“That lock’s nearly impossible to pick,” said Eve, tugging on the ends of her pretty dark hair, which she did when she was worried. “That could be a problem.”
“Our problem is that we’ve been getting caught,” said Azalea. She carried both Jessamine and Kale, one on each arm, and rested on the landing. She leaned against the wallpaper, underneath the dusty portraits of Great-Aunts Mugwort and Buttercup, and exhaled. Every morning these past months, when Mr. Pudding arrived with the Harold Herald, the girls took it from his hands and pored over it, eating their porridge and sorting through every article, hoping for news of the war. Their loyalty ended there. The King could manage himself. Clover once suggested writing him, a thought they quickly squashed. Azalea was sure her pen would snap in two if she tried.
“No more dancing,” said Azalea. “We can’t get caught again. This is our secret.”
“He’ll write the King—”
“Oh, the King,” Azalea spat. The words burned, singeing the air. “What right has he to know? The King is not a part of this family!”
Clover cradled Lily’s curly head to her chest, biting her lip. Flora and Goldenrod clasped their dainty hands in each other’s. Azalea tried to soften her words, but words from a tight throat could only come out taut.
“He’s not,” she said. “No need to let him know.”
Tap. Tap. Clinkety tap-tap.
It had been two weeks since they had last danced, and Azalea lay in bed, awake again. A dream hadn’t roused her this time, but rather an odd tinny noise that had been clinking across the wooden floor of their room, under their beds and butting against the wainscot with a clinkety tap-tap. It sounded like…well, quite honestly, it sounded like a spider dragging a spoon.
Azalea knew it couldn’t possibly be that (or, rather, she hoped it wasn’t), but even so, she heaved herself from the bed and grasped one of Hollyhock’s boots, strewn across the floor. The tapping now clinked from the fireplace, and Azalea caught a glint of silver among the soot. Raising the boot, she tiptoed to the unlit hearth.
The fireplace in their room was massive—so large that Azalea could stand up in it and her skirts wouldn’t brush the sides. The silver hopped. Azalea dove.
In a puff of soot, Azalea found herself sitting in the hearth, and the silver bit skittering away like mad. Azalea grabbed at it and was rewarded with a very sharp, very familiar bite.
“You!” Azalea seethed, leaping up. Now she recognized the half-hopping half-skitter motion. The sugar teeth! Azalea sprang and laid a heavy foot on the teeth. They struggled beneath her bare foot like a mouse in a trap.
Still in the hearth, soot streaking her nightgown, Azalea grasped the sugar teeth tightly, so they wouldn’t nip her, and examined them. They had been dented and were now black with soot. Azalea wondered what they were doing about, wandering the palace on their own. Normally they wouldn’t leave sight of the rest of the magic tea set in the kitchen, clanking against the cream bowl and flicking sugar cubes at anyone who happened to pass by. Come to think of it, Azalea hadn’t seen that tea set for several months, at least. She leaned against the fireplace brick wall, wondering where it had gone.
And then she pulled away from the fireplace wall, because the brick her shoulder had leaned against was curiously uneven. Forgetting the sugar teeth—which hopped out of her hand and skittered away—she traced her fingers over the etching. It was hardly visible in the dim light, and covered in soot. In fact, because of the shape of the mantel, unless one actually stood in the fireplace, one wouldn’t see it.
Azalea’s heart pounded against her nightgown. She brushed the soot away from the brick. Her fingers shook. The form of the etching grew discernible—a half-moon D, with three lines slashed through the middle.
A magic passage!
CHAPTER 7
Azalea stared at the wall. Her heart beat in her ears.
A magic passage! In their room! She tried to remember everything Lord Bradford had said about passages, those months ago. The King used them as storage rooms now, yes, but, well, magic was magic! Azalea wondered how large this room was. If it didn’t have too many trunks or boxes about the sides, could it possibly be large enough to—
Azalea curled her toes in the soot, aching to leap in the air.
How had Lord Bradford said to open it? Rubbing silver on it. Well, that was fortunate! Azalea cast her eyes about for the silver teeth and found them sitting at the edge of the rug.
“Come along,” she said, in her nicest whisper. “I won’t hurt you.”
The sugar teeth skittered away.