Magic Under Stone (29 page)

We should have tried to take them
, I kept thinking. There would surely be even more guards at the prison, and what if the king locked us away before we had a chance to spread his secrets? What if he did something worse? I kept thinking of Ordorio’s story of Erris trapped in the automaton, and how the fairies had mangled his and Melia’s bodies, and I could hardly bear the panic crawling over my skin like ants.

Suddenly my feet were on the packed ground of a path again,
and then the hand guiding me stopped to knock at a door. I heard the door swing open.

“Found them at the gate,” Rowan said. “This is the girl who was with Erris Tanharrow, plus some witch.”

“Nice work,” said a gravelly male voice.

Rowan grunted. We were led across a threshold, wooden floor, and then carpet. The room smelled rather like wood, offering no particular clues, but I had only taken a few steps in before Rowan said, “Stairs ahead, ladies.”

Now we were led downward. I kept my elbow against the banister for some stability. When we came to the end, Rowan removed my blindfold, revealing nothing but a small, dark room. A man was sitting on the ground in bored repose, with metal shackles tethering his ankles and wrists mere inches apart.

“Oh, good. Company,” he said in a droll voice.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” said Rowan’s male cohort, sounding grim. Rowan moved to the door. The woman was behind me, and I heard the clink of chains. She handed a set of shackles to the man, and he crouched to put them around my ankles.

I stepped back instinctively. I didn’t want to be tethered and bound—like Erris to the piano—helpless.

“You’ll make things worse if you don’t hold still,” Rowan said. The man took a firmer grip on my ankle.

Don’t be stupid, Nim
, I thought wildly, only I wasn’t sure what the stupid act was—to let him shackle me or to fight it. Of course, if we couldn’t fight them before, we couldn’t now, but what if this was our last chance? I kept imagining my regret if I was dragged out to a guillotine or a hangman’s noose—how did fairies execute people anyway? No, it probably wouldn’t be anything fancy and
public. They wouldn’t want me screaming about Erris before I died. Maybe someone would just come slit our throats.

Upstairs, the door opened, followed by a thump and a strangled cry. Rowan looked behind him.

“What was that?” the woman asked. The man clamped his sweaty hand over my mouth. The woman shot Annalie a sharp look and took out her knife, pointing the tip at both of us in turn. “Either of you make a sound and you’re dead.”

Rowan hurried up the stairs, taking out his own knife. My heart was pounding.

Rowan shouted, “Both of you come up—”

He never finished the sentence and he never came downstairs. In a rush of adrenaline, I gathered my heat magic and blew out a hot breath, forcing the man to take his hand from my mouth. Annalie slipped her hands easily from her bonds, and I realized she must have gotten her spirit friends to loosen them for her.

“Hey!” The man grabbed my arm. “Don’t you try it!”

Annalie was left to fight the woman, and I saw her hand move with the knife, heard Annalie scream, but I had my own battle to pay attention to. I quickly moved the heat from my lungs to my skin, shooting it up the man’s arm—just as I had warmed Erris so many mornings, only now the magic was too hot, and the man howled with pain and took his hands off me.

The room was cold, however, and it was hard to keep up my magic without a source. My hands were still tethered behind me, and I took a step back to the wall, quickly noting that Annalie was still on her feet—sleeve slashed and arm bleeding—but she seemed to be merely grazed. Could I burn away the rope? But I couldn’t seem to make fire. I was too panicked.

But now whoever had initiated the attack upstairs was coming down the stairs—a man in front with a sword at the ready, a redhaired woman with a bow and arrow poised to shoot—both in green capes.

“Drop your weapons
now
, you lot of traitors,” the woman shouted. “Two of your comrades are already dead and there are ten of us here with more on the way.”

“You call us traitors? You’re traitors to your king,” the woman shot back, but she sheathed her knife.

“We’re waiting for the true king,” the Green Hood woman said. “Or queen. Whichever it may be. Now, lift your hands and come up.”

I went over to Annalie. “Are you all right?”

Her hand was clamped over her upper arm, but she nodded. “It’s just a scratch. A nasty scratch, but not much worse than the Captain’s given me on occasion.” The Captain was her old cat, and having encountered him once, I could believe it.

Tamin’s spies went up the stairs in surrender, and the two Green Hoods came down to us.

“I’m Keyelle,” the woman said, untying my bonds. “And that’s Esmon. Ifra, the jinn, he told us to expect you. I’m not sure he really had all of this in mind, but we couldn’t wait for a convenient time to act. You’ve come looking for Erris, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry it took us so long to intervene,” she said. “We thought Rowan was one of us, and he volunteered to go to the gate and look out for you after Ifra told us you might come, but we know there’s been a traitor in our midst because that’s how Calden was captured.” She nodded at the man in shackles. “Another one of our people who works the gate suspected Rowan, so we’ve been following him, hoping he’d lead us to Calden.”

“Nice work,” Calden said. “I hope there’s food around. They’ve been giving me nothing but porridge.”

“You’ve got bigger worries than porridge. There’s a rumor that Tamin wants to have you executed at Belin’s ball this very night,” Esmon said. “And we’d better clear off right away. We’re only half an hour from the palace on horseback and we don’t know who’s watching the place.”

“Where are we?” I asked. “We came blindfolded.”

“You’re in Tamin’s lodge. He comes here in the fall for his royal hunt,” Esmon said.

“Half an hour from the palace,” I said.
Half an hour from Erris’s body
, if my hopes and suspicions were correct. I could almost taste both success and failure. “Where will we go now?”

“Ifra told us to be very careful coming after Erris or Violet,” Keyelle said. “But Belin’s hosting a ball to introduce Violet. He’s hoping his engagement to a Tanharrow will calm everyone down, but a lot of them are Tanharrow sympathizers, and ... well, if we could sneak in tonight and find Erris ...”

“Do you know where he might be?”

Keyelle glanced at the men.

“I’ve some idea of the layout of the palace,” Calden said. “But I’d rather not have anything to do with this, if those Graweldin brothers are out for my head.”

“I confess I was hoping you might have an idea,” Keyelle said, looking at me.

Just as Keyelle glanced at the men, I glanced at Annalie.

“The spirits might help,” Annalie said. “But you might be able to help too, Nim. Your magic has improved so much, and you know Erris’s spirit better than anyone. I wonder if you’ll be able to sense him.”

“Well, let’s get away from this place and figure it out then,” Keyelle said, waving her hands. “My family is already upset that I just had to go put myself in danger, but if I end up getting ambushed at Tamin’s house, it will be particularly mortifying.”

When we came upstairs, I laid eyes on Rowan’s corpse. It was just there, on the ground, eyes open, an arrow in his chest. One moment he’d been leading me down the stairs and now he was dead.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to cry for him. He’d kidnapped me and been a traitor to the Green Hoods, but when he told me he needed money and had a family to feed, I believed him. I didn’t think he deserved death.

“Don’t bother,” Esmon said, sensing my mood. “He was a traitor.”

Annalie squeezed my hand. “I understand,” she said. “I don’t think he was a cruel man.”

Keyelle shook her head. “He took a dangerous job for financial reward and paid the price. That’s why I hate war, and I hope to be done with it as quickly as we can.”

I couldn’t agree more. It didn’t seem fair at all that King Luka, the one who inflicted such torture on Erris, had died in his bed past the age of fifty, having seen all his sons reach adulthood, while Ordorio held on to life by a thread so he could see his daughter in the summer.

THE COURTYARD GARDEN, TELMIRRA

“I’m really doing you a favor, Belin,” Tamin said. They stood beneath the bower. The stars were beginning to come out above them, and all the fairies were still in the dining hall except Belin, his brothers, and a shivering Violet.

“A favor?” Belin cried. “How can you possibly say you did me a favor? You just implied to the entire kingdom that I killed our father!”

“As if they aren’t already wondering,” Ilsin said. He opened a case tucked in his waistcoat and took out a cigarette.

“I keep telling you, Belin, a king can’t simply hide off in his own house and carve deer. Especially us. Father was ruthless, and you’ve got to be ruthless too, and that’s all there is to it. If you can’t stand up to me, how are you going to stand up to the half of the room who want to follow a Tanharrow?”

“That’s what
she’
s for!” Belin clapped Violet rather roughly on the shoulder. She jerked away and shot him a fierce look. Ilsin chuckled.

“That isn’t enough, and you know it. You know the rumors. There are more uprisings ... talk of a whole network of rebels. They may have started here and there without much threat besides singing some old ballads, but look at that man Calden. He killed two of our tax collectors. Sure, the old ballads make such a deed sound heroic, but I doubt their widows think so. Father wouldn’t have tolerated that. You need to show them you won’t tolerate it either.”

“I’m supposed to drag him out here and have him killed in front of all those people after you made them think I killed Father?” Belin’s voice was quite a bit louder than Tamin’s. Any lurking spy would have had no trouble with him.

“So what if you did kill Father?” Tamin said. “Not to sully his memory, but think about the things Father himself has done. If they don’t fear you, you won’t last a day. None of us will. Ilsin and I will follow you if you show us it’s worth our while, all right? But we’re not going to let them get rid of us and put this imp on the throne.” He gave Violet the briefest condescending look.

Ifra dreamed of strangling Tamin. Belin could say the word, and Ifra could wipe that smug expression off his face in a moment.

Violet’s bottom lip was trembling.

“Oh, don’t take it personally,” Tamin said. “It’s just politics, you know.”

“I’m not marrying Belin!” Violet burst out. “I don’t want anything to do with any of you! I don’t care if every fairy in the world rots! I just want to go home!”

“Shh!” Belin jostled her again, cowing her into silence. There were three men, so much older than her, none of them sympathetic. And silent Ifra. He couldn’t even let them see that he cared for her. He just had to look to the distance, a silent bodyguard.

“All right,” Belin said. “Bring Calden. My jinn will kill him.”

Ifra’s fingers coiled into fists. It was all he could do not to show further reaction.

“But if I hear even a whiff of betrayal from you again, my jinn will kill you next.”

Tamin actually grinned at this. “That’s exactly what I want to see.” He turned to go, while Ilsin lingered, but Belin shooed them both away.

Violet started crying, but Belin didn’t pay her any regard. He watched his brothers walk away. Tamin left through the side of the garden, while Ilsin strolled slowly, smoking his cigarette, glancing back a few times as if to make sure Belin wasn’t going to change his mind. Time seemed to crawl, so slowly, and Ifra forced his mind blank. He would not think about killing a man in front of hundreds of eyes. In front of Violet.

The door shut behind Ilsin.

Belin was pacing the garden path, but now he turned to look at Ifra. “I thought this was what I wanted,” he said. “To be king. How grand it sounds. A chance to make everything right. But I can’t, can I? It doesn’t matter what my father did right. My brothers and I can never be good kings because of what he did wrong.”

Master
, Ifra mouthed, a silent plea. Did Belin finally understand?

“Erris?” Violet whispered, looking between them. “Are you talking about Uncle Erris?”

“Yes,” Belin said. “Father wanted me to kill Erris after I married you, and ... Tamin doesn’t believe I’m ruthless enough to do it. Well.” He looked to the door of the Hall of Oak and Ash. “He’s right.”

Chapter 26

The lights of the palace of Telmirra loomed ahead through the dark woods. I recalled how Hollin had described this place to me so long ago—an attractive city with gardens but no gas or electricity or other modern amenities.

Telmirra, in fact, hardly seemed like a city, surrounded by miles of woodland. I assumed the residential and shopping districts were removed from the palace so the nobles could have forest to roam in, but it gave it the feel of a storybook castle one might stumble across, except that it wasn’t stone like a storybook castle, but wood. Elegant silhouettes of spires and neatly stacked stories were dark against the moon, but golden light shone through windows.

Five of the Green Hoods had accompanied us, including Keyelle and Esmon. We stayed off the paths, and when we heard horses pounding nearer, we crouched behind brush. A rider on a lovely white horse, much like the one the jinn had ridden, was heading the way we had come, followed by four more men. They
carried magic lanterns, casting a soft light that caught the fair flax and copper tones of their hair but did not reach us. I hunched still lower.

“That’s Prince Tamin,” Esmon whispered. “They must be coming for Calden. I hope he’s had enough time to put distance between them. That means we have to hurry.”

“Do we have enough time?” Keyelle’s eyes gleamed wide in the moonlight.

“Yes, yes, let’s just go,” I said. I could hardly bear looking at the palace where Erris had grown up, knowing I might be so close to finding him. I crept forward, and the Green Hoods moved with me.