“Nope. I didn’t do anything like as much as I did the first time; I don’t even know if I was the one doing it. I should be good for a fair bit more, yet.”
“Did my father notice?”
“Oh yeah, he noticed, all right,” I said in satisfaction. “Don’t reckon he knew what was happening, but he noticed it was happening.”
“Was it wise to do it while he was out there?”
“How the flamin’ heck do you manage to do a dad voice when you’re only my uncle? That’s flamin’ terrifying!”
“I’m not your uncle,” Zero said repressively. “I’m your great great uncle.”
“Then you definitely shouldn’t be able to do the dad voice. I’m pretty sure your father knows exactly what’s happening everywhere in the arena at this point, so I didn’t reckon it’d make much difference if I did it in front of him. He doesn’t know it’s me doing it—he just found out he had a bit less space than he thought. The arena’s been getting smaller since this morning by itself.”
“I noticed,” he said.
“The hedges have gotten darker, too; did you notice?” said Morgana. “I can smell blood whenever someone opens a window.”
Zero’s eyes fastened on her straight away. “Nobody should be opening windows.”
“That’s Les’ fault,” I said. “He keeps creeping in and out, and the lycanthropes like to cheer him on as he runs for the house if someone’s chasing him. He’s done it twice since this morning.”
“This is why you shouldn’t bring strays home,” Zero said coldly, and left the room.
He probably wanted to go and make sure Les was still in the house—or out of it, so long as that condition stopped being a variable.
“What’s the hinky old bloke doing out there, anyway?” Morgana asked. “He always looks a bit battered when he gets back, so whatever he’s going out for, he’s paying for it.”
“Dunno,” I said. “He won’t tell me. Hopefully he’ll get caught in one of the houses that’s been recently vacated and get taken back to the human world before someone gets to him.”
“Do you think Sarah’s parents have made it back yet?”
“I’ll ring Tuatu and check in a couple minutes,” I said. “Sarah hasn’t asked, but I can tell she wants to.”
More quietly, she asked, “What do you think happened to my parents when my house disappeared from the arena? I couldn’t get into their room before I left, and neither of them answered when I said goodbye.”
I hesitated, because I didn’t know how much I could say without upsetting her. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about an annoyed zombie in the house—it was more that she’d already gone through so much that I didn’t like to put anything else on her. I was unfortunately very well aware of exactly what Morgana’s parents were, and had done, and if they’d disappeared altogether when the house went back to the human world, that would be the best outcome I could hope for. Athelas, in his own twisty way, had made sure that all of the parents who bargained for their lives with the lives of their children ended up losing far more than they gained. Heck, it had probably been cathartic for him.
That didn’t help me know what to say to the small zombie who no longer had to subsist unknowingly on the shadows left of her parents because she was now eating the diet that could keep her as more than just a shadow herself. It also didn’t help that I was pretty sure they’d crumbled away to the nasty residue they already were at heart the moment Morgana switched over to a more…solid diet.
“Don’t you reckon it’d be nice for them to get some rest?” I asked instead. “They’ve been around for as long as you have, but they’re only shadows. Reckon it gets tiring being stretched as thin as that. Most parents would be glad to know their kid is up and about and safe—reckon they’d be glad not to be stuck in that room any more.”
“Was it true?” she asked suddenly. “What the nightmare—what Athelas said? My parents agreed to let him kill me to save their own lives?”
“Don’t answer that,” she added, before I could think up a good answer. “I suppose that’d be like asking you what you’d do if he came back begging for forgiveness. You were pretty close to him for a while.”
“That was when I didn’t know he’d murdered my parents,” I said sharply. “I wouldn’t just forgive him if he came back, even if he was sorry. He killed my parents—he killed yours, too; and Ralph’s. Even Abigail and— That’s not something you can just pass over. I’m going to make sure that he pays for it all. Him and Lord Sero.”
“Still,” she said. “I can’t decide whether I hate him or them more.”
“Yeah,” I said, because there wasn’t much else I could say. Bumping my leg up against hers, I added, “I reckon your parents are gone,” and didn’t try to say anything else. I had the feeling that she knew everything else I wanted to say, anyway.
For the next two days we pretty much just battened down the hatches. We knew Lord Sero was out there in the labyrinth, and he knew we were in the house, but there wasn’t much point in worrying too much about it, because he couldn’t get in.
Mind you, he was probably comforting himself with the fact that we couldn’t get out either—without the knowledge that we didn’t actually need or want to get out.
I was too busy stretching my abilities with the house to worry about Lord Sero, anyway. It seemed like every time I went upstairs there was a little bit less of the arena as heirlings and their houses disappeared, eating up patches of labyrinth with them; the pieces I took over were much smaller by comparison and far less likely to be occupied by anything I wouldn’t want getting into the house if that was likely to happen.
I spent a lot of time climbing stairs over those couple of days, splitting my time between the kitchen and the window that overlooked the backyard upstairs, where the lycanthropes could usually be counted on to be grouped. From there, they could report on the houses that were disappearing, as well as offer a running commentary on visitors trying to enter our house.
The first day it was mostly fae and a few behindkind types I didn’t recognise; the second day, we even had a minotaur. I don’t think mighty minotaur heirlings are used to being jeered at by a window full of lycanthropes. They definitely don’t like it, I can tell you that for sure. Obviously, that fact only encouraged the lycanthropes into a further excess of jeering, and the minotaur stomped back into the labyrinth with whatever tatters of dignity it still had left after a good hour of trying to batter down our back door.
I’m not sure any of the heirlings in the arena knew what to do with other heirlings who refused to leave their house and fight, either. None of them reacted to jeering lycanthropes any better than the minotaur had, and none of them seemed inclined to hang around and try to get us out.
That suited us pretty well: none of us that were heirlings particularly wanted to start fighting other heirlings when it could suggest to someone that we were challenging the throne, and Sarah had parents to get back to safely—not to mention a small, obstinate skeleton who seemed to have adopted her. She wasn’t interested in challenging the throne.
On the third morning, I came downstairs to find that Les was out of the house again. I knew it because a very self-righteous little skeleton sitting at the kitchen island told me so as soon as I got into the kitchen and before I had a chance to get my coffee.
“The smelly man left the house,” he said. His chin grew more mulish as he saw my eyebrows rise. “You told us we can’t leave the house. He left the house last night and took the spoons with him.”
“She probably already knows,” Sarah said. “Eat your cereal.”
“He doesn’t need to eat,” I said, wandering around the two of them to put the kettle on.
“I know, but he likes it.”
“Beggar me, he really did take the spoons,” I muttered to myself, hovering over the open utensil drawer. “What do you reckon he took them for?”
“Depends on if they’re silver or stainless steel,” she said.
>
“Fair,” I said, and shook the coffee into my cup. I could stir with a knife.
I was halfway through my coffee when I heard shouting from Mum and Dad’s room. The lycanthropes were cheering from the windows, and that meant one of two things: an heirling fight had tumbled out of the hedges, or Les was back.
Given that Les had gone out earlier, I was pretty sure I knew which one it was.
“That’ll be him back again,” I said gloomily, and put my coffee down to go to the laundry. There was always someone to open the door for Les as he ran, but we all knew better than to just open the door without checking first.
Sarah and Ralph followed me more slowly; I heard them in the hallway as I opened the louvres in the laundry. Everyone else was probably upstairs to see the action.
Through the slitted louvres I saw Les; he was worse for the wear and staggering across the distance between the closest labyrinth entrance and the house, shoulders hunched as though he was running home during swooping season. I couldn’t see what was pursuing him, so I nearly jumped down from the bench and went to open the door.
That was when the first harpy landed.
Heck. I nearly hadn’t seen them. I hadn’t seen anything that flew here in the labyrinth—not apart from actual birds.
I wasn’t close enough: none of us were close enough. The old bloke wasn’t going to make it to the house before those beaks snapped him up, either. I heard the shriek of the harpies, cutting through the outraged howls from the lycanthropes, and saw a beak slash down toward Les.
“The heck you don’t!” I snapped.
Then I stood up, the weight of the house settling on my shoulders like an old, familiar cloak, and extended myself, or the house, or maybe both, to swallow Les and exclude the harpies.
Everything stretched, fluttered, then grew firm. The banshees set up a wail and began to gibber from the walls—or, more likely, the washing machine—as everything quivered once more, and stopped.
We were back to normal. Only this time, the house was somehow bigger.
And we were one person richer again.
Sarah, her eyes wide, said from the doorway, “Your house ate him!”
“No worries, he’ll be fine,” I said cheerfully.
Actually, I felt a little bit heady and dizzy: for a brief moment I had been as near to being connected with the house in all its huge, powerful peacefulness as it was possible to be, and it had been so easy to work with it to do what I needed it to do. As if it had been waiting for me—waiting for this day. That day in the mimic’s house hadn’t felt like this—so connected and capable. Even last night, half asleep and halfway between human and house, hadn’t felt so absolutely and mindfully connected. Right now, I knew exactly where every person was in my house, just like I knew where every part of my body was.
“He’s here in the laundry with the banshees; reckon someone better get him before they get in the plumbing and cross over to—”
There was a loud clash! and Daniel gave an agonised yell from the toilet. “Someone get these banshees out of the loo!”
I grinned. “Sounds like the banshees have been scared out of the laundry.”
Someone erupted from the space between the sink and the washing machine, bawling, “Lady, lady, lady!” and I found myself crash-tackled by a hug in bristly beard, holey t-shirt, and a significant amount of body odour.
“Ow!” I said, trying not to fall over. I was used to giving kamikaze hugs, not receiving them. “You don’t have to be so flamin’ energetic! It wasn’t like I was gunna leave you out there to die.”
“Are there going to be harpies in here as well?” asked Morgana, over Sarah’s shoulder, her black-lined eyes very wide. “Because I don’t like harpies, and—”
“Nope,” I said, fending off another hug from Les. “The house just sorta…covered over them—or maybe sent ’em out of the arena altogether. You know how Ralph said our house ate his, and then it wasn’t there anymore?”
“If you managed to send them out of the arena by taking up the space they were taking, do you reckon you could do the same for the banshees?” snarled Daniel, emerging from the hallway. “They’ve been booby-trapping the loo again!”
“Looks like you and JinYeong agree on something,” I said to him, grinning. “That’s exactly my point, though—we’ve sent the harpies out of the arena! It wasn’t just Ralph’s house and the mimic’s house we took over. We took over actual space in the arena. I reckon Ralph only got out into our backyard because he knew us and knew the way. He’s good with instinct like that.”
“You’re all over blood,” Sarah said, wrinkling her nose at me. “Maybe you should go and change before you tell us all of this.”
“Blood,” echoed Ralph. “It’s gross.”
“Blood is life,” Les told them, waggling his beard.
“Oi,” I said to him. Whatever he’d been up to out there, he’d managed to accumulate a fair bit of blood while he was doing it. “You gotta stop going out so much. We can’t keep rescuing you, and we’ve got our own plans—you’re gunna wreck what we’re doing.”
Zero, who had approached as silently as ever but not as unnoticed as ever due to my currently very connected situation, said, “You know how to get us out of the trials.”
He sounded mildly proud, and that was kinda nice.
“Yep!” I said. “I thought I had a handle on it earlier, but now I’m sure.”
“Very well,” he said. “I can get us out of the house; the rest I leave to you.”
“Nope,” I said. “We’re not going to try and get out of the house or the trials. We’re going to make our house take over the trials until there’s no more space for the trials and only space for the house. I just found out that I can kick other heirlings and not just NPCs out of the arena if they’re in the space I take over with the house!”
Morgana gazed avidly at me. “You’re going to make the house eat the trials?”
“See!” I said, pointing at her. “She understands me! What’s wrong with you lot?”
“It’s a ridiculous plan,” said Zero, his eyes very blue. He was the closest to what I would have called merry that I’d ever seen him—the brightest I’d seen him since Athelas tried to kill me. “But a few days ago I saw you call your house to you, and just now I saw you command the house to swallow a human, so I’m willing to listen.”
“Houses can’t eat trials,” the old mad bloke said. “But you should try it, lady.”
“Of course I’m gunna try,” I told him bluntly. “People have been telling me that I can’t do stuff I can do for the last year. If I’d stopped trying before now, I’d probably be dead.”
“What will happen to all the other heirlings?” asked Morgana. “We don’t want them in the house after we’ve tried so hard to keep them out!”
“That’s the good bit about harpies not being in the house,” I told her happily. “When I nabbed Les, I pushed out the harpies at the same time; the house could feel ’em, and so could I. They’re not in the arena anymore.”
“Reckon most of the heirlings that weren’t imprisoned are dead, anyway,” Daniel said. “There are a lot less hedges out there, and I only saw two rooftops out there this morning. I can see the entirety of the labyrinth when I look out the back windows upstairs.”
“The houses that are left are getting closer,” I agreed, nodding. “And it’s not exactly that my house will eat the trials, it’ll just fill up the arena so that it thinks there’s only one house and one option left. I reckon that’ll be enough to tickle the presets and connect us with the real world again.”
“Should we wait for the arena to get smaller?” asked Daniel. “There are probably a few heirlings out and about, besides houses we can see.”
“Nope,” I said. “Reckon I’d better do it as soon as I can. I’ve just gotta call Tuatu so he can go check on Ralph’s house and make sure it did go back when we swallowed it. Once we know that for sure, we can try and take over the place. He can give us an
update on Sarah’s house, too; it hadn’t made it back last time I called.”
It was nice to have a bit of breakfast while we waited for Tuatu to call back about Ralph’s house. I was too keyed up to feel exactly hungry, but I definitely wanted to do something with my hands, and the others needed to eat.
I ended up eating more than I’d expected to by the time the phone rang again, too. I put it on the table in front of me, speakerphone on.
“Pet? You’re all set; North just got into the house and she said everything is as it should be. You going to be getting out of there?”
“Some time today, I reckon,” I said. At Sarah’s wild flailing with a butter knife, I added, “Make sure you and North are at the Palmer’s place first to check on them; we’ll be all right here, but they might need a hand getting out of their safe room, and they might have a body with ’em.”
“Stick close to Zero,” he said. “And come back alive.”
“That’s the plan,” I said, sticking my tongue out at Zero, who had looked up with a That’s what I’m always saying! sort of expression on his face. “See you on the outside a bit later, all right?”
“See you then,” he said.
I heard the beep beep as he hung up, and then someone said over the speakerphone, “It’s that interference again. Want me to sort it out?”
“Just leave it alone,” said another. “We’ve got too much to do, and the old twister will be coming by again soon.”
“He was meant to be around—”
“I know. Leave it alone.”
An unpleasantly sick feeling stole into my stomach once again. It was Ezri’s voice; Abigail’s, too.
“Turn it off,” Zero said, his voice emotionless. His face wasn’t emotionless, though; his brows cleft deep with a stricken line and his eyes dark and hooded with pain.
“It’s just feedback,” I said, swallowing. I turned off the speakerphone and pressed the phone against my leg to muffle the sound. “Don’t listen. They’re talking about stuff that happened before…before they died. Tuatu said he’s been hearing it, too.”
Between Family: The City Between: Book Nine Page 21
