The man raised an eyebrow. “Yes. He’s called Lightning.”
Chantel moved closer, surprised to find she wasn’t frightened at all. The dragon fascinated her. She’d never seen a dragon, not a real one. She wished it would wake up so she could see its eyes.
“Not many people aren’t afraid of Lightning,” said the man.
His voice was rather high-pitched. He looked like he didn’t need to shave, although he was certainly old enough. Was he some sort of elf, or something?
He also had a strange accent.
“I’m . . . this is the Ago, isn’t it?” Chantel asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I did a spell,” Chantel explained. “To see into the past. So, um, I guess you’re in the past.”
“That explains it. You look a bit wavery. So you’re from the future, then?”
“From the Will-Be,” said Chantel. “Er, how far back are we?”
“For you it is the Will-Be. For me it’s only a May-Be. How would I know how far back you are?”
Chantel felt the conversation wasn’t going well. “I don’t know. Um, I beg your pardon, but I probably only have until the steam stops rising to ask some questions. Um, and I probably have to be back inside the wall by then.”
“What wall?”
Chantel turned back and looked. There was the city, climbing on top of itself to the castle at the peak. Above the castle flew the familiar dragon flag of Lightning Pass. But there was no wall.
“I—came through it,” said Chantel. “It’s definitely there in our time.”
“If you say so,” said the man. “Sooner or later, the wall is in your mind. Then the stone one is just a formality.”
“Er, what’s your name, please?” said Chantel, then bit her tongue at this shocking lapse in deportment. “I beg your pardon. Mine is Chantel.”
“Haywith,” said the man.
Chantel stared open-mouthed, all deportment forgotten, but then managed to drop into a low curtsey beside the dragon (who was still asleep). She looked up at what she now saw quite clearly was not a man, nor an elf, but a woman.
“Queen Haywith?” she asked from the ground.
“Yes, but there’s no need for such formalities here,” said the queen, flapping a hand at Chantel in a get-up gesture.
Chantel got to her feet, confused. Haywith wasn’t just a queen, but the quintessential traitor. Why had the spell taken her to speak to Haywith?
The queen dug in the pocket of her tunic, fished out another apple, and proffered it.
“No thank you, your majesty,” said Chantel. “I’m probably not supposed to eat anything in the Ago, or I might end up stuck here.”
“Suit yourself.” Queen Haywith tossed the core of her finished apple aside. Instantly a seedling sprouted from it, and began to grow into a sapling.
“Is that real?” Chantel asked.
“Probably not,” said the queen, looking at the rapidly growing apple tree. “I expect I’m asleep in the palace and having a dream. How can I help you?”
It was a question often asked rudely, but Queen Haywith clearly really meant it. The traitor queen was kind, Chantel thought, even if she was a little abrupt and dressed very oddly. Suddenly Chantel was pouring out all her difficulties—the missing sorceresses, and the Marauders without the gates. And to her shame, Chantel also started crying.
“Well, crying always helps,” said the queen. “So they built the wall, did they? Over my dead body, I presume. I told them that Marauders without the gates would be the least of their problems.”
Chantel sniffed angrily. The queen was not kind. “Well, sorry, but you’d probably cry too!”
“Probably,” said the queen. “I wasn’t being sarcastic. Crying does help. Are you finished?”
“Yes,” said Chantel with as much dignity as she could muster while surreptitiously wiping her nose.
“It’s a little hard for me to advise you given that I’ve been dead for—?”
“About five hundred years,” said Chantel.
“Really, that long? How did I—no, never mind. Don’t answer that. So you’re doing a type of past-scrying spell, then. Do you have questions for me?”
Chantel did, and she’d forgotten all about them in the confusion of discovering who she was talking to. “Yes. Um, the missing sorceresses—”
“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to help you find them,” said the queen. “Remember, I’m in the past.”
Owl’s bowels. And she couldn’t ask how to do the Buttoning. Queen Haywith seemed not to know there even was a wall.
What to ask, then? Chantel thought of the couplet that Miss Ellicott had given her to memorize.
“What were the words that you spoke and what was the vow that you broke?” she blurted.
“I beg your pardon?” said the queen frostily.
Chantel hadn’t realized the question would sound so rude. “I’m sorry. It was in a rhyme we were given. ‘Speak the words that Haywith spoke, and keep the vow that Haywith broke.’”
“The vow I took at my coronation was to protect the kingdom, of course,” said Haywith. “And I shall always keep it.”
“Right, of course,” said Chantel hastily.
“I would not dream of breaking it,” the queen said.
“Yes, sorry,” said Chantel.
“To suggest that I would is terribly offensive.”
Chantel curtseyed again and apologized again. She was wasting time. She felt sure the spell to see into the Ago wouldn’t last much longer. “Er, what about the words you spoke?”
“I am thirty-eight years old,” said the queen. “How many words do you suppose I have spoken?”
“Er, a lot,” said Chantel. “But was there anything in particular that . . . Er, can you do magic?”
The queen looked at the sleeping dragon, and arched an eyebrow in a gesture that reminded Chantel of Franklin. She smiled. “Perhaps. But I know nothing of this spell you speak of.
“Those patriarchs . . . we don’t have them in my time. I expect they turn up later. Hm.” She was still gazing at the sleeping dragon. “Is Lightning still in the city?”
“I don’t think so,” said Chantel. “I’ve never seen a dragon.” She remembered something Miss Ellicott had said. “I’ve got a snake, though. He’s my familiar.”
“What?” The queen jumped down from the branch and walked around Chantel, as if wanting to inspect her from all angles. “You managed to summon a snake? How old are you, child?”
“Thirteen,” said Chantel, turning as the queen walked, and getting a little dizzy. “I was six when I summoned him, though.”
“And where is he now?”
Chantel wouldn’t have admitted this to most people, but within the spell, it seemed wisest to tell the truth. “He went into my head.”
The queen looked startled. “That’s where he is now?”
The question took Chantel by surprise. “No. He’s—” He wasn’t in her leg anymore. Chantel took a careful inventory. “He doesn’t seem to be there at all anymore, actually.” She felt a sharp pang of loss.
“How can that be?”