Entwined (6 page)

In spite of the weather, the port hustled with activity. Dozens of men led soaked horses up a ship's plank, and loading cranes lowered nets of crates onto other ships. Azalea caught the smell of wet, old wood and saw Fairweller in the distance, before she heard the King shouting orders. She wove through the mass of cavalrymen and horses.

“Sir!” Azalea yelled. She pushed her horse into a graceless canter to the King, some lengths away, but lost
her balance on the saddle and fell as Thackeray pulled up next to Dickens. She grabbed at the satchel hanging over Dickens's back and discovered, as it clanged to the ground, that it was the silver sword.

The sword was a dull, dented, mottled thing with a swirled cage handle, and it usually lay in a case in the portrait gallery. The King brought it to speeches and parades, because it had been owned by Harold the First, and had Historical Importance. Azalea realized he would be taking it with him to the war, too.

“Azalea!” Two sturdy hands helped Azalea from the wet wood to her feet. The hands turned her around, and Azalea found herself face-to-face with the King, worry lining his brow. “For heaven's sake! You haven't even a cloak.”

“I didn't think of it,” said Azalea, realizing that she shook. Her black dress clung to her, wet through.

The King unbuttoned his thick-weave coat, pulled it off, and slung it over Azalea's shoulders. It encased her so heavily she nearly buckled underneath it. He then lifted the sword from the planks and inspected it, frowning.

“You've put a crack in it,” said the King, showing her a tiny hairline mark before slipping it back into its satchel sheath. “This is governmental property, Azalea. What are you doing here?”

“You're leaving,” said Azalea between shivers. “You didn't even say good-bye! The girls—”

Shouting interrupted her, men yelling to the King about load lines, splitting regiments, supplies. The smell of wet horse, the words the King shouted back, the creaking of the poles and hooves on the planks—all felt foreign to her. Azalea grasped the King's coat about her neck, tightly, and the boiling hotness escaped to her tongue.

“You can't leave yet!” she said. “Rule number twenty-one! We have rules!”

The King turned to her, his fine red uniform now black from the rain. Lightning flashed, casting harsh shadows across his face. “I cannot leave the men here, Azalea! They need their general.”

“If you don't come,” said Azalea, “the girls will think that you…that you don't—
please
, sir, you've got to come and say good-bye!”

“Minister Fairweller,” the King called out. “Minister, escort Azalea back to the palace. And for heaven's sake, don't let her fall off!”

In a moment, the King had lifted Azalea back onto Thackeray and handed the reins to Fairweller, who had pulled astride on his pure white horse, LadyFair.

A teakettle screamed inside Azalea, burning her fingers, making her throat tight and her head dizzy. Fairweller led her off the dock, LadyFair's tail twitching and bobbing in
front of her. Fairweller, thankfully, remained silent.

The anger that burned in Azalea was so acute, so searing, that her hands acted of their own accord. Azalea leaned forward, and before Fairweller had fully escorted her onto the cobblestone street, she yanked the reins from his hand.

“My lady!” said Fairweller. She left him behind at a gallop.

“So!” cried Azalea through the pounding sleet as hoofs clattered back over the wood. “So!” She pulled up to the King, so hard that Thackeray skidded.

The King looked up from the reins in his hand. His eyebrows rose at her, then furrowed.

“Azalea—” he said. Azalea cut him off.

“You
knew
how much we thought of you! You could have at least—at least
acted
like you cared!”

She pulled his overcoat from her shoulders, and wadded it into a heavy, wet ball.

“Shame on us for giving our affections to someone so undeserving. If you don't want us, then—fine! We don't want
you
!”

She threw the coat with all her might at the King. It fell only a foot from her in a soggy pile on the platform.

“Good-
bye
!” she said.

She jerked Thackeray around and pushed him into a hard gallop, away from the port, through the slick streets,
back to the palace. A marvelous, euphoric feeling fired her to her fingertips and cheeks, and she almost laughed with a sheer, angry giddiness.

By the time Thackeray had reached the palace gate, though, the blaze had faded to a dull throb, the giddiness to hurt. She turned the horse about and stared down at the sliver of river, lit by the pinpricks of port lamps. The sleet melted on her face and weighed her down to exhaustion.

“Good-bye,” she said.

“M
asterful!” Mother laughed. “You're better than me! Up, up, up. Very good! Ladies' cloaks, in the library, gentleman's hats—”

“In the entrance hall. Yes, I remember.” Azalea stood and smoothed her skirts.

“Brilliant. The gentleman will be mad for you.”

“I wish you could come,” said Azalea.

“Your father will be there.”

“Actually, no,” said Azalea. “He'll be up here with you. I'll end up dancing with ghastly Fairweller.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mother.

“Great scott,” said Azalea. “I'm dreaming it. Again!” And she awoke.

For a while she lay staring at the bedcurtains draped above her, her hair in auburn tendrils over the pillow.

That dream! She thought she'd gotten rid of it. She'd
not had it for at least three weeks. That was better than at first, when it came nearly twice a week, three months in a row. It was always so
real
. She could smell Mother's white-cake, medicine, and baby-ointment scent, and feel the warmth of the fire next to Mother's chair. Azalea wished she could dream about the picnics and trips to the market. Not Mother's last minutes, when she was in such pain. Azalea hated thinking of Mother in pain.

And yet Azalea wished she could have made the dream last longer.

Fumbling for Lord Bradford's watch in her nightgown pocket, Azalea clicked it open, feeling grateful for it all over again. With the windows hidden behind black drapery, even daytime in the palace felt like night.

Still early. Azalea tucked the blanket around Kale, her bedmate, and made certain Lily slept in her bassinet, then slipped from the room.

Although it was June, the ballroom's marble floor was cool against Azalea's bare feet. The lamp she held made the chandeliers glimmer and reflected back from the mirrors. She set the lamp down and curtsied deeply to her reflection, pointing her back toe, lifting her arm out. She loved the stretch and pull of her legs when she danced. She lifted herself onto her toes and released into a spin, feeling her nightgown breeze around her, fixing her
view on the far wall through each turn, her feet turning, her head turning faster, stopping at each rotation as her body swirled beneath her.

“Y-you look beautiful.”

Azalea eased out of the spin into a curtsy, then straightened to see Clover at the doors, holding Kale in her arms. The outlines of sleepy girls in nightgowns appeared behind them.

“Good morning,” said Azalea, smiling. “Early morning. Did Kale wake you?”

“Good guess,” said Bramble. She ran a hand through her tangled knee-length hair.

Azalea smiled and shook her head. Though only two, Kale had a screaming voice to shame a prima donna. In fact, once she started screaming, she only stopped if she got what she wanted, or if she threw up. Azalea lifted her from Clover's arms, and Kale latched her hands around Azalea's neck. Azalea shifted, keeping Kale's mouth from her shoulder. Kale was also a biter.

“You—you had—the dream again, didn't you?” said Clover as they all sat down around the lamp. Her golden hair reflected the lamplight. “That's—why you came down here?”

Azalea shrugged.

“M-maybe you should—should write the King about it,” said Clover. “He might—know what to do.”

“Have you run mad?” said Bramble. “What would he care?”

Clover gave a half shrug and lowered her eyes to her hands.

“Come now, everyone,” said Azalea, straightening up. “We made an agreement. No talking about the King.”

The girls clasped their hands and kept their eyes down. It reminded Azalea of when she had returned to the palace that late December night, shivering, so soaked she dripped puddles on the rug. She didn't tell the girls then. They could read it in her face. They had helped her into dry clothes and brushed and braided her wet hair, all without a sound.

Azalea didn't say anything after that, either, because the words would fester and burn, searing anyone who heard them. So they blistered and raged inside her, curling into tightness in her throat. She hid it well in front of the girls. Tiny crescent scars marked her palms.

“What were you dancing?” said Goldenrod.

“Oh, just this and that. I thought a zingarella”—Azalea smiled and said to the ceiling—“if only I could find enough people to dance it with me.”

With a cry of delight, the girls jumped to their feet and Azalea lined them up, showing them how to point their toes and turn on the balls of their feet, and how to jump lightly with just a flick of their foot. A rosy pink touched
their pale cheeks, and the mirrors along the wall caught their smiles as they turned, all seeming to feel the warm bit of flicker inside them. Azalea loved dancing for that glow.

“But the zingarella is a closed dance,” said Delphinium, after she had executed a perfect spring-and-land in third position. “All the good dances are. I wish we were old enough to dance with gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen, shmentlemen,” said Azalea. “Don't you remember lessons with Mother? We danced reels and quadrilles and all sorts of things without a partner.”

“But it's different, with a gentleman.”

Azalea considered, thinking of the Yuletide ball and the dizzy thrill of being led in perfect form. Stepping as one with a gentleman, sweeping past the other dancers in a billow of skirts. Dancing
was
different with a gentleman.

A lamp appeared at the ballroom doors, giving highlights to the mirrors and chandeliers. Mr. Pudding, white hair mussed, held the lamp in one hand and rubbed his face with the other. Azalea realized, with all the laughing and dancing, that they had made quite a racket.

“Dancing again, misses?” he said.

Azalea gathered the girls, now yawning and dragging their feet, and herded them out the ballroom to the grand staircase.

“Now, miss, I don't think it will do, not at all,” said
Mr. Pudding as Azalea nudged them up the stairs. He stood at the bottom of the staircase, holding the lamp and frowning. Mr. Pudding's frowns were nothing like the King's. Mr. Pudding's frowns were actually more
perplexes
. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, signaling an almost-lecture-but-not-quite-because-he-was-just-the-royal-steward-and-not-the-King. “I can understand cutting about a time or two, it's not so much dancing I'm worried about, misses, even I myself would turn the other cheek when you trip about, misses, but it's against the rules and I've taken charge of ye all, y' see, and I can't let you break the rules of mourning, not even for dancing, which I know your mother loved. I'll have to lock the ballroom, misses, and I'm afraid that if I catch y' at it again, I'll feel it my duty to write your father.”

The girls inhaled sharply at this last bit, the word “father.” They leaned into Azalea's nightgown as Mr. Pudding, fumbling with his great ring of keys, locked the ballroom door with a
click-click
. Seeing the younger girls start to tear up, he gave them his lamp and promised to send biscuits and tea to their room, nearly crying himself. But he did not unlock the ballroom.

“I think really he means it, this time,” said Delphinium as they trudged up the creaking staircase, dragging sleepy younger sisters. “He actually locked the door. And he's never threatened to write the King before.”

“That lock's nearly impossible to pick,” said Eve, tugging on the ends of her pretty dark hair, which she did when she was worried. “That could be a problem.”

“
Our
problem is that we've been getting caught,” said Azalea. She carried both Jessamine and Kale, one on each arm, and rested on the landing. She leaned against the wallpaper, underneath the dusty portraits of Great-Aunts Mugwort and Buttercup, and exhaled. Every morning these past months, when Mr. Pudding arrived with the
Harold Herald
, the girls took it from his hands and pored over it, eating their porridge and sorting through every article, hoping for news of the war. Their loyalty ended there. The King could manage himself. Clover once suggested writing him, a thought they quickly squashed. Azalea was sure her pen would snap in two if she tried.

“No more dancing,” said Azalea. “We can't get caught again. This is our secret.”

“He'll write the King—”

“Oh, the
King
,” Azalea spat. The words burned, singeing the air. “What right has
he
to know? The King is
not
a part of this family!”

Clover cradled Lily's curly head to her chest, biting her lip. Flora and Goldenrod clasped their dainty hands in each other's. Azalea tried to soften her words, but words from a tight throat could only come out taut.

“He's not,” she said. “No need to let him know.”

 

Tap. Tap. Clinkety tap-tap.

It had been two weeks since they had last danced, and Azalea lay in bed, awake again. A dream hadn't roused her this time, but rather an odd tinny noise that had been clinking across the wooden floor of their room, under their beds and butting against the wainscot with a
clinkety tap-tap
. It sounded like…well, quite honestly, it sounded like a spider dragging a spoon.

Azalea knew it couldn't possibly be that (or, rather, she hoped it wasn't), but even so, she heaved herself from the bed and grasped one of Hollyhock's boots, strewn across the floor. The tapping now clinked from the fireplace, and Azalea caught a glint of silver among the soot. Raising the boot, she tiptoed to the unlit hearth.

The fireplace in their room was massive—so large that Azalea could stand up in it and her skirts wouldn't brush the sides. The silver hopped. Azalea dove.

In a puff of soot, Azalea found herself sitting in the hearth, and the silver bit skittering away like mad. Azalea grabbed at it and was rewarded with a very sharp, very
familiar
bite.

“You!”
Azalea seethed, leaping up. Now she recognized the half-hopping half-skitter motion. The sugar teeth! Azalea sprang and laid a heavy foot on the teeth. They struggled beneath her bare foot like a mouse in a trap.

Still in the hearth, soot streaking her nightgown, Azalea grasped the sugar teeth tightly, so they wouldn't nip her, and examined them. They had been dented and were now black with soot. Azalea wondered what they were doing about, wandering the palace on their own. Normally they wouldn't leave sight of the rest of the magic tea set in the kitchen, clanking against the cream bowl and flicking sugar cubes at anyone who happened to pass by. Come to think of it, Azalea hadn't seen that tea set for several months, at least. She leaned against the fireplace brick wall, wondering where it had gone.

And then she pulled away from the fireplace wall, because the brick her shoulder had leaned against was curiously uneven. Forgetting the sugar teeth—which hopped out of her hand and skittered away—she traced her fingers over the etching. It was hardly visible in the dim light, and covered in soot. In fact, because of the shape of the mantel, unless one actually stood in the fireplace, one wouldn't see it.

Azalea's heart pounded against her nightgown. She brushed the soot away from the brick. Her fingers shook. The form of the etching grew discernible—a half-moon
D
, with three lines slashed through the middle.

A
magic passage
!