Gerald and Iris came in, dragging their feet.
“We’re done,” said Iris. “And I heard the master secretary looking for you, Matilda.”
I ran my hands over my dress. My uniform was beyond hopeless. No tights. My shoes were squishy black lumps. And my skirt was still damp with dragon slobber.
“You can’t go like that,” said Delphine.
“I agree,” said Miss Penrose. “He’ll know something’s wrong.”
“I’m out of clothes,” I said. “He’ll take me as I am.”
Delphine gasped and clutched her chest. “You’re an imperial maid now. What kind of impression will you make?”
Bedraggled exhaustion.
“You look like a…like a peasant,” she said with horror.
“Delphine, I am a peasant. Unless you’ve got some clothes I don’t know about, I’m going to buy the papers and then I’m going to the palace.”
“But you are not expected until noon,” said Horc.
“Oh, yeah. Well, I thought I’d get an early start.”
“What about your work here?” asked Miss Penrose. “The master secretary has requirements.”
I glanced at my traveling bag in the corner. “I’ll see what he wants me to do and then I’ll go. Happy?”
They all looked at Bentha’s pink-coated face and I took that as a no.
“We’ll help you,” said Miss Penrose. “Delphine will get the papers. I’ll scrub the chamber pots. Iris and Gerald will clean up any gargoyle stuff that needs to be cleaned.”
Gerald and Iris exchanged a look when she said gargoyle.”
“What is it?” She’d been dry-eyed, but the tears immediately threatened.
“There’s a new problem.” I explained the gargoyle’s changing.
Delphine and Miss Penrose took it quite well. Better than me. I was still freaked out when I thought about it.
“That settles it,” said Miss Penrose. “You get out of the cathedral before those things get down from the North tower and we’ll figure something out before you come back.”
“Like what?” I asked as she pushed me toward the door.
“We’ll think of something.”
Horc ran after me, holding up his stumpy arms. “I am going. They will be too busy to watch me and I want meat. Nanny has meat.”
“I’m not hauling you to the palace. I’m exhausted.” I contemplated Fidelé on the windowsill. He was watching me with his dark eyes and slowly opening and closing his wings. I wasn’t any expert on gargoyles, but I think he was thinking. What had Lysander said? Don’t bring my gargoyles or everyone would know me. Nanny had known that gargoyles were the pets of healers. Apparently, Lysander did, too. He wouldn’t be the only one. If I took Fidelé I was taking a risk, but he did help me heal. I wasn’t sure how it worked. Ibn never told me that, so I probably wasn’t using Fidelé to his full potential.
Horc yanked on my spit-soaked skirt. “You must take me.”
“Forget it. I’m taking Rufus and Fidelé.”
Fidelé hopped off the sill and scampered over the stone floor. He was awkward to say the least. His body shape was really meant for perching on shoulders, not walking around. I picked him up and placed him on my shoulder next to Rufus’s tail.
“Why would you be taking him?” Horc narrowed his eyes at me. “You will be cleaning at the palace.”
Everyone raised their eyebrows at me.
Think, Matilda, think.
“He…um…makes me feel better,” I said, glancing at the bag again.
“I am going,” said Horc. “I cannot be trusted.”
“Uh huh.” How was I going to get the spell, if everyone was staring at me? They couldn’t know that I was taking it or they’d be suspicious.
“I will eat the pink stuff.” Horc turned and ran for my bag full tilt. It wasn’t very fast. He was a spriggan. I caught him as he was flinging open the flap and snatched him away. He snarled and struggled. Miss Penrose and Delphine grappled with him and I quickly pocketed two plump bags without anyone seeing.
“I will eat it,” said Horc. “I need meat.”
I sighed. “Fine, but I’m going to have to stash you somewhere and you can’t cause any trouble.”
“I am a spriggan.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?” I asked.
“I know how to behave.”
“I’ve just seen behaving. It’s not the comfort you think.”
He held up his arms. “I will be wood fairy good, not spriggan awesome.”
“Alright then.” I hefted him onto my hip and went out the door.
Rickard was standing in the corridor with a look of supreme triumph. “It’s 7:23. There are klitzeklein trolls all over the high altar. There are no papers. No breakfast tray for the cardinal. And in about ten minutes, there’ll be no job.”
Chapter Twenty-one
DELPHINE PUSHED PAST me and told Rickard, “I’m getting the papers, right this moment.” She ran away down the corridor. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d started tap-dancing and singing Dixie.
Iris and Gerald ran out next. “We’ve got the trolls.”
Miss Penrose followed more slowly, her chest shaking from contained coughs. She closed the door firmly. “I will take the cardinal his tray and clean the residence.”
She went past Rickard, whose mouth was open. He stared at me for a second, then with a slight shake of his head said, “It will make no difference. Sloughing off your work onto others won’t make you look any better to the master secretary. You were hired to clean, not your family. I’ll have you out by noon.”
Heat swirled in my chest and radiated out to my fingertips.
Hold it in. Don’t let him see who you are. Not yet.
“You don’t make that decision,” I said between clenched teeth.
“The master secretary listens to me. I’m at the top of the ladder. You,” he sneered, “aren’t even on it.”
My hand went up, quite on its own, and I reached for his throat. I might’ve fried him right then and there, but the master secretary appeared at his shoulder and pushed my hand down with one long finger. He was stronger than he looked. Not many could man-handle me.
“So the Van Winkle family is coming together at last,” he said. It wasn’t friendly. When was he ever? But there was something there, a kind of curiosity I hadn’t seen before.
“Sir, she is getting the others to do her work and they haven’t even started yet. The hall smells like something died. The klitzeklein trolls are running amok. The papers—”
“Enough, Rickard. I’m sure you have a litany of complaints that I will hear in due course.” The master secretary focused on me. “Your family has gone to cover your work for you?”
“Yes.” I wanted to give him all kinds of reasons, but my reasons would reveal all kinds of things he couldn’t know. Globs of rejuvenation spell all over the North tower for starters, so I left it at yes.
“What is the cardinal always telling us?” asked the master secretary.
I drew a blank and so did Rickard because he started stammering. At least I had some dignity.
“The cardinal tells us many things,” I said. “Which one do you have in mind?”
Rickard glared at me and I so wanted to kick the weasel.
“The one about community,” said the master secretary.
I nodded. “Life is community. We must all struggle and triumph together or goodness in the fae will cease to exist.” I thought for a second. There was something more.
“For these are troubling times,” Rickard blurted out.
“Yes. I’m glad to see you’ve been listening.” He gave Rickard a hard look that took him aback. “Now you will take it to heart, I am sure.”
“But sir—”
“Did you not hear me?”
Rickard bowed. “I heard you and I apologize.” Rickard’s face couldn’t have been less apologetic. Furious was closer.
“Mattie,” said the master secretary,
“the cardinal has been invited for breakfast at the palace. You will accompany his coach.”
Rickard’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Yes, sir,” I said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
The master secretary looked me over and found me wanting as usual. The difference was on that morning I really was. I must’ve smelled something awful. I had dragon vomit on my sleeve. Dragon spit on my skirt and I was carrying Horc. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed him.
“You’ve had a difficult morning, I see,” said the master secretary.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Difficult morning,” said Rickard. “You smell like nothing has ever smelled in the history of smelling.”
The master secretary frowned. “Yes. I can’t have you near the coach, like that. The cardinal might not survive it.”
Rickard brightened up, the jerk.
“I assume you’ve no other clean uniforms.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Rickard, go to Aoife and have her go through storage. I believe there are uniforms left over from the cardinal’s predecessor.”
“But sir—”
The master secretary pointed down the corridor. “Quickly. The cardinal will be ready at any moment. You don’t want to keep him waiting, do you?”
Rickard ran down the corridor. I didn’t know he could move so fast.
“And you, Mattie, will wash your hands,” he looked down at my bare legs and sodden shoes, “and your legs.”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned in, looking me hard in the eyes. “You will behave in a manner I know you capable of. If the cardinal has need of you, you will perform your duties correctly and beyond reproach.”
If the cardinal has need of me?
“Of course.”
“Your sister will attend the cardinal upon your return.” He turned sharply and walked away before I could ask what in the world Iris could do for the cardinal. Yesterday she’d just gone with him to his meetings.
“I guess we’re going to the palace in style,” I said to Horc.
“As befits a spriggan,” he said. “Now I need to bite.”
I took him back and set him on the bed next to Bentha with a biting stick. He chomped it, raining splinters over the bed.
“Don’t do that.” I picked a particularly large splinter out of the pink goo on Bentha’s face.
“He does not care,” said Horc with another chomp.
“For heaven’s sake.” I picked a splinter off Bentha’s eyelid and gasped as it moved. I think it moved. Maybe it was just me taking off the splinter. I gently opened his right eye and found it less cloudy.
Horc waddled over and peered into Bentha’s eye. “An improvement. That was faster than Paris. Your power must be intensifying.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. The one thing I knew about power was that the more you have, the more people notice.
I put Bentha’s lid back down. It was pretty stiff and would’ve stayed up if I hadn’t. I scraped a little goo off and touched the bare skin. Much more pliable.
“It’s working,” I said. “It’s really working.”
“Naturally. You made the spell,” said Horc.
“I wasn’t sure about it.”
“I was.”
I grabbed him up and spun him around and around. “It worked. It worked.”
“I will vomit. Have you not had enough of that this morning?”
I stopped spinning so fast, I nearly fell into the tub. I hugged Horc tight to my chest and ignored the stench rolling off his moldy-looking head. “It really worked.”
“Indeed.” Horc stuffed the last bit of biting stick in his gullet and said, “Rickard’s back.”
Horc sat on the bed with Bentha, while I cautiously opened the door a crack. “Do you have something for me to wear?”
“Yes,” said Rickard. “It is unbelievable that I, the cardinal’s valet, should be made to fetch and carry for the likes of you.”
“I find it completely believable, even predictable.”
“When I’m master secretary everything will be different.”
I snorted. “That’ll happen.”
“Oh, it’ll happen and sooner than you think,” he smiled nastily at me.
“What do you plan to do with our current master secretary?” I asked.
His expression changed to one of wariness and he shoved a wad of clothing at me. “I won’t be doing anything to him. It is only the inevitable future I’m talking about.”
“Right.” I took the wad and slammed the door in his face.
Horc slid off the bed and picked up a chunk of biting stick. “I do not like him.”
“You’re not alone.” I shook out the clothes. “Would you look at this? I’ll look like an idiot.”
“I agree.”
“Thanks.”
I laid the clothes on the bed and washed my hands and legs in Bentha’s leftover bathwater. It might not have done any good for him, but it made my skin super soft. I’d have to remember that. Then I put on the uniform. Rickard was such a scumbag. He must’ve really dug for that ancient dress. I don’t know what era it was from, but idiot didn’t begin to describe me. The dress was red for the cardinal with the St. Stephen's badge on the left breast. That’s where the normal ended. It had weird sleeves that were huge at the shoulder and flopped around, limp as a wet flag. The waist was supremely tight and I had a giant bow on my rear. The tights were super thick and made of extra itchy wool. They whole nightmare was finished with a pair of lace up boots that would’ve looked perfect on a wicked witch.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“There are no words,” said Horc. “Avoid mirrors.”
“But I don’t smell, right?”
“You smell.”
I sniffed the sleeve. “What is that? I kind of smell familiar.”
“Age. You smell like you are one hundred and fifty.”
“Well, that’s how I look.”
The door opened and Delphine walked in. She screamed and nearly dropped the tray of fruit she was carrying. “Good gracious! What happened to you?”
“Rickard.”
“He must really hate you.”
I tugged at the bow, trying to pull it off. “Oh, yeah.”
“Don’t do that,” said Delphine. “I’ll fix it.”
“It’s unfixable. Look at me.”
She didn’t answer and ran out of the room. I looked at Horc. “Where’s she going?”
He yawned. “No idea. I am ready to eat.”
“When aren’t you?” I asked.
“Ten minutes after I have eaten.” He waddled across the room and started digging through the cupboard.
“There’s no meat left, but I’m sure Nanny will feed you at the palace.”
Horc grinned and showed me all the bloody pork leftover from our celebration dinner still in his snaggly teeth. Delphine ran in with her little felt sewing packet. “It’ll only take a minute.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do in a minute.”
She spun me around, snipped off the hated bow, replaced my boots with lovely red ribbons that nearly matched the color of my dress, and then began crumpling up several pieces of parchment.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” Delphine unbuttoned the back of my dress and shoved the paper inside my sleeves.
“What in the world are you doing?”
She buttoned me up and spun me back around. “There. Much improved.”
Horc’s eyebrow lumps went up.
“What?’ I asked.
“It is unusual, but better,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
Delphine nodded vigorously. “I got the sleeves just right.”
My sagging sleeves were now enormous and puffed, so big that when I lifted my arms, they hit me in the face
“This is just right?”
“No, not quite.�
� She said a spell under her breath and the stiff fabric changed to a thick luxurious satin with a paisley pattern running through it.
I ran my hands over the skirt. “Wow. This is beautiful. How’d you do that?”
“It’s just a spell. You’re still missing something though.” She snipped off another length of ribbon, looped it around my head, and tied an elaborate bow behind my right ear. “Perfect.”
I looked at Horc. “What do you think?”
“You look good for a wood fairy,” he said, picking up one of the biting sticks the Home Depot fairies had given him and gave it a good chomp.
“What do you mean by that?”
He spat out some splinters. “You are hideous for a spriggan.”
“Alright then.” I grinned. “I’m practically gorgeous. Thanks, Delphine.”
She plucked my cloak off its hook and frowned. “You’re very welcome, but I’m afraid I cannot do anything with this. It’s too dirty.”
“I’ll manage without it.” I picked up Horc and settled him on my hip, chomping away on a new stick. Fidelé and Rufus readied themselves to jump onto my shoulders, but I held out my hand. “I haven’t got a cloak to conceal you. Okay, Delphine, I’m ready.”
My so-called pets hissed and curled up on my bed as Delphine opened the door. “Should I do anything for Bentha while you’re gone?”
“Apply more goo, if it looks like he needs it.”
“What if he wakes up?” she asked with a joyful, expectant look on her haggard face.
Not going to happen.
“You can make some agrimony and white willow tea. The stoves are working again.”
She clasped her hands. “Excellent. Perhaps I can take a hot bath.”
Horc and I glanced at each other with raised brows.
“Absolutely,” I said.
Horc spat out a huge spray of splinters. “We have been ordered to eat heartily in order to prepare for Bentha’s awakening. You should eat breakfast first before bathing.”
Delphine nodded. “Yes, yes. I’ll eat.”
I gaped at them. “Ordered?”
“Yes. Let us go. The cardinal is waiting.”
I said goodbye to Delphine’s smiling face and closed the door. “Who ordered eating?”
He snarled. “That bug you call Victory.”
“But why would—”
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 21
