Fourteen #3
“No one lets her out,” I said, into the silence. I could hear the fire crackling at the hearths, and the stews bubbling atop the stoves. Not letting go of the bloody knife, I walked toward the kitchen door, pulling the phone out of my pocket as I went.
Etienne picked up on the second ring. “October? Chelsea and her mother have just sat down to their morning meal, but I can interrupt if you—”
“I was calling for you.”
He went quiet.
“Melly is locked in the pantry of the main kitchen. I need you to come get her before her staff lets her out. I don’t think they’ll be able to resist for long if she starts begging. She’s unhurt. I let her stab me so I could take her knife away.”
“You let her … You know what? I am not even going to get into it with you right now. I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”
The connection didn’t even drop before the kitchen door was opening and Etienne was stepping through, looking at the bloody knife and the hole in my tank top with a single sweep of his eyes.
He finally focused on my face, lowering his phone as he sighed heavily.
“Could you try, perhaps, to go one visit without getting yourself stabbed?” he asked.
“Please? For me? My daughter spends a not-inconsiderable amount of time in your presence, and I’d prefer she not start thinking this is a reasonable way to behave.
Let Chelsea remain committed to keeping her blood inside her body. ”
“I’m the one who got stabbed, not the one who did the stabbing,” I protested, flipping the knife around so I could offer it to him handle-first. “Melly really didn’t want me leaving the pantry.”
“And why, pray tell, was she so opposed to your departure?”
There wasn’t any easy way of saying this. “You’ve heard that Raysel’s missing?”
He scowled, taking the knife from my hand. “Everyone has heard that she’s missing. October, you must—”
“That’s what I’m doing. And she’s missing in part because Melly figured out what Luna was intending to do and told the remaining Riders in Blind Michael’s land when she and Raysel were likely to be vulnerable.”
Etienne took a half-step backward. “I assumed she was with the Duchess. Are you saying that she’s not?”
“She was. But because the Riders knew where to find them, they’ve been separated. I’m not sure what Melly did was actually a crime. But it was definitely a violation of her oaths, and an offense against this house. She needs to be held until Sylvester is in a condition to deal with her.”
“I … What do you want me to do with this knife?”
I looked at it, red and shining in his hand.
“That’s my blood. I know he’s never been much for blood-work, but if he licks the blade clean, he’ll be able to see my memories of the conversation I had with Melly.
That should help him decide what to do with her.
Getting stabbed hurt, but not badly enough to mess with him, I don’t think.
Let him make the choice to use it or not.
If he doesn’t want to use it, wash the knife and put it back in the kitchen, okay? ”
“I … You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said. I waved one last time to the pantry door. “Just get her someplace safe, all right? And be gentle with her. She’s grieving.”
Etienne’s mouth thinned into a hard line as he turned toward the pantry, the knife gripped firmly in his hand.
The kitchen staff watched him approach and didn’t move to stop him; as he reached the door, they scattered, leaving their stations unattended rather than watch Melly dragged out of their kitchen in shame.
I couldn’t blame them. I turned my back as well, stepping out into the hall.
I didn’t want to see what happened next.
I started walking again, heading back toward the part of the knowe that was meant to be seen by people who didn’t work there.
The feeling of Shadowed Hills surrounding me was still a comfort, even strained as things had become.
This knowe and I knew each other very well.
We had been friends for a long, long time, and it was always nice to visit an old friend, even when the circumstances were less than ideal.
I stroked the wall as I walked, letting my fingertips trail against the stone until they hit the wooden edge of a doorframe and I stopped, turning to frown at it. There wasn’t normally a door here.
“Is this for me?” I asked.
As any reasonable person would expect, the knowe didn’t answer.
I stepped closer to the door, studying it.
It was English oak, sanded smooth and carved around the edges with a pattern of daffodils and gamboling foxes.
It looked like the sort of thing that would be used as the basis for a nursery theme, and it made my heart catch momentarily in my throat.
That was the thing I would change, if I had a Firstborn’s power.
I would find a way to turn Luna back to what she was, mammal and plant combined, bleeding and living and capable of the kind of love her family needed.
But I didn’t have that power, and maybe that was for the best; maybe I didn’t have the right to make that kind of choice for her.
I know an invitation when I see one. Gingerly, I opened the door and stepped through, into a small parlor with glass walls, the panes held together by swooping bronze latticing like fire-sculpted lace.
I could see a pastoral landscape through the glass, rolling green hills stretching off toward forever.
The sky was a bright symphony of sunset rose and gold, not quite night, but no longer day; the stars were appearing in glittering profusion, and the light slanting through the glass was buttery and warm.
If I’d seen that room in a movie, I would have said the lighting directors didn’t know where they were getting their illumination from, and I wouldn’t have been wrong, because I was pretty sure the room itself didn’t know.
The furniture was all overstuffed and old, the cushions a little threadbare, the wood on the arms worn smooth and shiny by an endless succession of hands.
And there, slumped deep into an armchair by the fireplace, a blue glass goblet in one hand, was Sylvester.
He was staring into the fire, and didn’t seem to have noticed my arrival.
He didn’t look around even when the door swung shut behind me, not slamming, but closing with more volume than seemed strictly necessary, given the weight of it.
The knowe telling her master that I had arrived.
“Sylvester?” I started carefully toward him, trying to keep my posture open and non-threatening as I approached. “What are you drinking?”
“Something highly alcoholic,” he said. “It’s funny.
I remember emptying this entire bottle while we were under the spell cast by the Lady of Flowers.
I drank it down to the dregs. But when the enchantment was lifted, my cellars were mercifully restored, and now I can drink it again, this time to mourn my daughter. ”