“He didn’t. Tobias found him. Shortly after Samuel found out that he was going to be sent to Dovelnia, one of the guards in the castle slipped him a note, suggesting that he consider finding a way to escape the castle and learn about what Hector was really up to, and offering him a safe place to stay. The note was from Tobias.”
“And my father just believed the note from someone he’d never heard of?”
“No,” Tobias said from behind them. “But he had enough of his own suspicions, and once Hector came into his bedroom and threatened him, he was willing to take a chance.”
Nathaniel nodded. “He also trusted the guard who brought him the note… Benjamin Westbrook.”
Thomas’ heart gave a little jump at the too-familiar name. Instinctively, he looked for Linnea before remembering that she had gone to take a nap. His eyes fell on Marcus instead. “Your father?” he asked.
“Yes. He died before Ben was born, but I like to think they had more in common than just their names.”
“He was a good man,” Nathaniel said. “One of the few people Samuel implicitly trusted. He was also the one who helped him escape from the castle that night and reach Tobias safely. We’re all probably lucky he lived past that day. I know I was.”
“Without his vote of confidence, Samuel probably wouldn’t have taken a chance on me,” Tobias said, moving from his cutting board to the stove and pouring oil from a glass bottle into a cast-iron pan. “He wasn’t an especially trusting man by the time he’d lived with Hector for several cycles. Not that I fault him.”
The baby was stirring now, beginning to grunt and shove his fists in his mouth. William’s focus didn’t shift from the conversation as he passed Samuel to Quinn. “So Benjamin knew who you really were as well?”
“He knew me as Tobias Sheppard – as many people do. He did not know my birth name or my history. That was a fact I shared only with Samuel, and later with Nathaniel. Even Marcus didn’t know that truth until much more recently.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “So what does Tobias Sheppard know about the Friends of Philip?”
Tobias didn’t answer immediately; he took his time scraping the sliced pieces of chicken into the pan, filling the room with popping and sizzling. Then he set the cutting board and knife into the sink and wiped his hands on the towel over his shoulder as he turned around. “I know everything about them – down to the last member. I created them.”
“Wait. What?” Marcus asked, standing from his stool and walking toward Tobias.
“That’s a secret guarded at least as well as my real identity. I debated even sharing as much with you all here – but so many things have been kept from Her Majesty up until now, I think it’s best I trust her with all of my truth. Besides, Quinn, you and that baby are the only reason left that the Friends of Philip were created at all.”
Quinn closed her eyes for several seconds, and her foot tapped on the floor fast enough to make the baby’s blanket flutter. Samuel didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the motion, but Thomas knew Quinn was reaching her limit.
William must have seen it too, because he stood up and walked around behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders and bending to kiss the top of her head. “Do you need any help with that dinner, Tobias?” he asked when he straightened. “I think we’re all starving and we could hear the rest of this later.”
~ Twelve ~
Storm
“OKAY, I NEED TO know exactly what you let me sleep through earlier,” Linnea said, following Quinn and William into their room after dinner. Thomas was right behind her. “You’re supposed to wake me up for that kind of thing.”
“No, I’m supposed to look after the well-being of my little niece,” Quinn said, setting her hand over the tiny bump under Linnea’s shirt.
“I’m fine,” Linnea said, setting her hand over Quinn’s. “I promise.”
It made Quinn feel a little better – a very little. By the time they’d arrived at Tobias’ house today, Linnea herself hadn’t looked great at all. Quinn suspected she’d been sick again without telling anyone. The stress of the journey and the situation were wearing on everyone
“We’ll fill you in, Nay, don’t worry,” Thomas said. “Are you…”
He was interrupted by a quiet knock on the still-open door. “Your Majesties?” Mia asked, stepping inside and over to where William had laid the baby on the bed. “Do you need my help with anything?”
“Thank you so much Mia, but he’s calm and I think I’m going to try to get him to sleep,” Quinn said.
“You’re welcome. If you’re looking for any of his things, they should be in the top two drawers in that chest over there. I’ll just go and finish taking care of the diapers that are soaking in the washtub.”
Thomas watched Mia as she slipped quietly from the room. When he turned back to them, Quinn noticed that his cheeks were a little flushed. She felt like laying into him – telling him to go and sort out whatever was going on with Mia right now, but she didn’t have it in her right then. Instead, she headed over to the chest of drawers to retrieve pajamas for Samuel.
A strong gust of wind rattled the panes in the small windows. William walked over and pulled back the curtain to look out. He let out a low whistle, causing Linnea to rush to the window, too.
“That is a storm,” Linnea said. “There must be three inches of snow already, and it wasn’t even snowing before dinner.”
“I thought you said the weather wasn’t usually this bad this time of the cycle,” Quinn said, scooping the baby from the bed and joining them.
“It’s not,” William answered. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be. We have had storms like this during carperos before – didn’t you get blizzards in late fall in Bristlecone every few years?”
“Yeah.” She shook her head, looking out again at the blowing snow. “It’s usually not a good omen for the rest of the season. Tolliver – or Ivan or whoever – sure picked a fantastic cycle to take over my kingdom.”
“That may have been part of the purpose.” The unexpected voice startled Quinn, and she whirled around to face Tobias.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“This harvest season and the fallow season have been predicted to be the roughest in many cycles. The crop farmers have been talking about it for many moons; even in the planting season, nearly everyone sowed extra and kept more young animals to raise.”
She sighed. “I’m the queen. I should know this.”
“Yes.” Tobias’ voice was matter-of-fact. “A queen should know and be overseeing these issues.”
“Is this something else that has been kept from me?”
“I expect so, yes. I can understand why Charles may not have felt it was an important enough issue to trouble you with when there were so many other things going on, especially if he hadn’t considered it from a political angle.”
Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to sort out the thousands of conflicting thoughts racing through her brain. “Do you think it’s as simple as that, Tobias? That he just didn’t consider the implications?”
Tobias raised an eyebrow. “I realize that Charles isn’t here, and that everything is uncertain, but from what I understand he did a quite respectable job running the kingdom in your absence, and he probably deserves more of your trust than you asking that question of someone you just met today.”
She swallowed guiltily – he was right. “And yet, you continue to earn more of my confidence by the minute, Tobias. I appreciate your honesty, even when it’s at my expense.”
“I will continue to work to earn it, Your Majesty. As far as Charles is concerned, I don’t know if he’s given you any reason not to trust him, but you might do well to remember that he is also quite limited in knowing how to lead a kingdom. He wasn’t raised in that role either. From everything I’ve heard, he did the best job he could while you were away, but it wouldn’t be fair to expect perfection from him any more than anyone expects it from you.”
He shook his head. “It’s a challenging way to come into your birthright – but not an insurmountable one, I don’t think. We’ll get your castle back.”
“The castle is not my biggest worry, Tobias, but I do appreciate your support.”
“Yes, well … Enough discussion of that for this evening. I think we could all use a break from thinking about something that can’t be dealt with tonight. I came to speak with you because I realized I hadn’t answered the question I promised I would.”
“How you know about the other world.”
Nodding, he reached into the front pocket of his long white sweater and pulled out a worn-looking leather book. He held it between his hands as he spoke. “There have always been stories about another world. Some believe the world first began there, others just believe that people have long traveled back and forth between the worlds. Most people, of course, believe that the stories are just that – stories. No different than the stories we tell children about talking animals and magic people.”
“But my father believed in Earth?”
“As rulers of the kingdom, it is only prudent for the royal family to keep an open mind about what people believe – especially concerning a portal that could present an unknown threat.”
“And you?”
“I have always had a special affinity for books – stories, history, philosophy, science, – the older the better. You’ve no idea how often I got in trouble for bringing home an enormous crate of books after visiting someone, or helping a family clean up a home after an elderly relative died.”
Quinn smiled. “You’ll get along well with my husband.”
“Mmm-hmm… I’m sure I’m the only one in this room suddenly interested in Tobias’ library,” William muttered close to her ear. She knew without looking that his eyes were bright with curiosity. But he was right – a mirror would have revealed the same interest on her face.
“My library is in the basement, or I should say, my basement is the library, despite the fact that it’s supposed to be a safe house,” Tobias said. “Any of you are more than welcome to use it as much as you wish, for as long as you’re here.”
“We may take you up on that,” Quinn said. “We’ve found the royal library to be somewhat lacking on the topic of the other world.”
“Yes, your father and Nathaniel discovered that as well – that any works even mentioning the possibility of gates or another world were conspicuously absent from the castle.”
“Do you think that was intentional?” Thomas asked.
“It’s hard to imagine that it isn’t, considering the relatively large number of texts that make mention of the other world, even if the writer doesn’t believe there’s any truth to the idea.”
William nodded. “There are many books at the castle in Eirentheos that talk about the other world – just very few of them have useful information about finding gates or the differences between the worlds. None of them would have led us to the gate. Mostly, they’re stories.”
“Perhaps not, but then you, William, would have been reading those books with a level of background knowledge that may have led you to overlook information that might have a different meaning to someone who had never seen a real gate or traveled to the other world.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“What do you mean?” Quinn wasn’t sure she followed.
William put his hand on her shoulder. “He means that sometimes knowing too much already makes it harder to see the subtle things in front of you – like maybe the way someone who doesn’t know that it’s highly unlikely for a large number of children to be exposed to shadeweed would have an easier time seeing that they have been.”
“Right,” Tobias said, chuckling. “I mean that someone who doesn’t think they already know what information is right and wrong about the gates might not overlook a small piece of information that turned out to be critical – that might be the one piece that helped find a real gate.”
“So the question is – who took all the small pieces of information?” Linnea said, turning away from the snowy window. She’d been staring out at the night the whole time they’d been talking – it would have been easy to believe she hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation, but Quinn knew better.
Thomas pulled the curtains closed as Linnea walked over to Quinn and held out her hands for Samuel. The baby fussed for a second, but calmed quickly when Linnea swayed gently back and forth.
“I think we can guess who,” William said. “It’s obvious that Hector knew how to find a gate, and a long time ago, too. What we don’t know is who else he might have shared that information with, besides Rahas and Tolliver.”
“Yes. And we don’t know if any of the books they had gave them information about another gate.” Tobias rubbed the leather cover of the book with his thumbs before handing it to Quinn. “I’ve had this journal for many cycles, since I was a young man. I don’t know who wrote it; but it’s very old. I found it at market on Blue Sand Island, of all places. It was your father who deciphered the chart in here that gave us a rough idea of what days during each quarter the portals might open. It still took some trial and error once he located the gate in Eirentheos.”
Quinn flipped through the worn yellow pages, careful not to rip or crumble anything. There were words and drawings on every page, but they seemed random and most of them didn’t make sense to her – until she reached a place near the middle where the journal stayed open easily.
“That’s the clearing where the bridge is,” she said. “There’s no bridge, but I recognize that bend in the river – that’s where we dug for the magnet.”
“You’re right,” William said, tracing the drawing softly with his finger.
“But what are these numbers?”
He frowned, leaning closer. She turned and reached into the pocket of his wool jacket, retrieving the case that held his glasses.
Chuckling softly, he whispered, “Thanks.” He put the glasses on and studied the page again. “They look like map coordinates… but I don’t think they’re correct for that location.”
“They’re not,” Tobias said. “At least not according to the maps we use in Eirentheos or Dovelnia. Nathaniel has said they look like coordinates that might exist if we had a larger-scale map of Deusterros. Or they might be written in code.”
“Maybe…” William said, taking hold of the book. “Can I?”
Quinn let go of the journal, leaning into William’s shoulder instead, watching as he leaned close to study the numbers, muttering softly under his breath. He turned the page, revealing yet another sketch of trees and river, but this one was unfamiliar – and only half-formed, as the next page was ripped out, leaving a small jagged edge of paper in the margin. She bent the ripped piece both ways, but none of the markings on it were decipherable.
“Are those more coordinates?” she asked, pointing to the bottom of the intact page.
William nodded. “Half a set. Where’s the other page?” he asked Tobias.
“It was gone when I first got the journal. I’ve never had any idea where it might be. There are a couple of other missing pages as well, but nobody can even guess what was on them.”
“Can we figure out what these numbers mean based on the other ones for the gate we know?” Quinn wondered.
“Nathaniel thinks so. He spent many moons studying it and he thinks he can decipher what this coordinate means,” Tobias said.
William nodded. “But with only half the pair, that’s not very useful. We could pin it down to a line that spans half the globe.”
“The line does run through Philotheum,” Tobias said. “If Nathaniel’s calculations are correct. But William is right – it’s still not useful on a practical level. We need more.”
“Not that it matters much anyway.” Quinn stepped away from Willia
m and the journal and sat down on the edge of the four-poster bed. “It’s all very interesting, but figuring out the location of a gate is just too dangerous, especially right now. We can’t use it and expose this world to that kind of possible damage.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, and when Quinn looked at Tobias, he was looking at her with a strange smile. “What?” she asked.
“So you do intend to fight, then?”
She frowned. “Of course I do. What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one, Your Majesty. This situation hasn’t been easy for you; you’re in over your head, people who should be supporting you are threatening your life and the life of your child… And now it appears there may have been a coup. A reasonable person with another world – another family – to safely escape to would be finding that gate as quickly as possible.”
William sat down next to her, resting his hand on her back, the journal still open on his lap.
Quinn took a deep breath before clearing her throat. “I’m not sure where you got the impression that I’m a reasonable person, Tobias. I may not have the first clue what I’m doing here, but that is my throne and my castle. Philotheum is my kingdom – not Tolliver’s, and certainly not Ivan’s. I’d like to believe it won’t come to a fight – especially because I have no idea how to win one with three guards, one of whom who is not even trained properly – but I’m not going anywhere.”
In Linnea’s arms, Samuel began fussing. Tobias glanced at them as Linnea carried him to the other side of the bed and Thomas brought her a clean diaper. “I don’t like the circumstances that caused it, Your Majesty, but I am honored to have my niece under my roof through this storm.”
~ Thirteen ~
Droppings
WHEN HE’D FINALLY CRAWLED into bed the night before, Zander had been so exhausted that he’d been afraid he might not wake again until dinnertime. But early the next morning, when James Blackwelder pulled on his boots, the quiet noise roused Zander immediately. The weeks of intense guard training were paying off; although no light entered the room when James pulled back the curtain, Zander was alert.
Leaves of Revolution Page 11
