He smiled and his eyes opened a bit. “He does indeed.”
“May I go, Your Grace?” I asked.
“You may, but I might need Healer Bauer’s excellent brew again tomorrow.”
“I understand, Your Grace.” I got to my feet, a little unsteady from the relief that I hadn’t messed up and from the fear that was welling inside me.
The cardinal reached out and touched my hand. “Thank you, Mattie. Send in the master secretary for me. We have some letters to attend to.”
I put the cup and saucer back on the tray and left. When I opened the door I half-expected Aoife to be there with an eye to the keyhole, but the hall was empty. I closed the door and leaned on it, looking up at the stone ceiling. If the cardinal could figure me out, who else could?
The kitchens were located in the opposite direction of the servants’ quarters, which was inconvenient at best. The Bishop’s Gate was the side entrance to the cathedral and why anyone thought that was a great place to put the kitchens was a mystery to me. The Bishop’s Gate was supposed to be reserved for human females coming in to the cathedral and the kitchen staff was all female, so maybe that had something to do with it.
I snuck in to get my nightly allotment of bread, cheese, and fruit, only to be caught by Aoife. She absolutely had to know why the cardinal had asked for me. What did we talk about? How was he feeling? How was I feeling? Did he cough? Did His Grace smile?
I answered with as few lies as I could manage, listened to the usual complaints about the malfunctioning stoves, paid for the extra food I needed from my meager salary, and fluttered away before Aoife could ask me about his grace’s socks or breath or the temperature in the room.
When I got back to Friedrich’s tomb, I darted down with my wooden tray and went for the entrance. Just before I got there I caught a glimpse of purple in the corner of my eye. I stopped short and flew sideways a little. There on the corner of the tomb were about twenty klitzeklein trolls stacked one on top of another and peeking at me from around a carved figure decorating the edge. They blinked at me. Their ears wiggled and their mouths were formed into Os, covering their sharp teeth.
“So you’re back,” I said. “You’re stupider than I thought. Don’t make me get a bucket.”
The trolls didn’t move. They stared and I suspect they were making some kind of noise but I couldn’t hear it.
“I’m going to hit you with so much remover tomorrow, you’ll pass out from the fumes and I’ll toss you into traffic. How’d you like that?”
Nothing. Dear Lord they were stupid. I rolled my eyes and then flew into the entrance, glancing back to make sure they didn’t follow. They didn’t. It was a good thing, too. I was at the end of my wings. I might’ve fried them on the spot. But instead of frying trolls, I went down to my room and doled out our dinner.
No one complained about the amount of food, not even Horc. He scarfed down his portion, blinked, and fell over in a snore. Miss Penrose coughed and said she wasn’t hungry, but I suspect she just wanted to give her food to Gerald and Iris. After some hesitation they divided Miss Penrose’s cheese.
“You have to eat the rest,” said Iris. “You’re sick again.”
Gerald nodded and said something through a mouthful of bread. I couldn’t understand him and it was probably a lecture on calories, the little know-it-all.
“I’ll be fine,” said Miss Penrose. “You’ve all lost more weight than I have.”
“That’s because you didn’t have any weight left to lose,” I said.
Miss Penrose had been on the brink of death when Ibn Vermillion’s cure saved her, making her body skeletal at best. She’d never recovered her weight after I finished the cure because she was always trying to feed the rest of us. It didn’t help much. We’d all lost weight. Iris now had a chiseled jawline and a waist. She thought it was an improvement, but I missed my rosy-cheeked sister.
“Some fairies are meant to be thin,” said Miss Penrose.
Not that thin.
“Speaking of eating. “Have you seen Delphine? I dosed her earlier and she was working on the cardinal’s cloak.”
Iris and Gerald shook their heads and looked down at their cheese, avoiding my eyes.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t be upset,” said Miss Penrose.
“Why would I be upset?”
“She’s crying again. Rickard came by looking for you when you were still at the cardinal’s and he told her about the massacre in Paris.”
Tiny flames erupted in my palms. The smell of melting cheese filled the air and I quickly doused them. It was hard enough to get Delphine to eat without melting her Emmenthaler into a sticky mess.
“That weasel. If I ever—”
“Don’t say it, Matilda. You don’t really wish Rickard harm.”
Yes, I do. I really really do.
I didn’t reply because what I wanted to say wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It was like that with adults. They don’t want to know the truth. It’s just too difficult to bear.
“Maybe you can make her some more tea,” said Miss Penrose, hopefully.
I whipped up a brew of valerian, catnip, and chamomile. The amounts had to be just right to get her through the night without nightmares. Fidelé left Victory with Rufus and climbed onto my shoulder. His warm weight made me feel better for no real reason. I used my fire to intensify the qualities of the tea and then Miss Penrose and I went to Delphine’s room. We found her where I’d left her. She sobbed on her knees and was scraping at the stone with her knuckles. They were ragged and bloody.
Miss Penrose touched my arm and with an odd expression asked me what the heck was she doing as if I knew. Maybe if I had Grandma Vi’s books, I could’ve figured it out. But my guess was that the books would state the obvious. Delphine had totally lost it. That nasty Rickard. I could just see him smiling in his room about how he’d pushed Delphine over the edge and wasn’t he clever. I’d show him clever and it would come with a burning sensation.
Miss Penrose and I knelt in front of her. I took her bloody hands off the floor and held them in mine. “Rickard doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
She raised her streaming eyes to mine, “No?”
“No. It’s just a rumor and rumors mean nothing. It wasn’t in the papers,” I lied. I had no idea what was in the papers since I’d incinerated them.
“Listen to Matilda,” said Miss Penrose. “She was out. She knows.”
“I think he’s dead,” Delphine wailed. “I can’t live without him. I can’t…”
“He’s not dead,” I said. “Nobody’s dead. They’re with Tess and Judd, trying to figure out where we are.”
“But…”
I had to control my temper and the urge to set the room on fire to release my frustrations. What good did this do? Wailing wouldn’t change anything. Thinking they were dead wasn’t helpful. I didn’t want to think about any of that stuff and I resented Delphine for constantly making me.
I pushed the cup into her hands. “Drink.”
“I don’t want it.”
Miss Penrose played the trump card. “Roberto would want you to have it, so you can be well when he comes.”
Delphine wiped her eyes, leaving bloody streaks on her sallow cheeks. “Yes. He would want me well.” She took a deep sip, shivering at the strong flavor.
I patted her bony knee. Taking care of Delphine was an everyday battle. I much preferred the regular kind of battle. The kind where there was a winner and a loser. With Delphine each day ended with a tenuous truce and I was sick of it, of not knowing where my parents were, of not being myself, of chamber pots and trolls and, most of all, of trying so hard and getting nowhere.
“Matilda?” asked Miss Penrose. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Can you get the arnica salve from my bedside table? It’ll help her hands.”
She looked at me for a moment as if to ask me more questions but then thought better of it. She rubbed Delphine’s back and left. Delp
hine took that as a sign that she was done drinking. She wasn’t, but I took the cup and began feeding her the cheese and bread. As the tea absorbed into her system she got all dreamy-eyed and stopped protesting. I got the food down her in record time and put the cup back to her lips.
She drank deeply, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell over, dropping the empty cup on the cardinal’s neglected rope.
“I think you maybe overdid it,” said Miss Penrose, kneeling beside Delphine’s snoring face.
“She needs her rest,” I said.
“So do we all.”
Gerald came in and, if I went by his expression, he was ready to lecture us on something. Instead, he stopped and asked, “Tea?”
“Just a little,” I said.
“Just a little. It’s like you hit her in the head with a hammer.”
“A little hammer. She has to rest and so do we.”
“I don’t mind. But…” he hesitated, “is it a new brew?”
“Just different amounts with a touch of my fire to help it along. Do you want some?” I asked.
Gerald’s small nose wrinkled in anger. “No.” He stormed out.
Miss Penrose put a soft hand on my shoulder. “Prepare a cup. I’ll see if he’ll take it.”
I hesitated, very afraid to ask, but I had to do it. “Has he been feeling bad again?”
“He doesn’t blame you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Miss Penrose.
Now I was quite angry myself, with Rickard, and practically everyone in the world. It wasn’t fair. Why did Gerald’s parents have to die? It was because of me. If I hadn’t taken Gerald to the antique mall, maybe Eunice would’ve allowed them to come to Paris with us. If I hadn’t gone to Paris. If I’d done something different, sometime, somewhere. If I wasn’t me, they would be alive and Gerald wouldn’t be an orphan. “He should.”
“No, he shouldn’t and nor should you,” she said. “That horen is to blame and only the horen.”
“I hate them. If I could find a way to kill them…”
“Please don’t talk like that,” said Miss Penrose. “I can’t bear it. This is not who you are, Matilda.”
Little did she know it was only a small part of who I was and some parts were much worse. But Miss Penrose in her goodness chose to see me as I once was before the humans came to Whipplethorn Manor and changed me forever. After months in Vienna scrubbing chamber pots, statues, and toting water until my hands bled, I wouldn’t have recognized that girl if I saw her.
I helped Miss Penrose lift Delphine into bed and tuck her in.
“Go to bed, Matilda. I’ll put the salve on,” said Miss Penrose.
I should’ve done it myself. My hands made every cure more effective, but I nodded, more than happy to get away from Delphine’s blotched and tearstained face. She looked how I felt on the inside. I pressed my hands against the floor, heating the stone until I could’ve fried an eggplant on it.
In my room, Gerald had curled up on his trundle bed, facing the wall. I closed the door and ran my fingers through my new blond hair. “Primogenitalis.” My scalp sizzled, there was a great feeling of release and then my real hair tumbled down my back.
At least I still had the hair I started with, even if there was nothing else left of me. Fidelé burrowed under my long locks. He much preferred them to the blond. Then he jumped off my shoulder and scampered over to Gerald, his long claws leaving scrape marks on the stone floor. He climbed over Gerald’s shoulder and wriggled into his arms. Gerald held him like a teddy bear, his back shaking with sobs I couldn’t hear. The horen. One of these days things would be different. I wouldn’t always be a maid of all work. I wouldn’t always be in hiding. When that happened, the horen better hide because I had a long memory and no mercy.
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING, I tied my apron and watched Fidelé hop around the room, hissing. He looked like a bathtub toy gone berserk. “What’s wrong with you?”
Rufus uncoiled himself from around Victory’s marble shape. He was glowing orange and hissing as well.
“I wish you guys could talk.”
Just then Percy stuck his tongue through the window and began slapping my legs with it.
“Gross. Knock it off.”
Fidelé waggled his tongue at me and hopped even more, bouncing off the walls and leaving claw marks on everything.
“On second thought, maybe talking isn’t the best idea. Who knows what you’d say,” I said.
Iris sat up and brushed the curls out of her face. “They’d say they love you.”
Percy’s tongue got me again, leaving a trail of dragon slime on my only clean stockings. Great.
“Love is over-rated.”
“Not a bit.” She frowned at the door and then whispered, “I think someone is in the hall.”
I sighed. I wasn’t at all ready to start the day of troll hunting.
“You better look, Matilda.”
“I will. I will.” I lifted my long hair off my neck and slowly ran my fingers through the strands. “Lpsas res abscondunt.” An icy chill went up my spine and over my head. My hair changed to the platinum blond again. I didn’t like it, but it was a whole lot lighter.
“Still there?” I asked. “Tell me it’s not Rickard.”
“It’s not. I can’t tell what it is,” said Iris.
“It?”
She shrugged and burrowed down into the covers. I went to the door and opened it with a swift yank. “Argh!” It was an ‘it’. A purple lumpy wall covered the doorway. I backed up into the bed and sat with an oomph. Iris crawled up next to me, clutching my arm. “What is it? What’ll we do?”
“How should I know?”
“You have to know. Who else would know?”
Gerald rolled over in the trundle bed with a look of superiority that fit him much better than grief. “I know.”
“No, you don’t,” said Iris. “You just want to annoy me.”
“I do want to annoy you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know.”
Iris pointed to the bulging purple wall. “This isn’t in any book, smarty-pants.”
“I don’t need a book for this. What does it smell like?” asked Gerald.
“It smells like be quiet and let Matilda think.”
I held up my hand. “Quiet, both of you. It does smell. So familiar but not good.” I jumped up. “Frau Snigglebit’s Troublesome Troll Remover.”
“Eww,” said Iris. “That stuff stinks bad.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said, creeping toward the wall of purple and when I got closer an eye popped open and then dozens more. “Trolls!”
“This wasn’t in the Speciesapedia,” said Gerald.
“Not everything worth knowing is in a book,” said Iris with her nose turned up.
“Yes, it is. I read it in a book.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“Yes, it does. I bet I know more about klitzeklein trolls than you do,” said Gerald.
“I bet you do, dork.”
“Dork?”
I started laughing. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a real belly laugh. Both Gerald and Iris stared at me as I wiped the tears from my eyes. “You sound like your old selves.”
“I don’t,” said Gerald. “She does.”
“No, I don’t.”
They could go on like that for hours and it was kind of sweet to hear, but I had a room to escape. “That’s enough. You can fight later. Gerald, how do I get out of here without getting bit to pieces?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said.
“Wasn’t in the book, huh,” said Iris.
I rolled my eyes. “Not helpful.”
I got the broom out of the corner. “Okay. I’m going to whack them. Don’t get off the bed. They love to bite.”
“Don’t worry,” said Gerald.
The purple wall was looking at me with about thirty sets of eyeballs. “Go away or I’m going to hit you with this broom.”
There was
a little ear wiggling, but the tiny trolls didn’t move. Fidelé and Rufus stopped their craziness, scampered over to me and leapt into my arms. Rufus coiled around my neck, glowing orange with heat and Fidelé clamped his claws into my shoulder.
“Seriously?” I asked. “Like this isn’t bad enough already.”
The creatures everyone referred to as my pets were unmovable. I couldn’t help but think that actual pets would be easier to deal with.
“Alright then.” I raised the broom, hauled back, and swung. The wall exploded into several dozen purple balls. They bounced into the room, off my head, the walls, the ceiling. Iris leapt over and shielded Horc and Victory with her body. I lurched toward, getting pummeled on every part of my body and started whacking trolls away from her.
“They bounce!” yelled Iris.
“I can see that!” I yelled back.
“Did you know that?”
“How would I know that?” I batted one away from Iris’s head. The only good news was that they didn’t hurt when they hit, not that it was fun, but they were kind of squishy and warm.
I kept smacking them, but it wasn’t helping. The bouncing kept going. The harder I hit, the more they bounced. I had to bat them out the door or window. Percy was looking in, his eyeball taking up the whole window.
“Get out of the way, Percy.” I batted a troll at him and it struck him in the eyeball. The dragon merely blinked. “Percy!”
I spun and batted one at the open doorway. It zinged through the air like a purple beach ball and stuck the master secretary in the chest. He stood there in the doorway with his arms crossed and the most dour expression on his face that I’d ever seen and that’s saying something. The master secretary was never remotely cheerful.
Behind him stood Rickard, who was plenty cheerful. He grinned at me, his resentful eyes shining as I got cracked in the face.
“Master Secretary,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“A better question is what are you doing, Mattie Van Winkle,” said the master secretary with a sneer as a couple trolls bounced out past his feet.
“I don’t know what happened. They were in my doorway this morning.”
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 6
