“Yes.” He turned away restively, full of sudden impatience, to go so
that he could come back. “As soon as I can. Tomorrow. At dawn.”
She looked at him, gave him her quick, generous smile. “I hope you find your
chimera, Prince Daimon. Wish me luck with mine.”
19
I told you so,” Val said.
“You did not,” Pierce said. “You didn’t say a word.”
“I told you with everything but words. You read my mind.”
“I heard your ‘no,’” Pierce conceded reluctantly. “But you didn’t say
why.”
“How could I? She was the basilisk.”
They were sitting in what looked like an old library in the basilisk’s house.
At least it was full of bookcases. A dusty volume lay here and there on the
shelves, which mostly held an impressive collection of cobwebs. The books
seemed discarded leftovers: A Beginner’s Guide to Butterflies, Do It Yourself
Plumbing, A History of Irrigation Methods in South Wyvernhold.
There was also their supper, which they had chanced upon by roaming around the
countless rooms in the house above the sea. How long they had been there,
Pierce had no idea. After adroitly separating them from Leith, sending him off
under the care of her attendants, the sorceress had stripped them of
everything but their underwear and left them a pile of old shirts and assorted
bottoms to pick from. Somehow, they could not move while she did this. They
could not speak, not even when she pulled Val’s Wyvern’s Eye out of his
jacket and examined it curiously.
“What is this?” she asked, waving it at them; they could not blink, let
alone duck. “Oh, well.” She tossed it on the small pile of arms that
included the kitchen knife. “You won’t need it.”
Pierce wondered how he had ever imagined her beautiful. Her lips were too
rosy, her teeth too white, her curly hair too golden, her eyes an unpleasant
shade of cornflower blue. Her smile deepened slightly, offering him an
absurdly placed dimple.
“It’s called glamour,” she told him. “Works like a charm. Now. Here are
the rules. You can go wherever you like. I’ll feed you when you’re hungry.
After Sir Leith recovers from his unfortunate affliction—which he will do, I
promise—I’m sure we will all become the best of friends. Any questions?”
They stared at her. “Good. Then I will see you—when I see you.” She laughed
lightly and disappeared, along with their weapons and uniforms, without
bothering with the door.
Still wordless, too worried and disgusted to speak, they pulled on some faded,
fraying clothes and went looking for Leith.
The house, which had seemed from the road a large, light-filled coastal
mansion, full of windows and decks to watch the sea, bore no resemblance to
itself inside. It rambled interminably like an underground cave. Its hallways
were shadowy, its ceilings low, its rooms moldy and overflowing with shabby
furniture, or else, like the library, looking as though they had been hastily
abandoned. There were no windows anywhere. There were no visible doors leading
outside. There was no sign of Leith.
“Why did she do that to him?” Val demanded explosively, when, weary and
strewn with cobwebs, they stumbled into the library and found their supper. “
She turned into a basilisk, knocked him out with her breath, brought him here
to cure him—for what? It makes no sense.”
“Did he break her heart, too?” Pierce asked.
Val blinked, made a visible effort to think.
“He never mentioned anyone but our mother. And the queen. He had to tell me
about that before gossip did.” He paced, an incongruous knight in a torn pink
T-shirt and fire-engine-red pajama bottoms. Then he paused over one of the
supper trays, complete with a wineglass full of water and a plastic rose in a
bud vase. “Do you think this is safe to eat?”
Pierce shrugged and speared a forkful of some kind of fish covered in green.
His brows went up; he swallowed. “Olive sauce. Someone here can cook. I don’
t know if it’s safe, but it’s good.”
They ate, then continued the search. When they began to stumble over their
feet, they came upon a room with two frightful iron beds, thin mattresses
unrolled over bare springs, covered with rumpled, yellowing sheets and
threadbare blankets. They fell into the lumpy, sagging embraces and slept.
The house looked exactly the same when they woke.
“There is no time,” Val breathed. “There is no day or night.”
“There are no toothbrushes,” Pierce said glumly from the stained, rusty
bathroom.
“I think we’re inside a spell.”
“No kidding.”
“Our father isn’t in the house we’re in,” Val said more coherently.
“Well, there’s one. I think it was last used by something with mold on its
fangs.”
“No matter how long we look, we won’t find him. We’re in some kind of magic
bubble. A sort of alternate universe inside the real house. We could be in the
same room our father is in, right at this moment, and never know it.”
Pierce, splashing water over his face, leaned back and peered out the door at
Val. “Then how do we get to where he is?”