The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (53 page)

They were in a tidy little dorm
room. Behind them on the floor lay the book they’d just come out of. Chloe
picked it up and read the cover.

“
New Perspectives on Clergy Life
by L.M. Flibbertigibbet.” She tucked the book into her pocket. “We’d better
keep this close in case we need to escape. Now for our disguise…”

“Got it.”

Bazzlejet had already put on a
women’s green robe. He found a spare in the laundry pile and handed it to
Chloe.

“You don’t waste any time,” Chloe remarked
as she pulled the robe over her head. She made sure to cinch the hood to hide
her face. Then she stood up straight to stretch and felt oddly unbalanced. The
floor moved beneath her feet.

“Whoa,” she said. “Do you feel that?”

Bazzlejet steadied himself. “Yeah.
I feel kind of seasick.”

“Is it from being the book so
long?” Chloe asked.

“Maybe,” Bazzlejet said, “but never
had that problem before.”

The strange feeling of vertigo
stayed with them as they snuck out of the dormitory and onto the castle
grounds. Outside it was eerily quiet. There was no hint of the vivacity that
used to fill Ivywild from the castle steps to the market square even though
there were still plenty of people. Chloe and Bazzlejet lost themselves easily
among the crowds, but all the people went about their business quietly with no
enthusiasm. There was at least one red cape for every three citizens.

Chloe pulled her robe tighter around
herself. “This doesn’t feel like home.”

“It’s under martial law,” Bazzlejet
said in his most serious tone. “This is just sad.”

They walked down a tree-lined
boulevard that led to Ivywild River. The leaves rustled noisily overhead.

“Does it seem windier than usual to
you?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah,” Bazzlejet said. “And would
you have a look at that?”

Ivywild River was not flowing. A
dead sprite floated by on the stagnant water.

Knots of rage formed in Chloe’s
stomach. What had happened to her home?
This is all wrong!

The ground lurched and she stumbled
backwards. Bazzlejet caught her even though he was having trouble keeping his
own footing.

“Is it possible we’re just in
another book about Ivywild?” Chloe asked. “This can’t be home. It just can’t.”

For once there was no humor in
Bazzlejet’s amber eyes. “This is real. What are we going to do about it?”

Chloe glared at the red capes
guarding the castle steps. “We have to get inside.”

It was not easy, but thanks to
Chloe’s knowledge of the servants’ passages, they were able to crawl into the
kitchen. It took a lot of scuttling on hands and knees since the passages were
built only to accommodate the average Gnome. Afterwards they had to wait in a
cramped cupboard full of onions until the coast was clear.

“Phew!” Bazzlejet exclaimed as they
burst out of the cupboard. “I’m gonna reek for days!”

“It’s not so bad,” Chloe said. “I
used to hide behind the salted fish barrels and listen to the kitchen servants
gossip. My maids never understood why I smelled fishy all the time.”

They ducked behind a cutting block
as a Gnome walked by.

“Once we’re out of the kitchen we
should have no problems getting to the sixth floor,” Bazzlejet said. “After
that, it’s all nobility’s quarters. What do you think?”

“We go outside and fly up to
Violet’s balcony. It faces away from the crowds. If there aren’t any air
patrols, nobody should see us.”

They left the kitchen and went to
the elevatree. Chloe was appalled by the way she saw red capes treating the
servants. She recognized Violet’s handmaid, Bea. The old Gnome struggled to
carry a basket full of dirty drinking mugs. Her little arms gave in and she
dropped it. There was a crunch of breaking glass.

“Watch it!” shouted a red cape.

Bea bent over to pick up the basket
and the red cape kicked her. “Be careful with those, you old crone!”

Shaking, Chloe started towards the
red cape. Bazzlejet grabbed her arm.

“You can’t do anything about that
right now,” he whispered.

“I could vaporize him!” Chloe
hissed.

But Bazzlejet was right, of course.
They couldn’t risk alerting everyone to their presence, so they took the next
gondola up to the sixth floor. They walked out onto a promenade above the
castle square. To Chloe’s chagrin, there were a couple of red capes outside smoking
their pipes.

“We should pitch them over the
edge,” Chloe said. “I bet they can’t even fly!”

“Let’s just have a seat over there
and pretend like we’re studying or something,” Bazzlejet said. He pointed to a
bench near the low wall that encircled the promenade.

With a frown, Chloe walked over to
the bench. Before she got there she had the uneasy feeling of imbalance again.
Dizzy, she stumbled the last few steps and caught herself on the wall. She
glanced over the top of it and almost got sick.

“
Bazzlejet
,” she squeaked. “
Come
over here!
”

He joined her at the wall. “Are you
okaaaaay…” he trailed off, staring at the scene below.

Now Chloe knew why they felt motion
sick.

They were high enough to see past
the outermost castle wall. There was nothing beyond it but sky.

Ivywild was airborne.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Chloe’s head spun. There was
nothing more disorienting than having the whole bulk of her ancestral home
floating above the ground. And it was moving. Fast.

“How?” Bazzlejet said. “There
aren’t enough machines in the world to lift the whole castle!”

“I don’t hear any machines,” Chloe
said as she listened closely. When she was able to pry her eyes away from the
view below, she glanced upwards. All the crystals on the castle towers flashed
bright purple.

“That’s unusual,” Bazzlejet said,
staring with her. “Why are they so bright?”

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t
understand. The crystals drew their power from the spring below the castle…”

“But now there’s nothing below the
castle,” Bazzlejet said.

“So where is the power coming
from?”

“Heads up,” Bazzlejet whispered.

The red capes were snuffing out
their pipes and heading back into the castle. As soon as the last one left the
promenade, Chloe and Bazzlejet conjured their wings. They flew up and around
one of the towers and then hid on an eave while a patrolman paced across a
suspension bridge below them. After that, they darted around the side of the
main tower and had a straight shot up to the balcony of Violet’s room.

Chloe peered through the balcony
doors. The bed was messy. Abandoned boots lay in a heap on the floor next to a
dirty red cape uniform. Wrinkling her nose, Chloe said, “It looks like they’ve
turned Violet’s room into some kind of officer’s quarters. She’d be so sad if
she knew. Look, they’ve destroyed her collection of rare herbs.”

Violet’s precious bottles of
healing greens looked like the victims of a late night slingshot contest. They
lay in broken shards on her dresser.

Bazzlejet’s ears were pricked up
and he was listening closely to a tune being sung off key by someone inside. A
tipsy red cape swaggered into Violet’s room. The foam from a stein of some
potent beverage clung to his beard. His eyes were bloodshot and it was a
miracle he stayed upright long enough to make it to the bed.

Another red cape poked his head in
and asked, “You okay, Stilskoats?”

The tipsy man on the bed waved a
hand. “Been celebrating all night. Duke promoted me for sniffing out those
rebels.”

Chloe’s skin prickled.
No!
She let out a whimper. Bazzlejet clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Right good job you did, man,” said
the red cape at the door. “I heard you escaped from fifty Slaugh.”

“It was a hundred Slaugh,” said the
drunken man loudly. “And they got all my men. I had to drink their share for
them last night, poor buggers. We were outnumbered by those cutthroats.”

“Rest up,” said the other man.
“We’ll need you come nightfall.”     

They listened to the sound of boots
thudding away from the room. The drunk man dozed off on the bed.

Chloe trembled. “They’ve found it!
They’ve found Woodman’s Hall! We’re too late!”

“Calm down,” Bazzlejet said, though
he looked rather stricken himself. “We just need a way in and we’ll put a stop
to this.”

Overwhelmed, Chloe buried her face
in her hands. “But it’s just the two of us! And they have a Pyxis Charm and a
flying castle and…oh! It’s no use! We’ve got to get out and warn the others!”

Bazzlejet shook his head. “And then
what?”

“And then…” Chloe sighed. “And then
we wait around with everyone else. No, that won’t do. You’re right, we must get
inside and do something.” She turned her sights on the man sleeping in Violet’s
bed. “Let’s start with him.”

They snuck through the balcony door
without arousing little more than a snort from the sleeping red cape.

“Shall we put a spell on him, or
torture him?” Bazzlejet whispered.

Chloe spied one of the vials of
broken herbs and got an idea.

“See this yellow stuff?” she
whispered, scooping the herb off the floor. “This is Violet’s own creation.
It’s a powdered mix of bellberry and lichens. If we can get that man to swallow
it, he will believe that he is a teapot for a few hours.”

Bazzlejet blinked. “How is that
medicinal, exactly? I thought you said these were all healing herbs.”

“Well it tends to keep a patient
sedated if he believes he’s a teapot, doesn’t it? Not much he can do. Violet
poured some in Garland’s soup when we were younger. He sat on a table for half
a day and made bubbling noises.”

The red cape was snoring loudly.
Pinching her nose shut because of his foul breath, Chloe dropped some of the yellow
mixture into his open mouth.

The red cape sat up with a choking
noise and glanced around wildly. Chloe and Bazzlejet ducked. The one thing
Chloe hadn’t counted on was how the mixture might react with the dozen steins
of ale the red cape had in him.

The red cape propped his arm up at
his waist and lifted his other arm at a bent angle to his side. His eyes went
unfocused and he teetered on the edge of the bed.

Chloe rose from her hiding spot.

“Cup of tea?” the red cape asked.
He leaned sideways so that his bent arm tipped down like a spout.

“Why yes, thank you,” Chloe said.
She winked at Bazzlejet and cupped her hands near the red cape, catching a
pretend stream of tea. “I’d like to take a cup to the Duke of Briar,” she said.
“Do you know where I can find him?”

“The throne room,” said the red
cape. “Squirt of lemon?”

“No thanks,” Chloe said. She
grabbed Bazzlejet by the elbow and inched towards the hallway. As an
afterthought, she sealed the red cape’s lips shut with a coating of frost.

“What did you do that for?”
Bazzlejet asked.

“Teapots are known to whistle,”
Chloe said.  “Let’s go this way.”

They sidled down the hall towards
her old room.

“But the throne room is upstairs,”
Bazzlejet said.

“Yes, it is,” Chloe said. “So we go
this way.”

They ducked behind a colored glass
column as a red cape walked past. When they came to Chloe’s room, she put her
ear to the wall and listened. “It doesn’t sound like anyone is inside, but just
to be sure…” she took a pin from her hair and jammed it into the crack between the
wall and the door. She flicked it with her finger and it gave off a satisfying
hum.

“A detection charm?” Bazzlejet
asked.

Chloe nodded. “A trick I learned a
long time ago so I could burst in and startle the maids when they were
cleaning. Sounds like it’s clear.” She twisted the knob and entered the room.

All the furniture and trinkets she
loved so much had been scattered topsy-turvy and pushed against the walls. In
their place were piles upon piles of confiscated weapons. There were swords,
longbows, axes, daggers, slingshots and even farm tools. Somebody had filled
her luxurious soaking tub to the brim with arrows and other ammunition.

“They’ve turned my room into an
armory!” she wailed.

“We’ve no time to waste in here,”
Bazzlejet said. “We need to get to the throne room!”

Chloe gave him a withering look.
“Don’t get your ruffled panties in a bunch. I know precisely what I’m doing.”

She climbed over a pile of pitchforks
to get to her closet. With some effort, she cleared a wide enough space to open
it. She peeked inside. “Good. They didn’t disturb anything.”

Bazzlejet let out an impatient
sigh. “This is no time to worry about your clothes.”

Chloe ignored him. She pushed back
the bulk of dresses hanging in the closet and felt around on its ceiling. She found
the end of a curled-up rope ladder. She gave it a tug and the ladder unraveled
until the end dangled just a few feet from the floor—the perfect height for a
little girl to reach up and grab hold. She was no longer such a little girl, so
the rope looked more flimsy than she remembered. It led up to a narrow hatch in
the ceiling.

Bazzlejet poked his head inside. He
spied the ladder and his eyes lit up. “Nifty. How long has that been here?”

“Since I was five,” Chloe said. “I
begged Daddy to make me a secret passage so I could visit him in the throne
room without having a ton of servants following me. I used to climb up after
supper and make him tell me stories…shhhh! I hear voices.”

A deep voice could be heard coming
from the room above but it was too muffled to make out the words.

“Where does it come out?” Bazzlejet
asked.