I felt his breath on my lips, warm and gentle. I pursed my lips and…nothing happened. I opened my eyes and Lysander was looking up with an expression of, I’m sad to say, disgust. Did my breath stink? Did I have nose hair? Had Percy’s drool soaked through his pant legs, convincing him that kissing me wasn’t even close to worth it?
But no, it wasn’t any of those things. I followed his gaze and saw thirty gargoyles climbing down the pipe, hissing with their forked tongues and lashing their scaly tails.
“What is it with you and gargoyles?” asked Lysander.
“Maybe it’s you,” I said.
He laughed and hugged me firmly but quick. “I’ve been in St. Stephen's a hundred times and those gargoyles never looked at me twice. It’s you.”
“They’re just gargoyles.”
“And you’re just a maid.”
“Right.”
He laughed and his eyes sparkled warm with humor. “How about some Sachertorte after you visit the palace tomorrow?”
“Who said I’m coming to the palace?” I asked as I tried to shoo the gargoyles away. As usual, they paid no attention to what I wanted. You’d think I’d be used to it by then.
“There’s something going on with you and the imperial family,” he said, his face growing sober.
“No way. I’m a maid. Remember?”
“Mattie, or whoever you are, be careful in the palace. Royalty aren’t like everyone else.”
“You would know?” I asked, teasingly.
“I would. My father and I traveled all over when I was young. I performed before every royal court. So yes, I would know. They can be a pretty ugly lot.”
That got my attention. We didn’t know much about Miss Penrose’s family, other than they wouldn’t know a good decision if it crawled up their noses. “Including the French?”
“Yes, of course.” He smiled rather wickedly, reminding me of Marie. No one smiled quite like her. “And you know the court?”
“I don’t.” I showed him my callused hands. “You forget who I am.”
“I think you’re the one who’s forgotten.”
The gargoyles had surrounded us and were creeping closer. They usually watched me from a distance, but I got the feeling something had changed.
“But it seems they haven’t,” said Lysander.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, pushing one away with my foot.
Lysander kissed me so swiftly I barely felt the warmth of his lips. “I think you do. When will you be coming back to the palace?”
There was no point in lying. Lysander was kapellmeister. He was bound to find out. “Tomorrow.”
“To do what?” he asked.
My ankle twinged and my chest tightened, the pain came in a weird circular wave around my heart.
“Mattie.” Lysander grabbed me by the shoulders as my knees went weak. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I gasped. “I’ll do whatever they tell me. I’m to be extra cleaning help.”
“That can’t be it. You just looked like…like someone hurt you. Tell me what’s going on in the palace. I saw you with the empress tonight. You’re coming for her.”
The gargoyles began hissing so loudly their spittle rained down around my ankle and the pain made me clutch my chest. “No. I’m a maid. Please stop asking. I’m a maid.”
Lysander held me tight with strength I hadn’t suspected he had. “You’re lying.”
“You hardly know me.” I could barely get the words out. “Please leave it alone.”
He hugged me tighter and then released me. “As you wish, but don’t bring your gargoyles tomorrow or everyone will know you.”
Then the pain lessened and the release made me light-headed. Lysander kissed my hand and spread his wide red wings. “Be a stranger in the palace. Royals can never be trusted.”
Percy tossed him into the air with his tongue and Lysander glided down under the shelf. My legs buckled and I collapsed in a heap. Nanny wasn’t kidding about the pain being incredible, if I ignored my contract with the emperor. I hadn’t even done anything and it like to kill me. Whatever magic the emperor had instilled in that contract, it knew my weak points. Healing Bentha definitely wasn’t helping. My heart hadn’t recovered yet and emperor’s spell knew it.
The gargoyles crept closer, poking me with their slimy noses. They almost seemed tame, if I didn’t look in their eyes. It was the eyes that showed their feral nature. They were intense and darting around, constantly looking for danger. I felt like that a lot of the time. Maybe I was feral.
A big one that looked like half dog, half cat wiped a line of nose slime on my wrist. Gross.
“Come on,” I said. “Hasn’t my day been bad enough?”
More slime.
“I guess not.”
Percy’s tail whipped around, smacked a couple gargoyles, and coiled around my waist. He gently lifted me up and tucked me under his wing. I pressed myself against his side, feeling the fire within. I wished I could stay there, all safe and tucked up warm. But it couldn’t last. It seemed nothing wonderful ever did. I had to enjoy it while I could.
Chapter Nineteen
“ARE THEY GETTING worse or is it just me?” asked Gerald.
I poked the pink smelly blob in the bowl on my lap before looking up where Gerald was pointing. Lined up on the edge of the gutter were the feral gargoyles, hissing and searching for a way down to me.
I sighed. “They are. I don’t know what’s going on. The master secretary is bound to notice.”
“I can’t believe he hasn’t noticed before,” said Gerald. “It’s pretty obvious they have a thing for you.”
“Do you think he’ll figure out that gargoyles have something to do with healing?” asked Iris.
I winced as a mild stinging sensation passed through my ankle. I wanted to yell, “Enough! I get it. No imperial healing will be mentioned.” But how do you yell at a spell?
“They have nothing to do with my healing,” I said.
Iris and Gerald sat across from me in the gutter, both looking extremely doubtful. The gargoyles were there, despite my best efforts.
The North tower gutter was the place I’d picked for some private spell making. I should’ve known privacy wasn’t going to happen with the gargoyles acting so weird. I’d had to throw them out of the servants’ quarters last night when they piled up in front of my door. Lonica and Aoife complained about the stink. They could smell the gargoyles in their rooms and weren’t happy about it. Actually, I didn’t think they smelled all that bad. Lonica pointed out that I lived with Horc, so my opinion didn’t count. I couldn’t argue with that and was up into the wee hours hauling gargoyles out. I got three hours sleep and when I woke up, they were gone. How they’d known I was on the North tower in a gutter was a mystery. I’d made absolutely sure no one saw me, by getting up and out of the servants’ quarters an hour before dawn.
It’d been a busy morning so far. I’d made a bath for Bentha with a new poem that had no effect that I could see, but I soaked him in it anyway. Miss Penrose’s cough had gotten worse overnight, so she couldn’t go to the butcher for the pork, so I left her with Bentha’s still stiff body and a cup of honey thyme tea, a German remedy that the apothecary told me about when I replenished my stocks.
It was me pounding on the butcher’s door before dawn, begging for fresh blood and pork. Unlike most of Vienna, the butcher looked like he’d been up for hours and if he thought it was odd that a teenaged girl had to have blood at the crack of dawn, he didn’t show it.
Iris, Gerald, and I hauled the ingredients up past the stone spiral staircase of the North tower when it was still dark and the lights of Vienna were twinkling in the icy cold. We set about making Lrag’s rejuvenation spell by starlight, since I didn’t dare light a flame. Gerald had come up with the gutter idea. Nobody, fairy or human, would be up there before dawn and it was in the open, so if the pink blob went crazy huge like last time we could just leave it in the gutter to be washed away
in the rain.
Everything had gone exactly as planned, except for Victory. I didn’t want that little nutjob involved at all and planned to leave him asleep in the room watched over by Miss Penrose. Unlike me though, Victory had excellent hearing and knew we were up to something. The second we’d left, he’d climbed out the window and ridden Penelope up to the tower. He stood on the opposite side of the gutter with his hands on what I supposed were his hips, staring out at what he insisted on calling his domain.
“Come down here,” I said. “Someone will see you.”
Victory turned, somehow he was hatched knowing about my deafness and was careful to face me whenever speaking. I would’ve appreciated the effort, if he wasn’t so annoying.
“I blend with the night. My domain sleeps and I will see it.” He did blend beautifully with the night sky. If it weren’t for his brilliant teeth and the whites of his eyes, I’d have had a hard time picking him out.
“You’ll fall,” said Iris.
“Phalanx do not fall. We’re sticky. Worry not, dear mother.”
“Just leave him,” I said. “We’ve got to get this done. Are you ready?”
Iris and Gerald jumped to their feet and spread their wings. “Ready.”
I took a deep breath and plunged my hands into the blob. It was just as gross as I remembered. The spicy blood smell attacked my nostrils as I began kneading. Soon it was oozing up to my elbows.
“When did it happen last time?” asked Gerald.
“I didn’t pay any attention. It was only supposed to double in size,” I said.
“We’ll be ready just in case.” Iris flew behind me and I felt her hand on my shoulder. Gerald got ahold of my other shoulder.
I worked the stinky blob harder, concentrating on doing what I did last time. Nothing happened. I worked and worked. It was a good ten minutes, much longer than last time. Iris let go of my shoulder and flew back in front of me. “Did we do something different?”
“I don’t think so. All the ingredients are the same.”
Gerald joined her. “Maybe not. What about you? Are you different?”
“I’m just me,” I said.
Iris put a hand over her mouth. I’m sure she gasped behind it.
“What?”
“There was that spell for your leg. You did it right before you did the rejuvenation spell.”
Gerald ran his fingers through his hair. “You are different. I should’ve thought of it.”
“I should’ve thought of it,” said Iris. “I was there.”
“I’m the brains. Everybody knows that. You’re the love. You do love. I do smart.”
They picked at each other until I yelled, “Knock it off. Now we’re fighting about who should’ve known better. That’s no prize. You two are driving me crazy.” I looked up at the line of gargoyles, who were now getting ready to leap down on me. “You are driving me crazy.” Victory turned. “And you. You who wants to be seen and get us caught, so I lose my jobs and our place in the cathedral. I’m on the edge and you’re pushing me over.”
Sparks went down my arms. Anger I hadn’t felt since Paris flooded my aching chest and poof, the blob doubled, tripled. Iris and Gerald darted over the bowl, grabbing me by the cloak. They dragged me back, but the blob was too fast. It was over my legs and up to my waist. Something snagged me and I was yanked clear.
The next thing I saw was the cathedral’s diamond patterned roof with its black eagles. Penelope had me with her tail. She flipped me down under her purple belly and gave my glob-covered foot an experimental lick.
“Don’t eat that. It’s gross,” I said.
She responded by giving me a massive slurp.
“Put me down!”
Another slurp and Penelope landed on the narrow balcony next to the enormous pink blob in the gutter. She set me down and rammed her head right in like an ostrich. Her long neck began making gulping movements.
“No!” I beat on her scaly sides, but she didn’t stop, so I looked for Gerald and Iris. They were hovering above the blob, completely astonished.
“You weren’t kidding when you said huge,” said Gerald.
Actually, huge didn’t cover it. Ginormous was closer. The blob filled the entire length of the gutter, puffing out of the top like rising bread dough. It was at least ten times as big as the spell I’d done in Paris. Thank goodness we’d done it outside. I’d never be able to explain that mess away. Penelope could gorge herself for hours and not make a dent. There was plenty for Bentha and the empress. If only I could sell it, we’d make a fortune.
I was calculating what I could’ve charged when my legs went wobbly and Iris became two Irises.
“Oh, no!” She flew over and sat me down on the cold stone. “Penelope got most of it off, but there’s still some on her tights. Help me, Gerald.”
Iris and Gerald tugged my tights off and they went fwap against the stone with pink ultimate stickiness. Iris used the water and cloths we brought, just in case of emergency, to wash off my legs and dry them. When she was done, she reformed into one sister, instead of the two she’d been, and I was a lot less wobbly.
“Thanks,” I said. “I think the tights protected me from the worst of it.”
Iris poked the sodden mess. “They were your last pair.”
My shoulders slumped. “The palace will just have to deal with it until I get another pair.”
“Does the palace deal?” asked Iris.
“What choice do they have?”
“They could fire you.”
They wouldn’t fire me, but I couldn’t say that, so I looked to Gerald, knower of all useless knowledge. “Gerald, how seriously will the palace take my bare legs?”
Gerald didn’t respond. He was hovering over the blob. After a second I could see what he was looking at. The gargoyles were in the blob and they were happy about it, leaping around and eating it. Bits of the ooze was flung up on the stone by their tails and Iris wrinkled her nose. “What’ll happen to them?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said.
“And Penelope?” he asked.
“I’m hoping she wouldn’t be guzzling it down if it were bad for her.”
Iris stood up and hauled me to my feet. “She eats rat poison.”
“And it didn’t kill her. Dragons are tough,” I said.
“I hope so. If anything happened…” she trailed off.
I wrung out my soaked-with-dragon-spit dress. “What?”
“Where’s Victory?”
I gasped and that doesn’t happen to me very often.
“What’ll we do? What’ll we do?” asked Iris, wringing her hands.
“Penelope!” I screamed. “Find Victory!”
The dragon’s head popped up, caked with goo. We darted out of the way when she shook like a dog and sprayed the area with pink. Gerald and Iris hovered over the gutter. They screamed for the tiny phalanx like he could answer if he was trapped in there.
I scanned the area where he’d been. Victory was tiny, but being coal black in a sea of pink should help to find him. I scanned again. “Wait!” I yelled to Iris and Gerald. “He wouldn’t be in there.”
I zoomed over the gutter and down past where the blob ran over the edge in great swells of goo. I looked up and there was Victory stuck, spread eagle, to the underside of the goo. His eyes and mouth were open in what I suspected was a soundless scream.
“Victory, it’s okay.” I put my hand up and supported his tiny body, not that it needed it. He was pretty well stuck, kind of like being stuck in chewing gum.
Gerald and Iris came up beside me. Iris tried pulling him off, but his skin was going to come off with it.
“What’ll we do?” she said.
Gerald poked the blob and his finger came away easily. “It must be something about Victory. I don’t stick.”
“Do we have any water left?” I asked.
“I used it all,” wailed Iris.
“No crying. Go get some and fast.”
Iris d
arted down toward the Bishop’s gate entrance. At least she would have something to do besides panic.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” said Gerald.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because, like Victory said, he’s naturally sticky. Two sticky things are stuck together.”
Victory did a slow blink. “My domain doesn’t look as good from here.”
“Once and for all, you have no domain.”
“I was hatched to rule,” he said.
I dropped my hand. “Well, rule yourself out of this one.”
Gerald tried to put his hand up, but I made him stop.
“I order you to release me,” said Victory.
We crossed our arms.
“I will it.”
“Will all you want. A leader is nothing, if no one wants to follow,” I said.
Victory’s smooth forehead creased. “I am a phalanx. I am Victory.”
“Not as impressive as you think,” said Gerald. “If you want to be a great leader, be quiet and watch Matilda.”
My eyes watered. “Thanks, Gerald.”
“I don’t understand. Mother said I’m destined for greatness,” said Victory.
I rubbed his creased forehead with the tip of my finger. “In my experience, mothers don’t have a clue.”
“Iris is love,” he said.
“Yes and love doesn’t always see clearly.”
Gerald slipped his hand in mine. “Or at all.”
“I will take this under advisement.” Victory paused and then said, “Will you help me? Please?”
I smiled. “Much better. Now as a phalanx can you be unsticky?”
He pondered the idea. “I don’t think so. I have tiny hairs on me that grab onto things.”
“Like Horc’s head,” said Gerald.
“His baldness is easy to stick to.”
“Is anything not easy to stick to?” I asked.
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 19
