The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (8 page)

LOST NAMES AND LOCKED BOXES

Robin hadn’t known what to make of the events at the folly. Discovering a hidden grave, a morbid, alien occupant and lost treasure of some kind, was one thing in itself. His tutor’s apparent disregard for his personal safety and wellbeing, another entirely. Calypso was utterly unlike his former tutor, Phorbas. The jovial goat-man has always seemed to have Robin’s best interests at heart, whereas this strange, ethereal woman had barely raised an eyebrow when her student tumbled from the sky and crashed through the ground. Plus, of course, he was still digesting the revelation that she had only recently defected from Eris’ cause. He wondered if there was a way to find out why that was.

Sitting alone in his room, idly spinning his silver dagger on its tip on the worn table-top, Robin watched the garnet flash as it glinted in the last rays of the setting sun. He found he often toyed with it when worried or at a loss.

Robin had been dismissed by Calypso upon their return to the house, all thought of further training, and indeed of him, utterly forgotten as the nymph sought out his aunt, the curious cylinder still grasped in her hand, wrapped in its protective silks.

Henry had hung around for a while, throwing out some wild theories as to why an Undine from the Netherworlde would be secretly buried at Erlking, the most outlandish of which had involved Aunt Irene being a secret axe murderer and every dark corner of the house containing secreted remains of various Panthea, just waiting to be found.

Robin hadn’t thought this very likely. Aunt Irene was far too busy to go around murdering people.

Henry had to go home after a while, puttering down the leafy dappled avenue in his father’s ancient car back to the village. He made Robin promise to keep him updated with any developments.

Karya and Woad had been nowhere to be found, though he had been desperate to tell them of their discovery. Both the girl and faun came and went as they pleased at Erlking and, denied their company, Robin had been alone with his thoughts for the rest of the stifling afternoon.

He set the knife down, wondering if he was making the spirit trapped within it dizzy, spinning it so on its tip.

Phorbas hadn’t been kind and jovial, he had to remind himself, not for the first time. Phorbas had been killed long before Robin had even arrived at Erlking, his spirit trapped in this very knife, and his body, well, who knew how that had been disposed of? The tutor whom he remembered so fondly, and often grieved for, had been one of Eris’ men. Moros of the Grimms, under a very convincing glamour.

Perhaps, despite his concerns about Calypso’s rather unorthodox teaching methods, he should trust in his aunt’s judgement concerning Calypso’s appointment as tutor. It had to be better than his own judgement after all.

The door to his bedroom opened suddenly in front of him. Hestia, Erlking’s sour-faced housekeeper, stood framed at the top of the stone spiral staircase, her eyes narrowed as she scanned the room for signs of mischief. Robin clenched his jaw. Hestia was a pain. The housekeeper never knocked. She considered every nook and cranny of Erlking her own personal domain and responsibility. It was impossible to get any privacy. Considering she stomped, flat-footed up and down the corridors, she could sneak up those stairs as quiet as a mouse when she wanted to.

Robin suspected she lived in eternal hope of finding him doing something diabolical that she could report to his aunt, like juggling cats with Featherbreath or drawing on the walls.

Hestia sniffed, glancing for a second at the long silver knife that lay in the red sunlight.

“You’re wanted,” she said curtly, her nose in the air.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He knew Hestia hated being a messenger.

“The lady of the house,” Hestia snapped in explanation. “You’re summoned to the Lion Lounge. And do not think you can go throwing a barrage of questions at old Hestia. I do not ferry your words back and forth, I work for Lady Irene, not for you, boy. The impudence. The cheek of the young, to put upon old Hestia so. It is not to be borne!”

“I was only asking.”

“Well, do not only ask,” she snapped, turning away with one last scan of the room, just in case she’d missed something. “Only do. Your aunt wishes to speak with you, and I do not have time to find out why. I must fetch in the washing from the line outside before the rain comes. No one else is going to do it, are they? Oh no. Just another thing I get no thanks for.”

Robin glanced out of the window. It was still sultry as the last rays of the sun burned in the black treetops over Erlking’s woods. It wasn’t far off sunset, but there was hardly a cloud in the sky.

“It hasn’t rained for days, Hestia,” he said with a frown, swinging his legs out from under his chair and standing up. He slipped Phorbas back into the drawer where he lived.

“Oh, you think you know so much, do you? You know more about weather and washing and what needs doing to keep this place ticking over, do you? Hasn’t rained for days? You mark my words, boy. And if my washing is ruined because you kept me here talking…” The housekeeper clucked, her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. “There is a nymph under our roof, child.” She practically spat the word. “A nymph! And where the water folk go, storms and troubles follow. Every time. Storms and troubles. You mark Hestia’s words.”

She left the door open as she shuffled moodily away, still grumbling. Robin hadn’t thought to ask her where on earth the Lion Lounge was. He’d never even heard of it. As he made to follow her, a long deep rumble of thunder rolled across the clear sky outside. He could practically feel Hestia smirking to herself in a self-satisfied way on the spiral staircase.

When he finally found it, it was obvious why the Lion Lounge was so called. It was a small and cosy parlour, its walls hung with deep bruise-hued tapestries upon which countless gold embroidered lions pranced and pounced. Bookcases crammed with hundreds of yellowing scrolls lined the walls, the dark wooden floor was strewn with thick, furry golden pelts. One wall was entirely dominated, from floor to ceiling, by an enormous mantlepiece of black marble. It was taller even that his aunt. Robin could easily had stood upright in the fireplace, and it was giddily carved within an inch of its life into many and varied intertwining feline forms, blended one into another in a mass of frozen, snarling faces. A fire burned in the huge grate and Robin eyed it with sun-weary dejection as he walked into the room. Strangely however, the air was cool and crisp, even as he approached the hearth. The light from the flickering flames made the marble seem to buck and writhe as the shadows danced, tawny orange flashes rippling over the carvings, despite the fact that the rough stone didn’t look particularly reflective. He could have sworn he saw a tail swish.

Aunt Irene, who was standing at the fire deep in thought, turned and regarded him over the top of her half-moon glasses.

“Nephew,” she said in greeting. Over her pale dress, she hugged around her neck a delicate and intricate lace shawl. Her silvery droplet earrings flashed in the reflected glow of the flames. “Please, come in. You have made quite the discovery today. I trust no bones were broken?”

Robin closed the door behind him. Darkness had fallen at last outside and another peal of thunder, far off but long and low, rolled across the landscape beyond, echoing off the hills around Erlking in the dry sky.

“I wasn’t hurt, no. I landed on my cantrip, the Waterwings. They cushioned my fall. Just a few bruises,” Robin said guiltily.

Irene indicated a high wingback chair by the fire and bade him to sit. Like everything else in the lounge, the chair was feline in nature; it stood on carved brass paws, and across its high back was slung a striped, furry throw.

“I was referring not to your bones, but to the remains you discovered,” she said. “It is a terrible thing to have to disturb the dead, though sometimes, sadly, a necessary one. No finger bones were broken in your retrieval of the item your tutor brought to me earlier?”

Robin slunk into the chair sheepishly. “Oh. No. I don’t think so.” He was mildly alarmed for a moment when the deep and cosy throw he’d sunk into began to purr, vibrating across his back. Irene didn’t bat an eye at the noise and, after a moment, he found it was actually quite comforting.

“Well,” she nodded, peering back into the fire. “That is something at least. The last thing anyone wants is a dead Undine’s curse on us all.”

Robin glanced around the room, the countless faces of the golden lions in the wall tapestries peered back at him with embroidered eyes. As the fire popped and hissed, and Irene stoked it, the first soft patters of rain began to fall against the tall leaded windows. The storm which Hestia had balefully predicted had broken it seemed.

“Madame Calypso tells me that your first lesson in the Tower of Water was … instructive,” Irene said, still peering into the fire.

“Well, if you can call a total disaster instructive,” Robin said. His aunt glanced at him with her sharp eyes, tilting her chin down so that she could regard him over the top of her half-moon spectacles. He couldn’t tell from her expression if she was amused or reproachful.

“You were supposed to be learning the basics, as I understand it,” she said lightly. “Forming Orbs, possibly progressing to a very basic Whippersnapper if you showed some aptitude, certainly nothing as advanced as a Needlepoint.” She clucked her tongue. “However, your tutor informs me that you took it upon yourself to attempt Waterwings?”

Robin felt his face burn. “Yeah … total disaster, like I said,” he muttered in a small voice.

Irene eased herself into a chair opposite his. The rain, after its first tentative patters, now began to thrum steadily on the dark windows as the storm grew in force outside. She took her glasses off, letting them rest around her neck on their chain.

“Waterwings is a very advanced cantrip, Robin,” she said. “Whatever were you thinking? I know that since your encounter with the Air Shard, your proficiency in that particular Tower has come on in leaps and bounds, but I hope you understand that this does not make you any kind of genius in the other disciplines.”

Robin didn’t feel particularly like a genius.

“You recall when you began your training in air?” his aunt continued. “It took many lessons before you could perform even the most basic of controlled Featherbreaths. You must take care not to treat the Arcania like a toy. Magic always has a cost. And the Tower of Water is perhaps the most … inconstant.”

“I just wanted to…” Robin wasn’t really sure what he had wanted.

“To show off?” Irene finished for him with a little smile. Robin flushed. “Well, you are a boy after all. It’s in your nature to do so. You had Henry there with you, which I’m not convinced is always a steadying influence. And of course, Calypso cannot help her nature. Nymphs do tend to bring out the chest-beating in the male species, heaven help us all. And they have little common sense as far as you or I would understand the concept.”

“She didn’t tell me not to try it,” Robin said, feeling he should defend his actions, however flimsily.

“Well, no, she wouldn’t have,” Irene nodded. “Nymphs are not truly concerned with the fates of others … on the whole. They are a self-centred people. They are drawn only to the strongest of emotions. Love, grief, hate. It is probably why so many of them fell to Eris’ cause in the war, drawn by her passion. I’m fairly certain, if you had asked your tutor whether you should run with scissors, she would have suggested you attempt to cartwheel also.”

She interlaced her fingers in her lap. “You, however, are not a nymph; you are the Scion of the Arcania, and, more than practical casting, combat training or mana-management, much more importantly, you must cultivate the skill of common sense.”

Robin nodded contritely, staring at the golden rugs as his yellow hair fell into his eyes.

“Now, don’t look so grim,” Irene insisted, her clipped tones softening a little. “Your tutor may be a little … unconventional as authority figures go, but I stand by her appointment. I hired her after all. She will teach you what you need to know. And it could be worse. Nymphs can be careless with the lives of men, but at least she isn’t a siren. Those creatures are malicious.”

Robin had always thought of nymphs and sirens as the same thing. “Was it a siren we found today?” Robin asked, referring to the grave and their grisly discovery.

“Fates, no!” Irene sniffed. “Sirens are base creatures. Wickedly clever, but mostly just wicked. They live in the dark places, and they are always hungry. What you found today is an Undine. A type of Panthea you have not yet met. Distantly related to nymphs like your tutor, but only in the way that lions…” She glanced at the flickering carved fireplace. “ … Are related to fluffy housecats.”

Robin was intrigued as she continued. “Undine are fierce and powerful beings. Wiser and more knowledgeable than you could imagine, and masters, true masters, of the Tower of Water. Beautiful to a one. They would make your rather glamorous tutor look like a dull dishrag in comparison, although she at least could pass for human in a pinch. Undine could not. They are a much older race.”

She indicated a tea-table by her chair. “Whether through accident or design of the fates, you discovered the last resting place of one of these elder-beings today. Right here under our noses. More importantly though, Robin, you discovered this.”