One of the necromancers, the younger looking of the three, said, “What does this have to do with an orange tree?” The big, muscular necromancer standing next to him jabbed him with an elbow.
“I was getting to that,” Holly said. She glanced at Hemlock and Hawthorn. “Right?”
Hawthorn drew himself up to his full height. “Of course everyone knows that orange trees are needed to get rid of cellar gnomes once they get dug in. They don’t like the fruity aroma.”
“Or the tartness,” Hemlock said.
“Yes,” said Hawthorn, “the tartness is most vile to those of a subterranean disposition. If you’re going to rid yourself of this infestation, I dare say you’ll have need of an entire orchard of orange trees.”
“Oh my,” the young necromancer breathed. The muscular one shoved him.
“Enough of this,” said the necromancer that had been in the room when Holly and the others had walked in. He seemed to be in charge. “How stupid do you think we are to believe such nonsense?”
“He believes it,” Holly said, pointing at the younger necromancer. His cheeks flared bright red, and he was unable to meet the other necromancers’ gazes.
“You’d better believe it too,” Hawthorn said. “We’re not lying about the cellar gnome.”
“I said enough!” the lead necromancer said. “You will explain yourselves. Immediately.”
“But we are explaining ourselves,” Holly said.
“You should really strive to listen when others speak,” Hawthorn said.
The necromancer’s face reddened almost as much as his younger companion. Holly tried to think of something to get them out of trouble. It was three against three. Maybe she and the brothers could club them over the head and steal their robes. Then maybe they could move around the Shrine without any problems. It was the sort of plan that was more likely to fail spectacularly than not, but even those dismal odds seemed more promising than their current situation.
As Holly tried to figure out how to convey to Hemlock and Hawthorn that they should all be clubbing the necromancers over the head, Tum came strolling by in the hallway.
He stopped behind the necromancers’ legs. “What’s all this then?” He had a portion of a great tapestry wound around him like a blanket, leaving the bulk of the fabric to drag along the floor behind him.
The necromancers turned. The younger one cried out in surprise.
“Great severed stars!” the lead necromancer said. “Is that our heraldry you’re wearing?”
Tum glanced at the tapestry he had swaddled himself in. “Heraldry? Wouldn’t know anything about that. But it is some nice and snug fabric, let me tell you. Thick and sturdy.”
“You will unwind it from your person at once!”
Tum screwed up his face. “Unwind it from my what?”
“Give it to me,” the necromancer said as he reached down towards Tum.
“Gotta go!” Tum said and ran down the hallway. The muscular necromancer grabbed hold of the tapestry as it swished along the stone floor behind Tum and stopped him short. Tum gave the fabric a quick tug back, realized it was a battle he was about to lose, then relinquished his prize and disappeared from sight.
The necromancer-in-charge took the tapestry from his colleague and petted it lovingly as he frowned at Holly and the others as if they had just inflicted the most grievous injury upon a loved one.
“In case you didn’t realize,” Hawthorn said, “that was a cellar gnome.”
Holly couldn’t help but grin. “And he’s just getting started.”
The lead necromancer took a moment longer to glare at them. Then he handed the tapestry to the younger necromancer behind him.
“Get that to the laundress. Keeper only knows what’s been done to it.” He turned to Holly and the others and thrust a finger at them. “You stay here.” He and the other necromancers backed out of the room, and he slammed the door shut. There was a scratching sound near the knob, then a slight click.
Holly tested the door once the necromancers’ footfalls had faded, but it was locked. “Well, now what?”
“Now I regret never having taken up Weaving magic,” Hemlock said.
“Please,” Hawthorn said. “Things are hardly as desperate as that.”
Hemlock folded his arms and fixed his brother in a steady gaze. “How do you figure?”
“That we are standing here having this conversation proves that things aren’t so dire.”
“Somehow the notion of your being unable to speak doesn’t strike me as a dire situation.”
“Stop bickering, you two,” Holly said. “Honestly, you’re worse than Hazel and me.”
Hemlock shuffled his feet. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“You should be,” Hawthorn said. “Weaving magic. I mean, really.”
Holly pinched him, and he cried out.
“You knock it off and start looking for a way to get us out of here,” she said.
Hawthorn lifted his chin and smoothed his hair. Then with an air suggesting it had been his intention all along, he walked over to the sofa and started poking around the cushions.
Holly tested the door again. Still locked. Not that she had expected a different result, but it would have been nice. She reached into her pocket and brushed her fingers against Chester’s soft fur. She could send him out scouting; maybe he’d find something that could help them. Then again, what if he couldn’t? Sending Chester out gathering in Zinnia’s house was one thing, letting him loose in a necromancer lair was quite another.
Hemlock said, “You could always burn down the door.”
Holly nodded without looking at him. “It’s so unpredictable though, fire. Not that I’d care if we burned the place down. But… what if Hazel’s in here somewhere? What if we couldn’t find her before that happened?”
“Most of the building is stone, so I doubt that’d happen.”
“There’s the tapestries, though, and all the furniture. That’ll go up fast. And then all the smoke it’ll create. How are we supposed to find Hazel in a smoky building?” She rubbed her forehead and then took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’ll do it if I have to. But I’d rather we find a different way first.” She glanced over at Hawthorn rummaging around the sofa. “How’s it going for you, Hawthorn?”
“Disgustingly abysmal, thank you for asking. You’d think these necromancers would animate a corpse or two to do the cleaning for them. But so far I’ve found a petrified biscuit, two copper pennies, and a note with sloppy handwriting making a dodgy attempt at poetry.” He shivered as if spiders crawled up his spine. Then he looked at Holly with a pleading expression. “Don’t make me go back.”
Hemlock raised an eyebrow at her and nodded towards the fire burning in the hearth. Maybe he was right. Maybe burning the place down was their only option.
Just as Holly was about to pull fire from the hearth and hurl it at the door, a faint scratching sound came. Then the doorknob turned, the door swung open, and Tum stood on the other side, grinning.
“Well, well,” he said as he rocked on his heels. “Look who’s needing old Tum now.”
“How’d you open the door?” Holly said.
Tum tossed up a key and caught it again. “Did you know that one key will open up all the doors in this place? Mighty handy, that. And they got keys all over. This one I got from a desk drawer that I convinced to open with a fire poker.” He peered around. “You got a fire poker here?”
“I think so…,” Holly said, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need a poker. We need to find Hazel.” She leaned out the door as Tum walked inside. The corridor was empty.
“What happened to the necromancers that were after you, Tum?”
Tum scampered over to the sofa and sniffed the stale biscuit Hawthorn had dropped. “What’s that?”
“The necromancers. Where did they go?”
Tum waved a hand towards the door as he continued to scrutinize the biscuit. “They’re a few corners back. Di
dn’t see me dash under a table and into the linen closet. Was looking for the cellar, but I don’t think they got a cellar here.” He blinked at Holly. “What kind of people don’t got a cellar?” He nibbled on the biscuit and winced.
“Did you see Hazel at all?”
Tum tossed the biscuit on the ground and started to root around the couch cushions. “Miss Hazel? No, no. Miss Hazel’s not here.” He found a penny and pocketed it.
“What? How do you know she’s not here?”
“Heard one of the necromancers talking while hiding in the linen closet. Said something about a witch that had gone to some ocean. Figured it must’ve been Miss Hazel, right?”
It did sound like Hazel. “We need to check here anyway, just to be sure. And if she’s not here, well, we need to find out how to get to this ocean.”
“Whatever we’re doing,” Hawthorn said as he watched in horror as Tum rooted around the couch cushions, “we’d better do it quickly before the black-robed brutes return.”
Holly nodded. “All right, let’s go.” Then an idea came to her. She turned to Tum. “Can you take us to the linen closet first?”
They all snuck down the dim hallway as they trailed after Tum. The gnome darted around corners and through chamber doors, giving no perceivable concern that they might run into necromancers who would be rather displeased to find them lurking where they didn’t belong.
Holly got distracted by a shadow further down the hall when Tum darted around a corner and disappeared. She rounded the corner after him, but he was gone.
Hawthorn nudged her and nodded towards a door that had been left ajar. She snuck towards it, inched it open a touch more, revealing a spacious closet full of blankets and linen.
“This closet is bigger than my room at home,” she said breathlessly.
“You and your sister should really find better living arrangements,” Hawthorn said. “This closet isn’t that remarkable.”
Holly ignored him. It looked remarkable to her. All these towels and blankets, curtains, napkins, and… yes, there they were. Spare robes. Grinning, she grabbed an armful from the shelves and dumped them on the floor before she began sifting through them.
“What are you doing?” Hawthorn said.
She held up a robe, looked Hawthorn up and down a few times, then tossed the robe to him. “Give that one a go.”
“This… this sack?” Hawthorn said, dropping the robe back onto the floor. “You’ve clearly lost your mind.”
“You don’t put that on, I’m going to lose it on you.” She tossed a robe to Hemlock. He caught it and started unbuttoning his jacket to change. She sifted through the pile a bit more and found one that looked likely to fit her even though it was crudely made. These necromancers really needed better seamstresses.
When he saw the others ignoring him, Hawthorn reduced his protests to incoherent mutterings as he and Hemlock removed their jackets and pulled on the robes over their shirts and trousers.
Holly’s dress was too full in the skirts to wear the robe over it, so she shooed the men out, took off her dress, and pulled the robe over her shift. She then took their discarded clothes and hid them behind stacks of towels and bedsheets.
When she walked out, the two men flanking the door in their black robes gave her a fright until she realized it was Hemlock and Hawthorn. She scrunched up her nose as she eyed the elder brother.
“What’s that?” she said, pointing at a crudely fashioned white rosette pinned near Hawthorn’s collar. “Is that lace? Where did you get lace?”
“He tore it off one of his handkerchiefs,” Hemlock said.
“It’s completely ruined now, I’ll have you know. But it’s worth it if it keeps me from looking like a rejected night soil shoveler, like the rest of this…”—he waggled his fingers towards the empty hallway—“necromantic rabble.”
“I don’t look like a night soiler!” Holly said as she looked down at herself. “Do I?”
“I’m pretty sure night soilers don’t wear robes,” Hemlock said. “It’s far too impractical. And messy.”
“Whatever they look like,” Hawthorn said, “I will not be counted among them, you can be assured of that.”
Holly felt a pang of envy at Hawthorn’s rumpled rosette. Why did he always look so much better than her? It wasn’t fair. She was about to ask him if he had any leftover lace when she remembered why they were there.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see for ourselves if Hazel’s really here or not.” She headed down the hallway. Hemlock and Hawthorn trailed after her. Tum was, of course, still gone. But Holly couldn’t be bothered about that; she needed to focus on finding her sister.
“Perhaps we should split up,” Hawthorn said. “We’ll cover more ground.”
“No,” Holly said. “Nobody’s leaving anybody behind. We stay together.”
They carefully navigated down the hallway, briefly checking rooms and chambers but found them all empty.
“This is entirely too convenient,” Hawthorn said. “Where is everyone?”
“Perhaps they’ve all gone out,” Holly said. “Do necromancers have picnics?”
“Or maybe they’ve all gone wherever Hazel’s gone,” Hemlock said.
Holly frowned. She didn’t much like the sound of that. They continued on.
The Shrine had confusing, winding corridors. They didn’t seem to have an end, and each hallway looked just like the next. Even the rooms they checked were starting to look the same.
“Are we going in circles?” Holly said. “I can’t tell.”
“This is ridiculous,” Hawthorn muttered. “We’re wasting time.” He tried to cast a spell, but nothing happened.
Hemlock and Hawthorn both sucked in sharp breaths.
“What happened?” Holly said. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Hawthorn said. “I can’t do magic here.”
“They must have wards in place,” Hemlock said.
“We need to leave.”
“Not without Hazel,” Holly said.
“She’s not here,” Hawthorn said.
“You don’t know that. Not for certain.”
“We’ve checked everywhere. She’s not here. Hemlock, tell her.”
But before Hemlock could say anything, the blue flames in the sconces on the walls flickered and died, plunging the corridor in darkness. The air turned sharp and cold, as if they stood outside in the midst of winter.
“What’s happening?” Holly whispered, but Hemlock and Hawthorn didn’t reply.
The cold air coalesced around her, taking a shape she couldn’t see—but she could feel it. It passed her right arm, making her skin tingle from the chill. Then it came and stood in front of her. Holly’s eyes watered in the stinging, cold air. She reached out, and her hand passed through a cold so intense it almost felt like it had burned her. She yanked her hand away and stumbled back.
But the coldness was also behind her and then to her sides. It surrounded her, and Holly’s heart hammered so hard it was all she could hear.
“Hawthorn?” she said, but there still was no reply.
Then a warm breeze fluttered by. It brushed against her face, smelling like sweet grass and sun-soaked pine. It made her relax, just for a moment, so that when the coldness consumed her, she didn’t have time to scream.
Hazel rushed down labyrinthine stone corridors as she fled from her father and the summoned aspect of her mother. She had no idea where she was going; she just needed to get away. A moment to breathe.
She should have never come here. She had known, deep down, that her father would refuse to release her mother. And yet Hazel had never come up with a plan on how she would stop him. That particular detail had always seemed so distant, caught in a hazy, nebulous future that had never felt pressing or urgent. But now that moment was here, and Hazel had no idea what to do.
She turned down one stone hallway and onto an identical one. She studied the doors, looking for a detail that would suggest she had passed t
his way with Verrin, but there was nothing. Eager to get out of the monotonous passageways, Hazel tested the doors until she found one unlocked. She passed through it and into a room with roughly hewn walls. The room was sparsely furnished though a fire blazed in the hearth. She wondered if there were servants who did nothing but go from room to room, lighting fires and tending to them throughout the day. If there were, why didn’t she see any of them?
A painting hung over the mantle. At first it looked entirely black, but the longer Hazel studied it, the more details she was able to make out. Pale sloping hills stood out against a starless night sky. At the base of a hill stood a little cottage with a single thread of smoke curling from the low chimney. In front of the cottage stood a man or… something. It kind of looked like a rabbit, but it was tall like a man and it held a scythe so that the long, curving blade arced over its head.
“Those paintings have been known to drive men mad,” came a man’s voice from behind her. “So I wouldn’t look at it too long.”
Hazel turned and found Verrin standing in the doorway. She turned back around. “I’m not sure why you’d care whether I go mad or not.”
“Someone should care since you don’t seem to.”
“Don’t pretend to know my mind.”
He came and stood next to her, his gaze on the painting. “Some say the picture is different for each person that looks at it. Others say that the picture will change, depending on the mood of the viewer.”
“I think someone thought overly much of himself and used too much black paint to make the picture seem more mysterious than it really is.”
Verrin smiled. “A distinct possibility.” He glanced at Hazel. “He can help you, you know.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Hazel scoffed. “The only help I want from him is for him to undo his own mistake.”
“And that is your mistake. Ash is brilliant. He’s almost entirely self-taught. That alone is quite remarkable and nearly unheard of. He has enriched our Order beyond description. He could do the same for you, if you’d let him.”
“Now I know why he favors you so much,” she muttered.
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