“Just because he’s been arrested doesn’t mean he’s guilty!” said Bowser hotly.
Miss Flivvers gave him a look that said she’d given up expecting deportment from him. He was, after all, a boy. “For what did they arrest him, pray tell?”
“They said he was a spy!”
“I suspected as much.”
“I don’t think he’s a spy,” said Anna. “He’s nice. What will they do to him, Miss Flivvers?”
“It is not our place to ask that,” said Miss Flivvers.
“But—”
“If you wish to have any influence in deciding the Marauder boy’s fate,” said Miss Flivvers, turning to Chantel, “you must continue to do as the patriarchs say.”
Chantel had been only half-listening to this. She was frantically worried about Franklin. She was also thinking about Queen Haywith, and the things she had said. “Miss Flivvers, what’s Miss Ellicott’s familiar?”
“If she had wanted you to know that, she would have told you.”
“Please, Miss Flivvers. It might be important.”
Miss Flivvers sniffed austerely. “If you must know, a snake.”
“Oh! Like mine!” Chantel thought about this. “How come I’ve never seen it?”
“She outgrew it,” said Miss Flivvers.
Chantel had never heard of people outgrowing their familiars. She felt Japheth awaken suddenly and start slithering around her spine, and though it was extremely uncomfortable and disconcerting, the thought of him leaving her forever was even worse. “Did it, er, ever go into her head or anything like that?”
“I think it’s very disrespectful, Chantel, to suggest that your headmistress might have carried a reptile about in her head. Miss Ellicott was—is a lady of very correct deportment.”
“I just wondered—”
“She simply outgrew it. She became mature and understood her place in society, and put aside snakes and other such unwomanly interests. This is certainly not a conversation we ought to be having about Miss Ellicott at all.”
Chantel saw she was going to have to abandon this line of inquiry. “Miss Flivvers, how did Queen Haywith die?”
“Legend has it that she was locked away in the castle’s highest tower, where she wept for her sins until she drowned.”
“That doesn’t sound very likely,” said Chantel, thinking of the matter-of-fact woman eating an apple in a tree. She had said crying helped.
“It is presumably a metaphorical way of stating that she pined away as she reflected upon her sins . . . stopped eating, perhaps.”
“Like everyone in Lightning Pass is about to.” Chantel thought of Franklin’s description of what the different kinds of Marauders would do to the sorceresses. “Miss Flivvers, do you think the Marauders without the gates even have the sorceresses?”
“The patriarchs have said so,” said Miss Flivvers. “And that ought to be enough for you.”
What an odd way to answer the question. “Is it enough for you? Do you believe it?”
Miss Flivvers looked at the closed door as if it might be spying on them. “No,” she murmured.
“Then what do you think happened?” said Chantel.
“I think—” Miss Flivvers’s haughty manner vanished in a moment, and she looked as young and confused as Chantel herself felt. “I think it was the patriarchs themselves who took the sorceresses.”
“Oh.” Chantel remembered Queen Haywith’s words: Whoever had taken the sorceresses wanted power. She suddenly felt certain Miss Flivvers was right. “We’ve got to—”
“This changes nothing,” said Miss Flivvers, becoming herself again. “You must find the Buttoning.”
“But the patriarchs—”
“May be misleading us, yes. Still, if we wish to keep Miss Ellicott and the other sorceresses safe, we must pretend that we do not suspect their prevarication.”
“Just do as they say?”
“Yes, indeed. And graciously.”
“I don’t trust them,” said Chantel.
“Nor do I,” said Miss Flivvers. “But we must dance to the tune that is played for us.”
“I don’t th—I beg your pardon, I don’t think so,” said Chantel. “I’m going to talk to the king.”
“The king!” Miss Flivvers couldn’t have looked more surprised if Chantel had said she was going to stand on her head atop Seven Buttons. “What earthly good will that do?”
“I don’t know,” said Chantel. “But he ought to be able to stop the patriarchs if anyone can. And he really ought to do something about those Marauders without the gates.”
Anna and Bowser had been watching Chantel in silence, as if she were some kind of strange phenomenon, Chantel thought irritatedly. The Girl with a Snake in Her Head.
“We’re coming with you,” said Anna, and Bowser nodded vigorously.
“You can’t,” said Chantel. Down, snake. “I mean, don’t, please. You need to stay here and—”
She looked at Miss Flivvers, and decided not to add and make sure the girls are safe. It wouldn’t be kind. But she was relieved to see that Anna and Bowser understood.
If Chantel hadn’t already spoken to Queen Haywith, she would never have had the nerve to go up to the castle.
Still, the higher she climbed, the more nervous she became.
The castle perched on the top of the mighty block of stone that formed the peak of Lightning Pass. It was accessible only by a narrow stairway, so ancient that it was impossible to tell whether it had been carved from the peak, or built on.
She started up, careful where she put her feet. Here and there a step had crumbled away completely. There was an iron railing, rusted and bent. Chantel took care not to lean on it.
She stopped to rest, and looked down on the whole city . . . its neighborhoods and factories, its houses sitting almost on top of each other, its bridges and courtyards. All filled with her people, the people of Lightning Pass.
Beyond that, you could see the Roughlands in every direction, except south where the sea flashed in the sunlight. Everything close to the walls, though, was cut off from sight. She couldn’t see the Marauder army.
It was funny, she thought. If you didn’t know better you might think that all the power in the city rested here, at the top.
The girl is nearly at the top
of the stairs.
Did we expect her to do this?
Yes.
But we did not expect her to do it so soon.
Well, she has chosen.
This is the greatest danger she has yet faced.
After all
the snake is in her head.
The snake is in all of her.
It is a very serious situation.
But if she does not face this danger, all is lost.
Yes.
All is lost.
And if she faces it and dies?
What then?
14
IN WHICH CHANTEL LEARNS SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS
Somehow Chantel had expected things to be royal at the top of the stairs. She’d expected sentries, like at the gate in Seven Buttons.
Instead there was a woman sitting on a stool, knitting.
Chantel curtseyed. “Excuse me, ma’am, I—”
“Just a minute.” The woman counted stitches to the end of the row. “There. Yes?”
“I . . . I’m here to see the king.” It suddenly seemed like a ridiculous claim.
The woman set her knitting down carefully in a basket at her feet. “What’s your name?”