Chapter 12 #2
He ignored her question, but Mouse saw his eye twitch as he leaned closer to the boiler. There was nothing special about the machine other than that it was old and did not work.
There was a dent on the side about the size of a foot, and Mouse wondered which unlucky servant tried his hand at fixing it when it first broke. She could not picture Dawson, consistently smooth and removed, driving his toe into the machine. Still, Mouse smiled at the thought.
Thornwood also saw the dent and crouched to bring it to eye level. Mouse followed suit, searching for anything unusual. From her vantage point behind Thornwood’s shoulder, a flicker of silver caught her eye, sharp against the dull gray of the worn metal.
He also saw it, and they moved forward to get a closer look. Something glimmered, uncovered by a crescent-shaped scar in the dust.
He whispered something in Faerie, and Mouse strained to hear, leaning into Thornwood’s back.
At the same time, the world shifted around them, all at once hot and close and bright. They both tumbled forward. Thornwood’s arms came around her, too tight for comfort. Mouse could not see anything clearly as white light flooded the room.
When it faded, spots dotted Mouse’s vision.
Thornwood still held her to him. She was suddenly aware of the line where their bodies met, her hip pressed against his leg. Her skin tingled, despite the layers between them. Thornwood pulled away.
The boiler and its cupboard were gone. The brief flash of magic had transported them somewhere entirely new.
Above them, long swaths of fabric looped around high beams, dripping down the walls in waterfalls of gold, red, and orange.
The floor was cobbled together from giant glimmering white stones.
The domed room stretched back, framing a massive fireplace that crackled with heat, even from ten feet away.
The scent of cinnamon and clove hung thick in the air, its heaviness bolstered by the heat of the fire.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure what to say first.
“I am at a loss myself,” Thornwood said. “The kind of magic required for this enchantment is extraordinary.”
“What is it?”
“My theory, and please forgive me if it is not completely accurate as I’ve only had a minute to develop it, is that the caster created these hidden rooms to store the bulky spellwork that has been fighting my magic, then tucked those rooms into tiny places throughout the house.
The intricate spellwork then generates enough energy to fuel the little strings that have been eating away at my work. ”
“So, we are inside a magic hidden room attached to the dent?” Mouse asked.
Thornwood nodded.
“And is that normal magic? I mean, for mortal magicians?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
There were no doors in the circular room, as far as Mouse could see, although the overlapping cloth hid much of the wall. Thick black scorch marks marred the floor in front of the fire, arching around the hearth in a crescent.
“I don’t understand why the caster would hide this room in a boiler.”
“Do you know what was kept in the room before they installed the boiler?”
“I think it was part of the kitchen. I’m not sure.”
“Although magic cannot grow on its own, it can latch itself onto something it feels has power. Perhaps the caster originally laid the spell into a wall that one of your ancestors knocked down. The hidden room probably floated around for years, like an unmoored ship, before lashing itself to the boiler.”
“Truly, I don’t know why I’m trying to understand this. You could tell me anything, and I wouldn’t know the difference between fact and fiction,” Mouse said, shaking herself. “But dismantling the magic from the inside out sounds much easier than working the other way.”
“Hmmm—you may have a point.”
He lifted his hands, and Mouse squinted in anticipation of Thornwood’s magic. But, instead, an orb materialized, about the size of his palm, before it popped into a hundred tiny shards. Thornwood blinked at his hands.
“I imagine that was not supposed to happen,” Mouse said.
He tried again, and the orb was even smaller when it shattered. He thumbed the cracked jewel on his ring.
“Someone is playing with us,” he hissed, summoning a third orb.
“Stop before you exhaust yourself for nothing,” she said. “Our way out isn’t through your spells.”
He threw his hands down in disgust and strode toward the walls.
“Pull down these curtains and look for a door. We need to know our way out,” he growled.
Mouse obeyed, taking on the other side of the room.
She took a strip of the golden fabric, burying her hands in it as far up as she could.
The silk was soft in her palms. Half-moons were embroidered into the material in a white thread, climbing upward and overlapping one another like waves.
With a sharp jerk, the fabric lay crumpled at her feet.
Nothing but white stone covered the wall behind.
She moved on to the next one, deep red and marked with the same white crescents.
It came down as easily as the first had, and soon Mouse had pulled down the fabric from half the room, leaving a trail of silk puddles behind her.
Thornwood met her from the other side. No doors or windows marred the expanse of white brick.
“Damn,” Thornwood swore. His hands flexed, sending off magic shards into the floor.
She stared at the waning fire in the hearth, watching as a trail of smoke plumed upward. Floating embers danced around the edges of its metal grate.
“The chimney,” she said. “There has to be a way out through the chimney.”
“Of course!” he said. “The flames are small enough now to stomp out. We can fashion the fabric into a rope, then use it to climb up the shaft.”
They both stepped up to the fire. The flames went from warm to stifling as Mouse stooped under the edge of the mantel and looked up into the chimney’s throat. Thornwood pulled her back.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “You are a mortal. I will be the one climbing into lit fireplaces.”
He bent, twisting to look up beyond the smoke. The crackle and shifting of the fire blared in Mouse’s ears. She pulled back, then froze.
The shifting noise was not only coming from the fire. Something was moving behind them, a soft brush against the stone, edging closer. She grabbed hold of Thornwood’s elbow.
“Just wait a moment, and I’ll tell you what I can see,” he said, shaking her off.
Mouse did not dare to look back. She dug her fingers into him again, and he spun on her.
“What is it—” He cut off abruptly, the color bleeding out of his face between soot streaks. Slowly, she turned to look at what he saw behind her.
The puddles of silk were gone, folding and wrapping together into a massive silken dragon. It crouched in the center of the room, glowing red, gold, and orange in the firelight.
“That’s a dragon,” Mouse hissed. “That’s a bloody silk dragon!”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Do you know how to fight a dragon?”
“Never had the occasion to before,” he said.
“I’m beginning to think that, together, we don’t know much of anything,” she whispered.
“To be fair, dragon slaying is hardly part of a classical education, even when I was last in the mortal world.”
The dragon reared its head back, unfolding its wings, which spanned the full diameter of the room. Lines of embroidered scales stood out on its skin, and fabric pleated over to make thin spines on the creature’s back.
“Okay, let’s say that a dragon is like a snake. I know something about snakes,” Mouse whispered. “When you see a snake, you must back away slowly.”
“Into a fire?”
Mouse glared at him. “Is now really the time for your attempts at wit?”
She shuffled sideways to the edge of the charred crescent on the floor.
Thornwood followed as close to her as possible without touching her.
The dragon watched them with golden eyes.
As Mouse moved closer, she saw red silk slide over orange, forming the dragon’s long neck.
Stark white outlines emphasized the brightness of the embroidered scales.
The dragon’s fluid movements blended into something at once feline and reptilian.
The creature’s head bobbed, following them as they moved.
“What is the next step in your plan?” Thornwood asked.
“There is no next step—it’s taking everything I have just to focus on de-escalation at the moment.”
“Perhaps the dragon will get dizzy, watching us walk around in circles.”
“Save the sarcastic remarks until one of your brilliant plans pays off. What did you see up the chimney?”
They both sidestepped, making it a quarter of the way around the room. Still, the creature watched them, matching their turn with its own. Its tail twitched back and forth.
“There was nothing up there but a pinprick of light. We could not climb it, even if our reptilian friend was not here.”
“Why is the dragon here at all?” Mouse said, thinking aloud to distract herself from her rising panic. “I can only assume someone set up this place to prevent anyone from dismantling the spell affecting the rest of the house. That means the dragon must be both a distraction and a deterrent.”
Thornwood raised his eyebrows. “That makes sense.”
“No need to sound surprised,” Mouse said. “You say the caster designed the magic to keep people away from the roots of the spell. So then, where would the roots be?”
“The part of the room least likely to garner attention,” he said.
They both looked straight up. There was no visible decoration above them, and Mouse still could not make out the ceiling.
“Our best way up there is now stalking us. Too bad we did not use the cloth to pull ourselves up before,” Thornwood said.
Mouse stopped moving, and Thornwood bumped into her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re right. The dragon is our best way up.”
“Did you hit your head when you fell earlier? The only way this dragon will help us get there is as a cloud of ash.”