Twenty
“We haven’t much time,” Ulrich said a little later as they all sat on the benches near the fire, nursing more tea and cookies. “Schon will rise at dawn, and soon thereafter will learn that her son lives.”
“We are prepared to fight,” Sigurd said firmly.
“Yes. If you can get us inside the castle, we’re ready to kill the Queen,” Sigmund added.
Snow glanced around. He had only just come back to them.
Slipping into the palace was dangerous, even for the most cunning and brave of men.
He did not want to risk losing any of them, not when he had been granted such an extraordinary second chance at life.
“I do not wish you to risk your lives for mine,” he said softly. “Please.”
“As long as the Queen lives, you are in danger,” Grim said, his voice full of dark promise. “We will protect you in any way.”
“But you are not killers,” Snow said softly. “I do not wish to put that burden upon any of you. Not for my sake.”
“Not just for you,” said Bernhardt, his wise eyes on the mug of tea in his tiny hands. “For everything we have had taken from us. Our homes, our families, our lives.”
“We have never had the chance or the will to strike back,” Hardwic said, taking one of Snow’s hands and giving it a squeeze. “If we are ever to do it, it must be now. While we have friends and allies.” He turned his cheery smile toward Ulrich and Zel.
Snow glanced around the room as the other miners murmured their agreement, trying to think of what they could do. An uprising would involve planning, and they had limited time to do so. And open rebellion could result in innocent people being hurt.
Something caught his eye. Something red and shiny.
He rose to his feet, slipping through the assemblage and over to the table.
Upon it still sat the apple with the singular bite out of it, and, next to it, the page Zel had laid down that described the effects and the antidote.
He read it over, aware that all eyes were on his back, watching his every move.
There was a collective inhale from the little men as his fingers closed around the apple, still as red and perfect as it had been when his mother, in her peddler disguise, had first handed it to him.
He lifted it up to study it. It looked to be such a simple, innocent thing.
Small, but deadly, the way his coterie of lovers was.
If there was a way to make it even smaller…
He turned to the group, his eyes landing on Der. “Would you be able to turn this into a powder?”
Der blinked at the question, glancing from side to side at the others, as if unsure whether Snow was addressing him, before he cleared his throat. “I should think so. It would have to be dried first.”
“Easily magically accomplished,” said Zel with a sly smile. “What did you have in mind, Snow?”
Snow’s lips formed a devious little smirk that he turned on Zel and Ulrich. “If you can get me safely into the castle, I know a way to kill my mother, and none of us will have to lift a single finger.”
Ulrich’s own smile mirrored Zel’s crafty one. “The Thieves Guild is at your service. Just tell us what you need.”
Dawn was just breaking over the horizon when Ulrich transported Zel, Snow, and the seven miners to just outside of the Thieves Guild in the town.
One moment they were standing in the miners’ cottage; the next, the sounds and scents of the streets of Falchovari greeted them.
Grimwald crossed his arms. “Huh. It ain’t natural,” he said with a small glower at Ulrich.
The sorcerer only smiled one of his mysterious smiles. “Neither am I.”
Dagobert turned in a wide circle. He had been so young when he was taken from his family, he had hardly any memory outside of the mines.
The houses and shops were so tall and close together, almost like trees in a forest, and there were shops with beautiful glass windows displaying everything from baked goods to fabric to tools.
He pressed his face up against a window to stare at a pair of finely crafted ruby red leather shoes on display there.
He had never seen anything so elegant or bright.
Snow smiled and leaned down next to him.
“If all goes well, we’ll be able to get you as many fancy shoes as you want.
” Dagobert giggled and nodded, touching Snow’s blue waistcoat, then grabbing at his own tunic with a haughty air and a look down his nose in his imitation of the Queen.
Snow laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound Dagobert had ever heard.
They all met with Zel’s parents, Gregor and Sophie, the newest heads of the Thieves Guild since the recent unseating of the previous leader, Lothar.
There was a crew of Thieves Guild members ready to help them, especially after Snow shared his plan to kill the Queen.
One of the members, introduced as a whisperer, was rather scarily familiar with the interior of the palace, including its hidden entrances and weak points.
Snow made it a point in his mind to never find himself on the wrong side of the Thieves Guild if this plan worked.
As the populace began to rise and come to life, the group dispersed.
Snow, Grim, Der, and their whisperer guide headed one way, toward the palace.
The other little men, along with members of the Guild, circulated into the streets.
They knocked on doors and stepped into shops.
“The Queen wishes to make a royal announcement at noon. It is requested that all who are willing and able please assemble outside of the streets in front of the palace.” The word spread quickly through the town, which buzzed like bees in a hive.
The Queen so rarely made an appearance to her subjects; she had always acted as though they were beneath her.
An announcement in person could either be very good or very, very bad.
Most of the townsfolk suspected the latter.
Snow, Der, Grim, and their whisperer guide slipped silently into a drain and followed it from its exit into a river, back along its path.
The tunnel was not tall enough for Snow or the whisperer to stand fully upright, though Der and Grim had no trouble.
It stank of sewage, and Snow had a dark feeling in his heart as they followed it, for he thought he knew where its egress was.
“This is as far as I go,” said the whisperer when they reached a locked gate that the whisperer was easily able to open for them.
Der, Grim, and Snow stepped out of the gate and into the dimness of the dungeon below the castle.
There were only a few windows, scattered high along the walls, so high that they were not easily accessible from inside, and they were relatively small as well.
Individual cells were made from stone, with heavy, wooden doors closing them in, making it impossible to tell how many of them were actually occupied.
Snow could smell must and mildew and unwashed bodies, and it nearly made him retch.
He had only been to the dungeons a few times in his life; they had scared him so terribly as a child that he avoided them and often pretended that they did not actually exist. He realized now how foolish that was of him; people were down here in these cells, suffering, many for ‘crimes’ that were nothing more than an inability to provide tax to the Queen, or stealing food and clothing for their children.
His tender heart ached. No one deserved to be sent to the dungeons for lack of necessities.
He could no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering of those around him.
The Thieves Guild had provided him with information about the castle, and deep within the shadows of the dungeon, they found a back stairwell that spiraled upwards into darkness.
Der lit a torch to help them navigate the steep, stone stairs, keeping its flame low, though Snow suspected that no one more living than a few rats had used these stairs in many years, for they were covered with cobwebs and a layer of dust that almost could have passed for fallen snow.
As they climbed up the steep stairs, Snow wondered if they might fall down them to their deaths.
He wouldn’t be surprised if this was the most treacherous part of the entire quest and also explained why these stairs were not more commonly used.
Up they climbed, each step feeling like they were ascending into the lair of a giant, until they reached what seemed to be a door at the top of the staircase.
There was a latch on the inside that Grim unlocked by the light of Der’s torch.
Der then smothered the flames, and they pushed the little door open to peek out.
It was the guest wing of the palace, rarely used nowadays, and not far from the wing that housed his own chambers and those of the Queen.
There were no servants or guards about, so Snow gestured for Der and Grim to follow him out of the hidden doorway, closing it behind them so it blended into the wall once more.
Down the hallway they crept on cautious feet, passing no one but a few silent portraits of nobles on the walls, who had nothing to say in the matter of their invasion.
They reached the end of the wing. Snow peeked out, then ducked back in, holding his finger to his lips in silence as several guards came hurrying down the hall, stopping in front of the closed door of the Queen’s chambers.
One of them lifted his hand to knock, but before he could, the door was yanked open, and Queen Schon came flying out into the hallway in a flurry of purple and black fabric, her blond hair bouncing on her shoulders.
She nearly ran into the guards, who took a hasty step backwards. “What is going on?” she demanded.
“We’re not sure, your majesty,” said one of the guards nervously, glancing sideways at the other guards to see if they had a better answer. “The people seem to be gathering in the town square.”