by Lea Doué
“Just be careful.”
He hesitated, like he might change his mind. “I will.”
She stood in the doorway long after he disappeared down the hall, listening to the muffled splash of rain on the stones, watching the watery light play on the walls. What did people do when they were completely alone? No one needed her, and she had no one to keep out of trouble. No studies, no court duties. The only time she ever got to herself at home was when she rode Buttercup, but she didn’t have him now, either.
She could at least learn her way around the place, and maybe find some food. She hadn’t let herself think about where it came from. Unlike Neylan, she’d never had any interest in the why and how of sorcery. It wasn’t an acceptable course of study, and there were no books, anyway. But unless they were rescued first, she needed to find out enough to free them. There was always a way out where sorcery was involved.
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t believe she’d been caught in a sorcerer’s trap yet again.
Well, no use standing there. She locked the door and walked down the hallways, hoping to stumble upon the study so she could recover her boots. She freshened up in the bathing room, peeked into a few bedrooms, then discovered the dining hall. Unless she’d mixed up her turns, it wasn’t all that far from Eddy’s room, and it was the first with a high ceiling. She stepped in with a sigh of relief.
Stone walls, stone floors, and a table set for at least fifty people stretched before her. Food filled every spare inch. Whole roasted chickens, mounds of creamy potatoes, bowls and trenchers of vegetables and rice, fruit and cheeses. Not to mention pies and cakes and tarts. She breathed deeply, and her mouth watered quickly enough to make her jaws ache. She sat in the nearest chair, filled a plate, and ate with her fingers. There was no one around to see or care.
At the far end of the hall, a massive fire roared, orange light teasing the shadows. Tapestries in muted burgundy, creamy amber, and faded emerald warmed the walls. Basic fortress finery.
The silence pressed on her. How had Eddy borne it all these years? Not just the silence, but the loneliness. She missed her sisters already and longed to know if Hazel and the others were safe. Her hands fell into her lap, useless. Nothing to do. No one to help. Just herself, alone, in a big, empty fortress.
No longer hungry, she abandoned the table for the candlelit hallway. Now what?
Boots. She was going to find her boots. And clothes would be welcome, too, something other than Eddy’s old shirt and socks. It was a goal. A small one, but a start.
She wandered aimlessly, bypassing several broken halls until she found one of the bedrooms she’d passed earlier. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
With a quick glance at the mirrorless dressing table, she started towards the wardrobe but stopped short when she noticed a lump on the bed: her riding clothes, cleaned and neatly folded. She looked around, half expecting to see a maid scurry away.
She shook everything out and put on her own underclothes right away, layering Eddy’s green shirt and her brown tunic over top and fastening her belt around her waist. Her leggings had a small tear in one knee, but she slipped them on gratefully. She balled up the bulky socks and left them on the bed. No sign of her boots. Whatever invisible maid had cleaned her clothes must not have found them.
She’d find them herself. Trying to summon some of her sister Azure’s adventurous spirit, she set off again in search of the study. And she found it almost immediately down the hall. The fortress wasn’t as big as she’d thought at first. She could probably find her way back to Eddy’s room from here.
The study had been tidied up, either by Eddy or the invisible maids. The blankets were gone, the desk bare except for the candle. Though the fire burned bright, she shivered, thinking of Tharius, the sorcerer who had ensnared Lily and the rest of them with his tricks and deception. This was how he had lived all those years trapped underground—cared for by silent, unseen servants. Shadow people, he’d called them. To him, sorcery was a normal part of life. To everyone else, it was unnatural and alarming, something to be avoided at almost any cost or tolerated at best. She almost pitied him.
Almost.
There was no sign of her boots, but she found a lap harp slumped against the far side of the desk. She hadn’t noticed it before. The wood gleamed as if just oiled. She plucked a couple of strings—either Eddy maintained the instrument, or the maids kept this in order, too. Normally, she avoided playing unless pressed, but at the moment, any noise at all would be welcome. Even from a sorcery-conjured harp. She sat on one of the chairs by the fire and balanced the instrument on her knee, resting the soundboard against her good shoulder. She strummed a few notes to warm up, then closed her eyes and played a simple tune that was a favorite of Azure’s. She imagined her younger sister dancing, her bare feet spinning across the carpet in their tower room, blue skirts swirling, making the other girls dizzy as they watched. She imagined Coral whispering with the twins in the shadows, her fiery red head framed by the tiny brunettes.
She blinked back a tear, refusing to give in to homesickness, and glanced up to see a girl standing in the doorway, eyes closed and swaying to the soft notes of the harp. She blinked again, but it was no leftover daydream.
The girl was wildly exquisite, slender and willowy. Black hair fell in silky waves past her hips. Green vines with blood red flowers wove through tears in her short white shift, twining around her hips and shoulders and trailing down her back, tangling in her hair. A brace of pheasants hung from a rope tied around her waist, partially obscuring a dagger strapped to her thigh. One hand rested at her throat, and a large silver ring flickered in the candlelight. A golden dragon writhed at the center of the ring, surrounded by five glinting rubies.
Gwen’s knee boots covered her legs.
This had to be the girl Will had seen running through the forest, the girl Eddy searched for even now. Gwen’s fingers fell away from the harp. This was the girl he had told her to lock the door against at night.
Sissi.
The girl stopped swaying. She opened large, pale blue eyes framed with thick lashes and looked straight at Gwen. Her gaze held a hint of something unsettling, something that aged the girl past what her appearance suggested.
“Edric didn’t tell me we had a visitor.” Her soft voice had a childlike quality, but her tone indicated petulance at being left out.
“He’s looking for you now.” Gwen stood, laying the harp carefully on the floor. “I’m Gwen.”
Sissi took a few steps forward, eyeing Gwen slowly from head to toe and back again. “I imagined princesses to be prettier.”
Her face flushed. She would never be as pretty as Hazel, but she was no bear, despite her uncombed state and travel-worn clothes. How dare this girl wearing weeds and stolen boots pass judgment on her after only a few moments in her presence? She frowned. How did Sissi know she was a princess? And why was she in the fortress, while Eddy was out looking for her in the rain? Where had she been the past few days?
Instead of voicing any of her questions, Gwen asked, simply, “Has the rain stopped?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said, her gaze fixed on Gwen’s leggings as if she’d never seen dragon-wing leather. She still hadn’t introduced herself.
“Begging your pardon, but might I ask what your name—”
“Play for me,” Sissi both asked and ordered. Her eyes widened, eyebrows raised in a delicate plea.
“Um… now?”
“Yes.” Her smile was as wild and exquisite as the rest of her. “I’ve never heard anything so beautiful.”
She bristled against the order, but did she dare refuse? Eddy seemed to think the girl was dangerous. At least if she played, Sissi would be here rather than running around getting into whatever trouble he thought her capable of.
Gwen sat and placed the harp back in her lap. Perhaps Eddy would realize Sissi wasn’t outside and would return soon. She flexed her fingers and then strummed
a lullaby favored by the twins, grateful to have a moment to compose herself.
Sissi circled the sofa as Gwen played, watching her fingers move over the strings and staring at her hair, her feet, her knee peeking through the hole in the leggings.
As a princess, Gwen was accustomed to drawing attention, but she fidgeted under such personal scrutiny. When the last notes of the song faded into silence, she set the harp on the floor.
Sissi stopped near Gwen’s elbow. “Play another.”
“Perhaps tomorrow. My shoulder is sore.”
“The musicians in the ballroom can play all day without stopping.”
Probably because they weren’t real or even visible. “I can teach you to play, and then you can have music whenever and wherever you like.”
Sissi’s nose scrunched up. “Why would I want to do that?”
Gwen sighed. Playing an instrument had never been her favorite, either, but it would keep the girl busy.
Sissi turned abruptly and walked to the door.
“Wait!” She’d rather not have the girl wandering around who knows where, and she still had so many questions.
Sissi turned and placed her hand on the door frame, the rubies on her ring winking in the candlelight. “Don’t believe everything Edric tells you,” she said lightly. “He’ll never find her.”
“What?”
“My name is Sissi, by the way.” She smiled and curtsied, the pheasants’ feet scratching against the floor. “Stay as long as you like.”
Gwen frowned as the door quietly bumped shut behind her.
Chapter Six
Gwen sat still as stone. Eddy had told her not to trust Sissi, but the girl knew something about Hazel or Bay. What did she mean, saying that Eddy would “never find her?” Was one of the girls injured, or worse?
She jumped up and ran out the door. Which way had Sissi gone? She rushed down the hall as fast as her bare feet would allow. A left turn, another left turn, then a right. She passed closed doors and dark halls and made at least three more turns before she stopped.
Sissi could have gone down one of the broken paths as easily as any of the others. Eddy had said himself that he usually didn’t know where she was, so Gwen had little chance of finding the strange girl. And now she’d gotten herself lost and aggravated her shoulder in her rush to nowhere.
The turn up ahead looked as promising as any. She rounded the corner and walked down another hall just like all the others, only to find a narrow, curved stairway at the end. Pale light fell from above, softening the stone walls and beckoning her forward. Perhaps the second floor had windows.
The stairs spiraled tightly as she climbed and at last reached a roofed lookout. The rounded, tower-like space allowed watchers to view every side of the fortress and the forest beyond through arched windows separated by thick columns of stone. Rain that pounded the forest and the ruins poured in curtains from the roof, and a humid breeze tickled her skin. The wooden floor creaked as she crossed to the far side. At least it was dry.
She looked out every glass-less window and saw a similar view all the way around. Rocks, mud, stones, ruins. Trees. Endless green stretched above and beyond the small lookout, except for a small, scrubby clearing between the fortress and the crumbling perimeter wall.
Something not-green fluttered at the edge of the woods.
Sissi. She disappeared quickly into the forest.
Gwen’s fingers tapped against the stone ledge. Chasing after the girl would be pointless, even if she could find her way to the front doors. Eddy had told her to stay put, and she had enough sense to listen to reason. But her sister could be out there.
She turned around, slumped against the stone wall, and crossed her arms. She had no desire to return to the windowless rooms below. From this height, the fortress seemed smaller than she’d first thought. The reconstructed bits formed a rough square, with the lookout standing at a back corner and a broken courtyard barely visible at the front. Her gaze followed the perimeter wall, which stood almost intact where the front gates should have been and slowly dwindled away to nothing more than mossy lumps near the lookout.
She pushed off from the wall and scanned the trees at the back. Sissi had disappeared on this side, not the front. Were there other exits from this place? There must be—maybe even more than one. Any of the ruined hallways could lead outside.
If it weren’t for the sorcery keeping it together, this fortress would have become part of the forest long ago. The weaver dragons had already tried to reclaim part of it. A silvery web filament stretched from a nest in the nearest oak to the lookout, where some brave little weaver had wrapped it around a stone pillar and tied it off. The stubby-winged dragons could fly, but barely, preferring to climb and glide on their web ropes among the trees. She rarely saw them in the city, as they preferred thick canopies to bricks and stone; but one of them had apparently taken a liking to the lookout. She almost wished one would come gliding down now just so she could have someone, or something, to talk to.
Her stomach grumbled, and she reluctantly descended the stairs. After getting turned around a time or two, she found the dining hall, grabbed a couple of soft rolls and a turkey leg, and had them eaten by the time she made it to the entrance. She paced in front of the open doors, alternating glances between the empty front hall and the boulder-strewn courtyard.
Where was Eddy? She needed to know if he had found anything. Or anyone.
She stepped up to the doorway, her toes dipping into the edge of a puddle. “Eddy!” If he was close enough, he’d return and she could explain her meeting with Sissi. “Eddy!”
She’d been out in storms before—but always on familiar paths, and never alone. As much as she wanted to search the forest herself, she wasn’t stupid. And she wasn’t Azure, fearlessly running into the unknown. Even Melantha would know better than to try it.
“Eddy!” The raindrops grabbed her voice and dragged it into the mud before it reached the forest.
Yelling was pointless, but she didn’t stop. Not until Eddy barreled out from among the trees, running fast, as if he knew the exact location of every fallen stone and branch. He needed to slow down.
Gwen screamed and stepped to the side a second too late. Eddy slammed into her. He wrapped his arms around her immediately, pulling her into his chest and twisting as they fell so they both landed on their shoulders before sliding a few inches. Thankfully, her good shoulder and his arm took the worst of it.
He quickly untangled himself and stood up, extending a hand just to the side of where she sat on the damp floor. She accepted his help and then slipped in the water, unused to going barefoot.
He steadied her before letting go and backing up a few steps. “You all right? Why were you calling me?”
Trying not to stare at the wet shirt clinging to his chest, she wiped her hands dry on her tunic. “I met Sissi earlier, and she—”
“She’s here?”
“No, but she was, and she said something strange. Something about you never finding her, but she didn’t mean me or her. A different her.”
Eddy shook his head and frowned, swiping water from his face and beard.
“I’ll explain better, but first you should get dried off, and… you know… dressed.”
“I’ll meet you in my room.” He ran off before she could ask him to point her in the right direction.
Following his wet footprints most of the way, she found the passage to his room. She locked herself in and dried off with a scrap of fabric from the basket. Tidied the bed. Sat on it. Waited.
“Gwen?”
She opened the door to find Eddy dressed in the same grey trousers and black shirt as the day before, his hair tousled.
“Could you sit on the bed so I don’t bump into you?”
“Oh, of course.”
He fetched a dry blindfold from the chest and replaced the wet one, keeping his back to her, then turned and sat on the floor. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Gwen told him ev
erything about her meeting with Sissi. “She found someone out there, I know it. It has to be Hazel or Bay. Did you find anything?”
“No, but I was only looking for Sissi. When the rain got heavy, I had to stop. I’d still be out there if I hadn’t heard you call my name.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I can’t hear the waterfall, I can’t orient myself to get back to the fortress. You helped me find my way home. I’ll go back out in the morning.”
“Do you think she found someone, or some sign of them?”
“It’s possible, but she could also be lying.”
“So she’s telling the truth but keeping their location a secret, or she’s lying… because she’s jealous?”
He grinned and shook his head. “What does she have to be jealous of? No one can compete with her.”
Prickly heat washed over her. She certainly couldn’t compete, but it was a bit unfair for him to say so. She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. No doubt his relationship with the girl was complicated after being stuck here with her for so long.
“Gwen?”
“Yes?”
“That didn’t come out right, did it?”
She grinned in spite of herself. “I just don’t understand why Sissi would lie. If she’s in love with you, wouldn’t she want to help you?”
His smile vanished. “Why would you think she’s in love with me?”
“Because of the love potion…”
“The love potion?”
“Yes. She took it, and then she went to see you, thinking you would fall in love with her, but it worked backward. Right? She fell in love with you instead.”
“Ah, yes. She took the love potion.” He tipped his face towards the ceiling and then spoke the next words in one breath. “And then she looked at herself in a mirror before presenting herself to me.”
“I don’t understand. She’s not in love with you?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then who—” Wait. Could it be possible? “She looked in a mirror. So she’s in love with… herself?”
