The Tasters Guild (25 page)

Inside, the text was written in the tiniest of letters, and although the book itself was broad and wide, the script remained so small that there was little hope of deciphering it. Ivy examined the inner binding carefully and, looking up, nodded.

“I think this is where it goes,” she said, finding the spot for the stolen page from Dumbcane’s shop.

She took a deep breath and turned to the trestleman.

“Peps.” Her voice wavered. “Are you coming?”

“To Pimcaux?” he asked, and indeed, it was as if the
thought had not presented itself to the trestleman until now. “No,” he said, more gruffly than he meant.

Ivy nodded.

“I made a promise to myself—I will not leave this infernal city without my brother.”

Both Ivy and Rowan knew there was no breaking a promise to a trestleman. Her eyes were filling with tears—darkly splashing on the parchment in her hand.

“But I would so appreciate it if, should you see my Wilhelmina”—he pointed at the charm that hung from Ivy’s neck—“you tell her Peps is waiting for her.”

“Of course!” Ivy managed a smile.

“Well, then.” He waved his hand about in a show of impatience. “Off you go!”

Ivy looked at Rowan, who was a shade paler than usual. The two remembered the power of the magic in the Good King’s books, having seen it for themselves in Axle’s study. Rowan nodded. He was ready.

Ivy smoothed Dumbcane’s pilfered paper, inspecting the gleaming ring of the serpent swallowing its own tail. She thought of its ancient meaning—not Taste, as the Guild proclaimed, but Renewal, Healing. The ouroboros, she realized, was now a symbol for her own journey. King Verdigris awaited her somewhere on the other side of this door. He awaited healing.

She held her breath. There was more to the page than she
had seen at the scribe’s shop—a mere copy that Dumbcane had abandoned incomplete. The text was written in a golden ink that even in the dimness blazed like a liquid star. And among the ancient curlicues and flourishes of the Good King’s hand were a roiling sea, ships lolling, a lighthouse’s beacon.

“Cover your eyes,” she warned her friends.

Ivy, with her shadowy, distorted scourge-bracken vision, placed the paper in its housing, reuniting the torn edges and charred corners in a seam of little sparks. The ragged fibers of the binding knitted themselves back together, a small, tidy zipper. The shining knocker grew remarkably lifelike and, as at Axle’s, Ivy reached forward and lifted the thing, knocking.

And as the scorching light poured out of the ancient tome upon the young girl and her traveling companion, even the somber catacombs were illuminated by the glory of the golden sun.

T
he golden atmosphere twinkled and faded away.

Great, drifting shadows lurked above Ivy, lashing about with an awful hissing—wretched scratchings of stone against stone. In the dimness, she felt at once restless and diminished.

This was not a world of light.

Slowly, the thick, plaguing fog cleared somewhat. In its absence there was a harrowing ruin, a once-great folly, and a royal-looking garden, only it appeared as if it had endured a flash fire. Yet she knew it, although it was greatly changed. Black, unharvested stalks stood about in odd clusters, blighted growths turning their silhouettes into unfriendly figures. A wrecked iron gate clanged dejectedly. This was the garden of Dumbcane’s abecedarium, the garden she had seen when she cured Peps, the one where she had inexplicably found herself after eating scourge bracken.

Ivy looked around. It was now so much bigger, as if, in giving
itself over to the land of shadow, it had spread out wildly. A hunched gardener was at work on a bald hedge, clipping the dead thing uselessly. As she watched his progress, an anxiety welled up inside her, and when the pale man turned, she was shocked to see the forger Dumbcane toiling in the charred remains.

You have come
.

Ivy gasped upon hearing the voice—it was not that of the hopeless Dumbcane, who seemed completely unaware of her. It was a voice of inflection, rich with malevolence, and raspy with the effects of scourge bracken.

It was the voice of Vidal Verjouce.

She spun around the ruined garden, only to realize the voice had been directionless, in her head. The speaker was nowhere, and everywhere.

At her feet, she felt a familiar matted warmth and, looking down, saw Six, purring loudly and rubbing his chin against her shin. Her attire had changed, though. Gone were the robes of the Tasters’ Guild she’d worn, and in their place an intricate lace dress, as black as night and possessing in its spidery pattern no distinct design—as if the despair of the growth around her had infiltrated the chaotic weave.

She shut her eyes and, steadied by Six’s presence, asked a reasonable question.

Where am I?

You are a guest, Ivy, in my Mind Garden
.

You call this a garden?
Her eyes flew open.

Dumbcane was now busying himself nearby, and Six let loose an offending growl at the scribe.

Why have you brought me here?
With a jolt, she thought of the catacombs, of the book that served as a Doorway to Pimcaux. Of Rowan.

From behind a charred trellis with crumbling vines, Ivy finally saw Verjouce emerge.

It was not I who brought you here. You are drawn to Kingmaker just as I am
.

That is a lie!

With horror Ivy saw the man approach. Six had settled into an indifferent preen atop a pile of dead coals. As Verjouce closed in, his hood fell away. Here, in the retreat of his own devising, he was free to imagine himself at an earlier juncture. In his Mind Garden, the blind Director had orchestrated the return of his eyes. They were there, just as on the day he was born, no scars, no awful pits. He stared at her with them.

How nice to
see
you, Ivy
.

Ivy felt a cold surge of fear at his transformation.

You possess an enviable gift. Dominion over nature. You infuse all plants with their former glory, their true selves. You make them infinitely more powerful. Just think of your effect on Kingmaker! With you by my side, I shall have more power than I ever thought possible!

Kingmaker does not grow. It is extinct
. Ivy tried her best to be convincing.

We both know that is not so
.

Ivy thought of the horrible infestation directly beneath the Tasters’ Guild and swallowed hard, pushing the image aside.

Join me
.

It was an order, not an invitation. He narrowed his eyes, and Ivy was acutely aware that she preferred him blind.

Never!

He snapped his fingers, and Dumbcane suddenly became alert, his beady eyes falling on Ivy, instantly in focus.

Thick, heavy ash began blowing by; a wind picked up.

The wrought-iron fence, a thing of beauty now crippled and twisted, caught her eye. Upon a finial, clasping an orb in its talons, was the figure of a black bird. A crow.

Just think of it, Ivy. Father and daughter together at last. Ruling all the land with the might and strength of a true King
.

Ivy looked at him in horror.

You are not my father!

But she knew. Sorrel Flux had tried to tell her. Axle and Cecil had tried to protect her from it. Vidal Verjouce stepped close now, and lowered his loathsome head until she could see the madness in his face.

But something else was there, too. With a sick, sinking feeling, she knew it at once. A family resemblance. His eyes—he had plucked them from his own face, ridding himself of any trace. They were the same as hers—her worst fears confirmed. It was as if she were looking in a mirror. She watched his eyes as they mocked her look of horror.

No! It can’t be true!

A wave of revulsion threatened to drop her to her knees.

Truth?
The horrible man grinned.
You want truth?

Suddenly, from the gate, a creaking like a rusted hinge, and the snapping of metal. The air whipped about. The iron crow had found its wings and tore itself free from the bars. It busied itself first by flapping and pecking the servant Dumbcane, and then it settled upon the young girl’s shoulder.

Ivy was so surprised to see her lost Shoo, she was struck mute.

Listen to the crow. Those who seek, look to the crows, for crows never lie
, she heard Vidal Verjouce say. It was familiar, this saying, and it tugged at her.

Tell the girl
, he commanded the bird.
Tell her who I am
.

Shoo turned to her then and spoke. But his words were the noises of tarnish, a broken bell. What at first had seemed like her beloved Shoo was nothing more than an iron dressing upon a decorative fence—its eyes were blank and glazed, its weight suddenly unbearably heavy.

This was not her crow, she realized—her crow was in Caux, trapped forever in the tapestry. This was a bird from her father’s evil mind; its vocabulary was mostly incomprehensible and sent a chill up her spine. It chattered away, her shoulder aching from its grip.

“Your father! Your father!” the creature rasped.

Repelled, she fell back, and the world began fading away.

Crows never lie. You see, I am your father
.

T
here, there.” Ivy opened her eyes to a sunlit room, a small patchwork quilt, and the tiniest woman she had ever seen. Quite a bit smaller than the tallest of trestlemen, her hostess had about her head a spray of silver curls like a heap of seafoam, and around her neck a choker of ample dark pearls. She wore, Ivy noticed, a smartly tailored black dress, one with sparkles in all the right places and a million small clasps up the back. The alewife—for, indeed, this is what the lady was—was tending to Ivy’s forehead delicately with a damp sea sponge, and just as Ivy began to register that she was in a room of golden sunlight and not the despotic garden of Vidal Verjouce, her head exploded in sharp pain and her body was wracked with chills.

“Shh,” the lady advised as Ivy groaned. She handed her a delicate teacup, a warm brew of what seemed to be pure gold.

“She’s been like this all night,” Rowan’s voice said worriedly. He had not left his friend’s side. “She keeps talking about crows. ‘Crows never lie.’”

“Crows never lie?” the lady said thoughtfully. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s true.”

There was a knock on the door, and it soon opened. Another alewife, her hair high in a dollop upon her head, looked in. Her expression was stern to begin with, but a storm cloud passed over her face as she allowed herself a moment to take in Ivy and Rowan. She turned sharply to Ivy’s nursemaid.

“Wilhelmina, come see me, please. Outside.”

Wilhelmina rose, winking at Rowan, unperturbed at her summons.

“Drink up, my dear. It’s cinquefoil tea!” Wilhelmina advised Ivy.

The stern alewife turned, her hair bobbling as if of gelatin, and after Wilhelmina passed beside her, she gave the children another reproachful look and shut the door.

“Wilhelmina?” Ivy looked to Rowan for confirmation.

“Yes! Peps’s Wilhelmina.” Rowan nodded, leaning in. “Ivy, I was so worried!”

Ivy smiled weakly. “So we’re in Pimcaux?” she asked.

“Of course! Where else would we be?”

Ivy thought for a moment of the dismal Mind Garden, relieved that it was perhaps a dream.

“We came through the Doorway in the catacombs—don’t you remember?” Rowan found himself happily babbling, so relieved was he that Ivy had emerged from her swoon. He rambled on about escaping Snaith, and talked even of his own
experiences in Irresistible Meals, and then eagerly described his flight over all of Rocamadour in his springform wings.

“I still have them, of course; you can never be too sure when you might need to fly. Ivy, we’re in Pimcaux—just think! But the oddest thing—you have on the most peculiar black dress!”

Ivy’s stomach sank as she looked first at her arms, then the rest of her. She was indeed bound in the erratic black lace. Her feet were tucked into shiny black shoes, and there, in between them, lay the strangest thing of all: Six, curled upon the bed in a patch of sunlight. Her head pounded and she shut her eyes, breathing in the sea breeze.

“Alewives,” Rowan explained, “rule over troubled waters. They are the ones to appeal to, should you ever find yourself shipwrecked or drowning. I guess it’s only natural they live in lighthouses.”

Ivy smiled weakly. “We are in a lighthouse?”

“Yes! Isn’t that amazing? From what I can tell, it’s quite a spectacular one. Ivy,” Rowan began tentatively, “what does it mean—‘Crows never lie’?”

With a sinking heart, she thought of Shoo.

“It was in Uncle Cecil’s letter. It’s an ancient writing of some sort.
Those who seek/Look to the crows/For crows never lie.”
She paused. “I miss Shoo,” Ivy confessed. She did, terribly—even more so after her experience in the Mind Garden.

Rowan nodded numbly, thinking of the magical panels and
the crow’s uncertain fate. He squeezed her hand. They continued chatting in hushed tones until the door was again thrust open—this time affording the children a bit more of a view—as the alewife returned to her bedside vigil.

“Well, imagine that! Who knew? You have the most refreshing smile!” Wilhelmina approved. “This is the first time I’ve laid eyes on it. I do see why those handsome D. Roux brothers were so taken with you.”

Ivy brightened even further at the mention of Axle and Peps.

“And that charm—what memories! I am glad to see it again. How you convinced Peps to give it up, I’ll never know.” Ivy felt for the alewife charm Peps had given her what seemed like so long ago. The ribbon was warm and comforting around her neck.