Dandelion Fire (10 page)

The music began just as it had the last time she'd crawled into FitzFaeren. Surrounded by the blackness of the cupboard, she listened to the strings and the rhythms of the dance they moved and guided.

When her face found the back of the door, she pushed it open without hesitation. And there, in front of her, was the scene that she had been itching to see again. The enormous beamed hall sparkled with the light from hundreds of candles around the frescoed walls and columns and hanging on the enormous chandeliers. The towering windows were black with night, but they reflected the swirl of dancers moving across the floor.

Henrietta knew that she couldn't simply wait and watch. If she was going to burst Henry's bubble, she should find him soon. Waiting too long would mean she would be in as much trouble as Richard and Henry. More. Her father would be harder on her.

So she watched the small women spin in dresses brighter and smoother than any flower, and she watched the men with their boxy, short-sleeved coats. She hunted the room for the face that she knew had belonged to Eli, and then, before she found it, she forced herself to grab the edge of the cupboard and pull herself through.

The music died. The candles were gone. And the people and the windows and the night and most of the roof and chunks of the floor. It was like standing inside the bones of a huge whale. The ribbed beams still spanned the hall in many places, four or five stories above her. Most of the columns still stood, but the majestic windows had become nothing but oversize holes. Light filtered through clouds and into the desolate place, and all of the wood it found, once bright with stain and inlay, once rich, stood out dull, rotten, bleached, and weathered gray.

High above her, Henrietta could hear the traffic of pigeons. The sound was common in a Kansas barn, and she liked it there. It made her feel like the barn was still alive, still used. Here, it was an insult, a final desecration.

Grandfather had written that he'd destroyed this place. Henrietta wondered what he had meant. She hoped he'd been wrong.

Henry and Richard were nowhere in sight. But she really didn't think they could have gone far, even if they'd come through hours ago. Henry was blind, after all, and he knew that the floor was as solid as a spider-web. He wouldn't want Richard to go quickly.

At first Henrietta stood and listened, hoping that she would hear some pop or crash just to give her an initial direction. A breeze stirred the pigeons, but otherwise, the rotting hall was perfectly still.

Carefully probing the floor in front of her, she made her way farther out into the room. Some of the wood
planks crumbled, some sighed or popped, but when the wall was well behind her, she stopped and listened again, turning carefully in place.

There were three large doorways yawning into the hall. A dozen smaller ones were spaced between them. As Henrietta turned, she began to give up. The place was big enough that she could head off in one direction while Henry and Richard returned from another. They wouldn't know that she'd followed them, and nothing would keep them from resetting the compass locks.

Even though the hutch that she'd crawled through wasn't more than forty feet away, she felt a twinge of fear. For a moment, she thought she should go back, kick off her shoes, and crawl into her bed. Henry and Richard could fend for themselves. But then, through one of the large doorways, there came a crash, followed by laughter and voices.

They were coming back.

Henrietta bobbed and shifted her way to the hutch and then turned, leaned her back against it, crossed her arms, and waited.

No one came.

She heard the laughter again, but it hadn't come any closer. They were taking way too long. She wouldn't be surprised if the whole family was panicking right now because Anastasia had discovered them gone.

Staying close to the wall, Henrietta began moving around the room, toward the gaping doorway. She passed entrances to alcoves and hallways and collapsing
stairs always leading up. She ran her fingers over carvings soft with rot beneath her touch. At each door, she was tempted to slow, to stop, to look, but she only glanced and moved on, toward the tall entrance at the end of the hall and the echo of voices.

Walking around the edge of the room took her longer, but she did get there, and without risking the gapped planks out in the middle.

She stood for a moment with her back to a column and collected her thoughts, rehearsing what she would say. But then she heard footsteps, careful, methodical footsteps coming toward her through the doorway.

It was either find or be found. She had to do it now. With a deep breath and a smile, she stepped into the doorway and crossed her arms.

Two men, not much taller than she was, looked up from their feet. Both had short black beards, and they carried pry-bars and hammers. They stood, frozen in surprise.

“Um,” Henrietta said. Her smile faded away, but she forced it back. “I'm just looking around.”

The men looked at each other and nodded. Gripping hammers, they stepped toward her.

woke to the sound of voices. One he knew immediately, the other was new. And easier to understand.

“Prepare it,” Darius said. “Pestling potions is for your likes.”

“Sir,” said the other voice. “You know nothing of him. If naming rites have already been performed, then a blood-bonding is impossible. It will be his killing. Splay his throat and spare the ingredients.”

“Endorian blood crawls beneath his skin, and he lives on. Touch the burnings on his face and ken where death dripped. The twain sight came upon him through storming bolts, and he is not yet ash, nor even mad. Your strength is naught beyond vaporing steam beside his flame. He will be second among Lastborn. He will be a seventh son to me.”

“You have no other sons,” the man said quietly. “And to become second among us would require a nomination and at least a two-thirds voting at the society's midsummer banquet in order to express dissatisfaction with my service.”

“Ass,” Darius said. “Ass! You are no true witch-dog,
no better than a pharmator for mixing love draughts. You have my blood, prepare the rite!”

A door boomed shut, and Henry flinched with the echo.

“Darius the mighty witch-dog,” the man's voice muttered. “Darius the seventh bastard son of a village priest. No better than a pharmator? You're no more a witch-dog than you are gran to the Fisher King.”

Henry's shoulders ached. He was shirtless. His arms were sticking straight out from his sides and he had to move them. He tried to shift himself, to lower his arms just an inch or slide his body up. But he was bound. He flexed, and straps around his elbows and wrists and forehead held him in place. His legs were fixed as well, at the ankles and knees, and something thick pinned his hips to the surface beneath him.

He tensed his body slowly, trying to feel the strength of his bonds. The straps creaked like leather.

“The daimon wakes,” the man said. “The straps won't give. They are charmed, and even if they were not, they would be strong enough for most.”

“Am I in the post office?” Henry asked. “Why am I tied up?”

“The post office?” The man laughed. “No. Darius said you were not mad. But then his mind, so diseased itself, is no measure for others.”

Henry opened his eyes. They were swelling again, and they itched horribly. He squinted them tight, squeezing out moisture.

“I need to rub my eyes,” he said. “Why am I tied up?”

Henry heard the clink of glass and the shuffle of feet. Then a rough cloth pressed into his eyes and wiped his cheeks. “Your eyes' sorrow will increase. You are tied up so that your joints will not unhinge, so that you will not pluck out your eyes and the brains behind or bite the fingers from your hands or rip your flesh and pry at the bones within. The time of your warpspasm approaches. Your mind may addle, but in the straps, the worst will be the snapping of a bone. An arm, a thigh.”

“I don't think I want to do this,” Henry said. He wasn't sure if he should believe the man. “A warpspasm?”

The cloth went away and returned warm and wet. “Darius said he spoke to you of it. It is the coming of your heritage—it will try to escape you, it is not comfortable in man's flesh. Survive it, and you may keep it, though it will not settle easily. It is always like gripping a storm.”

Henry swallowed, and his throat burned. “Can I have a drink?”

“It will only fuel the vomiting, but you may.”

A bottle was uncorked, and liquid glugged in its neck.

“Here,” the man said. “Suck this sponge. I will sop it again if you need.”

Henry opened his mouth, willing to drink anything, but expecting a little bath sponge, something from a kitchen sink. Instead, a lump the size of his fist kissed his lips. He squeezed it with his teeth and jerked in surprise.
Sour and tart and biting, the fluid tightened up his tongue and pooled in the back of his throat. He gagged and swallowed and gagged again, and the liquid hit his burning throat. It felt better there, once past his tongue, so he sucked on the sponge and swallowed again. Then he spat it out. The sponge rolled down his cheek and rested against his neck. The man picked it up.

Flexing his shriveled tongue, he scraped it against his teeth but couldn't remove the taste. “Water would have been fine,” he said.

“Ha!” the man laughed. “Better to face what you face than to swallow a draught of water. Water is for scrubbing, for sailing, and for cattle. Wine and vinegar for men, unless you desire sickness.”

Turning his head to the side as far as he could, Henry spat. And then spat again. He could remember his dream clearly, and everything that Darius had said. It was starting to seem like the big Pilgrim had been telling the truth. He hoped no one would try to follow him. Of course, nobody could. Richard had already set the compass locks to FitzFaeren when he'd gone to sleep. They wouldn't know where he was. He didn't know how Darius had gotten him here, but he knew it hadn't been with Grandfather's mechanics. Darius, as weird and as evil as he may be, really had power. He wouldn't have needed to click any knobs.

The man touched Henry's bare stomach, and Henry jolted.

“What are you doing?” Henry asked.

“It is necessary,” the man replied. “Clench your teeth. I had hoped to do this while you dreamt.”

At first Henry felt only cold, but the cold spread down to his hips and up to his ribs. It began to bite, and when it bit, it bit like fire.

“Wha—” Henry tried to ask, but his jaw clamped tight. He arched his back the little that he could, trying to shake the sensation off of his skin. But it wasn't only on his skin. It was inside, digging down into his belly.

“Be still,” the man said. “Darius would have a naming rite before your morph's complete. He's a fool, but I must prepare it. You feel the first potion, the first flesh-blending.”

“Why?” Henry managed.

“He would bind you to himself. If you die in the warpspasm, he can absorb your spirit's portion of the sight. If you live, you will be his. His blood will be in your veins, his symbol in your flesh.”

Henry was trying to control his breath, but it jerked unevenly. His diaphragm convulsed. Gulping hiccups came when he tried to speak. “Not,” he gasped, and his ribs shook, “really?”

The man said nothing, but Henry's question was answered. The cloth that had been used to wipe Henry's eyes was shoved into his mouth. Something else bit into Henry's belly. A blade. Slowly parting his skin, curving and looping back on itself.

Henry yelled into the cloth. He clamped his teeth, roiled his body, and then stopped in shock. He knew,
somehow, that the brown burn, the writhing slug on Darius's hand, the symbol he would not let Henry see, would be forever with him, as long as he was alive, whether for days or years. But he would not belong to Darius. Damn Darius. Damn all potions and lies. Damn the pain.

He felt his blood surge inside him, drumming through the rivers of his body. His flesh quivered and then sagged beneath the man's sharp tracing. Something else was coming, something he didn't know and couldn't begin to control.

His eyes rolled back in his head. Every joint in his body cracked and revolted, eager to swing free, to fold backward. His teeth ground through the rag in his mouth, and his tongue writhed, squirming back into his own throat.