To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

by Hartoin, A. W.

  They blinked, but nothing happened. It can never be easy.

  “The damumoto have to pull this carriage. They don’t need to carry you, too. You have legs. I’ve seen them.”

  Nothing.

  “Get out!”

  Nothing.

  Leanna touched my shoulder. “They love you. Just ask them nicely.”

  “If they love me, why do they pee on everything and bother me?” I asked.

  The junior nanny shrugged. “They’re klitzeklein trolls. It’s in their nature.”

  The trolls blinked at me and I forced myself to say it. “Please get out of the carriage. Pretty please with sugar on top.”

  The trolls rolled out of the carriage in a fluid rush and surrounded me, blinking.

  Now go away and never come back.

  “Uh…thanks.”

  “They got it open,” said Leanna.

  The elevator cage was open, but there was a huge bump to go over to get in. The damumoto weren’t looking any better. “We have to help.” I got behind the carriage with Leanna, Iris, Gerald, and Gledit. “Push!” We got it going and onto the elevator. We were all panting at the end, but at least the damumoto were still standing.

  Horc waddled on and the dragons flew in, perching on the metal grating like woodpeckers.

  “Everybody ready?”

  Iris tugged on my sleeve. “What about my master secretary?”

  Rickard was still lying on the floor. It looked like he was trying to roll over to us, but it wasn’t working out for him. I couldn’t leave him there, although I was sorely tempted.

  “Ovid, can you go get Rickard?” I asked.

  Victory hopped up and down sideways on the dragon’s head. His stickiness was amazing. So amazing that I wasn’t looking at his face but at his feet.

  Iris poked me. “Victory says that Ovid says that my master secretary smells like death and probably doesn’t taste good.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “I’m not asking him to eat Rickard. Just carry him with his claws.”

  After some negotiation, Ovid agreed as long as he got a good claw washing afterward. I wasn’t washing any dragon claws, but Iris said she’d do it, so Ovid snapped up Rickard and dropped him without ceremony onto the elevator floor. Percy pushed the button for the fourth floor and up we went. Flying would’ve been so much easier. Stupid wing.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator arrived at the fourth floor. The dragons got the cage open and we pushed the carriage to the front door of the Schweizer Pension. Gerald flew through the keyhole in search of Frau Sebold, a known seer and owner of the pension. Ovid hovered with a limp Rickard in his claw. The dragon had a distinct look of distaste on his face. Dragons never look particularly pleasant, but the distaste was definitely there.

  The wide white door of the pension opened and a woman in her fifties looked out warily.

  “Down here!” I yelled.

  Frau Sebold saw us and she slipped outside, closing the door behind her. “Your Highness, what can I do for you?”

  “Sorry to bother you. I think some friends of ours are staying with you. The Rossi family.”

  She smiled. “Yes, of course. A lovely family. Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes, please, but we had some problems getting here. Could you carry the carriage?”

  Frau Sebold squatted and her thick flannel skirt fanned out, knocking over Gledit and Leanna. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  “No harm done.” Gledit smoothed his leaves and helped Leanna up.

  “Your damumoto aren’t looking well. What has happened to you all?” asked Frau Sebold.

  “The German Reich’s Fae attempted to kidnap the Princess Royal,” said Gledit.

  She held out her hand and we climbed on. Then she leaned down to peer at the carriage. “I need my reading glasses. What’s on your carriage? It’s colorful.”

  “Gargoyles,” I said. “They’re harmless most of the time.”

  “Most of the time?”

  “They don’t like The Reich’s Fae very much.”

  She smiled. “Did they eat them?”

  “Kinda.”

  Frau Sebold blinked at me as she took in this rather gross information. “What’s under the carriage? That isn’t gargoyles.”

  It was a good time to lie, but I didn’t have the energy. “Trolls.”

  She drew back. “Klitzeklein trolls? I can’t have them in the pension. They’re the devil to get rid of and they pee on everything.”

  “Believe me, I know,” I said. “But they won’t be staying. They’re sort of attached to me.”

  “I think I heard something about that. These are the famous Whipplethorn gargoyles, I suppose.”

  “Will you please let us in? We’ve got injuries.”

  “I can’t pick up the carriage with the gargoyles. I’ll hurt them and they bite.” Frau Sebold set us down and said, “I’ll get a pan.” She went inside and quickly returned with a dustpan. She pushed the carriage onto it and asked, “Your dragons will behave, correct? I can’t have them pooping in my guests’ yogurt.”

  I crossed my heart. “They’re good dragons. The green one is Ovid. He won the emperor’s Medal of Valor.”

  Ovid made a great a show of himself doing fancy wing work and showing off his armor.

  “What is he carrying?” she asked.

  “Oh, that’s just Rickard. He’s mostly dead,” I said. Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind too much.

  “Why didn’t you say so? Come in. Let’s hurry now.”

  Frau Sebold opened the door and ducked as three dragons buzzed her head. Every human in the dining room stared at her, but she just smiled and acted like carrying around an empty—to normal human eyes—dustpan was perfectly normal. She hustled through the reception and sitting room, past a dozen humans, and down a hall to a room with a large brass ‘6’ on the door.

  She knocked and said loudly, “Herr Rossi, you have special visitors.”

  The door opened and Herr Rossi came out smiling and brushing the light brown hair off his forehead. “Visitors, Frau Sebold? In this weather?”

  “Some visitors come in all sorts of weather.”

  He frowned.

  “May I present Her Royal Highness, Matilda, the Princess Royal, and her entourage,” said Frau Sebold, indicating us on the dustpan.

  Herr Rossi started when he saw us there and stepped aside. “You had better come in.”

  Frau Sebold carried us in and set the dustpan on the small table next to the wide set of windows. She closed the drapes and glanced at the dragons, who were circling the bed, looking for the softest spot to land on. “You never know who might be watching. I am well-known to the fae. I’ll leave you to explain Your Highness.”

  Frau Sebold left us with four astonished humans, wearing their pajamas and smelling like brioche.

  I waved. “Remember me?”

  “Matilda, of course,” said Mr. Rossi, eyeing our little group. “Nice carriage. Are those…”

  “Gargoyles. They’re feral, so I wouldn’t touch them if I were you.”

  He turned to his wife, Gianna, and their children. “Did you hear that?”

  The kids were Alessia and Luca. I’d met them in the hospital after their mother, Gianna, had been attacked by the horen, Ambrosio, in St. Stephen’s. I delivered the antidote I’d made from Ambrosio’s leg and Gianna survived.

  “I heard, Papa.” At four years old, Alessia was the older of the two children. Her brother, Luca, sucked on his fingers and nodded. He was nearly three and not a big talker.

  “Matilda, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Gianna sat down at the table and came close. “What happened to you? You have blood on your face and shoulder.”

  I told them about The Reich’s Fae and how we needed to get to Rome immediately.

  “We can help you there,” said Mr. Rossi.

  A wave of relief came over me. Sometimes, it was so nice to let humans do the work. “Thank you, Mr. Rossi.”


  “I told you to call me Lorenzo.” He picked up his phone. “I will make arrangements. Gianna has been cleared to go home anyway.”

  Gianna got even closer to me. “You need a healer.”

  “I need to get to Rome,” I said.

  “Lorenzo will get you there.”

  “Soon?”

  “Sooner than you imagine. How about a bath?”

  I would’ve jumped at a bath, but Ovid swooped over and dumped Rickard on the dustpan. Gianna squeaked and then sniffed. “What is that smell?”

  “You don’t want to know.” I unbuttoned Rickard’s shirt and found many more wounds than I expected. Most were old and inflamed, but there were a few fresh ones from The Reich’s Fae. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

  “The good news is that his wounds are mostly superficial,” I said. “The bad news is that he’s lost a lot of blood and has multiple infections that I can’t do anything about.”

  “Why not?” asked Gianna.

  “We barely escaped from the cathedral. We brought nothing. I have no supplies.”

  Gledit went to the back of the carriage, smacked the gargoyles a bunch, and came back with my medical bag and Grandma Vi’s bag, too. “You have everything you need.”

  “How did those get in there?” I asked.

  “The emperor had a feeling there might be problems getting you out of Vienna. He wanted to make sure you had them.”

  “He’s a genius.”

  Gledit glowed with approval. You didn’t get to hear good things about the emperor very much. He didn’t come off well.

  I opened my bag and found two tinctures for pain and infection. I gave Rickard three droppers of white willow and turmeric. “He needs a bath and his clothes are dirty.”

  Everyone just stared at me.

  “Don’t everybody volunteer at once.”

  Leanna took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. I am a nanny.”

  Gianna got a couple of caviar spoons from Frau Sebold and together we washed Rickard. I treated his wounds with witch hazel and gave him honey for the rattling Leanna heard in his chest. We wrapped him in tissue while his clothes dried. Iris and Gledit washed them. Apparently, it was pretty gross. I didn’t want to know.

  After we were all done, I decided to take a bath and soak my wing. I drank some white willow and elderberry tea to help my wing heal, but it didn’t feel much better. I was wrapped in tissue when Gerald ran in, carrying a plump, blubbery bag. “Use this for your wing.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your rejuvenation spell.”

  “You swiped it? That’s for the empress.”

  “I knew you needed it. I thought of it all by myself,” said Gerald.

  Iris came in behind him. “I told you to get it.”

  “No, you didn’t. You said Matilda could use some. I thought of getting it.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I swiped it.”

  Iris snorted. “Nanny gave it to you.”

  Gerald blushed. “Well, I thought of it. Put it in your bath.”

  “Gross,” I said. “I do not want to take a pork blood bath.”

  Iris took the bag from Gerald and dumped some in my spoon. “Too late. You don’t want to waste it.”

  A noxious cloud billowed off the spoon and we all gagged. Horc waddled in. “Where is the meat? I am hungry.”

  “It’s my bath,” I said.

  “Hmm…meat as a drink. I like it.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m gonna to take a bath in that.”

  “You say that like it is a deterrent.”

  “It should be. Go on. Gianna will probably get you some meat.”

  Horc tapped the remains of his biting stick on his chin. “She promised to let me look at her checkbook. Meat goes nicely with money.”

  “Whatever.” I pushed him toward Iris. She picked him up and frowned at me. “Do you think the cardinal misses us?”

  I gave her a quick. hug “I’m positive he does. The master secretary, not so much.”

  “He says we’re disorderly and undisciplined,” said Gerald.

  “Sounds like us.”

  “I’ll kinda miss him. He reminds me of my dad.”

  Iris and I gave him a look.

  “My dad, my real dad. He was always grumpy.” Gerald flew out of the bathroom. We watched. There wasn’t much to say about that. His parents had been killed by the horen and what he remembered the most was the grumpiness. It depressed me.

  “He’ll remember good stuff,” said Iris.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ll make him.”

  “You are love. Go do your thing,” I said, climbing on the rim of the spoon.

  “Do a poem for yourself.”

  “I don’t need a poem,” I said, although I did. I just didn’t want to say one, for some reason.

  Horc spat out some splinters. “Perhaps the scent of money would revive you. It always enlivens me. Lorenzo has a fat wallet. I can ask him.”

  Horc may have decided to be a wood fairy, but he had larceny in his spriggan heart.

  “I’ll do a poem. Go read that exciting checkbook.”

  “It will be very exciting. You don’t know.” He bared his two full rows of gnarly pointed teeth at me in what passed for a smile.

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  They left and I trailed my damaged ankle in the smelly water. The scars were still there and would always be. Something to remember the horen by, as if I could forget. I banished those memories from my mind and thought of something better. Italy. Mom and Dad. Lucrece, the vermillion, and Daiki. This would work. We’d be a family. We’d get our humans back and everything would be fine.

  I didn’t know a lot of poems about traveling, only one, really. Dad liked it. He always said it when we were flying through the woods around Whipplethorn Manor. Iris and I thought he was so lame, but that was the poem that came to mind.

  I swirled my foot and tried not to breathe too deeply. The words of Robert Frost rolled off my tongue without my having to think about it at all. But I never appeared in the steam as I expected. First, there was Soren Maple, my first friend outside the world of Whipplethorn Manor, then The Commander smoking his stick, Krust Nuget, Horc’s brother who taught me that not all spriggans were alike, Lucien Galen, and Delphine. Mom and Dad appeared. Daiki, Lucrece, and Lrag. Then the fairy tour guide from the Louvre in his vestments.

  As I finished the poem, the images faded.

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  I fell asleep in the tub, wondering what it meant. It wasn’t about travel. Of that much I was certain.

  Chapter Six

  I WOKE TO the smell of cumin and cayenne. It was pretty strong and had a hint of olives, too.

  “Stop it,” I said without opening my eyes.

  The smell stayed. Fidelé’s tail brushed my cheek. He smelled like yogurt and fruit.

  I flicked the surface of the water. “I know you’re still there.”

  My spoon rocked to the right and I was forced to peek. Rufus was floating in my bath, red hot and steaming. Beyond him was Penelope, poised above me with the delicate tip of her tongue heading for my meaty water.

  I sat up with a jolt. “For crying out loud, that’s so gross. You’re going to drink my bathwater? Really?”

  Penelope tucked her head under her wing.

  “Yeah, yeah. You’re real embarrassed. I totally believe that.”

  Gledit walked around Penelope’s tail and said, “Dragons are gross.”

  I shrieked and ducked down so that only my eyes were visible above the cloudy, pink water. I tried to cover myself, but there’s only so much hands can do.

  “Your Highness, there aren’t any secrets you have that I can’t keep,” said Gledit. “Lorenzo has made our travel arrangements. We have to hurry.” He held up a square piece of fabric. “I’ll help you get ready.”

>   I sat up a little. “No way. I’m keeping my dignity.”

  “Dignity is for the public princess. Privately, nothing is off-limits.”

  “Go away. I’m naked.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter. I’m your master secretary. Since you don’t have a personal maid, I’ll be washing your underwear, arranging your hair, and making sure all royal protocol is followed. I’m a fairy of many talents.”

  “You are not washing my stuff.”

  “I have to. It’s my job.”

  “You’re fired.”

  Gledit laughed. “You can’t fire me. Only the emperor can do that. Come on now. Stand up.”

  “Never going to happen.”

  Behind Gledit, Penelope came out from under her wing. She assessed the situation and decided I had bigger things to worry about than her, even though she was huge and could hardly be missed. Her red tongue started for my spoon and Gledit saw. He darted for her and smacked the tip. She sucked her tongue back in and bared her snaggly teeth.

  “I don’t know who let that disgusting dragon in here. I’ll take her in hand, rest assured,” he said.

  Rufus and Fidelé both started hissing. They probably thought they were next to be ‘taken in hand’.

  “What do you mean by that? Penelope’s fine,” I said.

  “Your Highness, this dragon is overweight and over-indulged. She wasn’t to be included on this royal trip, but she came anyway. She’s of no use and she smells odd. I will put her on a diet and—”

  “Are you going to get out of this bathroom so I can get dressed or what?”

  “That’s not how it’s done.”

  Without thinking about it, I said, “Get rid of him, Penelope.”

  If I had thought about it, I would’ve expected her to eat Gledit. Instead, she turned around and peed him right off the counter. Gledit went spinning away and I yelled after him, “See! She does have a use!”

  I jumped out of the tub when I had the chance and grabbed a piece of tissue that we had left over from Rickard. I wrapped myself up in it so that absolutely nothing was showing before walking to the edge of the counter. Gledit was flopping around in a big yellow pool, but he seemed unharmed except for his dignity. Dragon pee stink never comes out. He’d have to molt or something.