Azalea tapped her toe against the ground, the misty air stifling her.
“We…don’t have much magic left in the palace,” she managed to say. “We could probably find it, if I had all the girls search—”
Keeper took Azalea’s hand from the silver doorframe into both of his, and pressed his lips against it.
“He did what?” Bramble cried.
“I know, I know,” said Azalea. She sliced bread with a vengeance.
It was afternoon, and Azalea had just finished telling them the entire story at tea in the kitchen. The girls’ eyebrows had risen and furrowed with each part of the telling, and at the end, their eyes were circles. Their muffins and tea had been forgotten as they stared at Azalea across the scrubbed servants’ table.
“What a rotten shilling punter!” said Bramble, tearing her bread to bits. “I can’t believe he stole our things! Especially the watch! We stole that watch first, fair and square!”
“Something magic?” said Eve, passing out the sliced cheese. “But what’s left? I suppose there was the harpsichord—although that broke before the King was even born.”
“Well,” said Azalea, “there’s the wraith cloak—”
“The what?”
“The cloak that would make you invisible. The High King would use it to slip into the city unseen. That wasn’t unmagicked, but it was given away. No one knows where it is now, but surely it’s fallen to pieces. So, that just leaves—”
“The tea set,” said everyone in unison.
Azalea sighed and dipped a piece of her bread in her raspberry tea. “Right. But I haven’t seen that for ages. Even the sugar teeth—they disappeared after that first night. Does anyone know what happened to it?”
No one had.
Clover, who had been feeding Lily sips of tea with a shaking teacup, remained flushed and silent through the entire exchange, her rose red lips pursed. Now, all of a sudden, she burst into sobs.
“It was my fault!” she cried. “I did it!”
Everyone exchanged glances before turning back to Clover, who sobbed into her napkin as though she had unbottled her heart. She even looked pretty with a dribbling wet face.
“Um, sorry?” said Azalea.
“I broke it!” said Clover. “I broke the tea set!” Hiccupping, she raised her chin, defiant. “With a fire poker!”
The story spilled from her between stutters and shuddering breaths. It seemed as though she had been aching to confess.
Several months ago, when she had been ill, Mrs. Graybe set the magic tea set to tend to her. It kept pushing at Clover and nipping at her to taste the nasty-smelling tea, and finally, when she couldn’t take it any longer, she took the fire poker and bashed the tea set in. And not just once—repeatedly. There were still dents in the wall.
The girls gasped at this part.
The story became even more scandalous. Clover gathered up the pieces of the tea set in Lily’s baby blanket and, late at night, slipped out and dumped the tea set into the garden stream.
“And the pieces—the pieces—they were still wriggling, and—oh! It was like I had drowned them alive!” Clover hiccupped. “But I am not sorry! I hated that horrid tea set!”
By this time, all the girls were laughing so hard they could hardly breathe. Bramble laughed so hard tea almost came out of her nose. Azalea laughed, more in shock that honey-sweet Clover could do something so violent.
“The teeth must have escaped while you murdered the rest of it,” said Bramble, cough-laughing into her napkin. “Ha ha ha! You know, sometimes I think Clover is harboring some deep, dark shocking secret. Fire poker! Ba-hahahahaaa!”
The girls laughed all over again. Even Clover managed a small, wobbly smile. Azalea rubbed her thumb, remembering how the sugar teeth had nipped her fingers.
“I suppose that settles it,” she said. “We’ve got to find the sugar teeth.”
That night, in their newly mended slippers from the shoemaker’s, Azalea had the girls search for the sugar teeth where she last remembered having them—in the silver forest. They had never properly explored the silver bushes and prickly pines off the path, and the girls searched back and forth, setting ornaments swaying and upsetting the bushes with a rustling fabric sound. Flora and Goldenrod even brought sugar cubes, in case they found them.
Thoroughly late for dance practice, the girls emerged from the sparkling foliage displeased, black dresses coated in silver dust.
“It’s like looking for a needle in a stack of hay,” said Delphinium as they made their way to the bridge. “Silver hay.”
“The sugar teeth aren’t down here, let’s face it,” said Bramble. “They would have attacked one of us by now. They’ve probably run away. I’d bet a harold they’ve thrown themselves off the garden bridge to join their beastly comrades. Anyway, who cares if we set Keeper free or not? He’s creepy.”