Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) (16 page)

“I guess I can get into the Warlord’s Birthday Ball if I want to. I don’t have to cadge an invite like
some
people. You aren’t the only one with resources, Flora.” He jerked me again as we twirled, and I realized he was angry. Not just angry—furious.

“What is wrong with you, Udo?”

“Ha! I wondered why you were in such a hurry, Flora! You just wanted to dump me and get to the party!”

“Udo!” What
was
his problem? I had never seen him this angry before, and he was completely misrepresenting everything.

“How could you let him do it?” Udo demanded.

“Who do what?”

“Valefor!” Udo hissed. “Your stupid snapperhead servitor. You knew this meant a lot to me, Flora, but you didn’t care, did you? If it’s not Flora’s idea, then Flora doesn’t care.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Springheel Jack!” Udo shouted. Fortunately the music was loud and so I’m pretty sure no one heard him.

“Shush—keep your voice down. What about Springheel Jack? I put him on ice in the Casa de Hielo. What else could I do with him? He was starting to smell.”

Udo swung me and didn’t let go. I flew in an arc, my feet scrabbling on the snowy floor. Then he yanked me hard, completely out of the line, even though the set wasn’t quite finished. I tried to squirm out of his grip, but he is taller and stronger and wouldn’t let go.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Udo? Let go of me!” I whacked at him with my free hand, but onward he pulled. Now people were staring at both of us. It seemed better to go with him than to make a scene, so I quit fighting. But as soon as we were alone, Udo was going to get it.

We rushed through people watching the Reel, past the Grand Staircase, and into the long gallery behind. Tall wooden doors, each topped with a glassy-green transom, punctuated the marble walls. Tea-leaf patterns of snow swirled and blew along the marble floors. The gallery was dim, and each alcove we rushed by contained a spoony couple. The last alcove was empty. Udo dragged me inside. I hit him hard with my fan and he let me go.

“You are acting like someone in a cheap melodrama, Udo Landaðon!”

“Oh, ayah?” he asked. “Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do. What is up with you? Why are you so worked up about your precious outlaw? I saved him for you, didn’t I? Put him on ice until you could—”

“Valefor!” Udo shouted. There was a harsh tone to his voice I’d never heard before. “I went to the icehouse and Jack was gone! Your stupid snapperheaded servitor ate him! Ate him!”

“Ate him? How could Valefor eat him?”

“How should I know? Cut him up into tiny pieces? Chewed on his bones? All I know is that Valefor ate him and he is gone! What am I going to do about my bounty now, Flora? After all the trouble I went to to get that outlaw, now—nothing! You Fyrdraacas don’t care about anyone but yourselves!”

I flared up. “Now, hold on a minute, Sieur Landaðon. I didn’t have a thing to do with Valefor eating any stupid outlaw, so you can’t blame me for that! And if you want to talk about stupidity, then how about zombifying an outlaw and then getting into a gun battle on a public horsecar—”

Udo interrupted with something very mean, and I responded with something equally mean, which made Udo say even meaner things. I answered with meaner things of my own. Every tiny slight hurt and annoyance of our entire lives came pouring out.

“—it took me three weeks to wash the green ink out of my hair—”

“—ate all the roses off my birthday cake—”

“—so I got a double F-minus in Composing—”

“—feed my pet turtle and it died—”

“—bossing me around like you are the Goddess Califa and I’m just your Boy Toy—”

“—and you left me standing there
alone
to go off with that skanky stick-insect girl!”

“—bossy, obnoxious, egotistical, bratty—”

“—annoying, whiny, vain—”

Udo stared at me. I stared back. My lip was quivering, and I hoped he realized it was from anger, not sorrow. The feather on his hat was quivering, probably for the same reason.

“Fine!” Udo said, finally. There was something extremely final about that
fine
.

“Fine!” I answered.

“I guess you don’t need me, then.”

“No, I guess I don’t. Have a nice time with your scrawny little prune-faced girl.”

“I will, madama. And you can enjoy your horrible family, and your drunken father, and your mealymouthed sister—”

WHACK!

My brain had sent a secret signal to my hand, which had raised itself and smacked Udo right across his rouged cheek. Udo’s jaw was pretty hard—my palm stung. Even in the dim light, the red mark of my blow stood out on his white skin like a burn.

Now Udo’s lips were also trembling. Without another word, he snapped around and rushed away, his rapid stride making his long skirts swirl. I caught a brief glimpse of sparkly red footwear, and then—adios, Udo.

I was no longer cold; instead, I felt as though I had a fever. I walked over to the bubbler, but the stream trickling from the dolphin-shaped spout was frozen. The water in the bubbler bowl was a thick rime of silvery blue ice, flat as a mirror. The cold drifting up from the ice felt good on my flushed face. Something wet and hot dripped down my chin and onto the ice. I wiped at my eyes with my glove, not caring if I smeared my eyeliner.

Udo. Oh, Udo.

A light flickered beneath the ice, and I thought I saw movement, a flash of luminescence deep down. Which was impossible, of course, as the bubbler was only about a foot deep. But it had a drain, didn’t it? I peered under the bubbler bowl and saw a pipe not much bigger around than my arm disappearing into the wall. The ice flared pink and red, and I stepped away from it. Surely no tentacle could smash its way through solid ice? Could it? Or through a narrow drain? I wasn’t going to stick around to see. I’d had enough histrionics for one night.

As the ice began to crack, I fled down the hallway In the Grand Rotunda the music had stopped. The hushed crowd seemed to be focusing on the dance floor, and as I skirted the edge of the throng, I heard the shouting of a familiar voice. I pushed my way through the audience and discovered Poppy hollering at Lord Axacaya. His accusations were pretty loud, though not entirely coherent. Some bossy boiler had told Poppy about my dance with Lord Axacaya and now he was showering Lord Axacaya with dire threats. Only the restraining arms of the Warlord’s bodyguards were keeping Poppy from carrying out some of those threats right then and there. Thankfully, a guard had snagged Poppy’s gun out of his holster, and his war injuries made him easy to hold back.

While Poppy raved, Lord Axacaya glared at him through slitted eyes but made no response. Then the Warlord arrived, and Poppy, trying to flail his way out of the guards’ grasp, almost popped him. I tried to fade back into the crowd, but Poppy saw me and somehow managed to throw off the guards and nab me. The Warlord was shouting, Poppy was shouting, the guards were shouting, I was shouting, and then a loud, sharp noise drowned us all out. My ears rang, and the frosty air was suddenly filled with the acrid smell of black powder.

“What the hell was that?” Florian bellowed.

“Someone just tried to shoot the Ambassador,” Lord Axacaya said calmly.

W
ELL, THAT WAS IT
for the Warlord’s Birthday Ball. After the first few minutes of general panic, the Warlord’s guards moved in and closed off all the exits to Saeta House, so as to make sure that the assassin (who I really, really hoped wasn’t Idden) couldn’t escape. The midnight supper (and the seating chart Mamma had slaved over) was scrapped. The Warlord told Poppy to go the hell home and stay there until he could behave, so we were allowed to leave through one of Saeta’s back entrances. Poppy didn’t seem at all concerned about the assassination attempt; he was fully fixated on my behavior with Lord Axacaya, and he ranted and raved about that all the way home.

My protest that I was an adult and therefore could dance with whomever I pleased was not well received. Neither was my claim that the partnership had been by chance and that I could hardly have refused in front of everyone to dance with Lord Axacaya and that Poppy was overreacting. Then I said nothing else, for fear of what else I might say—or do. I had had enough fighting for one night. I only wanted to get home, to the quiet of my room, to lie down upon my bed and die.

Once back at Crackpot, Poppy’s ranting continued up the garden path and into the kitchen. The dogs, cowed by the tone of his voice, whisked away into the darkness as soon as the kitchen door was opened, those traitors.

“You still are under this roof, madama, and thus owe allegiance to this family, and Axacaya is no friend of ours. I will not have you consorting with him—in
any way,
do you understand?” Poppy said meaningfully. “It is a disgrace to this family”

A disgrace?! How could dancing with Lord Axacaya be disgraceful, after all that Poppy had put us through? Was
I
a convicted war criminal? Had
I
lost the First Flora? Was
I
a drunk and a lout? Did
I
just get the Fyrdraaca family’s dirty laundry on the front page of the
Califa Police Gazette?
Well, the assassination attempt on the Huitzil Ambassador would probably be on page one, but surely we’d make page two.

If I stayed put one more minute I was going to explode. I would fall to Poppy’s level, screaming and shouting, and I would be damned to the Abyss if I would fall that low. So I flung past him and tore upstairs. Poppy tried to follow but his lameness slowed him down, and I was safely in my room with the door locked by the time he got there.

“Open up, Flora!” Poppy yelled, pounding.

I sat down on my settee and folded my arms. Valefor, hovering over the wardrobe, looked petrified.

“I demand that you open the door!” Poppy roared.

“I demand that you drop dead,” I whispered. “I demand that you go to
hell
!”

“Well then, madama, if you wish to stay in your room, you may stay in your room.” Poppy said through the door. “You may stay until your mother returns from Fort Jones, and then we shall have a family discussion.”

I continued to sit. My jaw was clenched so tightly that it ached as though someone had punched me. After a while I got up and tried to open the door. It was locked. I jiggled the handle and then pounded, but the door did not open and Poppy did not answer.

“What is wrong with him? What did you do?” Valefor asked.

“He saw me dancing with Lord Axacaya,” I said. Pacing back and forth helped cool some of my agitation. So did throwing my shoes, which hit the wall with satisfying thumps. Valefor flitted back to the top of the wardrobe, out of the way. I kicked at my Catorcena trunk and got a spark of pain for my trouble, but that pain felt good—it only made me madder. I ripped the red poofy dress off and wadded it on the floor and then tore off the horrible stays. My ribs still hurt from the tentacle squeezing of the night before. I pressed my hand to the pain as I paced and was glad of how its throb fed my anger.

“Did you waste all your time dancing, or did you talk to him, too? I hope you got things settled,” Valefor said. “I can’t take another trembler. My roof is
creaking.”

I collapsed onto the settee in a miserable heap. We are all cursed, we Fyrdraacas. No matter what we do, we cannot escape it. We will never be free of anger—of fear—of despair.

“What did Lord Axacaya say when you told him about the Loliga?” Valefor persisted. He crawled down from the wardrobe and poked at me. For the first time since I had rushed into the room, I really looked at him, and I did not like what I saw.

Valefor was no longer a thin and wispy news-rag boy No, indeed. It might be too much to say that he sparkled, but it wouldn’t have been too far off to say that he twinkled. His white hair had darkened to deep damson plum, and his eyes were faceted amethyst jewels. When I poked him back, my finger hit solid flesh. Clearly, eating Springheel Jack had done Valefor a world of good.

“I saw Udo at the Ball, too, Valefor,” I said, and poked him hard again. He grunted and jerked out of my reach. “And he was pretty wroth.”

Valefor sniffed. “I don’t see why. I was hungry and I couldn’t let him stink up the icehouse, could I? There were beginning to be worms, Flora Segunda! Anyway, I did you all a favor!”

Well, I had to agree with him there. I wasn’t too sorry that the decomposing outlaw was gone. Udo was mad, but at least I didn’t have to move the body again. One less problem that I had to deal with. Tonight I really needed one less problem; I was at my utter limit of problems.

“I don’t think Udo thinks you did him a favor, Valefor. Now he won’t be able to get his bounty.”

“Huh. I only ate the fleshy bits of Springheel Jack—they were no good to Udo, anyway, all stinky and rotting. I left him what really counts. Much less messy this way! He was a bit stringy, though, Jack. I used the last of the floss; you’ll have to get more. I left the boots, didn’t I?”

Now I realized that the sparkly red flash under Udo’s hem had been Springheel Jack’s sparkly red boots. Somehow this was not a cheerful realization. Springheel Jack probably didn’t have very good hygiene. I hoped Udo had put on heavy socks.

“The boots are not going to get him the bounty.”

“Of course they will,” Valefor answered. “Those boots are famous. They are the source of Jack’s power—no one else has boots like that but Springheel Jack, and he swore they would never come off his feet whilst he was alive. So if they are off his feet, then, he must be dead, no? Remember the case of Nobby Nack, the Gentleman Masher? The militia accepted as proof of his death—”

“That was a body part. Not a fashion accessory. An important body part. One you can’t live without.”

“There’s plenty of precedent, Flora Segunda. Why, in
Marly Mack vs. the Republic of Califa,
the Chief Justice ruled that...”

I closed my eyes. Valefor’s voice receded to a drone. My anger had burned out and now I felt exhausted and sick at heart. How could Udo say such mean things? We’d been best friends forever, and we’d had fights before but nothing like this. Never the kind of fight where you might never make up again. Never anything so final. Never anything that made me feel so sick inside.