The Girl Who Fell (The Chess Raven Chronicles)

by Violet Grace

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Rebels,’ she answers. ‘It’s unlikely they breached the warded perimeter. More than likely a warning to get our attention.’

  ‘Well, they got my attention.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about, Your Highness. They’ve hit closer than this before, but we don’t like to take chances.’

  ‘Before?’ I ask. ‘You mean this sort of thing happens regularly?’

  Jules gives me an odd look.

  ‘Oh yeah, the war and all that,’ I mumble.

  A few minutes pass, and when it’s clear that there are no more bombs, the guards trek out. Jules is the last to leave my room, replaced by Brina and Callie, standing tentatively in the doorway.

  ‘Would Your Highness like her breakfast?’ Brina suggests.

  Seriously? We were under fire a minute ago and now we’re talking about breakfast? I’m about to say as much but Callie shrinks when I look at her and I officially feel like the worst person in the world.

  ‘Sure. Breakfast would be great,’ I say, realising that I must have slept through lunch. And dinner. No wonder I’m starving.

  Callie gingerly places an empty tray on the bed, making a bridge over my legs. She pulls a thin piece of metal decorated with what look like intricate Celtic symbols from her boot and swishes it. A boiled egg in a chicken-shaped cup and five thin slices of toast appear on the tray.

  I jolt back in fright, staring at the food.

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Highness. I was told eggs and soldiers were your favourite.’

  ‘When she was three,’ sighs Brina.

  Callie’s cheeks flush crimson. She’s probably worried I’m going to try to hit her again. I dip a toast soldier into the egg and stuff it in my mouth to make her feel better.

  ‘Would Her Highness desire more toast?’ Callie asks when my plate is empty. ‘Or something else, perhaps?’

  ‘Definitely. What else have you got?’

  I’m delighted when my empty plate is magically refilled with toast, some pastries and an apple so red and succulent it could have come straight out of Snow White.

  I take a deep breath. ‘We got off on the wrong foot yesterday and I’m sorry. I’d like for you both to call me Chess,’ I say. They both look like I’ve asked them to drown kittens, so I add, ‘Um, that’s a command. Please.’

  Brina opens her mouth but nothing comes out. I suspect that getting rid of the formality around here is going to take a while.

  After eating I get up and go to the bathroom, Brina and Callie following me.

  ‘I can get undressed on my own,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, Your Highness,’ Brina says, but doesn’t move.

  ‘So, um … what are you still doing in here?’

  ‘You may require assistance while you bathe.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I won’t,’ I say, pointing to the door.

  The shower is wonderfully hot, but I can’t relax. The muscles of my neck are knotted and my breathing shallow. I realise that my body is on high alert, waiting for another nasty surprise. Another explosion or attack or something. And it’s not just here in Iridesca. I think of the trouble I’m in back in London. People think I’m a murderer.

  I need to see Marshall again, to explain everything. I have no idea what I’ll say but he’s done so much for me; I need him to know that it wasn’t all for nothing. That the stories about me that he’s bound to have heard by now aren’t true.

  I’m not a murderer. I did deserve my second chance.

  I step out of the bathroom wrapped in a white fluffy robe, and see Brina and Callie waiting obediently just outside the bathroom door. Brina asks what I’d like to wear. Apparently it’s her job to get my clothes for me, which strikes me as ridiculous. How hard can it be to pull something off a hanger?

  My wardrobe contains enough clothes to rival a department store but I can’t find anything I’d feel comfortable wearing. It’s between figure-hugging bodysuits, much the same as Jules’s uniform, or long, flowing gowns.

  ‘I’ll put my own dress back on.’

  ‘But it’s dirty, Your Highness,’ Brina says.

  ‘Can’t you clean it with magic or something?’

  ‘It’s torn in the back.’

  ‘I’m guessing if you can magic up a buffet breakfast you can fix some torn fabric, yes?’

  Brina looks uncertain for a moment and then acquiesces with stiff formality. ‘As you wish, Your Highness.’

  The limited selection in clothes also applies to shoes. It’s a choice between boots, boots or boots. I choose boots. Again, I opt for my own over the new stuff.

  When I finally emerge from the dressing room, my bed is made and Gladys is sitting on it. She takes one look at my dress and a pencil-thin eyebrow shoots up to her hairline.

  ‘You must learn to pick your battles, my dear,’ she says, swishing her hairpin.

  I gasp as my dress disappears and is replaced with a blood red gown with a full skirt and a corset that is stupidly tight. I’m about to protest but I’m distracted by the black velvet box Gladys hands me. I trace my finger over the lid embossed with a unicorn’s head inside a circle. It’s the same symbol I saw on Jules’s uniform and the other Protectorate officers’.

  ‘That is the insignia of House Raven,’ Gladys says. ‘It’s your family seal.’

  I open the box to find a ruby pendant inside, identical to the one worn by all the women in the corridor paintings.

  ‘The Amulet of Ascendancy,’ Gladys says, walking over to the window seat. ‘It belonged to your mother and her mother before that. And now, as Queen in the Ascendant, it belongs to you.’ Gladys’s blood-stained twinset from yesterday has been replaced with more red tartan. This time it’s a full skirt matched with a crisp white shirt and a brown leather vest.

  ‘Put it on,’ she instructs.

  As I slip the pendant over my head I worry that we’re going to spend the day playing dress-ups. I don’t have time to play.

  ‘I’m grateful for this, Gladys. Really, I am. But we need to talk about Tom. He needs our help.’

  Gladys looks unmoved. ‘A rescue mission is out of the question,’ she says. ‘Too dangerous. We cannot anticipate what your uncle will do next. You must understand the magnitude of his power; he draws it from your family line.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘In war, there are casualties,’ she continues, ignoring my question. ‘This we must accept. You are not used to this world and the stark realities we face. In time you will see that, regrettable thought it may be, nothing is to be done for that boy.’ As an afterthought, she adds, ‘We will honour him.’

  ‘Honour him?’ I say, outraged. ‘We need to help him!’

  ‘First, we need to finish the training we’ve started. Then perhaps we’ll talk more about this young man,’ she says, although it’s clear to me that she has no intention of discussing Tom ever again. Was Gladys always this obtuse? Eccentric, absolutely – but this new fairy version of Gladys is infuriatingly opaque, her words containing more layers than an onion.

  ‘Started? What have we started?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ Gladys gives me a smile that I don’t feel like returning. My temper is rising, and I’m straining to hold my tongue as I follow her out the door. I don’t understand why she insists on maintaining the pretence that she’s been training me all these years.

  We walk along a wide corridor, past door after door, all of them closed, until we finally come to one that opens into a huge, circular room. Leather-bound books line the walls in a kind of orderly chaos. They look ancient but well kept, and they’re stacked so high that it’s impossible to read the spines of the books on the top shelves. I would have loved to sit in a place like this when I was a child, to be surrounded by the calm certainty of books. Two tawny leather couches face one another in the centre of the room, with a coffee table sitting in between.

  ‘Now,’ says Gladys, settling into one of the couches, ‘a cup of tea’s in order. Be a dear?’

&nb
sp; ‘Tea?’ I ask, not even trying to disguise my frustration. It’s not that I mind making a cup of tea. I’ve made Gladys hundreds – thousands, even – and I know just how she likes it. But I don’t have time for this. I need to get Tom back. ‘Can’t we just get on with the lesson?’

  ‘This is the lesson,’ Gladys replies, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘Ok-a-a-a-y,’ I say, getting more and more annoyed. ‘Just so we’re clear, when you say “cup of tea”, you actually mean a cup of tea? Black, watery, milky stuff? Or is “cup of tea” a secret code for something else? Because if it is, I’ve completely missed it.’

  ‘Always needing Gladys to spell things out for you,’ she says, sighing. ‘Use what Gladys has taught you.’ She pulls a silver metal bar from her boot and hands it to me. Intricate patterns swirl along the length of the wand’s shaft. It’s similar to the one Callie used to conjure my breakfast, except this wand is tapered at one end, like a screwdriver. ‘That belonged to Ada Lovelace.’

  I remember learning about Ada Lovelace at school. That was one lesson I paid attention to. She was a genius who essentially invented computer programming way back in the 1800s. Long before any men thought of it.

  ‘Ada Lovelace was a fairy?’

  Gladys nods. ‘Your relative, also. Ada was the sister of Queen Josephine, which would make her your distant aunt. She was the most brilliant neoteric fairy in the history of the Fae.’

  ‘A neoteric,’ I say, mostly to myself. That’s what Gladys called me when I fixed the washing machines at the laundromat.

  ‘Yes, dear. A bringer of new ideas, new ways. It’s your guild. Think of it as your club or tribe, the people who share the same skills and outlook. Neoteric Fae light the path forward,’ she says with weighty expectation. ‘Now, put Ada’s instrument to good use and summon my cup of tea, please.’

  ‘What? Out of thin air?’

  Gladys sighs again. ‘Do you remember my song, “Oh Cometh to Thee”?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ It’s one of the many tuneless songs she’s sung for as long as I can remember. It’s so deeply etched into my mind that I don’t even hear the words anymore, like wallpaper you no longer notice because you’ve looked at the pattern for so long.

  Gladys begins singing:

  Oh, cometh to thee

  O’er land, o’er sea

  Deliver my desire

  With haste and safety

  An ornate china teacup painted with a floral pattern and a matching saucer start to materialise on the coffee table in front of Gladys. At first it’s just a blur of colour and light, and then, as if forming atom by atom, it emerges as a hot cup of tea.

  Gladys picks it up, lightly blowing steam off the top. ‘I summoned this cup from the Palace China Room. The milk, tea and water from the kitchen. Now you try,’ she says, indicating that I do something with Ada Lovelace’s wand.

  ‘How? I can’t —’

  ‘You can,’ Gladys cuts me off sharply. ‘I have spent years training you. Not to fall at the first hurdle, mind. No, that will never do.’

  ‘Again with the training!’ I say, throwing the wand onto the table. ‘When did you train me to do that?’ My voice is pierced with anger. ‘In the past three days I’ve been kidnapped, tasered, locked in a cage, named as public enemy number one for a murder I didn’t commit, catapulted through a roof, sprouted wings and, just to top it all off, I got shot. And suddenly I find out that I’m loaded, when all this time I’ve been destitute. And all these people now say they need me. Well, where were they when I needed them? Where were you?’

  Gladys’s eyes widen in surprise but I plough on.

  ‘The one person who saved me has been captured and no one seems to care. People keep treating me as if I’m some brave general who’s going to lead them into battle, but I’ve got no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. None! And now I’m supposed to magic up a cup of tea – a cup of tea! – out of thin air, using nothing but a song with really bad rhymes? Okay, then, let’s have a go, shall we? Let’s fight a war with crockery.’

  I’m unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice as I reel off Gladys’s stupid verse in a sing-song voice.

  ‘There! See? Sorry to disappoint but I don’t do tricks!’ Tears of anger and anguish wash down my cheeks.

  Then I notice Gladys’s face. It’s lit up in childlike wonder.

  ‘What?’ I snap.

  I slowly turn around a full 360 degrees and take in the scene before me. On every spare surface, and floating in mid-air around the library, from the ceiling to the floor, are hundreds of steaming hot cups of tea. The cups and saucers are in every design imaginable – a floral design here, gold leaf there, every colour of the rainbow, all exquisitely painted. Each is surrounded by a shimmering haze of sparkling dust, lighting up the whole room.

  ‘Oh my …’ I manage to get out, before the cups crash to the floor, most of them smashing and sloshing tea on the carpet.

  Gladys is completely unfazed. ‘We’ll need to work on your presentation, dear. But you’ve got the idea.’ She settles back into the couch and takes a sip of her tea, a satisfied smile calmly spreading across her face.

  chapter 16

  ‘Spells?’ I stare, disbelieving. ‘You’ve been teaching me spells?’

  Gladys smiles proudly. ‘Ever since you came into my care. But your powers are unheralded. I’ve never seen anyone perform the Art without a channelling instrument.’ She looks down at Ada Lovelace’s wand, lying idly on the table. ‘It shouldn’t be possible.’

  You’d think she’d be pleased by this, but apparently not. The lines around her eyes crinkle into deep gullies of worry.

  ‘Untrained, you are a hand grenade. Without the pin.’

  A moment later the concern has vanished from her face as she begins singing another familiar song, restoring the room to its former state. The teacups glisten, evaporating from view in wisps of odourless gas.

  As I look on, still amazed that solid objects can just materialise – and dematerialise – in front of my eyes, she turns her attention to a huge book sitting about halfway up the bookshelf. She whispers another song I know by heart.

  From there it sails and floats on high

  Dancing a journey through the sky

  Gently it rests and comes to lie

  The place I claim with mine eye

  The book shuffles from where it sits on the shelf, levitates upwards momentarily, before gracefully floating down and landing in my outstretched hands. It looks like an ancient, well-thumbed encyclopaedia. I sneeze as dust puffs up into my nose.

  ‘The Book of Artifice,’ Gladys says. ‘The foundation of every spell that can be conjured can be found between its covers. If you’ve been paying attention all these years, you should know every single spell in this book.’

  I sit down opposite Gladys and open the book. Its pages are soft and smooth, more like fine cotton than ordinary paper. As I leaf through it, I see what Gladys means: I know them all. All the strange ditties she has always sung around the laundromat are here, laid out in careful script.

  ‘With more practice in the Art, you won’t need to say the words aloud.’

  ‘What is the Art?’

  ‘Humans call it “magic”, but that always sounds so vulgar to Fae ears. The words of the Art are just there to help focus your mind and direct your energy. And as you become more adept, you can develop your own spells, using the book as a foundation.’

  I turn to the spell for transferring between realms.

  ‘You have conjured that spell before,’ Gladys says.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you transferred back to Volgaris in the middle of your meeting with the Chancellor. Exasperating though he may be, dear, you really must learn to control your temper. And now you know what can happen when you neglect to visualise your target destination during a transfer spell.’

  ‘That’s how I wound up unconscious in the middle of Kensington High Street?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I
used my own magic when I came back to London?’ I say, amazed.

  Gladys nods.

  ‘But how did I do it?’

  ‘Only you know that, dear,’ she says. ‘And in time you will learn to harness it.’

  Her lips purse and her forehead tilts forward. I’ve seen that look before and I know she’s about to deliver a warning.

  ‘Every time the Fae practise the Art in Volgaris, there is a price to be paid,’ Gladys says. The more serious the spell, the higher the price. Most often we pay in pain, sometimes excruciating and debilitating pain. With more practice you can choose to pay for the Art with the loss of precious memories. I do not advise this. Conjuring a transfer spell in Volgaris comes at a very high price. That’s why we only travel between realms when we absolutely must. Far more experienced Fae than you have transferred to Volgaris and have been unable – or unwilling – to pay the price to return.’

  ‘But you transferred me to Iridesca,’ I say, recalling the way she rammed me into Tom’s wall that then disappeared right before impact. ‘What did you pay for that?’

  ‘A fair price.’

  I recall that Gladys’s nose was bleeding just after the transfer. ‘You paid in pain.’

  ‘Correct,’ she says, in a way that doesn’t invite further questions.

  ‘How do you know the price for each spell?’ I’m wondering what I will have to pay if I use magic to rescue Tom. If I can use magic at all, that is. The only thing I know for sure is that I can cater for a tea party, but that’s not much use against Agent Eight.

  ‘You’ll know the price in the moment between intent and action, as sure as you see me here before you. It’s as clear and forceful as a clap of thunder. What did you pay when you escaped from the Agency?’

  I think of the bone-splitting pain that hit me when I was suspended in mid-air, my wings flapping for the very first time.

  ‘Rather unpleasant, you’ll agree,’ Gladys says. ‘A self-regulating system, ingenious as it is dangerous. It is to ensure our ways do not impinge on the humans.’

  I ponder this for a moment. ‘Why didn’t you just cure yourself of the blood disease? Surely any price would be worth it?’