not trouble the country having to import all your textiles?’
‘We don’t import all our textiles.’
I laughed, looking down at her. ‘Yes, you do.’
‘No,’ she said, as if speaking to a child. ‘We export the flax and fleeces to Hiedelen, and they send us back thread.’
I blinked. ‘Is that really efficient? Who makes money on this? Hiedelen’s carters?’
She frowned. ‘I guess …’
‘Is there a tariff on the importation of the fibre?’
‘Well …’ She stopped, then looked quietly angry. ‘Actually, I think there is. And you’re right. That goes directly to the Hiedelen crown.’
She wasn’t half stupid, this one. ‘Have none of you realized how outdated this ban on spinning wheels is? I guess I could see it when Amaranth’s father was worried about the curse, but Amaranth was already pricked by the time she was sixteen. Why keep the law in force after the fox got into the coop?’
Will was still frowning. ‘Habit, I think. Now that you mention it, I don’t think my grandfather intended the law to still be in force after Mother was asleep. But then, he was asleep, too, very shortly afterwards.’ She shook her head. ‘Actually, I can’t think why the law was never rescinded during the interregnum. According to the histories there was lawlessness for about seven years after the interregnum started, until Prince Alexi sacrificed himself.’