by Joshua Khan
That counted for something, didn’t it?
“Hello, Merrick,” said Thorn, leaning through the cell bars. “Why is it that every time we meet you’re in chains?”
Beyond the bars, lying on a pallet, was a man dressed in a purple tunic with gold trim and a pair of boots with excessively turned-up toes. They twitched as the man rolled over and blinked, focusing his eyes on Thorn. “I recognize that voice….”
“It’s me, Thorn.”
“Thorn!” Merrick leaped up and dashed to the bars. He grabbed Thorn’s hands. “I am saved!”
“What happened?” Thorn asked, trying to wriggle his hands free as Merrick kissed them.
“Saved. Saved! I knew the Six wouldn’t abandon me.”
“Yeah, thank the Six, and can I have my hands back?” Thorn finally pulled them free.
“Who is it, Erik?” asked another voice.
Thorn realized there was someone else in the cell. A woman. She unwrapped herself from a blanket and adjusted her hair. “Who is it?”
Merrick clapped his hands. “My dear! This is the young boy I told you about!”
The woman looked at Thorn and didn’t seem impressed. “The one you said abandoned you to slavers?”
“Yes, well…”
“The one whose life you saved when he fell overboard into a shark-infested sea?”
“Yes, well…”
“The one you said had an outlaw for a father and would no doubt come to an unfortunate, violent, but entirely predictable early death?”
“Er…did I say that?” Merrick looked at Thorn and twisted what could have been a smile onto his lips. “Ah, that was an entirely different Thorn. Common name. Terribly common.”
“What are you doing here?” Thorn asked. “Why are you here?”
Merrick took the woman’s hand. “Thorn, allow me to introduce you to my muse, my little viper of joy, my sweet cockroach of delight, Mrs. Esmeralda Merrick. My wife.”
“Your wife? You’re married? That’s…er, strange. And surprising.”
“Very recently married. Still in the honeymoon phase, as it were.” Merrick smiled at his new bride. Thorn had seen happier expressions on zombies. “It’s complicated and involves a game of cards that got out of hand.”
She continued to look down at Thorn, and sniffed. “He smells, Erik.”
“Boys do, my dear.”
Thorn arched an eyebrow. “Erik Merrick?”
“Erik Merrick the Third. Son of Erik Merrick the Second, grandson of Erik Merrick the Original.” He sighed. “A family entirely lacking in imagination.”
“And musical talent?”
“How very droll, young Thorn. You’re growing into a wit. There’ll be no stopping you soon.”
“You still ain’t said why you’re here.”
Merrick puffed up his skinny chest. “Did you see those wagons out in the south courtyard? By Dead Man’s Gate? They’re mine. All of them. You are no longer looking at a mere minstrel, Thorn, but the manager of a troupe of traveling players. Not just manager, but director and star. Soon to be famous throughout the New Kingdoms.”
“And starting in the dungeons of Castle Gloom?”
“A tragic misunderstanding. Most tragic.” He sniffed loudly. “It is an artist’s lot to suffer. It feeds the soul.”
“Thought this might feed the stomach.” Thorn pushed a wrapped-up packet of cold chicken into Merrick’s grateful grasp. “What happened?”
Merrick and his wife tore the packet open, and three chicken legs disappeared in as many seconds. “Not my fault, Thorn,” declared Merrick between mouthfuls. “Not my fault at all. How was I to know the three conjurors I’d hired were such criminals?”
Merrick sat and told Thorn a tale. Between them, they filled in many gaps for each other.
Merrick had recruited the three conjurors a week ago, one being Weaver. The other was a fire-eater from the far south, who called himself Firestarter. The third, an easterner from the same country as Ying. Merrick had thought such an exotic mix would surely add gold to his coffers.
It had been Weaver who’d suggested the journey to Castle Gloom.
What did Merrick know about Weaver? Not much. He’d had his hands full dealing with the jugglers and acrobats and clowns, and the trio of conjurors kept themselves to themselves and caused no trouble.
But Thorn had seen Firestarter use real magic, sorcery. Just to cause a distraction so Weaver could break into the Shadow Library.
Now they’d vanished. The guard at Skeleton Gate had seen them leave but hadn’t stopped them; they’d left before any alarm had been raised. Baron Sable was planning a search party at dawn, but Thorn knew it would be too late by then.
“Is Lady Shadow unharmed?” asked Merrick. “Weaver didn’t hurt her, did he? I heard—”
“She’s fine. She tried to stop him but fainted. By the time she regained consciousness, he was gone.” Baron Sable had told him as much. The baron had acted swiftly once Lily had appeared, imprisoning Merrick’s entire troupe and shutting all the gates out of Gloom.
“What did he steal?” asked Merrick.
“Nothing important.”
That was what Thorn didn’t understand. The Shadow Library contained treasures from the earliest days, yet all Weaver had taken was a box of old letters.
Had Weaver, in a rush, mistaken them for something else?
That was the only thing that made sense, yet, as with the riddle of Pitch Farm, Thorn felt something wasn’t right….
“So here I am, Thorn,” said Merrick morosely. He nibbled the last of the meat off his chicken leg. “Doomed. My life a constant tragedy.”
“But you’ve got a lovely wife.”
“Have I? Where?” He glanced over his shoulder at the woman devouring the remainder of the food. “Oh, her.” He leaned closer to the bars and whispered, “You have to help me, Thorn.”
“Don’t worry. Once Lily knows what happened, I’m sure she’ll let you go. It’s that Weaver—”
Merrick shook his head. “I was not made for matrimony, Thorn.”
“Oh?”
“It was a game of cards. One I was, surprisingly, winning.” He went a sickly yellow. “I should have checked the small print. Before I knew it, I’d laid down the queen of hearts and won myself this band of players. Performers, wagons, livestock, and an amusing parrot. And…er, a wife.”
“You won your wife?”
“Stranger things happen at cards.” He leaned closer, reaching within an inch or two of Thorn’s ear. “Is Tyburn here?”
“Why?”
Merrick bit his lip. “I…need to arrange a divorce.”
“Why would you need an executioner to arrange…oh. That sort of divorce.” Thorn tried to turn his smirk into a disapproving frown. “Shame on you, Merrick.”
“It was never meant to be, Thorn. The troupe is a bunch of misfits who’ve taken to the road because they’re too lazy and incompetent to do real work. They’re the dross of the world, boy. The jugglers hate the acrobats, the dwarves argue with the stilt man, and the only ones who are any good are the conjurors, and they turned out to be the worst of the lot, stealing from Lady Shadow! I’ll be lucky not to find my head up on Lamentation Hill!”
“It can’t be that bad.”
Tears filled Merrick’s eyes. “I was born to be free, Thorn. Free!”
“Good-bye, Merrick. I’ll see what I can do.” Thorn stopped, then added, “About getting you freed, not the…other thing.”
Lily knew it was dawn. She knew it from the smell of freshly baked bread drifting out of the kitchens. She knew it from the sound of footsteps as the maids scurried to light the fires and the stomp of boots as the night guards swapped duty with the day guards. It was dawn and she had a few more hours before she had to do anything.
Yet someone was knocking at her door. And she knew exactly who.
“Go away!” she shouted. The knocking continued.
“Go away!”
“Lily, it’s m
e—Thorn.”
“I don’t want to see you.”
“But we should talk!”
“I’m busy,” Lily answered as she lay on her bed, staring up at the folds of the canopy.
“No, you’re not. Dott says you’re in there sulking.”
“Dott should keep her big mouth shut.”
There was a pause. Was he finally leaving?
“I have something for you,” said Thorn. “A present. A beautiful golden gift. Very rare.”
Lily sighed. “Is it a mango?”
Another pause.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“You’re no fun at all, Lily,” said Thorn. “Now let me in.”
He wasn’t going to leave. And she loved mangoes. “The door’s not locked.”
Thorn entered, a fruit in his hand and a bandage around his head. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Me? I’m not the one who had a building dropped on him.” I should have gone to check on him. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s a bit sore. Dr. Byle said he’d give me a new brain if mine weren’t working properly no more.”
“I’m sure he was joking,” said Lily. Then she remembered Dr. Byle wasn’t like other physicians. “No, he probably wasn’t.”
Thorn peered at Lily critically. “And how about you? All back to normal?”
“This time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lily held up her hands. The skin was smooth and clear, her nails neat and straight. “Father warned me about overextending myself. Magic uses up a lot of energy. It can eat you up, change you.”
Thorn frowned. “I didn’t know that. Is magic worth it? I’ve overheard some of the squires, and some of the other servants. They’re frightened.”
“Of me?”
“In some ways, maybe.” Thorn shrugged. He raised his golden fruit. “You want it?”
“Of course. How many of K’leef’s mangoes do you have left?” Lily asked.
“Five.” Thorn rubbed it against his sleeve. “Trying to make them last till spring.”
After Thorn and Lily had helped K’leef escape and get back to his father, the sultan had been grateful. Thorn had received a crate of mangoes, and Lily had been sent twelve of the finest horses in the world. One might have thought the gifts were a bit uneven, depending on how much you liked mangoes.
Thorn took out a knife and started slicing. “What happened to your flowers?” he asked casually.
Lily’s mother had always decorated with fresh-cut flowers, the only splash of color in the room, and Lily continued the practice. They perfumed her chambers with haunting smells. Ying had brought her rare orchids, and she’d put them in a crystal vase on the table. Two lava blooms had, until yesterday, glowed softly on either side of her bed.
Now they were all withered and dead, their petals discarded on the floor.
“It just…happened.” She wasn’t sure how. After she had regained consciousness last night, she’d been so angry at Weaver that she’d stormed into her room and screamed, and the flowers had died.
“You’ve got to control yourself,” warned Thorn.
“Maybe I don’t want to anymore.”
Thorn’s face hardened. “That’s scary talk, Lily.”
Lily sat up. “Is that what you want, Thorn? For me to be a good little girl? Mind my manners? Do what I’m told and sit quietly and say nothing? Do nothing?” She shoved the dead flowers off the side table. “I can do whatever I want, and you can’t stop me.”
“Of course I can’t. No one can. You’re too powerful.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment.
“If you hadn’t been, I’d be dead under a thousand tons of gatehouse,” he continued.
That did.
“Is that a thank-you?” she asked.
“Yeah. What do you want, a proclamation? I can arrange one, but I need to get the trumpeters first. They’re having breakfast right now.”
Lily sank back down. “It’s all a disaster. Ying left without even saying good-bye, it was that bad. Baron Sable thinks one of the other lords might try and overthrow me for breaking the law. He’s also worried about the other houses sending someone.”
“Someone like who?”
“Assassins. Executioners. People of questionable morality,” said Lily. “Father had three attempted assassinations in his first year as ruler. One from Lumina—but they always sent one. Then another from the Coral king, and one from his grandfather.”
“Iblis’s own grandfather tried to kill him?”
“We’re a complicated family, Thorn.”
“Then why are you leaving your door unlocked? You should have guards out there! C’mon, Lily! Think about it!” He was up and at the door immediately. He locked it, and put the key on the table.
“It’ll be all right as soon as Tyburn gets back. No one will try anything with him around,” Lily said. “And I’ve got you, haven’t I?”
Thorn blushed. “Suppose.” He handed her a slice.
“Delicious,” Lily declared. Maybe Thorn had gotten a fair enough deal. Few in Gehenna had ever tasted mangoes.
“Lying on the bed with your boots on,” said Thorn. “What would Mary say?”
“Are you here to be useful or annoying?”
“I had questions, is all. Like, what happened at the library? Sable says there was a break-in. I thought that was impossible. Anyone who tried it would be dinner for them door demons.”
“Weaver stole the Skeleton Key off me during the feast. Still has it.”
“So what else did he take, besides some letters?”
It had been on Lily’s mind all night. “I don’t know. But the letters are worthless.”
“Maybe they are, maybe they ain’t. Have you asked your dad about them?”
That was the worst of it. “I can’t. Father only exists within the library, and without the key, I can’t get in.” Lily checked her pocket, as if the Skeleton Key might have magicked itself there. It hadn’t. “It’s not just the Shadow Library it opens, but any lock, anywhere. And it’s one of a kind, made of the finger bones of the Scarlet Trickster, the greatest thief who ever lived.”
Thorn nodded. “My grandpa had this great story about him. How he stole Prince Herne’s magical chestnuts and trapped the world in ten years of winter. Then—”
“This is going to be one of those ponderous grandpa tales, isn’t it?” Lily put up a hand. “Please, Thorn, not today.”
“All right, just because you’ve had a tough night. But my grandpa always said—”
“Thorn!”
He laughed and took a second wedge of mango.
Lily felt miserable. “I can’t believe I lost it.”
“You didn’t lose it; the key was stolen. Anyway, you don’t need those books to do magic. You’ll be all right.”
“The books can go burn, Thorn. My father is in there. It’s the only place he can manifest himself,” said Lily, despairing. “I need him.”
“We’ll get the key back,” said Thorn. “This Weaver and his mates can’t get out of Gehenna. Sooner or later we’ll find them.” His gaze roamed over the desk as he put the slice of fruit in his mouth. “What are these?” He walked his fingers over a pile of paper.
“You really are full of questions today, aren’t you? Those are letters from K’leef. A merchant brought them.”
“Are these meant to be words? They look like ripples in the sand.”
“That’s Djinnic, the writing of the Sultanate. Their letters are very different from ours, all swoops and curves. It’s very beautiful. K’leef’s got an elegant hand.”
“There’s more than one type of writing?” Thorn’s face crumpled. “And I suppose you can read this, too. What’s he say?”
“A bit about the war with Lumina. Asks how the horses were coping with our winter,” said Lily. “Asks when I’m coming to see him.” There was more in those letters, but Lily didn’t think Thorn would want to hear about it all.
“Oh. That’s nice.” He pushed the letters away from him.
They were friends, Thorn and K’leef. Thorn had risked his life to save the sultan’s son, but K’leef was everything Thorn wasn’t and, maybe, wished to be. Even friends could be jealous of each other.
Thorn licked the gold juice off his fingers. “Anyway, I hope the talk about last night settles down. It was just one little spell….”
“People don’t understand magic. And what they don’t understand frightens them. They believe the Six Princes themselves laid a curse on women to stop them from attempting sorcery.”
“Yeah, the druids back in Herne’s Forest say the same thing. They say women’s magic is to blame when the crops fail. Or when there’s a drought. Or a flood. They say it upsets nature.”
“Is that what you think?” Lily asked.
“I think I’d be dead if it weren’t for your magic.”
“Lady Shadow?” A fist banged on the door. “It’s me, Sable!”
Thorn jumped up and unlocked the door. Baron Sable burst in, fully armored. He glowered at Thorn. “I thought I told you to leave Lady Shadow to rest?”
Lily put up her hand. “It’s all right, Baron. Thorn was bringing me some breakfast. What is it?”
“It’s Tyburn,” said the baron.
Lily felt the weight rise off her shoulders. “Send him up. We have a lot to discuss before you leave.”
The baron twisted his mustache. “M’lady…”
“What is it?”
The baron gestured at the door. “Old Colm’s back with the squires. They’ve been searching Bone-Tree for the last couple of days. They found…they found…”
Lily grabbed Sable’s arm, suddenly frightened. “Tell me.”
“They found his body,” said Sable. “Tyburn’s dead.”
This can’t be real.
Lily couldn’t accept it. She had to be drifting in some awful dream.
Eight months ago, her world had been torn apart when her parents and brother were murdered. Black despair had planted itself in her heart, weighing her down, bleeding out any happiness she’d ever had. She’d almost given in to it. The temptation to sit silently in the dark forever had been nearly overwhelming.