Chapter Twenty-Seven The Witch #2
“We must have all our finest incarnates around us,” the Queen agreed, voice firm.
And finally, the Witch understood why she had been summoned.
She was to be present at a ball, and therefore displayed as a demonstration of the Queen’s great power.
How many incarnates would the Queen fill her ballroom with this time?
“Come closer, Witch,” the Eternal Queen urged.
This was an old song. The Witch knew what to do. Apollonius released her. She lowered her eyes and walked forward, curtsying, then allowing the Queen to examine her with cold eyes—and then a cold hand, tipping up her chin.
Lifetimes of this, a voice in her skull sighed.
“Have you been well-behaved, girl?” the Queen asked. “Have you been obedient and good to the archivists, who have so generously cared for you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the Witch said.
“You may go,” the Queen said. The Witch bowed again and returned to her place between the archivists. Apollonius Roland immediately gripped her shoulder once more.
“Does she tell the truth, Apollonius?” the Queen asked. “Has her training been fruitful? Has she been healthy—submissive?”
“Healthy as a horse, Your Majesty,” said Archivist Roland. “And utterly obedient. She understands and revels in her duty to the Crown and the Isle.”
“You’ll keep her useful? Keep her true to her tale?”
“Your Majesty,” said Archivist Roland. “The Witch is exemplary.”
The Witch said nothing. She had not been asked to speak.
But she looked at the Queen—her white face, her thin red mouth, her hands tight upon the arms of her throne—and thought, She’s afraid.
Terribly afraid. All the revelry the Queen insisted upon was a mask and a salve to a wound.
If the Witch could see this, surely the rest of the Court did also.
But they still laughed, and bowed, and cooed over the Queen, and drank their liquors and ate their sweets, and dressed for their balls—as if an ancient tale wasn’t riding down upon the city.
As if the Queen would not soon be deposed, with a blood-soaked and glorious king taking her place.
When Apollonius and Meera joined the Queen and her privy council in a private meeting, Sir Edmund and the Witch were sent to wait in a drawing room.
Thick carpet lay under their feet. The chairs were furnished in silk.
The Witch contemplated how upset everyone would be if she attempted to climb out of the window and got her boots all over the upholstery.
“Edmund,” a low voice said—cool, aristocratic. “I’ll speak to the Witch alone now, if you please. Wait outside.”
To her surprise, Sir Edmund did not argue. He merely bowed and left.
The Witch was left alone with the Spymaster. She knew him, of course. She saw him every time she was brought before the Queen, which was a task as regular as the cycles of the moon. But they had never been alone, and he’d certainly never sought her out.
“Let me see you, girl,” he said, just as the Queen had.
She’d been examined once already today, but she was often examined—tested by limni ink, by magical eyeglasses, by ritual magic and tarot cards and tea leaves.
She’s a perfectly normal incarnate, all of them said, as if they did not expect it.
As if they expected her to be aberrant in some way beyond her brown skin, her Elsewhere blood.
As much as she wanted to bristle, she’d been taught to accept the taste of defeat. She sat still and let him look at her.
“You’re less of a simpering creature than I thought you would be,” he said, finally. “I thought Apollonius would wring all the spine out of you before you reached adulthood.”
Perhaps it was those words that moved her to recklessness. But probably not. There was a rage simmering in her; a little adder, circled around her heart.
“Sir,” she said. “If I may, I have a question.”
“Go on,” he said. “Speak.”
“Does the Queen fear the return of the Eternal Prince?” the Witch asked. “Or does she simply pretend he isn’t coming to take her throne?”
“A bold question!” said the Spymaster. “I find myself surprised. I did not think Archivist Roland would raise you to speak so plainly. We were told, in fact, that he had not.”
“I am a model of decorum,” said the Witch, straight-faced. “If I’ve erred, I apologize.”
He smiled, thin-lipped—but she had a sense that he was genuinely amused, if not by her, then by something.
“What do all stories have in common, Witch?”
This sounded like a test. The Witch wanted to do well—or believed, at least, that Aunt Meera would want her to—but she could not think of an answer.
She had spent so long gluing and sewing and mending books, had stained her fingers so thoroughly with ink, but the content of tales so often seemed to be off-limits to her.
“They end,” said the Spymaster, into her silence. “They may be revised or retold. They may, perhaps, change. A closed book may be reopened. But they must all have an ending. An ending may be delayed, or rewritten. But the end, in its finality, comes for us all.”
They returned to the Tower. The ravens watched them from its walls, cawing, beady-eyed and black-winged. One of her favorites, Peppermint, swooped down as she left the barge that had carried them. She gave the raven a scratch to the head, then a handful of seeds she’d kept hidden in her pocket.
In her room, as night fell, she heard a strange noise from the safety of her bed. Rumbling, deep. She sat up.
“Adder?” she called. “Are you there?”
The sound grew, then waned. Grew, then waned.
Breathing.
The breath was low, chuffing, from deeper lungs than any mortal or any tiny snake of ink could possess. She froze, some animal instinct holding her still.
She saw Adder’s eyes in the dark, but they were suddenly alien to her—ferocious with a feeling she could not understand, that Adder had no words to express. The walls of her circular chamber, her mirrors, had all darkened as if they bled.
It darted at her, teeth bared. She flinched, scrambling from the bed, then grasped for the magic of her mirrors. They hummed around her, full of the promise of power.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered, voice tight, magic squirming like eels in her palm. “What’s wrong?”
Adder made one last convulsive hiss, then faded back into the shadows.
The Witch waited and waited, until she was sure it was not going to return. Her heart was pounding like a fist.
Get out of here, a voice in her skull said. Or better yet find your book and steal it away. Rip it up again. Don’t just sit there, you lump!
The voice sounded vicious, exasperated. Godsblood, won’t you listen to me? I can’t believe I’m so stubborn I won’t even listen to myself—
She slammed a door, mentally, on that voice. Then she lay down in her bed, and stared at the ceiling until dawn came.