The simultaneous scream sounded from the twins. Both clasped their hands over their mouths, their eyes wide with horror. Azalea followed their gaze.
There, in patches of light, a scratched-up Fairweller held a weeping Clover in his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder. He murmured into her ear.
Delphinium screamed.
“Oh, Clover, how could you?” said Eve.
“Is he a good kisser?” said Hollyhock.
The King had no words as he strode to them. In an instant he had torn Fairweller away from Clover, wound up, and boxed Fairweller straight in the face.
Fairweller stumbled backward and fell to the floor, glass crunching beneath him.
“You may fill out your resignation paperwork tomorrow,” said the King. “Ex-Prime Minister Fairweller!”
The group of limping, ragged girls and gentlemen stumbled and were carried to the library. Azalea trailed at the end, wishing for everything to be over so she could fall into a deep, deep sleep, snuggled in pillows and downy blankets. She rubbed her lip, which stung, and her hand brought back blood. Instictively she fumbled for her handkerchief, and in a panic, realized she didn’t have it.
She ran back through the entrance hall to the ballroom, her gait uneven, trying to recall if the King had unknotted it from the end of the fire poker. She scuffed the shards of glass, searching among the fallen drapery.
Just as she spotted the fire poker, by the last mirror’s mounting and decidedly without the handkerchief—Azalea now remembered the King plucking it from the end—a hand slapped across her mouth and yanked her backward.
At least, it felt like a hand. She couldn’t see it. Another invisible arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her off her feet. Azalea kicked and struggled against the invisible force. Keeper!
“Yes, cry out,” said a chocolate voice in her ear. “He will come looking for you. Compassion or some tripe like that. And when he does—”
His hand shook over her mouth, and Azalea took courage. He hadn’t strength at all—surely he had very little magic left! She spun on one foot, snagged at the invisible force with all her might, feeling the coarsely woven fabric in her grip. She leaped and rolled, clutching the end of the cloak, biting her lip to keep silent.
Keeper appeared headfirst, and clawed the end of the cloak before the rest of him appeared. He yanked. Azalea held tight, sliding across the marble. She twisted the cloak around her wrists for a better hold, sending reams of pain up her arms.
“Ah!” said Keeper. “You want to dance the Entwine? This is a rather untraditional dance position.”
He pulled Azalea to her feet, and Azalea leaned back. Keeper let the cloak go slack. Azalea, with wavering balance, spun and ducked as he slashed at her, across the ballroom floors, to the windows.
“You know,” he said, panting, “I really did invent the dance. No lady ever won. As hard as they tried. You came closest, I think.”
Keeper pulled the cloak to him and boxed Azalea weakly across the face. It didn’t blast colors in her vision as it had before, but her grip wavered as the world around her spun. She leaned back, nearly out of one of the broken windows, dizzy. The breeze and snow swept through her unpinned hair. Keeper yanked—
—and slipped.
Hairpins clinked across the ballroom floor. Keeper’s feet swept out in a great arc from under him, and he fell back onto the marble. Azalea toppled through the window with the cloak, falling into the spiky broken branches.
It took a moment for the blotches to clear. Azalea had to steady her breathing and calm her pain. Every part of her ached and stung. With shaking hands, she slowly untangled herself from the bushes. The horses, which had been shooed out the windows and into the front court, watched Azalea’s valiant fight with the thornbushes with lazy horsey indifference. LadyFair even came to the bushes and nosed Azalea’s hair, sniffing with great nostrils.
Azalea pushed LadyFair’s nose out of the way with the same vigor she shoved the prickly, scratching branches aside. Her hand was smeared with blood. She managed to push herself back through the window, remembering the wraith cloak just in time, before Keeper could leap at her.
She threw the torn, ragged fabric over her shoulders. A flickering shudder ran through her body, and her skirts disappeared. The world blurred in a glass weave.
She braced herself for Keeper’s assault, but it did not come. Azalea looked about her.
The ballroom was empty.
The oath. He was going to use his last bit of strength on the King, and he already knew they had gone to the library. Gripping the cloak at her neck, Azalea gathered her skirts and ran.
CHAPTER 28