by E. G. Foley
The grown ladies all seemed a little distraught that their charges would be going in for their royal inspections without them, but those were the rules.
Her Majesty wished to see for herself what the girls were made of, who they really were, without their minders signaling to them what they ought to say.
The rumor was Her Majesty had a certain interest in adding a magical family member to her considerable brood by way of marriage.
Contrary to fairytales, however, none of the girls in the anteroom were keen to marry one of the Queen’s many younger sons. (The future king was already spoken for, of course.) Still, if the Queen wished to have any one of them for a future daughter-in-law, she got first dibs and it wasn’t like the chosen girl could say no.
Her Majesty clearly relished the task of choosing brides and grooms for her large brood of marriageable offspring.
Isabelle prayed she would not be noticed. She didn’t even want to think about how some spoiled royal husband might expect her to use her gift to help him politically or in other, less-than-ethical ways.
Truly, being an empath was a road fraught with perils.
Even now, she was all too aware of the undercurrents of hostility coming from three of the girls, who had decided at the Gathering two years ago that they didn’t like her. They had been making fun of her behind her back (as if this were possible) ever since.
Ah, well. Everyone has their detractors, she thought, trying to ignore them. But surely this was proof that it didn’t matter how nice you were to people, how perfect you tried to be; there were always those who would find fault with you and delight in hurting your feelings, just because.
Frankly, Isabelle was feeling rather weary of trying to be perfect all the time, especially since she had failed to impress Maddox St. Trinian. Impress him—gracious, she couldn’t even read his emotions with her gift! She still did not understand why and was afraid to ask one of the older empaths, who might have had an explanation.
Across the room, meanwhile, her critics—two witches and a horse shapeshifter girl—were whispering about her behind their hands, laughing at her and at some of the other girls, too. As if they all needed something like that to make them even more nervous.
She frowned a little and looked away, and it was then that she heard low-toned arguing coming from beyond the doorway, out by the colonnade.
She leaned forward in her chair so she could see past the row of marble columns. Hmm. The Queen’s uniformed chamberlain was trying to soothe the anger of a tall, elegant, black-clad man.
“Now, look here! Gather the Elders and let me in to see the Queen.”
“In due time, Your Highness, you will have the royal audience—”
“Don’t feed me that tripe! Do you not understand how I’ve risked my bloody undead life, coming here to bring them this warning? And now I’m told to wait and cool my heels while these insipid little misses waltz in to chat with Her Majesty about what, the weather? Sweet Artemis, you people! How many more insults must I withstand?
“Your hospitality, by the way, is atrocious,” he added. “I have not been offered a single drop to drink since I arrived last night. On the contrary! I have been attacked, interrogated, locked up, scanned, probed, insulted—not to mention knocked around by certain barbaric Guardians in Her Majesty’s employ.” He cast scornful glances at the two large, looming bodyguards flanking him.
Neither of them was Maddox.
“Truly, my abject apologies, Prince Janos! Please bear with us. I implore your patience.” The chamberlain shook his head in apparent sympathy, but Isabelle could sense that he was terrified of the stranger. “If there’s anything I can do to make up for how poorly you’ve been treated—”
Prince Janos waved off the niceties. “I do not desire your blandishments, lackey. I merely want to see Her Majesty today, as I was promised, and be on my way. So tell me, good chamberlain. Exactly how much longer must I wait?”
“It will be but a-a short delay. I’m so sorry for this inconvenience, truly, but if you’d kindly follow me into the sitting room just here and make yourself comfortable, I shall make absolutely certain that you are next in line to see Her Majesty.”
“Very well.” The prince leaned closer to the little man. “But I must warn you. Do you know what I will do to you if you are lying to me, hmm?”
The chamberlain gulped; the Guardians moved closer.
“Not to worry, Your Highness,” the chamberlain replied with admirable calm. “If you could find it in your heart to be patient just a short while longer. Truly, we mean no disrespect, but Her Majesty’s schedule is set months in advance. If we veer from it at the last moment, all would quickly turn to chaos.” The chamberlain laughed weakly, as though pleading for him to understand, but the stranger just stared.
“You want to see chaos? Then keep wasting time while the Dark Druids prepare,” he replied.
“Please, sir, not in front of the young ladies!” the chamberlain begged him, aghast at the supposed harm to their delicate female sensibilities. “This way. I’m afraid I must insist.”
The bristling Guardians stepped up to each side of the stranger to escort him into the nearby sitting room. The prince scowled at them.
From this safe distance, Isabelle looked on, riveted. By now, she had realized who the undead stranger was—obviously the vampire Jake had seen arrive last night.
She shuddered, never having seen one of the bloodsucking creatures before. But, recalling her cousin’s urgency about figuring out why one of his kind would dare come to Merlin Hall, she knew what she had to do. Jake was right. It had to be something vitally important.
Something the adults would never tell mere children.
Dark Druids…preparing for what? she wondered.
And so, determined to find out what he was hiding, she closed her eyes and concentrated, summoning up all of her ability, reaching deep within her own heart and mind, to where she made empathic connections with her subjects.
She ignored the fleeting warning that it might not be wise to try to connect her awareness with that of an undead creature of the night.
The vampire prince was such a large personality that she found his pulsating presence in the etheric realm at once—but drew in a breath when she did.
His inner world was a very strange and frightening place. Her mind swam to meet his through a cold, surging sea of instinct and fear, power and loss, sadness and hate, all of it emanating from him. She felt him protecting someone…
Why are you here? her mind whispered to his.
She quickly found an answer lurking in the enigma of his cloaked thoughts, though it wasn’t complete. He had indeed brought the Elders some sort of warning, as he had mentioned to the chamberlain, but it didn’t come for free.
Oh, no…he wanted something in return. Something big. And he didn’t mean to budge.
She detected in him a bittersweet sense of loyalty however, as if perhaps he once had belonged here…
All of a sudden, the connection was cut off as crisply as though someone had sliced it with a sword. And a terrifying voice came back to her—from inside her head.
Who’s there?
She flicked her eyes open to find that the vampire had stopped walking away. She shrank down in her chair as he slowly turned around.
A chill ran down her spine, and she clasped her hands more tightly in her lap, staring, wide-eyed, at him, willing him to take no notice of her.
It didn’t work. He saw her.
And he knew.
He raised a brow, anger in his blazing eyes and a faint, bitter twist on his lips. Then she nearly screamed when she heard his voice in her mind again. Mocking her.
Such a nosy girl! It isn’t nice trying to pry into other people’s thoughts. How would you like it if someone did it to you? His smile fell away, and an icy threat emanated from him. Mind your own business, he ordered her without a single word spoken aloud.
No one else even knew they had communicated.
Isabelle held perfectly still, her heart pounding, as the vampire released her from his telepathic hold, pivoted on his heel with an elegant motion, and allowed the warriors to escort him out.
“Goodness, are you all right, dear?” one of the chaperones asked, turning and noticing the look on her face just then. “You’re so pale! There, there, now, don’t be frightened.” With a chuckle, the kindly woman put her arm around Isabelle’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Her Majesty knows you girls are nervous. But don’t worry, she has no wish to terrify you. It’s just a pre-debut formality. You’ll do fine.”
Somehow Isabelle forced a smile, hiding the true cause of her apprehension, but as she dropped her gaze, murmuring her thanks, she feared she had just made a very powerful enemy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Art Appreciation
The tropical sun was starting to get hot. The constant breeze was nice, but Lord only knew what waited for them in the jungle ahead.
Jake trudged through the deep sand with Nixie, the gentle surf washing the beach at their backs. She was trying to remember details about Caliban from the Shakespeare play—just in case.
“He’s sort of a wild mutant. In the play, his mother was a witch and his father was the devil.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Um, that’s not the worst part.”
He turned to her, wiping a bead of sweat off his brow.
She hesitated. “Shakespeare supposedly came up with the name Caliban by rearranging the word cannibal. So…”
“I see. So we might end up as supper. Is that the fastest you can walk?”
She made a sound of frustration. “It’s slow-going on this sand. Every step makes me twist my ankle again. I can’t believe I broke my wand or I’d have already fixed myself.”
Jake nodded. “Come ’ere, I’ll carry you. Get on my back.”
“What? No!”
He stepped in front of her and ignored her huffy, I-don’t-need-anybody protests, until she relented and climbed onto his back for a piggyback ride.
She hardly weighed a thing. “You need to eat more.”
“This really isn’t necessary,” she muttered, clasping her wrist in front of his neck to hold on.
“Beg to differ,” Jake said as he trudged through the deep sand. “I’ve got more meat on my bones than you. He’ll eat me first. So pardon if I seem eager to get out of here.” He paused when he reached the edge of the jungle, looking up at the spiky, soughing trees on their long, slim stems. “Never seen a jungle before. Except the Palm Room under glass at Kew Botanical Gardens.”
“Neither have I. Oh, look at the parrots and cockatiels! Such bright colors,” she said, marveling at the gaudy-plumaged birds swooping overhead, though their squawks were surprisingly ungraceful for such magnificent specimens.
“Hey, look, a path,” he said suddenly. “Our next paintbrush might be that way.”
She nodded, and he continued carrying her deeper into the jungle of Prospero’s island. The ground was more packed down here, making it possible for Nixie to walk again—though Jake warned her to be careful of the tiny crabs scuttling back and forth across the path. One crunched underfoot when he put her down; Nixie winced, but it was impossible not to step on them.
They hadn’t gone far when they heard a weird snuffling noise amid the trees, twigs crackling and the low mumbling of someone talking to himself in some primitive, guttural language.
They froze, then quickly crouched down.
Through the screen of brilliant emerald vegetation, they could just make out a large, somewhat human-shape. It was hunched to one side and had horns. They could hear its odd gait as it dragged a foot behind it with each step.
They looked at each other, wide-eyed.
Caliban.
They could hear him sniffing the air rapidly. “Visitors have come! Yum-yum…”
Jake blanched. With nothing but a few leaves between the two of them and a wild, cannibalistic monster, he cast about for a distraction. He spotted a cluster of coconuts on a palm tree some distance away. Clearing his mind, he used his telekinesis to shake them off the tree.
Caliban whirled to face the noise. “Dinner is served!” He bounded off in the direction of the sound, his lame foot not enough to slow him down.
“Look!” Nixie mouthed the word, pointing to a little mossy cave off the path. It had water trickling down one side and a wooden bar across the cave entrance—in the shape of a paintbrush.
Thank gosh, Jake thought. They crept toward it as speedily and silently as possible. Jake kept Nixie ahead of him so he could use his telekinesis to push Caliban back if he returned to pursue them.
Moments later, an angry roar a few hundred yards away suggested the beast had discovered the coconut ruse.
“Hurry up, he’s coming back!” Jake breathed.
“I am, it’s just these vines—” Nixie suddenly shrieked when one of the hanging vines she smacked aside proved not to be a vine at all, but a cold, clammy snake. Descending from the odd-looking tree above, it coiled back at her and hissed.
As it bared it fangs to strike, Jake blasted the snake with his telekinesis. It flew backward into the jungle, and they ran toward the cave, Nixie limping worse than Caliban.
Jake glanced over his shoulder. The monster was bearing down on them with long, uneven strides, snarling as he came.
“Go!” Jake yelled.
Nixie flung herself toward the paintbrush, threw it aside, and tripped into the cave, while Jake paused to stare for another second at the monster, barely able to believe his eyes.
Horned, muscle-bound, and hideous, Caliban really did resemble a minotaur. When the creature leaped toward him, he bolted to the paintbrush, while Nixie screamed, “Come on!”
The moment the paintbrush swung back into position behind him like a door closing, the world went dark.
Prospero’s island disappeared—and thankfully, so had Caliban.
They paused in the pitch-black cave for a moment to catch their breath.
“You all right?” he asked, panting.
“Ew, I touched a snake.”
“Thought witches like snakes.”
“Some witches. Not me. Ick, ick, ick.”
He heard her wiping her hands on her skirt. Glancing around, he could just make out a glimmer of flat gray light outlining the rectangle shape of an ordinary door ahead.
“You ready?” he asked.
She stood up with an unsteady motion, bumping against him. “I’d better be, since we don’t have much choice.”
“Don’t suppose you remember which painting comes next?”
“I don’t think they’re connected in any particular order.”
“So we have no idea where we’ll end up. Well,” he said with a wry gesture toward the door, “ladies first.”
“Thanks a lot.” Bravely, Nixie stepped up to the door ahead and felt around until she found a doorknob.
When she opened it, they both poked their heads out and looked around. They found themselves peering out of a closet inside a narrow, wooden house painted in somber shades.
“So far, no monsters,” Nixie whispered.
Jake caught a whiff of baking bread and onions frying in butter. He could hear the busy back-and-forth footsteps of someone working in the kitchen down the hallway, and the pleasing, homey rhythm of someone chopping vegetables on a wooden cutting board.
“Food!” His mouth instantly watering, he stepped out of the closet built under the staircase. “I was worried we might starve to death in here!”
“I hardly think we can invite ourselves to dinner,” Nixie warned as they started creeping down the hallway.
“Why not?”
“Jake!”
Within a few paces, they arrived at a modest foyer with a coat-tree in the corner. A muddy pair of floppy, old-fashioned boots with fold-over tops sat dr
ying on a mat by the wall.
Nixie signaled Jake to wait while she silently opened the front door and peeked out. “Canals! I think we’re in Amsterdam. Oh…I see. We must be in a culinary still-life by one of the Dutch masters! Maybe even a Rembrandt.”
“Huh?”
“The Dutch masters were always painting things like bowls of fruit or the ingredients for rabbit stew.”
That got his attention. “Rabbit stew?” His eyes glazing over, Jake glanced longingly toward the kitchen. “Think they’d give us some?”
Nixie closed the front door of the house and frowned at him, but Jake shrugged. “Better to eat dinner than be dinner.”
“Shh! I think there’s somebody in there!” Nixie pointed to the open doorway of the room on the other side of the foyer.
At once, Jake tiptoed past her to investigate, and, indeed, as he approached, he could hear small clanking and scribbling noises, a crinkle of paper as someone turned a page.
“What are you doing?” Nixie breathed in exasperation.
He waved her off impatiently. “If it’s one of the Enchanted Gallery’s fugitives, we should try to talk to him about how to get out of here.”
“What if it’s not?”
He ignored the question and drew upon his ex-pickpocket’s stealth to sneak a peek around the corner.
A man in an odd, rather squarish, black velvet hat was counting coins on the table and doing figures in his ledger book.
“I think it’s the owner of the house,” he reported back to Nixie a moment later.
“Hmm.” She tilted her head. “As I recall, a lot of the Old Masters used to support themselves in their starving artist days by painting portraits of the town’s merchants or local gentry.”
Starving artists? No wonder they painted food, Jake thought. “Well, he doesn’t look like he intends to bother us. He’s caught up in counting his gold.” He stole another glance into the room, but froze when the merchant noticed him there—and mistook him for a servant.
