Chapter 25 Perfectly Straight Teeth
Agatha
“Do you know anything about fairy godmothers?” I demand.
Henry, surprised, stops in his tracks. We’ve rattled the door, inspected the hinges, jiggled every single stone in the walls, and mutually decided that none are viable escape options.
Henry dealt with his disappointment by pacing. I’ve reseated myself on the narrow bench and have been thinking.
Melusine made me Clever. It’s about time that I put it to use.
“Not much,” Henry finally says. He glances at me, almost guiltily. “We don’t like them, as a rule. Cursed one of our ancient kings.”
I wonder, if Rhylorrians dislike godmothers so much, why on earth he dragged Lem out here, but don’t take the time to interrogate him right now.
“I have an idea.” I rise and smooth my skirts out of habit, not because I think it will help my disheveled state.
Now that I’m about to confide in him, I wonder if it’s a terrible idea, fairy-given Cleverness notwithstanding.
With a modest cough, I forge ahead anyhow.
“One of my gifts was Perfectly Straight Teeth.”
“And …?”
“They won’t break, or go crooked, regardless of the force applied.”
Henry clears his throat. “What, you think you can chew your way out?”
I don’t answer.
“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” he says. He turns to reinspect the door. “Are you just going to start at the bottom, like an overgrown beaver?”
“I’m not going to eat the door,” I say shortly. “I thought I might be able to pry the hinges loose with my teeth.”
I can feel Henry’s disbelief like a cloud of dampness and gloom.
“Do you have a better idea?”
He folds his arms, but says, “No.” He sounds like Lem when he’s grumpy.
“Well then.” I dust my skirt again and stalk regally to the door. “I shall do my best.”
Of all the unpleasant things I’ve experienced over the last few days—Father’s rejection, sleeping in the mud, blisters, being ogled by the duke—this is, undoubtedly, the most unpleasant.
The door smells strongly of age and dust and worms, and the closer I get, the less inclined I am to try. But I’ve spent long enough letting other people dictate how I’d use my Gifts. It’s time to take my life into my own hands.
Or teeth, rather.
The hinges are plain metal, shaped like a T, and fastened to the door with three rusty nails.
I wiggle one with my fingers first, hoping that it will have magically loosened in the last fifteen minutes.
It hasn’t, still stuck firmly to the weathered wood beneath.
I can’t get any leverage with my fingers, but I do think if I used my teeth to pry at this corner here … yes, it might do something.
“If this works,” I say to Henry, hoping he can see my flashing eyes in the darkness, “you have to promise not to breathe a word of it to Lem.”
“If it doesn’t work?”
“You’re still not allowed to talk about it.”
“Why not?” Henry’s voice is curious and amused, and that annoys me. Or maybe I’m just annoyed because I don’t want to get my mouth anywhere near this beetle-infested door, and so I’m stalling by picking a fight with Henry.
“Because I don’t want him to think—”
“Think what?” Henry is laughing now.
“Nothing.” I turn my back to him.
“Don’t worry, Lady Agatha,” Henry says behind me. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
I growl, but there’s no use putting it off any longer. I stoop and angle my neck until it feels like it might snap in half and use my stupid, fairy-blessed, Perfectly Straight Teeth to pry up the corner of the hinge.
It shouldn’t work.
But it does.
And I don’t know if I’m proud or disgusted by that.
It’s slow going, partially because there’s no easy way to press my face directly into the door and get good leverage, but I keep wiggling myself around, ignoring the splinters that are working their way into my nose and doing my best not to think about the myriad insects that are probably living in this miserable cellar.
Bit by bit, as I keep hooking my front teeth under the foul-tasting metal, I feel it loosening.
Henry is suspiciously silent behind me, and if I could flush, I’d certainly be cherry-red right now. On my knees with my face smooshed awkwardly into a cellar door, prying the hinges loose with the force of my teeth? Not how I desire to be perceived by anyone.
And if he tells Lem about this, I really will kill him.
Lem might not want to be married to me, but I can still exist in his memories as a dignified woman, not as this door-chewing maniac.
I have no idea how much time passes—a few minutes? an hour? a hundred years?—but I finally draw back and test the hinge with my hands again.
Better—I can almost get a grip to finish prying it up with my fingers.
I set back to work with renewed fervor, ignoring the fine bits of dust and wood shavings that are clinging to my tongue. After a few more minutes, I test it again with my hands.
Yes, yes! I can get a grasp on the edge now, and I pull with all my might.
“Did it work?” Henry asks, surprised. “Here—let me.”
I move aside so he can have a go. His grip is better than mine, and it only takes a bit of grunting and groaning before I hear a satisfying creak.
The force of the hinge popping free sends Henry stumbling backwards, and as I was directly behind him—helping, not hovering—we tumble to the ground together.
I get an elbow to the ribs as he crashes down on top of me, but I’m too excited to be properly annoyed.
“Get off of me, you lout,” I grumble, using my own elbow to prod him.
He rolls to the side, holding the hinge triumphantly. “I got it!”
“You got it?”
I think I see the flash of a smirk. “I’m not allowed to talk about your contribution.”
I huff and push myself off the dirt floor. What I do next is incredibly disgusting and lacks any sort of ladylike decorum, but it can’t be helped: I spit.
Disappointingly, it doesn’t remove the feel of door and hinge from my mouth, or erase the taste of dust and beetle droppings. I never thought I’d know what beetle droppings tasted like. I was a happier woman living in that ignorance.
“So.” Henry stands next to me and tosses the hinge from hand to hand. “Only one more …”
I groan. “Don’t you think the door is loose enough already? You must be able to push it down, with only one hinge?”
“I’ll try.” Henry flings the hinge onto the pile of cabbages, then puts his shoulder to the door and pushes with a manly grunt.
“You sound like a heifer calving for the first time.”
“I didn’t criticize you when you were salivating all over the place,” Henry replies in a strained voice.
I press my lips together. I hadn’t meant to say the heifer comment out loud. After another moment listening to Henry’s efforts, I say, “I’m sorry.”
I don’t know if he hears me over the sound of his own lowing, but if he does, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Want to help?” he finally says. “I think it might be giving.”
I join him, throwing my full body weight against the door. Together, we groan and push, our feet scrambling to stay steady on the slippery dirt floor.
“You should have taken the top hinge off,” Henry says. “It would be easier to get the angle right.”
“I’m not tall enough,” I say. “You’re welcome to try if you want.”
“I didn’t have a fairy godmother to enchant my teeth.”
“Then I suggest you stop criticizing me and keep pushing.”
We dig our toes into the floor, straining against the door with all our might. It creaks—we heave—it cracks—we grunt—
It gives, with a poof of dust and a loud clatter. We fall with it, landing once again in a heap of cellar dust and tangled limbs.
The brightness of the lanterns blinds me temporarily, and I squint against it. Henry is somehow pinned under me, even though one of his arms is circling my shoulders, and when I’ve finally blinked the dust out of my eyes, I try to squirm away.
“Let me go, will you?” I crane my neck to see why he’s not moving.
His eyes are wide, jaw gaping. “Lem was right about you.”
“You already said that,” I mutter. I shove his arm, and he seems to suddenly realize that we’re lying in an awkward embrace. He flails away, scrambling backward to be free of the contact.
“Not about how rude you are,” he babbles. “He also said you were so beautiful that I’d be drooling at your feet if I ever got a proper glimpse of you.”
I narrow my eyes at him as I stand and straighten my skirts. “Perhaps we don’t know the same Lem, after all.”
“It’s true. You’re—you’re—” Henry gulps. “I’m making a fool out of myself, aren’t I?” He rises, wincing when his ankle makes an uncomfortable cracking sound. His cheeks are stained red.
Good heavens. It’s a mercy he couldn’t see me when we were locked in the cellar together, or he would have been quite a slathering mess. I roll my eyes. “Absolutely.”
Henry blinks, seeming to come to his senses. “Ah—er—pardon me, my lady.”
“So it’s ‘my lady’ now, is it?” I mutter.
Wistfulness threads itself around my heart. Lem never made such a fool of himself over me, except when he thought I was an actual fairy godmother. Once he realized who I was, he treated me with a sensible level of dislike.
I miss that.
There’s no more time for wistfulness, however. Our breaking down of the door was not a particularly quiet activity, and I fear that the duke’s thug—or thugs; I don’t know how many he might employ—will be crashing toward us at any moment. “Come on,” I say. “We’ve got to go.”
If it were Lem with me, I’d reach out and take his hand to yank him along, but his brother does not deserve such treatment.
He can follow or not; it’s up to him. After making our way out of the cellar, I decide to go for the hedge at the back of the duke’s property.
Anything away from the house will be good.
I take off running, and not a moment too soon.
Our escape has been discovered.
I risk a glance over my shoulder and see the red-headed thug barreling around the corner of the house, surprise making his features slack when he sees the open cellar door and his prisoners escaping like wild rabbits.