Shadow Magic (14 page)

Lily nodded.

“Good girl. Now go. Chop-chop.” Mary inhaled deeply through her flared nostrils. Then she gazed around the silent kitchen and clapped once. “What are you all gawking at? Get back to work!”

L
ily stomped back and forth in her bedroom, her boots beating hard on the vast mosaic that covered the floor. She stopped on the face of her ancestor, Baal Demon-scourge, a sorcerer who had overseen the construction of the Great Hall.

Why couldn’t she be more like Baal? Even the lords of hell had feared him.

Who feared her? No one.

Instead, Mary ordered her about like some scullery maid!

Lily kicked her chair. It wasn’t just Mary. No, there was Duke Solar, too. And Uncle Pan. She would have thought her own uncle would try to help her, but he was just like the rest. They wanted Lily to sit quietly, look pretty, and not make a fuss. They didn’t want a ruler; they wanted a silly little girl.

Lily threw herself onto her bed.

What can I do?

She stared at the ceiling, at the painting of dancing skeletons and ghosts looming over tombs and gravestones. Zombies, of course. So many of them.

Count the bones
. Her mother often told her to do that when she couldn’t sleep.

That’s what they wanted: for her to stay here and do nothing. Sleep and sleep until her wedding day.

Wasn’t there some story about a princess who’d slept a hundred years, waiting for her prince?

What. An. Idiot.

Lily jumped up.

I need another plan.

She wasn’t going to give up. Maybe, just maybe, it hadn’t been Gabriel. But if not him, then who?

Lily went to her desk. She would make a list of suspects. Start there. Then investigate each person until she figured out who the poisoner was. She pulled out a sheet of parchment and dipped her quill into the ink.

There was a tap at the door.

“Go away. I’m busy.” She poised the nib over the parchment. She needed a name to go at the top.

The door opened a crack. “Hello?”

It was Rose, carrying a tray. “I brought you a nice meal. I’ve got lamb broth, some fresh bread, and I thought you might like some chocolate, what with all that’s been going on.”

“I said I’m busy.” She couldn’t think of anyone to put on the list. Not a single person. Maybe she wasn’t clever enough to do this. Maybe she was just the silly little girl everyone wanted her to be.

No. That can’t be true. I won’t allow it.

Rose put the tray down beside her. “But, m’lady, you need—”

Lily flung her arm across the desk, hurling the tray and all its contents across the room. “I AM BUSY!”

“I just thought—”

“Thought?”
snapped Lily, fury washing over her. “You
thought
, Rose?
You?
Quick, write that down in the castle histories:
Rose thought!
”

“I’m sorry, m’lady.” Rose curtseyed. “I’ll clean up this mess and go.”

Why am I angry with her? She hasn’t done anything wrong….

Lily blushed with shame. “I’m so, so sorry, Rose. Let me help.”

“That wouldn’t be right. Leave it to me. I don’t mind.”

“Stand up, Rose.” Lily spoke firmly but more gently this time. She took Rose’s hand and raised her so they faced each other.

They both had pale skin and black hair. Rose had “black blood”; that’s what they called it. Somewhere in Rose’s family’s past there was a Shadow ancestor.

But fate had made Lily ruler of Gehenna, and Rose a servant.

“Sit down,” said Lily, pointing at the chair by the dressing table.

“M’lady?”

“Only if you’d like to.”

Rose frowned, then slowly walked over to the dressing table and sat down meekly with her palms on her lap.

Lily picked up the chocolate, unwrapped it, and broke it in half. “Go on.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Come on, Rose. When was the last time you had chocolate?”

“Your tenth birthday. Mary let me lick the spoon she’d used to make your cake.” She looked longingly at the dark brown block. “All right…just a nibble.”

Three years ago
.

“No, not just a nibble.” Lily put the half slab in Rose’s palm.

They sat and ate. Lily watched how Rose’s eyes widened when she took her first bite, heard Rose’s groan of pleasure when the cocoa and sugar melted in her mouth.

Why doesn’t it taste that good to me?

I haven’t waited three years for it.

“Now that you’ve eaten my chocolate, you owe me something,” said Lily.

Rose looked frightened.

Lily met her gaze with steel. “This is important, Rose. Do you understand?”

Too scared to speak, Rose nodded.

“You must call me Lily.” She put up her hand before Rose could protest. “
Lily
. Say it.”

“Lily.”

They both laughed.

Rose galloped around the room. “You should have
seen
him, Lily!” She swung a hairbrush left and right. “Charged straight at them on the back of Tyburn’s horse!” She neighed and galloped around the room a second time.

“Thorn rode Thunder?” Lily couldn’t believe it. “How?”

“No idea, but one minute, he was surrounded by Gabriel and his squires, and the next, they were being chucked this way and that. I saw it all from the storeroom door.” She swiped the hairbrush. “
Thwack!
Thorn hit Gabriel right center, sent him flying a hundred feet in the air, I swear he did!” She collapsed on Lily’s bed. “It was brilliant.”

“That Thorn’s a boy of mystery,” said Lily. “He rode Thunder?
Really?
”

“And you’ve seen that arrow in the gargoyle, the one with the broken ear?”

“You mean Chip?”

Rose nodded. “Thorn did that.”

“They said it was a lucky shot.”

“Right after he hit a bull’s-eye? No one’s that lucky.”

“And what were you doing up so early in the courtyard?”

Rose blushed. “Mary…she needed some fresh flour. From the storeroom. It’s not my fault that’s when the squires do their training.” She grinned. “And in the summer when it gets too hot, they all take their shirts off.”

“Rose! I’m shocked!” Lily laughed. “You’re a woman of mystery yourself.” She leaned closer. “Any particular one you have your eye on?”

Rose looked down shyly before confessing, “Fynn. He’s a guard at Skeleton Gate.”

“I know who you mean.” Lily nodded. Big, friendly. Not too bright. “Good choice.”

Rose suddenly became serious. “People don’t notice servants. That don’t mean
we
don’t notice things.”

Was that a dig at Lily? It was true. There’d been plenty of times when Lily had forgotten that Rose was standing right next to her. A shadow of a Shadow. “What is it?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“There’re only us two here, Rose.”

Rose sat up. “It’s about the feast.”

“What about it?”

“I was there, Lily. I was mostly busy keeping Baron Sable’s flagon filled. But I was there.”

And no one noticed
.
Including me
. “What did you see?”

Rose looked anxious. “I haven’t told anyone. I didn’t because who would believe a servant over a duke’s son?”

“This is about Gabriel?”

“He’s evil, Lily. Really evil. You need to watch out for him.”

Lily laughed. “Gabriel’s a stupid fool.”

“It was the crystal cups,” said Rose. “I saw what he did when you went off and danced with the Sultanate boy.”

“What did he do?”

“He put something in your cup, Lily.”

Lily caught her breath.

I told them from the beginning, and they didn’t believe me.

Lily stared. “Are you sure? Totally sure?”

Rose nodded. “It was Gabriel who tried to poison you.”

I
hate this place. Really, truly HATE it.

Every cobweb and every stone. Even the sound of it. The way the air moaned out of secret vents, and the echoes that decayed like the breath of old men.

Castle Gloom was unnatural, hard and lifeless, the opposite of the world that Thorn had grown up in.

Instead of a forest of great, leaf-wrapped trees, there were endless columned corridors all covered in dust. Instead of soft grass and moss, there was hard, dead marble. Instead of sparrows, falcons, pigeons, kingfishers, crows, and a canopy filled with birds, there were bats, bats, and more bats.

And Castle Gloom went on and on. Forever.

He hadn’t encountered any zombies, which was good. But he hadn’t found a way out, which was bad.

He’d fallen off one roof and right through another, knocking himself out in the process. He had lain among broken beams and shattered tiles for hours and only awoken after dusk.

No sign of Gabriel and his cronies, fortunately. They must have seen him fall and assumed he’d broken his neck.

Bruises and cuts covered his body, but amazingly, he hadn’t suffered anything worse. Thorn’s head was thicker than most.

There’d been no way to climb out of the hole in the roof, so he’d gone exploring instead.

That was
hours
ago.

Thorn clawed through walls of cobwebs and wandered through corridors thick with untrodden dust. He strayed down hallways where the faded faces in the portraits seemed to move in their frames to watch him go by. Once or twice, strange sounds had reverberated from somewhere hidden and dark and, his heart racing and his hands clammy, he’d hurried on to the next vaulted chamber.

It was obvious to him by now that large sections of the castle were empty except for the moaning wind and him.

And, of course, the bats.

A slice of moonlight shone through the collapsed ceiling high overhead. Bats flew in and out of cracks in the castle walls in waves. Their wings fluttering in that uneven, frantic way that bats flew, as if they weren’t really sure about this whole wing thing.

What was the point of bats?

Thorn was lonely, aching, and starting to feel weak from hunger. Would anyone come looking for him? Old Colm? Tyburn? Maybe even Lady Shadow?

Don’t be daft.

They wouldn’t waste their time on a nobody.

Thorn sat down, weary to his core.

Everything had gone wrong. The more he tried, the worse it got.

Ever since that day he’d gone hunting alone in Herne’s Forest. It seemed so long ago, and so far away, like it had happened to someone else.

The nobles called it poaching. He called it not starving.

One deer. That’s all he’d taken. A two-year-old doe. No one would miss her.

He’d been proud of the shot. Late in the evening, with poor light, and plenty of foliage in the way. A distance of over a hundred yards, and he’d hit true at a target smaller than his palm.

After that? One disaster after another.

You can’t beat ’em.

Maybe he was one of life’s losers.

Just give up.

The bats circled above him, shrieking hideously.

They came and went as they wanted. In and out of the broken roof, through the vents, and into the sky.

If they can get out, then so could he.

Thorn gritted his teeth and rose to his feet.

He’d show everyone. He’d show those royals that even if they had their castles and magic, he had more. Jewels and shining swords didn’t mean much down here. Not as much as guts.