Three of Clubs (War and Suits Book 2)

by J. A. Armitage

  I was just about to stand when something hit me on the back of the head. I turned to see what it was and got another right in the face. They were rolls of bread. Not stale, but not completely fresh either.

  “Breakfast,” Cass shouted out to the others who were still asleep.

  “This is all you get?” I asked, counting out the rolls. There were eleven. I did a quick count up of women—twelve. “There are only eleven rolls.”

  “He really doesn’t like you, does he?” said the woman that had been weaving the straw the night before. She picked up a roll and bit into it with her teeth, giving me a bready grin.

  “Don’t mind her,” said the woman with the gold tattoos. “You can share mine.”

  “Thank you,” I replied as she handed me half a roll.

  “Welcome. Eat it slowly, though, we don’t usually get lunch here. My name’s Stephanie.”

  “Star,” I said.

  “Stargazer Lily.” I always loved your name. It’s so unusual.

  “I think I was supposed to be called just Lily, but it’s a really common name in the Club Kingdom. We are all named after plants or things found in nature. It means that names get used quite a lot. My mother was given some stargazer lilies at a royal function and thought it would be nice to expand the name a little.”

  “Well, it’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks. You all know my name, but I don’t know all of you.”

  “You know Cass and Alice. The prof is Helena. Then we have Juliet, Ana, Ruby, Alma, Renee, Gale, and Giselle.”

  “Hi, everyone,” I said as they nodded to me in welcome. They chewed on their bread rolls slowly, knowing their next meal wouldn’t be until tonight. My stomach rumbled just thinking about it. Even with taking Stephanie’s advice and eating slowly, my half bread roll hadn’t filled the void. I realized that before the bread, I’d not eaten anything since three days ago. No wonder my stomach was making noises.

  “Have any of you tried escaping?”

  “We’ve tried, but every time we do, all that happens is that we lose a meal. We’d actually been doing pretty well for food until you got here.”

  “Oh, sorry!” Yet another reason to feel guilty. Not only had I failed my brother, but I was also responsible for the hunger situation. My stomach had balled itself up into a shriveled knot just thinking about it.

  I stood and walked to the river. It was clean, which meant I could drink from it. Plunging my hands into the cool water, I looked to my left and followed the current with my eyes. I could see the bars they had told me about, and I wondered where the river went once it had gone through them. Probably out into the Heart countryside. I took a few gulps of the water, which quenched my thirst, but the act of bringing my hands up to my mouth made my left elbow throb. I solved the problem by bringing my head right to the river and drinking directly from it.

  “You shouldn’t really drink from a river or stream,” said a voice from behind me. I looked up to see Helena. “What if there is a dead cow or sheep or troll upstream? All the bacteria would flow downstream, and that’s what you’d be drinking.”

  I’d never thought of that. It sounded disgusting. The water in The Club Kingdom was magical and therefore I drank from rivers and streams all the time. Our main source of water at the castle was a brook that ran nearby. The servants brought water from it up to the kitchens.

  “Do we have any choice?” I wondered aloud.

  “Not really. It’s just something to think about. If I didn’t have these things on, I could have purified the water before we drank it.”

  “What’s it like to lose your magic?” I asked, truly fascinated. Our magic was the power of healing, but the Diamonds could do anything they wanted.

  “It’s like losing a limb. I feel naked without it. Although many people go through life without any magic at all, and they manage. Look at the Hearts. They’ve found a way to harness electricity. Look at the light bulbs in here. That’s a kind of magic in itself.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And I would love to be able to do what the Spades do. How wonderful it would be to turn into a big cat and run through the jungle at forty miles an hour or turn into a bird and fly away.”

  “You can’t wave your magic wand and do that?”

  “No, there are many kinds of magic we cannot perform. See, every species has magic that is known only to them. The wild fairies can fly, the gnomes can become stone, the Spades can shape shift.”

  “We can’t really do anything. We just have magic water. Even then, it’s not truly magic. It’s just good for healing, but it’s not enough to heal my brother on its own.”

  “Alice told me about your brother. I’m sorry to hear of his injuries. I hope that by the time you get home, a solution has been found.”

  “If I ever get home,” I replied wistfully. I dunked my feet in the water and sat right on the edge. The feel of the current tickled as it flowed past them.

  “You Clubs have more wonderful magic than all of the other suits put together.”

  “No, we don’t. We can’t do anything!” I had no clue what she meant. She could say a spell and breakfast would appear in front of her. What could I do?

  “Why do you think it is that Feverthorne grows in the Club Kingdoms and nowhere else? It’s the water. Ninety-five percent of all medicinal herbs are grown in your kingdom. Your fruit trees are bountiful, and your animal population is thriving. It all comes down to that water of yours. The rest of us have to trade for what we need, but you have it all in your kingdom. It’s no wonder that the Queen of Hearts wants your rivers. Everything in The Kingdom of Hearts has to be bought or manufactured. Nothing really grows here. She is completely dependent on your kingdom, and she knows it.”

  I’d never thought about the Club Kingdom in that way before, but she was right. We didn’t need the magic of the Diamonds or the technology of the Hearts because we had everything we needed growing all around us.

  “I know your brother, by the way.”

  “Ash?”

  “Tarragon. He’s in one of my classes.”

  “Is he? What was it that you taught again?”

  “I’m the Head of Dragonology studies at the university, but I teach other stuff too. Mainly relating to other animals but I also do one lesson a week of basic magic studies, and that’s the class that Tarragon is in. We are all required to teach it. My class is the lowest level, and really is for none-magic beings.”

  “I didn’t think magic was something that could be taught.” Tarragon had certainly never mentioned learning magic. His field of study as far as I was aware was International Relations by day and girls by night.

  “It is possible, but not to a high degree. Our race is born with abilities that mature with age. Diamonds possess magical ability from the moment they take their first breath, but even we need to be schooled in how to use it. The other suits are less magical. The Spades have a certain amount of magic in them and usually get to a higher level, but the Hearts and your own suit have to start from scratch. Few make it through the basic class. Some do exceptionally well. I taught a Club about ten years ago that went on to be a great sorcerer and now teaches magic himself at the university, but he was very rare. I suspect he had some Diamond blood in him if you looked far enough back in his ancestral history.”

  “How is Tarragon doing in your class?”

  “He’s doing exactly how I would expect a Club to do. He’s on track to pass the course, but it’s unlikely he will move further in this particular line of study. Nor do I think he particularly wants to. Looking at you, though, I get a sense of magic about you. It’s not strong, but it’s stronger that I usually get from a Club.”

  “I can’t do magic!” I said. I used the water a lot in my healing, and I knew a lot of herbal remedy recipes, but true magic was something I’d barely ever seen, let alone thought of using.

  “Catch a fish.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Put your hand in the river and get us a fish.�
��

  I did what she asked and slipped my right hand under the water’s surface. I could feel the current rushing past me just as it had with my feet. At first, it was all I could feel, but then I could sense a slight change in the water. It was the subtlest of vibrations, a whisker of movement, but I could feel it. I grabbed quickly and was extremely surprised to find a fish in my hand. I brought it out of the water to check if it really was a fish. It opened its mouth at almost the same time I did, and I dropped it back into the rushing water in shock. Helena didn’t seem in any way surprised at all. She’d known I could do it.

  “How did I do that? How did you know I could do that?”

  “Your magic has to do with animals and nature. I could sense it from you a mile off. My guess is that you are an animal lover. I wouldn’t be surprised if you kept a lot of pets.”

  “I do keep a lot of pets,” I replied in astonishment. Helena was the first Diamond I’d really ever met apart from the royal family, and she was certainly living up to their reputation.

  “I don’t sense any other kind of magic in you. I doubt you could light a fire using magic, for example, which is a shame because a cooked fish would go down really well right now. If you try to harness your magic, you’ll be able to understand animals more than you already do. In some of my creature classes, I’ve had the brighter students be able to converse with some animals.”

  “I already know what my animals are feeling. I can’t converse with them as such; it’s more of an intuitive thing.”

  “Then you have more magic than most Clubs. Work on it. You may surprise yourself with what you can do.”

  I plunged my hand into the water again and really concentrated. I could feel every time a fish went past. I didn’t attempt to grab any more, but I knew I could if I wanted to. Then the vibrations changed again, this time, they felt thicker and darker, I brought my hand out of the river quickly.

  “What was that? What just happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She plunged her own hand into the water and closed her eyes. Bringing them out a second later, she turned to me.

  “There is a mhyrmid down there. That is what you felt. You did right to bring your hand out. They give nasty bites.”

  “Mhyrmid?”

  “They are pretty foul creatures. They are small, humanoid beings with blue scaly skin and webbed hands and feet. The eat fish, but they will bite fingers and toes if they can find them.”

  I quickly drew my feet out of the water, and Helena laughed.

  “They won’t kill you, but they do have sharp teeth. They’ll give you a nasty nip.”

  “Wow!” I felt immensely proud of myself. I always knew I had an affinity for animals; I just didn’t know it was magic. I felt a pang of guilt at leaving Elphin tied up. I only hoped that someone had found him and was looking after him. At least, I knew my other animals were being looked after by Willow, which was a small comfort.

  “Hey, guys,” shouted Helena to the other women. “Do any of you know how to make fire?”

  By the time lunchtime rolled around, we were all trying unsuccessfully to make a fire with the dried straw and a few twigs that had been lying around. Gale had shown us all how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, but so far, all most of us had managed were a few wisps of smoke. Cass had actually managed to get her fire going, but in her excitement, she’d lost momentum, and the fire had spluttered out before it had really got going.

  By dinnertime, most of us had given up. I sat by the river testing my new ability. If I really concentrated, I could distinguish between types of fish and I even sensed a couple more mhyrmids.

  “She’s done it!”

  I turned to see flames right in the middle of the floor. Cass was the only one who had not given up and had finally, after hours of trying, managed to start a small blaze. The others ran over with heaps of straw to build the flames higher, and I watched as our bedding burned.

  I quickly pulled out a couple of fish, which were thrown straight onto the fire.

  “Dinner at last!” the girl named Ana said. “I’m starving.”

  “We can’t do this for long. There is no chimney. We are all going to be choked to death before those fish cook,” said Alma.

  I looked around and saw to my dismay that she was right. It was a very big room, but the smoke would linger, eating up all the oxygen and killing us all.

  “I’ll open the door at the top of the stairs to let some of the smoke into the cage room,” I said, taking the steps two at a time. I tried the handle. It was locked.

  “It was unlocked yesterday!”

  “It was unlocked the day before, and that’s because they were going to put you down here,” Ana shouted up to me.

  “Oh!” I’d not thought of that. I’d assumed that they only kept the door at the other side of the cage room locked.

  In the end, the air became thick really quickly, and we ended up sharing half-cooked fish. They were big fish so there was plenty to go around, but the fact they weren’t cooked through properly made them taste rubbery and tough. The guards never came, so it was all we had. I went to sleep that night without the padding of the straw and with the air full of smoke. Yet again, I’d managed to make everyone’s life down here a little bit worse.

  12th January

  I woke up to the sound of people scrabbling around, and I realized we had a fresh batch of bread rolls.

  “They must have forgiven you,” grinned Alice, and when I looked, there was also a block of cheese and some bruised apples that had been thrown down with the bread.

  Breakfast was almost pleasant, but the lingering smell of smoke made me feel sick. I had to get out of here.

  “What have you actually tried to escape?”

  I asked while taking a bite from a particularly brown apple.

  “We’ve tried knocking the door down,” replied Cass, “we’ve tried knocking the guard out, we’ve even tried shouting. But no one can hear us. Every time we try something, we lose a meal. It’s doing wonders for my waistline,” she quipped, although it was anything but funny.

  “What about swimming? Have any of you tried swimming upstream?” I knew there were no bars through to the next room because that was the way Alice had come in.

  “Ruby tried when she first got here, but she couldn’t do it.”

  “I was my high school swim champion,” said a girl I’d not spoken to before, but I took to be Ruby. “The current is just too strong.”

  “Can we sneak past the guard?” I wondered aloud.

  “We tried that. Gale flew over his head, but they caught her pretty quickly. We lost food for three days that time.”

  “Flew?” I looked at Gale.

  “I’m a bird-shifter,” she said by way of explanation, “a nightingale, hence, my name.”

  I was surprised. She was a tiny scrap of a thing. A gust of wind would knock her over, but she was still about a hundred times bigger than a nightingale.

  “How do you shift into being such a small bird?”

  “It’s just magic. I don’t know how I do it. I just do. All my family are birds.”

  “I thought shifters could only change matter and therefore be a similar-sized animal.”

  “Spade magic is wonderfully complex,” said Helena, butting in. “They might only be able to perform one aspect of magic, in this case, shapeshifting, but they do it incredibly well and efficiently. Parts of them don’t just disappear. They just bunch their molecules up extremely tightly. Think about a piece of coal. Squash its atoms up tightly enough and in a particular order, and you have a diamond. It works in a similar way with shifters. If Gale changed now, she’d be just as heavy as she is now, even at her much reduced size. She’d be much, much heavier than a real nightingale.”

  Gale nodded throughout Helena’s explanation.

  “How about if we create a diversion, and you fly out? You could fly up on top of the cages while the guards are trying to deal with us, and when the second do
or opens, you can fly through and out of a palace window. Then you can bring help to get us out.”

  “I guess we could try again,” said Gale.

  “It won’t work!” said Alma who was once again seated in her place, weaving the last bit of straw we hadn’t burned.

  “It might work,” said Cass excitedly.

  “It won’t,” replied Alma in her dull voice.

  “Oh, shut up, Alma. I think we might be able to make this work if we plan it properly.” Cass threw her a look.

  “I hope it does because I don’t think I can go through another day without food,” said Ruby, finishing off her cheese sandwich and licking her lips.

  The day was spent making plans for the great escape, and I began to feel hopeful we might actually get out of this place. I’d asked all of the other women, and none of them had been given a date for a trial. The list of supposed crimes was so ridiculous that the cases would be thrown out of any court in Urbis, and I suspected even the queen would have a hard time getting us convicted in a Heart courtroom. It was very clear that we were going to be kept down here until the queen decided what to do with us. I was pretty sure I was safe for the time being. There would be an uproar if she killed me, but what about the others? I didn’t know.

  By the time the lights went out, our plan was complete. We’d been given both lunch and dinner and had managed to set some food aside in case we didn’t pull it off and were denied food again. We’d not repeated the experiment with the fish as it had been a complete disaster, and the smell of smoke still lingered.

  Our plan was to wait an hour or so in the dark and then create a cacophony of noise. That should bring the guard running. Between our noise and the dark, hopefully, Gale would be able to fly past his feet without him noticing her.

  I volunteered to pretend to be hurt in a fight as an excuse for the noise. As my arm still hurt and still had the bruising from the fall, it wasn’t too much of a lie.

  At the allotted time, we all started screaming and shouting at each other. I messed up my hair and tore at my clothes to make me look believable. Ruby, who had volunteered to be the other one in the fight, did the same. After five minutes of shouting, I thought that maybe they hadn’t heard us or were ignoring us, but the door finally opened and light poured in through the doorway, illuminating our room. I immediately went for Ruby and pretended to punch her in the face. She grabbed my hair and spun me around.