The Water and the Wild (34 page)

By an instinct that Lottie did not recognize as her own, she lifted her forefinger for Keats to perch upon.

“A finch,” barked the Barghest, “from the house of Wilfer. What message has it been sent to deliver?”

“Did Oliver send you to me?” Lottie asked the finch.

Keats bobbed his tiny head and cheeped once. Lottie took this as a
yes
.

“Are he and the others all right?”

The finch quivered his head back and forth. He cheeped twice, lower than before. This, Lottie realized grimly, meant
no
.

“Are they locked up?” she asked. “Are they in the dungeons with Mr. Wilfer?”

A bob and a cheep.

“Take us to them!”

Keats twittered excitedly and swooped off Lottie's finger in a dive. He reappeared a moment later in the near distance, over the heads of the crowd, his wings gleaming in the sun like a beacon.

“Come on, Barghest,” Lottie said, scratching its ear encouragingly. “Let's go.”

The Barghest obeyed the order. They set out again into the press of the crowd. They had been standing, Lottie now saw, in a great cobblestone pavilion that fronted the Southerly Court Palace. It was an impressive sight: all columns, fountains, marble, and stone. It bespoke wealth and power and was nothing like the surrounding alleys that Lottie now plunged into. These alleys were winding and crowded, billowing with smoke and noise. The streets bent severely, zigzagging in almost impossible ways, as though the sprites who had first laid them out had done so with
their eyes closed, and after having been spun around in circles. Balconies hung overhead in steep slants that blocked out the sun. Silver pipes jutted out from under windows, and as Lottie passed by a shop marked
ROYAL LANE LAUNDROMAT
,
one of those pipes poured out blue-colored steam and the fresh scent of cotton. More vendor shouts echoed: “Fresh honeysuckle straws!” and “Hummingbird dung!”

More than once, Lottie lost sight of Keats, and each time she did—even if for only a mere second—hot dread seized her. But just when Lottie's feet slowed in hesitation, the genga would reemerge, five or even ten heads away, and swoop on.

Then Keats gave a very sudden swerve that would have been inconceivable in a gridded neighborhood like the respectable Thirsby Square. The alleyway yanked back on itself in an acute diagonal, sloping downward so instantly that it threw Lottie off her balance and propelled her down at an alarming speed until she smacked straight into a door.

Lottie backed away, rubbing at her sore shoulder, which had gotten the brunt of the impact. Keats hopped from the door's silver handle to its lintel.

“This is it?” said Lottie, craning her neck up to see that somehow, indeed, Oliver's genga had led them to a solid stone wall that belonged to some back portion of the Southerly Court Palace itself.

Keats chirped expectantly at Lottie.

The Barghest pawed at the door's threshold.

“It is enchanted,” it growled. “Only the king's Guard can enter such a door.”

“I don't suppose that ‘Vesper Bells' would work at a time like this?” Lottie suggested with a nervous laugh.

The Barghest did not laugh. There were no vines here to obey Lottie's command. She looked around the deserted alley for some other sign of entrance, but there was the door and the door alone.

“Well, this is stupid,” Lottie observed. She gave Keats a cross look. “What good is a door if we can't go through it?”

And simply because there was nothing else to do, Lottie gave a great yank at the door handle. For one fantastic moment, Lottie really thought that there must have been some enchantment-breaking magic in her touch and she had been the one to open the door. But then the door was flung open farther, much farther than Lottie's yank
warranted, and sent her staggering into the wall. She just managed to swallow a cry of pain as a red-cloaked guard came sauntering out and leaned back against the door hinges. He took out a thin pipe and lit it up. He paid no mind to Lottie or the Barghest crouched at her side. Keats was nowhere to be seen.

The Barghest raised its eyes to Lottie. They were both shielded for now in the crook behind the open door, but Lottie knew the guard's smoke break would not last forever. She crouched and slipped her mouth into the floppy fold of the Barghest's ear.

“Distract him,” she whispered.

The Barghest gave a low rumble that sounded surprisingly cheerful. Lottie sucked in one thick, steadying breath. She readied her feet for a swift run. Then she nodded to the Barghest, who grinned and leapt around the door with an inhuman, shrieking howl. The startled shout of the Southerly guard rose to a terrified cry.

As Lottie edged quickly around the door, she glimpsed spattered crimson and a flurry of dark fur. She did not think on these things. She ran past the screaming guard and into a dark hallway. The door slammed behind her, shutting out both the Barghest and the noise. Lottie ran
on, her sneakers sliding on slick, silver tiles. In fact, the entire hallway—floor, walls, and ceiling—was made of pure silver. Lottie's breath hitched when she turned the corner and found herself face-to-face with another sprite—which turned out to be nothing more than her distorted reflection. There was no one else in the hallway, or at the next bend, or the next.

“Come on,” Lottie whispered, keeping on the alert for some sign of where she ought to turn, but more than anything for a sign of white wings. “Where did you go, Keats? Where do
I
go?”

There was no reply, not so much as a twitter. So Lottie ran on. It was a terrible feeling, to run in those halls alone and with no sense of direction. The space was narrow and the ceilings short, and the twists were more ridiculous than the twists of the city alleyways. Lottie decided that Southerlies must have an affinity for sharp turns.

Lottie ran around another blade-sharp corner, and her breath caught again at the flash of something in the silver. Just your reflection, you loon, she reminded herself, and then she proceeded to collide into what was not just her reflection, but really another sprite. Not just any other sprite, but—

“Fife!”

“Lottie?” Fife's hair was standing straight on end. He tugged a fallen Lottie back to her feet, and he spoke in a loud whisper. “Lottie! What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you all. Oliver's genga led me here, and then the Barghest helped me to—”

“What? Whoa,
whoa,
what? A
Barghest
is with you?”

Lottie nodded fervently. “But that's not important right now. What are you doing here? What is this place?”

“The Southerly dungeons,” said Fife. “Or the start of them, anyway. It's a maze down here.”

“But how come you're free?”

Fife smirked. “I sweet-talked my guard. It's incredible how quickly you can flavor a hardened old crust into a sympathetic stew of goo.”

“You used your keen?”

“Astutely deducted,” said Fife, shifting his feet in an antsy, half-hovering bounce.

“And the others?”

“I've been trying to find some sign of where they've been locked up, but I might as well be looking for a grain of Piskie Dust in a snowstorm. Surprisingly few guards to worry about, though. That's one perk of the
dungeons: they're so well made that they keep 'em severely underguarded.”

“We can look together,” said Lottie. “Where to?”

Fife pointed to a fork in the hallway down which neither of them had run. “That way.”

Fife took Lottie's hand, and as his fingers curled into the gaps of hers, Lottie's feet left the ground.

“Unless you'd rather run?” Fife said, looking over at her uncertainly.

“No.” Lottie flapped her free arm, balancing herself into an upright hover. “This is faster.”

“You bet it is,” said Fife. “Just hang on.”

They swished down the jagged halls, surrounded at every turn by a company of reflected Fifes and Lotties.

“Have you seen Mr. Wilfer?” Lottie asked.

Fife shook his head. “We didn't even get past the main gate. The Guard was waiting for us. They took us to make our plea before the king, just like Mr. Ingle said they would. Then King Starkling laughed at us all like a regular bully and threw us down here.”

“Even when you offered him the Otherwise Incurable?”

Fife hesitated. Lottie saw his tongue peeking out from the side of his mouth.

“Don't use your keen on me! Just
tell
me.”

“Fine,” said Fife. “Yes, we gave the medicine up. But Lottie, just listen—”

Lottie shook her head. She knew what Fife was doing: he was trying to change her mood, change her mind. So she would change the subject.

“Is Mr. Wilfer safe?”

“As far as we know,” Fife said, still looking uneasy as they swooped down another hallway. “The king's keeping him somewhere down here. He claims that he's got Mr. Wilfer working on a new version of the Otherwise Incurable, but everyone knows that's a sham. He's through with Mr. Wilfer. He's going to sentence him tomorrow.”

“I know,” said Lottie. “He said so at the trial today.”

Fife shuddered.

“The king said that
all
of you were going on trial—Mr. Wilfer and the ‘fugitives,' too.”

They skimmed another turn, and Lottie saw in their reflection that Fife was giving her a good sidelong stare. At last he said, “You came back for us.”

“Astutely deducted.”

“Ollie said you would.” Fife hesitated. Then, “Lottie, about what happened back in the wood: you
need to know the rest, about what Mr. Wilfer told us beforehand.”

“Why?” said Lottie. “What did Mr. Wilfer tell you?”

Before Fife could answer, something cold slapped against Lottie's neck.

It was the flat of a sword, and it was in the hand of a red-cloaked sprite whose assessing eyes were all too familiar.

“Please continue,” said Grissom. “What
did
Mr. Wilfer say?”

FIFE DROPPED
Lottie's hand, and immediately the weightlessness left her body. She fell to the floor and out of reach of Grissom's sword.

“Run!” yelled Fife, but Lottie could see from where she lay that it was no use. There were two red guards closing in from the other end of the hall, their maces raised. Grissom had them surrounded.

“Worthy effort,” Grissom said with an unkind smile, “but surely it crossed your mind that the king's Guard includes sprites with the most acute hearing.”

“Not the one at your back door,” Lottie said, struggling to her feet.

Grissom's smile faltered.

“So . . . ,” said Fife, slowly licking his lips, “aren't you tired of hunting down a handful of obnoxious
children
? Much better to let us go, don't you think?”

Lottie eyed Fife. He was trying to use his keen on Grissom, all stops out. Lottie wondered if it could possibly work.

Grissom's smile returned. “I can smell the manipulation on your skin. You can stop trying.”

No. No, it could not possibly work.

Grissom continued, “You, halfling boy, will be taken back to your cell and—now that you've so flagrantly displayed your keen—placed there with a guard who won't be susceptible to your trickery.”

Grissom motioned to the two red guards behind them, who clamped their hands on Fife's arms.

“Hey!” Fife cried. “Easy on the limbs, you oafs.” He smiled weakly at Lottie as the guards dragged him off. “Chin up, Lottie Fiske. It might not all end in tears and fifthing!”

“That boy is more of a fool than his mother ever was,” said Grissom, who had meantime caught Lottie by the wrist. “And so are you, Lottie Fiske.”

Lottie glared unflinchingly at Grissom. “My mother wasn't a fool. She had a marvelous heart. Which is more than you can say for yourself.”

“I,” said Grissom, digging his nails into Lottie's veins, “am soon to be the king's most trusted right-hand sprite.”

“Because that worked out so well for the others?”

Fife's flippancy must have worn off on Lottie, because the taunt had rolled like butter off of her tongue in spite of the knot in her stomach. The ugly look that appeared on Grissom's face in response gave Lottie a proud thrill.

“You,” Grissom said, “have an appointment with the king.”

He jerked Lottie down a new hallway. At the end of this hall, unlike in all the others, was a spiraling staircase. Lottie and Fife had been only seconds away from an exit when they were caught. She felt like crying.

Lottie stumbled up the stairs under Grissom's hard grip until they reached a door that opened into a new hallway. This place was nothing like the silver dungeons.
Its ceilings were higher even than those of Iris Gate, and it was bordered on both sides by nothing but long, glossy black panels. The only light came from the ground, where two rows of stumpy black candles edged a velvet runner. Their flames flickered wildly as Grissom pulled Lottie to the very end of the hall. There, he swept aside a golden tapestry and knocked on the door hidden behind it.