Chapter Seven The Interrogation of Doom
It was, indeed, over. A swarm of boys armed with brooms swept the ash and stamped out small fires in the courtyard. Most of the stable still stood, but it was abandoned now. Horses nickered to each other, unsettled by the events of the night and to find themselves tied to posts around the yard.
Lord Draw approached a man I didn’t recognize. Gray hair and beard fell to his shoulders.
“Did they take Lady Issa?” Draw asked.
The man glanced at me, then angled his body so he faced Draw only. “She’s gone. One casualty—a fellow from the Cedars.”
Draw nodded, face expressionless.
I took a sharp inhale, guilty for my part in this. A man from the southern cedar swamps...that must have been the man attacked by the war hammer last night. I had seen the last brutal moments of his life.
I’d wanted to push Issa into the limelight and a man had died. Would the man’s family think it was a fair trade?
I pushed those thoughts away. This was make-believe. Characters on a page.
The graying man finally turned toward me. “You should not be out here, my lady. It’s not good for womenfolk to see the result of battle so early in the morning.”
Though I never wanted to see any battle ever again, I felt I had to show I was a hardened witch’s apprentice. “Or even afternoon battles, like the one I found myself in yesterday. Don’t worry, you need a stronger constitution than most to work with a witch.”
My words had the effect I wanted—the man left me and Draw without another word.
There was a hint of blue sherbet to the sky.
Dawn was coming. I only then recognized how tired I was, confronted with the fact there would be no more sleeping for another day.
Or could there be? What duties did I have around the castle?
My evening plans were foiled, which meant if I wanted to be ready for a nighttime adventure, I should make my way back to the Maidens’ Chamber and sleep.
I yawned. “I’m off to bed. Thanks a bunch for your help last night.”
“‘Thanks a bunch,’” Draw repeated back, turning the words in his mouth.
I rolled my head, stretching my shoulders. I’m sure it wasn’t ladylike. “‘Tis time for me to lay my head upon mine fair pillow. Alas, until the eve.”
He looked even more nonplussed by my sarcasm.
“Before you succumb to thine fair pillow—” he tried to match my tone “—I’d like to show you a few other places in the castle that might be useful to you.”
I groaned. “All right. Let’s make it quick.”
I followed him in a near stupor, already anticipating sleep, while he pointed out the well and the herb garden at the kitchens.
We went up a flight of stairs and I brightened, wondering if he was going to show me a library a la Beauty and the Beast, but then I remembered most people were illiterate in Landsome.
But what did that even mean? Sherry Whitehorse never wrote much about that.
Would immense castles have just one shelf of books?
Lord Draw opened the door and I followed him in, then turned around in confusion when he shut the door behind us. It was dim inside, no oil lamps or fireplace burned. My eyes adjusted.
It was a bedroom.
I had grown so comfortable with Draw, it was a shock to find myself trapped in a room with him. I realized I felt scared. I had forgotten this was the queen’s own solicitor.
Shadows fell across his olive green eyes. “Lady Mayfair, do you know what my role at court is?”
I felt heat rise up the back of my neck. I didn’t like where this was going.
“As the solicitor, you take care of all the papers. Deeds. The sending of commandments,” I stammered.
He nodded. His face was set. High cheekbones smooth.
Lips flat. “In a world where most men would rather content themselves with hitting each other with sharpened sticks, I take care of the real work. Who gets to live in what castle. What the price of grain shall be. Determine who is the greatest threat to the structures we’ve built.
I’ve put myself in a position to know much about this country and its neighbors all the way to the Seas of Melancholy.
And no one”—his eyes narrowed—“no one says ‘thanks a bunch,’ or ‘good fellow,’ or has moon rings that turn colors, or an aunt who lives in Solce, where the lakes are made of fire.” He frowned.
It was as if he was overcome by my own stupidity and his voice rose when he started again.
“How would you even have received those lace handkerchiefs from this supposed aunt you never met?”
Shit, he was right. If I wanted to stay out of the dungeons, I needed to push back.
Hard. Harder than I was used to. I put my hands on my hips, not too near my knife to be threatening but just enough to call attention to it.
“If those things seem odd, it’s because you’ve never met a witch’s apprentice before.
How else would I have known about last night’s attack? ”
Any thought of sleep was gone. I was on full alert. If he only wanted to poke holes in my backstory, I could go all morning, wouldn’t break. Anything else...I had Madame Morningstar.
“You are a spy,” he offered. “It’s a much simpler explanation than witchcraft.”
“What about my mood ring?”
“I’ve seen tricks before. Powders and glasses that change color with temperature.”
I tried not to let him see how closely he guessed right. I could lose my head if he whispered those words to the queen.
“And,” he went on, “what would keep an amazing, powerful witch who knows everything about the future of Landsome and has the desire to see our queen succeed from coming to court herself?”
“She’s very old?”
“One more try, Mayfair.”
For the first time, I realized that the danger of Landsome was not in the physical desperation of medieval life—after all, Sorrel had said I was not going to die—but in a political misstep that would get me locked up.
Or put out of the castle and made to spend cold nights in the thickets.
If I was unable to complete my tasks, I would be here for a very long time.
Grow old, even as life on Earth stood frozen in time.
Even if Ginger wasn’t going hungry, what if I was stuck here so long I forgot about her?
I had a sudden picture of myself as an ancient woman living in squalor outside the castle walls claiming a fairy had sent her to kiss Ironclaw.
If I lost my political power—I had nothing.
How far would Sorrel let these games go? When she said I was the only one in control of when I left, she had to have meant besides the obvious need for some kind of safety backup, right?
Either way, I could call her only two more times, which meant I couldn’t afford to be so flippant anymore. I had to fix this.
Draw pointed to a pair of chairs facing a hearth and spent a moment lighting a tepee of thin logs.
I perched at the edge of the chair nearest the door, ready to run if necessary, and looked around.
The room felt almost sterile except the desk that was full of books, inkpots, and a few metal instruments I didn’t know the names of.
“I’m not one to jump to conclusions,” Draw said slowly as the fire bloomed in front of him, “but you have to give me something. Explain some of this.” He looked into my face, from where he crouched on the ground, assessing me in his measured way. “Who are you?”
He wasn’t calling the guards? I thought back to last night when he told me I had to learn to lie better. So, Draw wasn’t upset with me. He seemed...concerned? But why? He didn’t know me.
But he’s asking to, honey. It was as if Sorrel had flicked me upside the temple. Despite the fact I’d spent more time with Draw than Ironclaw since arriving in Landsome, I still didn’t think of him as an ally. I wasn’t used to making friends.
Okay, let’s see where this goes.
He sat in the other chair and the fire crackled.
“It wasn’t a witch who sent me,” I said hesitantly, “but a powerful sorceress named Sorrel. Does that name mean anything to you?”
It struck me I hadn’t actually had to lie in the first place. The story I made up was a version of what had really happened, and if a witch was plausible to the people of Landsome, why not a sorceress?
“Sorrel,” Draw said slowly. “Tell me about her.”
I took a breath. What did I even know about Sorrel the Fairy Bookmother? “She’s quite a bit shorter than me, blond hair. Excellent style in clothing. Thinks she’s hilarious.”
Draw was taken aback. “I meant tell me what goddess she serves or where she comes from,” he said with extra enunciation. “I’m certainly not going to put up wanted posters across the countryside for someone who could hex my head off.”
“I don’t know any of that. I just met her this morning—yesterday morning, that is. She called herself a Fairy Bookmother.” I stared into the fire, wondering if I was breaking any rules. “Do you have a goddess of literature in these parts?”
Draw gave a small smile that eased the severity of his high cheekbones. “Most of the population can’t read, so I’d say no.” He cleared his throat and looked pensive. It seemed, at least, he believed me so far.
A thought struck me.
“Hey, why do you believe this and not my earlier story?”
Draw gave one harsh laugh, but instead of answering, he stood and poured us both a drink.
I took the opportunity to look more closely around the room.
A long and narrow bed with furs at the foot stood against the back wall.
To the left was a large wooden wardrobe, on the right a tapestry and windows.
He handed me a finely carved wooden cup, made heavy only by the liquid inside.
“Felicitations,” he said, and tapped my cup before settling himself back into the chair to take a sip.
After swallowing, he took a long breath as if steeling himself.
“I don’t usually give away this information, you should know, but besides the obvious cultural mishaps and language barriers, you have two tells that I know of so far. ”
“Oh?”
“When you’re nervous, you spin that ring on your finger.”
I glanced down at the simple silver ring my grandmother had given me. Oh. I supposed that was true, but never would have guessed someone else would notice.
“Second, when you think you’re being clever—” he exaggerated the word to make it clear he didn’t think I was clever when I thought I was, “—you get giddy. Like a naughty child getting away with something.”
He let that sink in for a moment. I finally took a sip. It wasn’t wine, but some odd, dark, distilled thing. I wasn’t sure I liked it. But I was thirsty. I hadn’t had anything since last night’s wine.
“Which brings us back to: who are you? Or if you’d like to skip to the ultimate question: why are you here?”
What could I say to that?
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Sorceresses can be very pushy—” I hoped Sorrel was listening, “—and she didn’t really say why I was coming. Believe me, I didn’t want to leave.”
Draw jumped on this. “Leave where?”
“My city. Mayfair.”
“Which is located in which kingdom? Don’t tell me you’re from across the Seas of Melancholy.”
“I’m from the United States.”
“And what continent is that on?”
“North America.”
Draw took another sip. I’d stumped him. I didn’t want to willingly offer more information, but for some reason, I didn’t want to lie to him either.
He was smart, he’d see right through it, but more than that, he wasn’t rash like Ironclaw or the queen.
I felt like he wanted information for its own value.
“Are you from the underworld?”
I burst out laughing. “Do I look like a demon to you?”
There was an opening for a joke, for him to compare me to a succubus like many cliché male fantasy characters would, but instead he grew thoughtful. I appreciated that. In fact, I was starting to quite like him.
“There’s a new field of science brewing.
..one that not many people ascribe merit to.
” For the first time, he looked a little vulnerable.
“In fact, most don’t even know that it’s growing.
Only individuals who are literate and in correspondence with the Cosmic Society of the eastern country of Imbella could even know about a particular.
..theory. If you met both criteria, then you’d have to actually believe the research, and not a lot do.
” He was rambling, something it seemed he didn’t do often.
Was he nervous? Finally, he spit it out. “Are you from another planet?”
I smiled. The drink was warming something inside me. “What’s beyond the planets?”
He raised a brow. “The stars?”
I took another sip for courage. How would I describe this if he weren’t an imaginary character from a book? Or rather, if this world was as real as it felt, how everything could be true at the same time?
“I am from a planet, one found at a star very far away, probably in another dimension. Think of how you perceive the underworld—distant but a real place, not tied to this planet.”
Draw sat quietly staring at the fire for a long time. I thought about finally going to look for some sleep, but fatigue held me to the chair, empty drink in hand. Plus, I was comfortable with him now that I saw the lengths to which he was going to help me.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
Uh-oh. My ability to exist peacefully in the castle was dependent on Draw’s analysis of me, and I’d pushed too far on his delicate “life on other planets” theory.
“You said Sorrel was a Fairy Bookmother.”
I nodded slowly, sure I was about to be ensnared.
“Book as in b-o-o-k?”
I nodded.
He stood and stirred the fire. “A sorceress so powerful she could pull you across the stars. What does that have to do with books?”
I took a shaky breath. “Have you ever read a really good book? And I don’t mean a book of scientific theory or the events of history. I mean, a novel. A book of made-up things.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “The Adventures of the Winged Family was my first literary obsession.” When he saw I wasn’t moved by the title alone, he pressed on, his voice alive.
“The famous children’s tale? Well, famous to children of nobility, I suppose.
The whole family has wings? A nasty witch wants to cut them off to keep them from flying to the moon? ”
“I don’t know the story, but, yes, fiction like that.”
Lord Draw seemed excited now. “I read a book recently about a man who traveled around the globe in a basket lifted by flying horses. It was marvelous.” His eyes grew big.
“Oh, dear gods above, are you—” It seemed, of all the fantastical things we’d discussed, this was the hardest to put to words. “Are you from a book?”
My face fell. I should have seen where this was going, and I felt badly about introducing the idea that some realities were, well, less real than others.
“No, I’m not from a book. At least, I don’t think so. You see...the reason I know things about Landsome and Ironclaw and the Dark Mage is...well, I read them. In a book.”