Entwined (21 page)

Well…yes. He
did
know everything. Much more than her, at least, when it came to magic. A glimmer of hope lit inside her. Perhaps finding the sugar teeth would help her solve things after all. Azalea swallowed.

“Sir,” she said, closing the cabinet door and pressing her back against it. The knobbly handle pressed into her corset. Her hands still trembled. “Um. Do you remember…how the sugar teeth were magic?”

The King looked up.

“Were?” he said.

 

In their room, the King nudged the sugar teeth. They fell to their side, clinking against the polished tabletop. The girls crowded about them, biting their lips.

“They look poorly,” he said. He picked them up and examined them, drawing his thumb across the poking-out teeth. He made to bend them, but stopped when he
saw the metal would only snap if he did. He set them down. “What happened to them? Who bent them like this?”

A cold tingling feeling washed over Azalea, prickling and giving her goose bumps. She coughed and tried to shake it away. Everyone must have felt it, for they all shifted on their poufs and beds, rubbing their fingers and cringing. Eve tugged on the ends of her dark hair. The oath…

“Come to think of it,” said the King, “where is the rest of the magic tea set? I haven't seen it for some time.”

The girls cast nervous looks at one another, but Clover spoke up.

“It's all right,” she said, sitting on the edge of her bed and stroking Lily's dark curls. Lily lay asleep on her lap. “It's my fault. I'll tell him.”

Clover told the story of how, in a foul temper, she had bashed up the set and thrown it into the stream. She told it all with her chin up, her beautiful face pale—but, surprisingly, without a stutter. The King's eyebrows knitted at first, then rose, until he was just staring at her with his mouth slightly open. Azalea guessed that he would have been cross if any of the rest of them had done such a thing. But with honey-sweet Clover, the King just gaped.

“Your mother often thought,” he said slowly, when
she had finished, “that one day you would do something truly surprising. I certainly did not expect this.”

Bramble flashed a grin at Azalea.

“What now, sir?” said Flora.

“What now?” The King turned his attention to the quaking sugar teeth. “Well. I suppose we ought to unmagic them.”

He left the room. Some minutes later, he arrived again and shut the door behind him. In his stiff hand, he held the old, mottled silver sword. He gazed at the sugar teeth, lost in thought.

“Unmagic,” said Azalea, turning the odd word in her mouth. “You'll take the magic from it?”

“Just so.”

The girls watched, rapt, as he gently and solemnly lowered the sword to the sugar teeth. He touched the silver to silver with a soft
clink
.

As quick and quiet as a snuffed candle, the sugar teeth…lost their luster. They looked the same, but…Azalea couldn't describe it. No longer shuddering, the teeth somehow seemed at
peace
. Everyone exhaled silently.

“Well,” said the King. He picked up the teeth and slipped them into his waistcoat pocket, as delicately as a lifeless sparrow to be buried. He turned to the girls.

“What did your mother do?” he said.

“Sir?”

“When it was time for bed,” said the King. “Tell me.”

The girls exchanged nervous glances. He was talking about Mother.

“She used to help the girls with their prayers,” said Azalea, hesitant. “And—sometimes she would read stories.”

The King set the sword on the table, next to the vase.

“Very well,” he said as the girls whispered to one another. “I will read you a story.”

The whispering stopped.

Jessamine slid from her bed to the ground, the untied purple ribbons of her slippers trailing, and dug a storybook out from Eve's trunk. She held it out to the King in her tiny four-year-old hands, her crystal blue eyes hopeful.

The King sat on the rug and leaned against Delphinium and Eve's bed, and the younger girls shyly sat next to him, peering at the pictures. Clover smiled, her right dimple showing, and hugged Lily to her chest while Bramble, sitting on her pouf, cast a wry, surprised grin at Azalea.

“‘In a certain country…'” he began, his voice stiff with the words.

He read the stories of “Hans and Gretchen,” “The Goats of Hemland Shire,” “The Dainty Princess.” He
wasn't like Mother, who read with all the voices and a bubbled laugh at the words, but…he was all right. Everything felt warm and safe, among the linens, the flickering fire, and coziness of their room.

The girls' eyes grew heavy, and their heads drooped. The King himself grew drowsy, his voice reading slower and slower, until finally he shook himself, and with Azalea's direction, put the right girls in the right beds. Then he left with the sword and a good night.

The sword! Azalea's mind whirred. She rolled the dry, crinkly rosebud from hand to hand across the table, sorting things out. Somehow, it was magic after all! How, Azalea did not know, but surely it had unmagicked the palace those hundreds of years ago, at the hand of Harold the First. No wonder Keeper wanted to be rid of it! It could unmagic
him
!

Hope humming through her, Azalea took her shawl from the peg by the door and slipped into the cold hall. She ran down the stairs, quiet in her bare feet, turning the corner into the portrait gallery. Edges of the glass cases and gold ends of the velvet ropes glimmered in the dim light, and Azalea found her way to the sword display. The King never left anything out of place, and for once Azalea was glad of it. She lifted the glass case from it and, ten minutes later, was back in her room.

None of the girls awoke as she turned up the lamp and
smothered the fire in the hearth. She turned everything in her mind, over and over. She would unmagic the passage. They wouldn't get the brooch or the watch back, but that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that Keeper would be rendered powerless—

Or would he? Azalea hesitated. With the blood oath—and the sword broken now—

“Shut up!” said Azalea to her thoughts. She grasped the rapier's handle with both hands beneath the silver swirl guard cage, stepped into the fireplace, and touched the silver edge to the
DE
.

Nothing happened.

Nothing had happened before, of course, when the King had unmagicked the sugar teeth, but she had felt something. Something different. Now, as her excitement faded, the logical side of her mind took over.

What was she
thinking
? Unmagicking the passage would do
nothing
—Keeper couldn't die, could he? He would still be there, along with his magic, with the addition that he would be angry. Azalea had the foreboding that he was going to be cross already, since they hadn't come to dance. If she had truly unmagicked it, Keeper would be left with Mother's soul—

In a panic, Azalea snatched the handkerchief from her pocket and rubbed it against the magic mark.

It became hot, so hot it burned. Dizzy with relief,
Azalea pulled her hand back. The mark glowed for a moment, and faded back into the stone. She swallowed, gripped the sword, and strode from the fireplace, leaving a trail of soot.

After discovering the kitchen empty, Azalea arrived at the library, panting. She didn't bother to knock, late as it was, but instead shoved the door open. The darkness surprised her; she turned up the nearest lamp, and discovered the King lying on the sofa near the piano, underneath an old blanket. He stirred as Azalea drew near.

“Sir! Sir, you—Do you sleep here every night?” Azalea frowned at the stiff, hard furniture. “That can't be comfortable.”

The King brought his arm over his eyes as Azalea turned up both the stained-glass lamps on his desk.

“Azalea, really!”

“This is important,” said Azalea. Sword still in hand, she swept to him. The black sheet over the piano swayed with her breeze. “Sir, this sword. Can it be mended?”

The King roused, not in good humor at seeing Azalea with the sword.

“Great…waistcoats, Azalea,” he said. “That is governmental property! Take it back to the gallery, at once.”

“Sir,
please
,” said Azalea, on the verge of tears. “Can
it be mended? Can you fix the magic in it?
How
is it even magic? Sir, please!”

Something in the King softened. Perhaps it was Azalea's desperate eyes. He sighed, rubbed his face, and stood.

“Come along,” he said. “It is time you knew.”

T
he gallery was so cold that Azalea could see her breath, even in the dark. She shivered and pulled her shawl tighter around herself; the King stirred up the hearth beneath the wall of portraits and added coal to it.

“Well,” he said. He set the sword on the red velvet of the pedestal and lifted the glass case back over it. He looked worn and tired but had enough firmness in him that his shoulders remained straight and solid. He was made of starch, Azalea thought. Starch and steel. “It is something that only the royal family, or the prime ministers have known,” he said. “It is not generally spoken of.”

“It's magic, though?”

“No,” said the King. “And yes.”

Azalea took a bite of her bread and cheese, not tasting it. They had taken a detour to the kitchen, where the King took a bit of bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth and
gave it to Azalea. Now he sat next to her, on one of the fine sofas by the mantel. The spindly legs creaked.

“Azalea, you know about Swearing on Silver. Do you not?”

A slight tingle rose in Azalea's chest, and she thought of Mother's handkerchief.

“I don't think I do,” she said slowly. “Not fully. If…you make a promise with silver, it…helps you keep your oath? Just like if you…swear on blood…” Azalea stopped, shuddering. The King considered her.

“Yes,” he said. “It is like the blood oath the High King made, before he was overthrown. But it is the full opposite. Just as strong, but with silver as the mediator.”

“And it makes the silver…a sort of magic?”

“Just so,” said the King. “But a much stronger magic than the common sort. Stronger than the magic of the passage or the tea set, because it is sealed with your word. The people under the High King D'Eathe had very little, but what silver they had they kept close. Wedding bands, family heirlooms, and such. They believed silver the purest sort of metal. It was with those things they made the sword and swore to protect their families and their country. We swear on it now, in parliament.”

Swearing on Silver. A stronger magic. Everything connected in Azalea's mind, a magic sealed with silver. She set the bread and cheese on her lap and pulled
Mother's handkerchief from her pocket, turning it over in her hands, remembering how Mother had pressed it into her palms.

“It doesn't make sense, though,” said Azalea. “If this were true, then Mother's handkerchief would be magic. But it's never unmagicked anything. Or—” Azalea thought of the sword, and how it didn't unmagic the passage at her hands. “Perhaps there is something wrong with
me
.”

The King stood and tended the fire with a poker, for it had started to die.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” he said. The firelight illuminated his face, deepening the wrinkles by his eyes. “The sword has been sworn on for many years, by kings and ministers. As such, the magic in it runs deep. For those who have sworn on it. To our visitors and guests, and even you, it is only a sword. Even so, your handkerchief is magic—for you and you sisters, weak as it is. You cannot expect one promise—”

“Two,” said Azalea quickly. “Mother had me swear on it. Before…before she…died. It…well.” She turned her eyes to the bread in her lap, feeling silly. But she couldn't discount the first promise she'd made—it had felt so strong.

The King was quiet for a while. He looked at the handkerchief she turned in her hands, the silver shimmering softly in the lamplight.

“I gave that handkerchief to your mother,” he said. “As a wedding gift.”

Azalea held it tightly, praying he wouldn't ask for it back.

He did not. Instead he said, “What did you promise? May I ask?”

Azalea traced the embroidered letters with her thumb. She hadn't even told her sisters this.

“That…I would take care of the girls,” she finally said.

There was a moment of silence, but not awkward silence.

“I'm not doing a very good job of it,” Azalea mumbled.

The King's firm, heavy hand rested on Azalea's shoulder. It was such an unexpected gesture of affection that it rendered Azalea speechless. The King removed it, quickly, but his voice was gentle.

“You've done a fine job,” he said. “You cannot expect it to be as powerful as the sword. But I should think your handkerchief harbors a deep magic nonetheless. You have made it so.”

Azalea focused on her bread and cheese to keep from making a scene. She thought of Mother, hand over Azalea's heart, sitting next to her in the ballroom, and telling her about the deepest sort of magic. The warm, flickery one.
Azalea knew it wasn't the common magic, nor was it the cold, shivery prickles of Swearing on Silver.

“What of the other magic?” said Azalea. “The one Mother used to speak of? The one without a name?”

There was a pause, the longest yet. The King stroked his well-trimmed beard, looking at the drapes across the hall. His eyes were bright, but sad.

“Yes,” he said. “They say there is a third sort of magic.”

Azalea waited, her food forgotten in her lap. The King shifted, stiffly, and considered the fire poker in his hand.

“It is,” he said finally, “the deepest magic of all. So deep, and rare, it doesn't even have a name. It needs no silver. It has to do with the piece of you that is you, inside. Your soul. A promise so deep, it blurs the line between mortal and immortal, souls that have passed on. This unnamed magic has caused many strange things to happen. So it is said.”

“Such as?” said Azalea.

“I don't know.”

“You…haven't seen any evidence of it?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in it?”

The King sighed. “I don't know, Azalea. I truly don't. But your Mother did. More than anyone I knew.”

Azalea gazed at the glow of the fire flickering in the
hearth next to her, thinking about the warm flickery bit. She hadn't felt it for days, even when she danced. It was easy to believe in things, when Mother was here. Now, thinking of Mother, images of white lips and red thread passed through her mind, and it was as though a bucket of frigid stream water poured through her lungs and stomach. Azalea stood quickly, upsetting her cheese and bread, and hurried to the glass case that held the sword.

“Earlier this year,” said Azalea, “I broke this, at least in part. Would the magic be strong again, if it were mended?”

“I expect not. It would have to be sworn on again, many more times after it was fixed,” said the King.

“Oh.” The gush of ice-cold water coated her inside again, and Azalea shivered so hard her teeth began to chatter. She jumped when the King placed her shawl over her shoulders.

“It is late,” said the King. “I'll stoke the fire in your room, if you like.”

“Sir,” said Azalea as he led her out of the gallery, “the blood oath the High King made—to not die until he killed Harold the First…didn't Harold the First die of old age?”

“Not to die until he killed the Captain General, I believe it was. No, he unfortunately lived to be a great old age.”

“Unfortunately?” said Azalea.

The King sucked in his cheeks, as though loathe to tell her. In the faint light, he looked like the first king's portrait hanging on the gallery wall behind him; same jaw, light hair, close-trimmed beard.

“He went mad,” said the King. “Our first king. It is…a bit of a family secret. He overthrew the High King, unmagicked the palace with the sword, but—” The King shifted. “He thought the High King was still here. In the palace.”

The blood drained from Azalea's face.

“He believed the High King's essence, or something of the like, still existed, in the foundation or paneling or such. It is silly, of course, to consider it now. Even so, when he passed the title of Captain General to his son, Harold the Second, he fell into madness. He wandered the halls at night, certain the High King would return to murder—”

“The Captain General, the
Captain General
!” Azalea cried. “That would be you!”

“Miss Azalea, it was years ago! Your color—it is only a story!”

“The first king! He was telling the—”

Azalea was
bludgeoned
.

When she was seven, she had been thrown from a horse and had the air knocked from her. It left a hollow
space of nothing, and she heaved for air to fill it. This was much the same, but with a great rush of hard prickles. It took her breath away and choked her throat, stole air from her lungs. A great wave of icy tingles flushed to her fingertips and feet, and over her head. She gasped.

“Good heavens, Azalea, are you all right?”

The oath!
Azalea fell against the wainscot of the hallway, the painful tingling coursing through her in riptides. In a dizzy whirl, she felt herself plucked up and into the King's arms.

Five minutes later, a ruckus ensued in the room as the King set Azalea onto her bed. Lily awoke with a cry, and Kale, who was never happy when she was tired, began to scream. Candles were lit and lamps turned up, and girls sleepily flocked to Azalea's bed. Azalea gasped for air, feeling the cold pinpricks ream up and down her skin.

“What happened?” said Clover, wetting a cloth in the basin, and dabbing Azalea's face.

“She had a sort of fit,” said the King. “I think her underthings may be laced too tightly.”

All the girls, including Azalea, blushed brilliantly.

“Sir,”
said Eve. “You're not supposed to know about the U word!”

“Am I not? Forgive me.”

When the color returned to Azalea's cheeks, they pushed the King out of the room, a crease between his
eyebrows, and set to unbuttoning her. Azalea hoped the unlacing of the corset would return her breath to her, but it took an hour and two cups of piping hot tea for the strangled feeling to leave. The fear and hopelessness remained, however, and Azalea slept in a choke.

 

Azalea slept so late she nearly missed dinner the next day. She rushed to the dining room, shaking off the groggy stupor, and found the girls setting the table, their faces stung red from playing outside. They chattered about the day's events. Clover looked especially pretty, with her hair pinned up and her corseted figure ablossom, a lady even though she was just fifteen. Fifteen! Today was Clover's birthday, and Azalea had slept through nearly all of it, including the Great Corseting and the birthday center reel. Feeling sick all over again, she caught Clover's hands and tried to smile.

“Many happy returns!” she said. “I can't believe I slept through so much of it.”

“You were ill,” said Clover, squeezing Azalea's hands.

“I'll make it up to you. I promise. Do you like the corset?”

Clover tried to keep from smiling, but her face glowed.

“I…can feel my heartbeat in my stomach!”

“Aye, that's what it feels like to be a lady!” said Bramble, among the general riffraff and clattering of seat taking and plate getting. “It's corking. I love it.”

Azalea only picked at her bowl of potato soup as dinner progressed. Her hand kept twitching to feel the watch in her pocket that wasn't there, anxious for the time. She feared Keeper would become angrier with each passing minute they weren't there.

The King, on the other hand, looked in good spirits, seeing Azalea at the table, and Lord Teddie was in even finer spirits, because that was Lord Teddie. The younger girls fought for seats next to him and clamored for his attention.

“At least Azalea remembered,” said Delphinium in a low whisper. Azalea fed Lily, sitting on her lap. “The King hasn't said a thing. Not one thing!”

“He's forgotten. I was afraid he would,” said Eve.

“Great scott, Clover.” Azalea cast a glance at the head of the table. “You haven't told him?”

“Well…we're in mourning.” Clover smoothed the napkin in her lap. “And—it would just make him feel bad that he had forgotten.”

“If it was important to him,” said Delphinium primly, “he would remember.”

On the other side of the table, the girls squealed with laughter as Lord Teddie chattered like mad. He ate far too
much soup and far too many biscuits to account for his lean, gangly figure, and he read them a book called
The Eathesburian Holiday Guidebook
, which he had brought from Delchastire.

“It has an entire section just on the gardens! The fountains and statues and all things gardeny,” he said, as the girls climbed over one another to peek at the etchings inside. “It says if you're lucky, you might even see the rare flowers of Eathesbury!”

The girls giggled so hard, Hollyhock choked on her soup.

“That's
us
!” she cried, after coughing. “We're the flowers of Eathesbury!”

“And all of you, pretty as buttons!” said Lord Teddie, beaming at them. He looked over to Bramble, who wore a bit of holly in her deep red hair, and he smiled.

“Clover,” said the King, interrupting the melee. He had been casting distracted glances at Clover all through dinner. Azalea knew why. With her hair up and her eyes alight, Clover looked like a golden version of Mother. She even had the smile that lit the room. “Miss Clover…you look…very nice,” he finished, lamely.

Clover's deep blue eyes brightened.

“Do you think so?” she said.

The King cast another distracted glance at her, then glanced at Azalea. Azalea mouthed the word
birthday
.

The King's face grew more confused. Azalea mouthed it again. The King opened his mouth, then shut it, frowning.

“It's her
birthday
,” said Delphinium, who couldn't seem to take it any longer. “It's been her coming-of birthday all day, and she's been waiting for you to remember, and you
haven't
!”

The King froze with his wineglass halfway to his mouth, his expression unreadable.