She just managed not to clutch her head in pain. “What happened to your snake, Miss Ellicott?”
“I outgrew him,” said Miss Ellicott coldly. “I became an adult, and I put away childish things. And you? What about you, Chantle? Have you put your familiar away?”
“No,” gasped Chantel, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Good,” said Miss Ellicott. “For the moment, there is power in that. And we need power.”
“Why?” said Chantel.
Miss Ellicott turned to the king. “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. It seems she is going to keep asking why.”
“In order to help her king,” said the king. “What could be more fitting?”
“Chantle,” said Miss Ellicott. “Far too many people have worked far too hard to bring events to this point, to have you spoil it now.”
“You should want to help,” said one of the other sorceresses.
“What could be more proper for a girl than to serve her king and country?” said another.
“I don’t understand what you want from me!” Chantel said, much more angrily than she’d intended. Japheth thrashed and burned in her head. She struggled for deportment. The sorceresses were using lots of it. Chantel drew on it as hard as she could—she summoned deportment—and managed to still the snake’s antics.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Ellicott,” she said. “But could you please explain why you wanted me here, and what it is you want me to do?”
“We ourself shall explain,” said the king.
Chantel turned to face him. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Do sit down,” he said.
She sat, and folded her hands in her lap, and kept her eyes on his face, as she had always been taught. Which turned out later to be a serious mistake.
“It has long seemed to us,” said the king, “that the patriarchs do not govern the city in the best possible manner. They control everything: the soldiers, the sorceresses, the markets, the money, and, most of all, Seven Buttons.
“Therefore we have long sought a means of displacing the patriarchs, and returning the city to the king’s own rule, as it was in the time of our grandfather’s grandfather, before our dissolute cousins lost the reins of kingship. We have summoned the sorceresses here to help us with this, and now we have summoned you.”
He looked much larger than he had before, and kinder, and his voice seemed very wise. A Gleam spell, Chantel thought. One of the sorceresses is doing it. She ignored the Gleam. “What is it that you want the sorceresses to do, Your Majesty?”
“Why, use magic, of course, to overthrow the patriarchs, and to turn the soldiers to our side. And you, of course, will use your familiar. You can use him, can’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” Chantel admitted. “But, Your Majesty. If you use magic to fight the patriarchs, people could get hurt.”
The king smiled. “A wise man once said, Chantel, that one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
“I see. And once all the, er, eggs are broken, Your Majesty, what will happen?”
“Why, we shall be a true king, of course!” said the king. “And we shall command the soldiers to make quick work of the Marauders without the gates, and we shall order the sorceresses to seal Seven Buttons, and we shall cause the dr—the sorceresses to patrol the city and make certain that nothing threatens our reign, from within or without the walls.”
“And . . . and that will make things better for the people?” said Chantel.
“Of course!” said the king. “We shall control the markets, and gold shall fill the royal coffers again, and the castle will be full of servants, and thus the people will all be better off.”
He’s not stupid, Chantel thought. I can see that in his eyes, no matter what stupid things he says with his mouth.
“But the people . . . Will food still be expensive?”
“If it is,” said the king, “at least the money will go to a worthy cause.”
Meaning himself. “Thank you for explaining everything, Your Majesty,” she said. “You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about, once I get home. I—”
“You’re not going home, Chantel,” said the king, with an annoying little smile.
He stood up. Chantel hastily scrambled to her feet too; it would not do to sit while royalty stood.
And then she saw what the sorceresses had done.
She and the king were surrounded by a cage of glowing red bars of light.
The king smiled at Chantel, nodded, and stepped through the bars.
When Chantel tried to follow him, the bars were searingly hot. They crackled and spat sparks.
“You’ll stay right where you are, Chantle,” said Miss Ellicott. “Until you see reason and agree to work with us.”
The sorceresses walked in a circle all around the cage, making so many signs with their hands and feet that Chantel couldn’t keep track, and then they stood outside the cage, with the king beside them, and smirked.
Chantel was angry. She was furious. The fire inside her head burned white-hot.
She grabbed again at the bars, but it was like trying to grab fire. Fire that writhed and spat, fire that grabbed back.
She put her burned hands to her mouth. She had to get out. Everyone at the school was depending on her, and there were the Sunbiters outside the gates, and Franklin in prison.
She needed mighty magic. And she tried to summon it. It had worked with Dimswitch, but it wasn’t working now. Maybe because she was so furious.
She was in a flaming rage. She wanted to do something horrible to the vile king and the traitorous Miss Ellicott. But she couldn’t find any magic strong enough. She could only tell them what she thought of them.
“You’re terrible!” she said. “You don’t care about the city at all, you only care about yourselves!”
Inside her head, the snake had grown bigger, and hotter, and she felt as if her skull would explode. She hardly noticed the pain in her hands now.
“There are Marauders without the walls!” she yelled. “You ought to be thinking about how you can drive them away. How you can help! Instead, you’re thinking about what you can get out of the situation!”
“Really,” said the king, “not at all shamefast and biddable.”
“Not at all,” echoed a sorceress.
“It will be worth it, Your Majesty,” said Miss Ellicott. “You’ll see.”
“You’re—” The pain in Chantel’s head was stifling. “Absolutely—” She struggled with her brain, trying to make it summon magic. “You’re—” Pain filled her throat, and her mouth. Something horrible was happening. She couldn’t breathe. She fell to her knees. The world flashed red and green.
Something slithered out of her mouth.
Scaly and golden, fiery and strong.
The sorceresses and the king stumbled back in surprise. The thing kept coming out. Everything began to go black around the edges of her vision.
Then, with a furious, writhing wriggle, the thing leapt out into the air and flew at the king and the sorceresses.
It was a dragon. It breathed fire. It swiped at the sorceresses with gleaming scimitar claws. They fell back, barely escaping the jet of red-orange fire it sent at their heads.