The black aura about the walls faded back into brick. The storage room was empty again, glass scattered across the floor.
A brilliant feeling overcame Azalea. It drowned out the throbbing and the pain in her ears. She sprang up the stairs, racing with a newfound energy. She had to save her family.
CHAPTER 26
The palace wasn’t the palace anymore.
Azalea emerged from the fireplace to find their beds of patched bedsheets and lumpy pillows and the round table gone, replaced with curling, crystalline baroque furniture. A chandelier dripped from the domed ceiling of painted cupids, and the darkness felt almost tangible swirling about her. The windows—no longer draped—now were thickly covered with a mess of thorny branches, pressing against the panes and strangling out the light.
“Just like in the history books,” said Azalea. “With the palace surrounded by thorns—”
FFFFFput!
A tiny arrow, just the length of her hand with a little metal heart for the tip, had imbedded itself in the wall next to Azalea. Azalea pried it from the wall and looked up. Painted cupids swam about on the ceiling.
“Oh, that’s not in the history books!” Azalea threw the arrow at them. The cupids scattered. She dove for the door.
FFFFputputputput!
A dozen tiny arrows hit the door as Azalea slammed it behind her. She wondered how much of the palace had been magicked, and looked at her handkerchief. If it was anything near as strong as the sword—and Azalea knew it was much stronger than it had been before—then perhaps Keeper wouldn’t be able to magic anymore. It might even mean he would remain trapped inside the palace, like he had been trapped in the passage. This gave Azalea hope. First—her sisters and the King. Then she would find Keeper.
Azalea ran in a maze of gaudy, unfamiliar halls, searching in vain for stairs or anything that would lead her to the library or the ballroom, which was the only room in the household that had more than one mirror. The portraits had been magicked, and old parliament members and great-aunts leered down at her with bloodred eyes. Voices murmured and whispered, beyond her conscious mind.
In a swirling golden hall, which may at one time have been the portrait gallery, Azalea caught a flicker of light coming closer.
“Oh!” she called, taking a step back. “Who is that?”
A small clickety click click sounded as the candle drew nearer, far too low to be held by anyone. It moved on its own. The little brass dish had been split and the ends curved to points beneath it, giving it legs. It looked like a toddler, its candle to the nub, and it stumbled around in lost little circles.
“Oh…there now,” said Azalea, leaning just in front of it. It reminded her of the sugar teeth. “Do you know how to get to the ballroom?”
The candle went foof.
“Ack!” said Azalea. She smothered the fire in the folds of her skirt, leaving the odor of smoked fabric. The candle skittered away on its ungainly brass legs. Azalea made to chase after it for a good kick, but stopped. A much larger clickety click click sounded at the end of the hall. In fact, it was more of a clankety clank clank clank.
The tiny candle fled behind a sofa leg. Light flared up at the end of the hall, and a giant mass of tangled iron clanked into view. Candles dripped from it. Azalea recognized the old chandelier from the north attic.
Azalea jumped to the fireplace in a billow of skirts as the chandelier sprang at her. She overturned the poker stand and snatched up a hearth brush. The chandelier dove at her, flame first. Heart screaming, head throbbing, Azalea jumped aside and smashed the hearth brush against it. Two candles went out, then sprang to life again.
The chandelier reared up. Azalea ran, leaping in bounds.
It smashed after her, onto the long, thick crimson rug—
Snap!
The rug encased the fixture in a smooth, snapdragon movement and curled in on itself, smothering the light and crushing the chandelier with a sickening crunch. Azalea panted as the last glowing light in the rug died.
“Right,” said Azalea, relieved she had jumped over the rug instead of on it. “Let’s not touch that.”
The tiny candle clickety clicked to her, timid. Its flame was low, as though apologizing.
“Have you seen the King? Or the girls?” said Azalea. “The ballroom?”
The flame sprung to life and took off, little legs skittering like mad. Azalea, hope blossoming through her, ran after it.
Minutes later, through twisted golden halls of gaudy ornamentation and staircases with whispering pictures, Azalea skidded through the entrance hall and into the ballroom. This portion of the palace, she was relieved to see, had not been magicked at all; they remained the boring paneled wainscot white-ceilinged rooms they had been before.
She ran to the first ballroom mirror and nearly screamed.
Delphinium stared back at her. Tears streaked her cheeks, and she hugged herself, shivering. Her eyelashes were frosted. On her pretty, peaked face, next to her ear, slashed three jagged scratch marks. They bled.