Chapter Twenty-Nine The Glass Menagerie
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Glass Menagerie
A quick glance around showed me we were in the sorcerer’s tower, the chamber that was invisible from the outside.
The cages were mostly gone, and the few that remained held smallish monsters, perhaps juveniles.
There was a snarling undersized spider wolf that looked to be barely out of puppyhood (or spiderlinghood).
A writhing nest of tiny furred snakes poked their heads out between the bars, raising their feathery spines and flexing their claws.
The rest of the cages had been replaced by a circle of see-through rectangular boxes with hinged lids. Each one just large enough to hold a single person inside.
Glass coffins. It made sense. Curses always work better when they keep to the traditional forms. The spinning wheel to cast my consciousness adrift and the coffin to receive my emptied body. The spell must have brought me straight to it. How long had I been trapped here in a box, comatose?
I was lying in the only one with the top open. I didn’t take the time to count them, but it looked to be somewhere around a dozen or so. At an educated guess, thirteen—enough to display the inert forms of twelve hunters and one inconvenient Skallan princess.
Angelique stood patiently while I made my assessment of the room.
When I returned my attention to her, I couldn’t help but notice her eyes were bloodshot, and the shadows beneath them had deepened.
Her face looked a shade too pallid and a little damp.
She struck me as being desperately in need of a good night’s sleep.
“We should talk,” she said. “I have a proposal I think might be of interest to you.”
I wasn’t keen to hear it. My suspicions had been confirmed, and with the taste of my first kiss with her still fresh on my lips, there might be something I could do about it.
It was time to see how she really felt about me.
“Drown,” I told her, and dissolved into water.
Her eyes widened and her smile vanished. Quick as a striking snake, she grabbed the coffin lid and slammed it shut.
If I still had a mouth, I would have laughed. My waters swelled and rose, preparing to burst the glass, flood the tower, rise over the treetops, and—
Nothing happened.
I filled the coffin, but it didn’t shatter. Had I merely managed to become a large puddle?
“Nothing can get out when the lid is closed,” Angelique said. “Not wind or water, fire or frost. I enchanted it myself. You might as well change back.”
My thoughts were once more dissolving into the languid roil of water. If I didn’t pull myself together now, I might very well be stuck that way for another month. I didn’t much fancy the idea of spending it locked in a box.
Think of human things, I told myself. Hands. Feet. Hair in desperate need of a brush. The feel of my tongue pressed against the back of my teeth. Lips. Kissing. You can’t kiss without lips.
Dragging my flesh back together felt like sculpting jelly. Somehow, I forced my fluid shape to congeal into a panting body. My clothes remained soaking wet, and a thin stream of water trickled from my hair and pooled at the base of the coffin.
I glared at Angelique. Being taken out of one cage only to be stuck into another was extremely tiresome. “I see you prepared for me.”
“You, and the chilly one, and the strong one, and the others.” The glass muffled her voice, but if I listened closely, I was able to make out what she was saying.
“I have to say, you attacked me more quickly than I expected. Drowning’s such a nasty death, too.
What if I came here on a daring rescue mission and was about to spirit you to safety? ”
“You didn’t. And you weren’t.”
“No.”
She waited expectantly.
It wasn’t as if I would gain anything by keeping silent.
“The timing of the siege was strange. Why didn’t it begin when the hunters were helpless birds?
Why only after you stopped being regent?
So I started putting together some of the other little signs.
Like how you knew about the pumpkin coach when I hadn’t told anyone. ”
“You hadn’t?”
“No. The hunters never saw it. I pretended I’d come without one.”
“My own fault. I assumed too much honesty from you, even though I knew you were a liar.” She heaved a little sigh.
“And then, of course, there was the spinning wheel.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for the idea, by the way. Not the first you’ve given me.
It’s why I think we might work so well together.
” When I didn’t respond, she added, “How is it that the curse only brought you? I was hoping to acquire a full set of hunters, too. You should have all been compelled to prick yourselves on the spindle.”
I fidgeted in the close, damp confines, trying to find a more comfortable position. There really wasn’t one. “I smashed it.”
“Pity.”
“Is the lion your collaborator or just a dupe? Were the peas yours, too?”
“I’d love to tell you everything. I think you might enjoy it better if you weren’t in such a cramped space. Will you promise to behave?”
It seemed unwise to let her know I probably wouldn’t be capable of repeating the lake trick right then if I wanted to. The lingering traces of her kiss had surely faded.
I squirmed onto my side so I could look at her more directly. “How do you know I would keep any such promise?”
“You might not,” she replied. “However, do you know what happens to someone if they’re interrupted midway through turning into a lake?”
“I…don’t, actually.”
“Neither do I.” She smiled sweetly. “If we can have a civilized conversation, neither of us will have any need to find out.”
Could she do that? Bring a spell to a halt in the middle of the casting?
I’d never heard of such a thing. There was no doubt she was powerful—she had bred hundreds of monstrosities in her tower and ripped the stone giants out of the earth itself.
I’d felt the touch of her spell work, and it had been no petty curse.
She was one of the mightiest sorceresses I’d ever met. Perhaps as mighty as my stepmother.
If I was going to try anything, I would need to pick my moment with care. “All right, I promise. No drowning.”
“Good.” She opened the lid and set it carefully down. “Come out and have a seat. I’d like to tell you a story.”
“A story?” I stood, arching my back to get the kinks out. When I stepped out of the coffin, the shallow water at the bottom rippled back and forth. I thought about the castle by the sea. How long would it be before it fell? Or had it fallen already, while I wandered through the maze of mirrors?
“There,” she said. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
My red cloak dripped onto the stone floor. Frankly, it had benefited from the rinse. It wasn’t as good as Jonquil’s clothes-cleaning spell, but at least the water had washed some of the ichor out.
“What kind of story?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet.” She considered. “Perhaps it will turn out to be a love story.”
“My favorite.” I looked out a window. Outside, there was nothing but trees and snow. The room was warm, although there was no glass to keep out the chill, and no fire had been lit within. More of her magic.
I brushed my hair out of the way so I could sit on the sill, bringing the whole sodden heap of it forward over my shoulder. I fidgeted with it, fussing at the tangles, as if undoing a few of the knots would make any difference.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”