Chapter 38 - The Mad
If there was smoke, there was fire.
I leaped out of bed as the rest of my limbs caught up to my pounding heart. I had no idea how long I had been asleep.
I flung open my door and the stench of smoke was even stronger.
More doors clicked open in the hallway. Amethyst rushed out of her bedroom and opened a nearby door. “Emie! Did you overturn a candle again?”
Bleary-eyed Emeralda emerged from her bedroom, her dark curls mussed. “Why do you have to blame me? Maybe Garnet is experimenting again!”
Another door across the hall opened and Garnet’s hand entered the hallway, flashing Emeralda a poignant middle finger.
One by one, the doors of the Hyton family chambers opened…except the doors with the carved bulls.
My feet were moving before I could think. I raced down the hallway and pushed open the familiar carved doors.
“Derrick!” I shouted.
No answer. The blankets on the bed were undisturbed. The couches and chairs were empty.
I stood in the center of the dark room as my heart thundered. Where was he?
A warm hand rested on my shoulder. Brietta.
“Sera, Pearl overheard shouting,” she said. “A fire started in the ballroom. We need to get out of the palace.”
The ballroom, where poison flowed as freely as wine.
A shiver rattled my chest—Derrick set the fire.
I looked up at Brietta and my voice sounded hollow as it reached my ears. “He found out about the Darkest Night.”
Her face blanched. Her free hand flew up to the center of her chest, where the magical bond that connected her life to Derrick’s must have twisted and turned beneath her ribs.
If he burned, she burned with him.
Without saying another word, I raced down the hallway, weaving through the princesses in their nightgowns. My feet carried me through the halls and down the stairs as quickly as my heart pounded. The horrible sting of char filled my nose as I got closer to the ballroom.
Some of the fleeing maids and servants tried to stop me, some even pulling on my arms, but I tore away from them.
I had to find Derrick.
Smoke curled from the seams of the ballroom doors. Heat flashed through my skin as I grabbed the handle, but I hissed through the pain and flung the door open.
I might as well have opened the door to an oven.
Thin smoke filled my chest and I coughed. The door slammed shut behind me. I opened my eyes to a tall shadow snapping a violin bow in half.
“Derrick,” I called, my voice stifled through the sickly sweet smoke.
My eyes burned as I approached the flames that raged from shattered bottles of liquor on the floor. Blazing streaks of syrupy Cupid’s Blood burned holes in Anders’s coronation portrait. The gilded frame cracked under the heat.
The dark wood of Derrick’s harp splintered as it smoldered. Each string that Derrick had lovingly plucked writhed in the flames like dying snakes. His crushed violin sang one last time as it sizzled at the bottom of the kindling.
His music…his song and his voice…was all turning to ash.
He looked over his shoulder at me, his face an unrecognizable shadow. “Is this how I finally kill him?”
I glanced down at the burning instruments—the “him” did not just mean his dead father. He was fighting Alastar…even if that meant destroying parts of himself.
I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him away. His arm was limp—he did not resist, but he did not yield to me. His eyes were fixed on the fire, watching every part of his guilt die in front of him.
“Come on!” I cried, pulling him toward the ballroom doors. My magical commands pushed through his skin, but nothing responded. I was banging on the door of a paper castle engulfed in flames.
I let go of his hand and swept through the ballroom with my magic. Only a couple of tears in the air sparkled—the intense heat had banished all of the moisture from the air.
I coughed as my eyes stung. I could not breathe, but I still had to try to get to him. “Derrick, we have to go!”
He still did not move. Was he even aware of what was happening?
Maybe Midnight could still hear me. Midnight spoke romance and not sense, but he was terrified of one thing more than Alastar.
“Do you want me to become ash with you, Midnight?” I fought through the smoke in my throat as embers swirled around us. “Fine. Hold me in your rage. Reduce me to cinders.” I coughed out smoke. “Keep suffocating me!”
Light flashed in Derrick’s eyes and he picked me up in his arms. My arms locked around his neck as he broke into a sprint. My face took shelter in his smoke-stained curls.
He kicked the garden doors open and I gulped in the cool, damp air of the night. He kept running, his feet crunching in the gravel.
My stomach lurched as we tumbled forward.
I laid on my back on the garden path for a moment, stunned. I rolled onto my hands and knees and tried to find my breath. The night breeze kissed my cheeks as I looked up, my eyes finding the rearing bull statue.
Derrick coughed as he kneeled in front of that deadly statue. He looked at me, his wide eyes searching for an answer as they watered.
But then he collapsed into the grass.
I ran to him, falling to my knees as I scooped up his limp body. My hand splayed over his slow-rolling heartbeat. Smoke stung my eyes as I cried.
I was losing him. He was losing himself. Was he too far gone even for me to heal?
I stroked his hair as his slow breath skated across my collarbone. He was fragile as glass in my hands. He would not let me into his mind. There was nothing I could do except…
“Help,” I cried softly. “Help! I have the Duke! Help us!”
Footsteps pounded through the dewy grass. Palace guards kneeled beside me, each trying to take Derrick, but my arms stayed locked around him as my tears wet his hair. Heavier footsteps broke apart the crowd of guards.
“Does he breathe?” General Hyton asked.
I nodded with my cheek pressed to Derrick’s temple. I was going to keep Derrick safe. I was going to make him well again. I was—
General Hyton grabbed me by the waist and tore me away.
“No!” I screamed through my sore throat. I only had enough time to see the palace guards pick up Derrick before the General’s deep blue eyes were right in front of me.
His thumb tugged on my cheeks as he checked my eyes. My head fell into his palm as he looked at the underside of my jaw and my neck. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said softly. “But Derrick—”
General Hyton glanced over his shoulder. “Take him to Baron Elvar’s house in the city! Make sure everyone standing at the palace gates sees him—they need to know their Duke is alive!”
He turned back to me and held my jaw again. “Is the fire contained?”
I coughed. “It was just in the ballroom. Doors shut.”
He let out a small breath. “Good. We will just wait until the fire has nothing else to eat.”
General Hyton picked me up and my head flopped onto his shoulder. My body swayed a little as he carried me through the garden. He patted my arm and I let out a ragged breath.
The General might have kept me safe, but I still needed to fix Derrick…somehow.
He took a few more steps before voices began to murmur around me. Then his voice smoothed and brightened. “I trust you can keep her safe for me while I take care of the palace.”
I lifted my head as the General lowered me to my feet. Brietta’s hands wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me to her side.
While she and the General argued in hushed tones about the state of the palace, my eyes searched for Annalisa. I found her alone, holding her arms near some tall shrubs.
If anyone knew who could make Derrick whole again, it was the other half of his soul.
I broke away from Brietta and pushed through the crowd as panicked whispers hit my ears.
“Did you see them carry away His Excellency? He looked so weak!”
“He set fire to his own palace!”
“He’s going to be Alastar the Mad!”
My stomach churned as the gossip spread like a disease. I fought the urge to throw my magic over the crowd like a net and burn their tongues.
Annalisa’s watering eyes flicked up to meet mine as I called her name. She threw her arms around me before I could say anything.
The fight between Midnight and Alastar was destroying Derrick’s mind. There had to be a way to kill Alastar. Of all the twelve Dukes, someone must have done it.
I thought back to Alastar the Wise’s portrait. The stern and cold-eyed man that was painted shortly after his coronation did not match the same man from Freya’s stories—a man who listened to her, respected her, and nurtured her ideas.
Had he slayed his generations-old monster before anyone had realized he had done it?
“Anna,” I whispered, “I know we do not have much time…but if we find out more about your grandfather, we might save Derrick.”
Annalisa’s face steeled. She grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd until we came upon a group of whispering maids. All the maids backed away with downcast eyes except for one.
Merri looked softly at Annalisa even though her face was creased with worry. “Madame Thornebow, what can I—”
“Take me to the vault,” Annalisa commanded.
The maids nearest us gasped softly. Merri’s eyes went wide as she scanned the courtyard to see if anyone else overheard.
I furrowed my brows. I had abandoned the plan to uncover the truth about Ilsa long ago, why was Annalisa bringing it up again?
Merri leaned forward and lowered her voice to the barest whisper. “Anna, I know I promised to take you there one day, but now is not the time.”
“Now is the perfect time,” Annalisa said, not bothering to keep her voice low. “Everyone is so distracted with the fire that no one will see us.”
Merri’s throat trembled as she swallowed. Before any of the other maids could protest, she turned on her heel and weaved through the crowd. Annalisa followed, pulling me along with a brightness in her step.
Merri looked over her shoulder before she opened up a door on the side of the palace and quickly led us up a tight staircase. The smell of char filled our noses as we walked down the dark hallways within the palace walls.
A whisper skated across my teeth as I followed Annalisa. “Why are we going to the vault?”
“I already know everything about my grandfather,” she replied. “If you are looking for a missing piece, it would have to be where all her treasures were. Grandfather doted on his Duchess more than any of my other ancestors did.”
Merri stopped in front of a large rectangle in the middle of the dark hallway that must have been the back of a portrait.
She folded her arms and refused to look at us. “Push through. And hurry.”
Annalisa shoved the back of the portrait so hard she momentarily became a battering ram.
The secret door swung open to a world of cold blue.
I looked up, a window in the ceiling stained with fractals of cerulean and indigo glass poured moonlight over the small room. Dazzling dresses on large mannequins sparkled in the icy light. Exquisite furs lay over carved wooden chairs. Gleaming gemstones sat in open pewter caskets.
And I thought my Derrick was generous.
Even though the room was filled with glittering treasures, my eyes fixed on a large portrait of Duchess Ilsa that rested on the floor. She looked through the portrait with a countenance of cold steel with a large blue diamond hanging from a long chain around her neck.
The Diamond of the North in all her glory.
Annalisa said nothing as she walked to the portrait. Her eyes watered as she gently touched the canvas, her fingertips tracing her grandmother’s young and flawless face, then her mythically-long hair.
She turned to me and the familiar hardness in her eyes had returned. “Do you see any answers?”
I scanned the portrait and my eyes settled on the large diamond around her neck. Just as Brietta had said, a diamond that large and colorful would have been abhorrently expensive, even for such a prized bride.
Maybe because it was not actually a diamond…
I swept the room with my magic and a flash of white caught my eye. White light flowed out of the thin seams of a black box on one of the tables.
The velvety box caressed my palms as I opened it and I finally let myself smile—Ilsa’s necklace was a Nordingaard crystal.
My magic poured into the crystal as I searched for memories trapped inside the facets. A sweet humming echoed in my mind and my palms tingled where they touched the crystal.
I was almost in…
“People are coming!” Merri hissed through the portrait hole.
I quieted the light from the crystal and dropped the heavy necklace beneath my bodice.
Annalisa and I hurried back through the portrait. We quietly snuck through the walls, following Merri’s lead.
I chewed on my thumb until I broke skin, leaving little drops of blood on the stone walls as we walked.
I should have been marking the inner labyrinth more, but at least I had a way to get back to Ilsa’s vault if I needed more clues.
The sky was a light periwinkle as we stepped out into the courtyard. Even the fresh dew on the grass could not mask the smoky smell that hung in the air.
“Where is she?” an angry voice shouted.
If I had not been looking at Annalisa, I would have missed the flinch that preceded the wide smile. “Grigory!”
I furrowed my brows. Why would she flinch?
Golden-haired Grigory shoved through the crowd, but his dark eyes lit up when he saw Annalisa. His grey traveling cloak fluttered as he spread his arms wide. “There you are, precious!”
Annalisa crashed into his embrace harder than Grigory expected and threw off his balance.
“Watch it,” Grigory snapped as he caught himself. “You know that’s my bad leg.”
Annalisa drew up her shoulders sheepishly. “Sorry, sorry. I just missed you.”
He gave her a half smile and then kissed her cheek. “I hear we are clear to go back into the palace.” He tugged her waist tightly against his chest. “After I am done with you, I need to find that brother of yours for a little conversation.”
Annalisa’s cheeks flushed and she did not argue. He turned with her and they joined the crowd of maids and servants who sleepily walked back into the palace.
I quietly kept a few paces behind them as they ascended the palace steps. Grigory missed a step and lost his balance. He caught himself by bracing against Annalisa, but his quiver tipped and a single arrow slid out onto the palace steps.
I was not familiar with too many arrows, but I had never seen one that was black as Death on the sharp tip.
Before I could pick up the arrow, it snapped under the lead foot of a sleepy servant. The black-stained arrowhead skidded down the stairs and was lost in the crowd.
The question of where Grigory had been weighed on my mind, but Ilsa’s crystal weighed heavier on the center of my chest.
The full moon was in two nights—whatever memories were inside Derrick’s crystal would be my last chance at healing Derrick so I could free Fraleigh.
The fate of Derrick’s mind and Riyan’s life weighed on my shoulders. I could not fail.