Chapter 26 But Then Again, Crows are the Least of My Problems
SATISFIED WITH ITS FEAST OF keratin and styling product, the crow settles into its new home above my shoulder blades, alternating nipping me right and left.
It directs me up the grand tree trunk staircase and through winding hallways lit with glowing orbs until at last we arrive in an art gallery.
Maybe the word “art” is too generous. The room contains row after useless row of sculpted heads and busts, all chiseled with kooky expressions and ill-advised facial features.
“Bulan!?” I call out. “Stop playing hide-and-seek.”
One of the heads turns on his marble stool, grinning. Then guffawing.
“For once,” I say, “you seem like the most normal part of the room. Why are you laughing?”
“What happened to your hair?” asks Bulan. “Are those bangs?”
“How many times have I had to tell you? Your gangster bird-friends aren’t to be trusted.” With an offended caw, the crow takes off from my shoulder. I take the opportunity to rearrange what’s left of my front locks. “Have you found out where they’re keeping Hanry?”
“Not yet!”
I glare. “Then why am I here?”
“Dave discovered oubliettes in the floor of the castle’s super-dark Royal Wing.”
“Ooblee-etts?” I repeat. “Is that a type of fancy tile?”
“I’m afraid they’re holes, Sabby. Final resting places for prisoners.
” Bulan shudders, destabilizing his marble pedestal.
I catch it, and him, in the nick of time.
“The present king and queen must have determined that dirt cannot be relied upon for burials. I suspect they may also function as holding cells.”
Damn. So, Gustavo turns out to have been right about the booby traps.
“I see. We’ll need to investigate. You, infernal crow—”
“His name is Stefan,” says Bulan.
“—can you inform Mandy about this? Pass it on to Dave too. Subtly, if you’re capable.”
Stefan the crow checks with Bulan before winging off to this vital task. As for me, I scoop Bulan up and carry him through the servants’ quarters to the castle’s rear. I’ll return to the State Room in a jiff, but first, I need to be seen as doing my duty coordinating guest arrivals.
Besides, this offers the perfect opportunity to perform escape-plan reconnaissance.
Hanry will be happy to see me. No, euphoric. I can see it in my mind’s eye: I’ll release him from his jail and wipe away the dried blood on his tortured wrists. “We’ve got to go now,” I’ll say, but he’ll stop me, wide-eyed and lovestruck, to mash his lips against mine in a fervent, dizzying kiss.
“Sabby,” he’ll say. “You look like a goddess. Such wild, tousled hair. I love the crow feathers. The new bangs.”
“You are correct,” I’ll reply. “Worship me.”
And Hanry will fall to his knees, pressing his forehead into my stomach, clutching me and trembling in awe.
Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll just throw his head back and laugh, relieved he only has to put up with my sense of humor instead of a lifetime supply of an arrogant fairy princess’s whims. He’ll rip a wooden beam from the wall and use it as a battering ram against the fairy minions blocking our path to the carriage.
Nothing will stand in the way of our happiness.
Yep. That’s how it’ll go.
Something like that, anyway.
Bulan and I return to the State Room just shy of 10 a.m.—in other words, six mere hours before the start of Hanry and May’s wedding ceremony. I’m doing my best to crumble said ceremony into bits, like a pastry in a plastic bag.
I try to push away the thought that what I’m doing is a shame; a waste of a perfectly good cookie. But obviously, Hanry must be saved.
The carriage returns from Albany with suspicious and likely magical speed, bearing a bounty of ranunculus, violet sweet peas, blue freesia, and anemones.
As nerves prickle the back of my head, I watch the Fairy-Loompas integrate newly picked flowers into the candle-and-moss arrangements.
Mab may be a Momzilla, but the inclusion of warm purple hues, particularly magenta, was a great idea: it ties in the neon of the entryway artwork, making the chamber feel almost cohesive.
Alongside the Florist-Loompas, most of the catering fairies work diligently to lay out platters, serving ware, and glasses.
The rest of them play Farmville surreptitiously on their phones.
Is that why I can’t find phone chargers anywhere? Jerks.
With nothing left to do until Stefan and the crows return with the results of their oubliette explorations, I straighten the angle of the head table.
Noticing the centerpiece is off-center, I fix that too.
And rearrange a toothpick so it doesn’t stick visibly from a mushroom’s stem.
Also, I recruit a fairy to add an anemone to the left side of the arrangement while I adjust the vines trailing to the floor.
I put my hands on my hips, considering the arrangement from several angles. Then I loosen two last stems.
“Yes,” I say to myself. “It does look better, doesn’t it.”
“You have a strange way of ruining weddings, Sabby,” says Bulan.
Of course he would be harassing me now. But for once, it’s welcome. I’m starting to feel like something must be going awry—something besides my own ruinating machinations. Something that has to do with my covert plan to save Hanry.
“All right, Bulan,” I say. “Since nothing ever seems to bring you down, I’m open to your suggestions about how to not be consumed with anxiety.”
“Hmm,” says Bulan unhelpfully. “Maybe add more freesia?”
I make a point of not looking at my phone and checking the time. Which is now, according to my last check, a few minutes before noon.
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s do that.”
When a bat finally swoops into the State Room and circles my head, I nearly break down with relief. A transformation later, and Dark Dave collapses at my feet, exerting more than enough dramatic energy for both of us.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“I lost Gustavo and Jurgis,” he moans into my shoes.
I pinch my nose. “Knew it. What else?”
Dave sprawls out, further prostrating himself in his angst.
“I was leading them by the hand through the halls. Until they fell through a hidden trapdoor—”
“An oubliette!” cries Bulan.
Goddamn it. Death traps are, officially, my least favorite home design concept.
“Why didn’t you keep better hold of them?”
Kicking the floor with his Oxford heels, Dave whines, “I tried, I did. But I kept gravitating to that hole. It seemed so much better down there, so much darker. And I just let go-o-o.”
Bulan crows with delight. “See, Sabby? What did I say about vampires? Weak. Wristed.”
“Never mind that. Dave, I need you to fly down and see where that trapdoor leads. Maybe all the oubliettes dump the castle’s prisoners in the same place.”
“I see! And perhaps, there, we’ll find Hanry!” Bulan exclaims.
“Exactly.”
Done kicking, Dave says, “It’s so much work to do all this reconnaissance. Why not just ask the groomsmen?”
The world seems to shift beneath my feet.
The wedding day schedule I’d submitted in the Rochester Wedding Proposal suggested that a round of groomsmen photos be taken at 3 p.m. It seems like Mandy never crossed that item off the final schedule.
So I guess it’s still on. But who are Hanry’s groomsmen, anyway?
He doesn’t have a lot of guy friends—besides Dave, I’ve not met a single one.
“Dave,” I say, flipping through my clipboard. “Did you see groomsmen anywhere?”
The vampire covers his eyes, moaning.
“Yes, yes! They opened the doors, repeatedly! Lighting up this very hall! They were big men, Samantha, dressed as fancy as you or I, with horrible, shiny swords on their belts. Supremely intimidating.”
Everything falls into place. These people Dave’s describing aren’t Hanry’s groomsmen.
They’re his jailers.
After sending Dave to free Gustavo and Jurgis, Bulan and I set out for a set of formal royal rooms. A rushed conversation with a minion has revealed that fay royalty fashionably have two bedrooms. It’s the second one where, supposedly, Hanry’s groomsmen are congregating now.
In addition to the frustration that I got faked out last night, I’m bringing a wine bottle in hand, Stefan the crow on my shoulder, an unhappy head under my arm, and a newly snapped glow stick in my pocket. It is a lot.
While climbing the tree staircase and turning us into the dark abyss of the Royal Wing, Bulan says for the umpteenth time, “I don’t like this, Sabby.”
“We won’t fall into the oubliettes,” I assure him. “Dave said they’re all on the right-hand side. Ergo, we’ll keep left.”
“Perhaps you should go alone,” Bulan says. “I’m a no-good, useless head, after all.”
Where is this sudden humility coming from? “You are a fantastic head.”
“Fantastically useless, if I enter the quarters with you. How, then, can I mount a rescue in case anything goes wrong? Moreover! Should things go right, I suspect you and Hanry will be grandly reunited. No one likes a third wheel, Sabby.”
Uh-huh. I’m starting to suspect something else is bothering Bulan.
Something having to do with how he avoided Rochester’s gaze.
Something connected to Mandy finding his body in the possession of his fairy ex, Princess May.
The body which I now suspect I’ve seen myself—and may or may not have misidentified as a mannequin with a rug on its head.
I probably should’ve let Bulan have his story time last night. My bad.
“Fine,” I say, seeing no way around his reasoning. “Get out of here. Scram.”
“Thank you, Sabby! My dear friend Stefan: Could you lend me your beak?”
Stefan the crow lifts off my shoulder and swoops over to Bulan. Grabbing him by his bristly red sideburns, the creature manages to lift the head midair, albeit with some swinging. Apparently impervious to scalp pain, Bulan achieves a grin.
“Good luck, Sabby,” he says.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get into trouble. And no going after your body without my permission.”
“What? I would never!”
Sure.
“I’ll see you in an hour or so downstairs,” I call.