Chapter 16 #3
The words reached the statue like a hammerblow. It fractured, the pieces whizzing into the air in starbursts that guttered as soon as they hit the water. The pond fizzed like champagne where the chips fell. At the center, an enormous toad looked up at them from beneath the lily pad.
It croaked once before it dove into the vines below and disappeared into the dark.
“I am offended,” Thornwood said as they crossed Thistlemarsh’s threshold. “A toad? At least a dragon has some menace, but a toad?”
Mouse did not respond, stunned and exhausted, but Thornwood did not notice. Near the water, they’d thrown their dry clothes over their sodden underthings. She realized that she had not even used the dagger.
Mouse was desperate for hot water of any kind: a cup of tea, a hot-water bottle, a bath. But any thoughts she had of relaxation froze when she caught sight of the room.
“It feels like the caster is intentionally taunting the future spell-breaker. They surely had an advanced knowledge of not only mortal magic but Faerie magic as well.”
He finally noticed she was no longer keeping pace with him as he marched through the entry hall toward the kitchen. He turned to face her, his brow furrowed.
A deep gash zigzagged from the front door frame, along the floor, below the great elk antlers, and up into the wall behind the tapestry.
“There’s a crack,” Mouse said, the statement foolish to her ears.
He followed the crack to the wall. Then, with academic precision, he lifted the tapestry hem where the line vanished.
An onyx door sprouted from the stone. Mouse knew it had not been there before. She, Bertie, and Roger often hid behind the tapestries while playing. They certainly would have noticed a mysterious black door.
Nonetheless, the door was there now, begging to be opened. Mouse crept closer. The door had no handles, just two gleaming silver keyholes. Thornwood pressed against it as though to test the lock. The door did not budge.
“It has the same signature as the other two hidden rooms, only stronger,” Thornwood said. “We will have to find a way in.”
Mouse groaned, and Thornwood leaned against the wall, his frantic energy flagging.
After changing out of their wet things, they slumped into the study, melting into the chairs. Mickelwaithe appeared in the blink of an eye, as did a fire, heating the room in a matter of seconds. Mouse dug her toes into the carpet, relishing the softness against her skin.
“Any new thoughts about the cause of Thistlemarsh’s enchantment after our latest adventure?” she asked.
Thornwood’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “None whatsoever.”
Mouse sighed, huddling into the chair. She clutched her shaking fingers together.
“Are you all right?” Thornwood asked. Mouse twitched.
“I will be fine,” she said.
“Well, I am here, if you would like to discuss it. I do know a thing or two about turning to stone.”
The image of Thornwood as Dante, crumbling into the earth over the course of a hundred years, made Mouse shudder.
“It was awful,” she whispered. “How did you stand it?”
Thornwood shrugged, but Mouse saw the hitch in his shoulders. “I got used to it, I suppose. Time moved differently, as though I was in a dream. There are worse fates. But I am grateful that you did not have to suffer the same.”
“How did it happen?” Mouse asked. “I mean, I saw, but only fragments.”
He stiffened. The fire popped furiously, sending a burst of red dots up the chimney.
“I’m sorry,” Mouse said softly, the words streaming together. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Please,” Thornwood said, holding up his hand. “It may take me a moment to gather my thoughts. I’ve never spoken about this to anyone, and I hardly know how to tell the story.”
Thornwood did not speak for a few minutes. He took a sudden interest in the upholstery of his chair. After pulling at a few loose threads, he sighed.
“For centuries, my father was the chief adviser to the Faerie King. He took care of everything for him: finances, political engagements, parties, and anything else the King did not want to do himself. Father considered the Faerie King his closest friend. The court adored my parents.” Thornwood laughed.
It was a bitter sound. “Except their enemies, of course.
“Mother was a particular friend of Princess Viola, the King’s only daughter.
You may know from your mortal Faerie stories that our kind rarely have children.
Usually, they only have one, if any, so Princess Viola was very precious.
The same could be said about me. My parents were elated when I was born.
Perhaps I was spoiled, due to this pride.
“Viola was much older than me, but I knew she was stubborn even then. She always had to have her way.
“My parents supported this behavior. They all grew up together and had the same wild temperament. Unfortunately, my father made the mistake of publicly supporting Viola.”
“A rebellion?” Mouse gasped. Thornwood raised his eyebrows.
“Not a rebellion. Worse. The princess ventured into the human world and fell in love with a mortal.”
Thornwood read the look on her face. “The romance destroyed my family. The humans eventually turned on the princess. She died.”
His words slowed, and his face went blank as he looked out at the fire.
“The King blamed my father and, to a lesser extent, my mother.”
“What happened to them?”
“I am not sure about my mother—I have not seen her since. I like to think she is banished, as I am.”
“And your father?”
Thornwood shook his head almost imperceptibly. He did not elaborate, but his eyes were haunted. Mouse did not press him.
“I don’t understand. Why punish you? You had nothing to do with what happened.”
“I had the same politics as my parents, if not more extreme. We were all pro-mortal, which is not the side to be on when they’ve murdered the princess.
Besides, I was a popular figure in court.
I’m sure he saw it as killing two birds with one stone: making an example of our family while ridding himself of a potential rival. ”
He thumbed at his ring, and Mouse remembered how it glimmered with magic in the vision of his past. He caught her look. Instead of hiding his hand, as he had any other time he saw her staring at the ring, he slid it off his finger.
“Would you like to hold it?” he asked. She flushed, but held out her hand.
The ring was heavy in her palm. The crack in the gem buzzed, as though a current of electricity ran through it. Although Thornwood leaned back in his chair as soon as she had the ring, his eyes followed it, hungry.
“You mentioned that High Faeries sometimes store their magic outside of themselves. Is this where you stored yours?” She passed it back to him.
“It was,” he said ruefully, sliding it onto his finger. “With the gem broken, it is only a reminder of better times.”
“Can it be mended?” she asked. His fist clenched.
“That remains to be seen. I would need an excess of magic to repair it myself.”
Sensing she’d overstepped somehow, she asked, “When you were a statue, were you aware of time passing?”
He relaxed slightly. “For the first few years, yes. After that, I was mostly aware of the changing seasons.”
“Could you see the people passing through the woods?” Mouse asked, flushing. Had he seen her grow up?
“I could, although it is difficult for me to pin down when I saw certain people. Time moved as it does in a dream, and some faces were more common than others.”
“I had no idea Faerie was such a dangerous political arena.”
“What did your books tell you it would be like?”
“Mostly toadstools and oak trees. Perhaps the occasional castle.”
Thornwood chuckled, the tension sliding away. It lingered only in his shoulders and the glint in his eyes.
“We are quite cosmopolitan in Faerie, although perhaps not in a way a mortal would recognize.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is difficult to explain. Suffice it to say we have our cities and our city folk. What you’ve just described is perhaps the equivalent of the home of a ‘country bumpkin’ in my world.”
He shook his head, his eyes falling to his hands. “What about you, Lady Dewhurst? I’ve told you my secrets. It’s time to share yours,” he said with feigned haughtiness.
Mouse followed his lead. “All right. I will,” Mouse said with her best wicked smile, “for a price.”
Thornwood laughed. “I’ll make a Faerie of you yet. Name it.”
For a moment, Mouse considered sharing her nights locked in the Matchbox after her father died, when the boys were still at Eton.
She was alone for days, bowls of cold porridge the only markers of the passing time.
Lord Dewhurst claimed that she was unruly, and that locking her away for the season was the only way to manage her.
No one came to visit. The only face she saw from day to day was Mr. Hobb’s, turned up to look at her mournfully from the gardens. He never came into the house.
Instead, she laughed. “I think I will keep my secrets for a while longer.”
Thornwood frowned. “That’s very dull of you.”
“Forgive me for failing to entertain you,” she said.
Mouse stood to leave, but Thornwood took hold of her hand.
“Honestly, Mouse, you are anything but dull.”
She ducked her head, heat stretching from her cheeks down her neck. “Thank you, I suppose.”
“You are welcome.”
“We should rest. We’ll need all our strength to solve this new riddle in the morning,” she said, still not meeting his eyes.
Thornwood agreed readily, but Mouse barely heard him as she dragged herself upstairs and into bed.
The next morning, Thornwood tried magic on the lock. The door did not budge. Mouse dug the ring of servant keys out of Dawson’s abandoned desk, but, as she expected, none worked on the gleaming silver keyholes.
For three days, they tried everything they could think of, from ramming the door to burning it down. The latter idea was broached when Mouse was sleeping (she’d started taking naps more often, even falling asleep at meals).
Although she did her best to keep her chin up, the mermaid haunted Mouse’s dreams, and she would wake shaking and sore, convinced she had turned to stone overnight.
Thornwood did not seem to suffer aftereffects of the enchantment in the well, even though he’d been the one fully under its spell.
However, he was gentler with Mouse, not mentioning her exhaustion and always ready with food and drink when she woke between naps.
She supposed this was his way of thanking her for saving him without saying the words aloud.
She had not been so tired since the height of the war, and the gravity of the threat of magic hung over her like an airship.
Before, Mouse felt that she had made the easier choice, making a deal with a Faerie to revive Thistlemarsh, but now she was not sure.
She almost died in that well, and Thornwood’s indifference to their peril only magnified their power imbalance.
Mouse, armed with only a book of old Faerie tales and folk knowledge, was by no means the right person to take on an unseen magical force.
Neither Thornwood nor Mickelwaithe commented on the dark circles under her eyes.
In one particularly dark dream, Mouse sank to the bottom of the well, looking up at the surface but unable to move.
Above her, a shadow dropped into the water.
It drifted down, limbs spread wide and blood lifting off it like clouds.
It was a man dressed in a soldier’s uniform.
His arm was missing above his elbow, and there was a hole in his torso.
Slowly, the current changed, and the body turned with it. Mouse screamed.
Bertie stared at her, unseeing, with his mouth open and half his skull missing. The shrapnel of an artillery shell stuck out of his chest. His voice drifted to her, hollow and haunting beneath the water.
You’re too late.
Mouse woke in a cold sweat. It took her a moment to recognize Thornwood in the entryway.
She was curled in an armchair Mickelwaithe had dragged into the room for her.
Blakeney’s lay on her lap, open to a story about a weaver tasked with opening a secret cave.
Mouse’s mother had penned in a list of magic words like open sesame and abracadabra in the margins.
“Any luck?” Thornwood asked, slinking into the room with two coffee mugs. Mouse took one gratefully.
“No, none of the words had any effect.”
“It was a good idea,” Thornwood said.
Mouse placed a warm hand on her neck, letting the muted heat from the coffee mug seep into her sore muscles. Her palm met the cold chain of her necklace, and she froze.
Struck with realization, Mouse lifted the chain from around her neck. Depositing the coffee at her feet, she rose and walked to the door. Carefully, she slipped the key her mother gave her into one of the two keyholes.
My inheritance from my mother, she thought as the key slid seamlessly into the lock. Behind her, Thornwood let out a long exhale.
The lock clicked as she turned it before grinding to a halt. She looked to the other keyhole, shimmering in the dim entryway light.
Thornwood was at her side, his own coffee abandoned. “Does the key have a twin?” he asked.
“It has a cousin,” Mouse said. “But getting ahold of it might be trouble.”
“More trouble than what we’ve faced so far?”
“My cousin had the key before he died,” Mouse said, and Thornwood’s excitement dissipated. “To retrieve it, we’ll have to visit my uncle’s solicitor in London.”