Wait. She didn’t need words from books. She’d actually spoken to Haywith herself.
She tried to think of some words that she knew Haywith had really spoken. But amid the crowding guards, and the screech of the Marauders’ tools on the stones, and the lapping of the water behind her, it was hard to think.
Only one thing the queen kept saying came to her mind.
“‘Too small!’” said Chantel.
And Queen Haywith was standing beside her. “Do you summon me now, for a third time?”
“Yes,” said Chantel.
“Are you certain?” said the queen.
“Yes,” said Chantel. “The situation is desperate.”
“And do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Very well,” said the queen. “What comes next in the spell?”
“I already touched the wall,” said Chantel. “That was supposed to make it whole.”
“Are you sure?” said the queen.
“Well, no,” said Chantel. “It was in the rhyme that Miss Ellicott hid in our heads. But the old spell wasn’t complete. We’ve made a new one actually.”
“Things tend to get garbled over the centuries anyway,” said Queen Haywith.
A volley of arrows came thwipping over the wall. Chantel ducked, and heard cries and splashes all around her.
“There is an ancient belief,” said the queen, “that wholeness comes from brokenness.”
“Well, we have brokenness. The wall is cracked. See?” Chantel pointed, still crouching. “Right here. It was cracked after the sorceresses tried to do the spell. And the Marauders are about to break through!”
“Hm.” The queen touched the wall, right where the crack was fused.
Chantel reached out and touched the wall in the same place, her hand beside Queen Haywith’s.
And there was a mighty rumbling, and the wall beneath them collapsed.
25
THE CIRCLE
Rocks cascaded down. Water crashed out of the city in an unstoppable torrent. Soldiers fell from the wall, screaming, and vanished in the deluge. Chantel fell, too, and was dragged down into the maelstrom. This was chaos. The water rushed, and things rushed with it. Some of the things were heavy and hurt to be crunched against—rocks and timber. Other things were alive . . . or had been very recently. Chantel tumbled and bumped and bashed along, not knowing if she was right side up or upside down. She kept colliding with things. More and more of her was pain.
Then she hit something heavy and reptilian.
“Take hold of the dragon, Chantel,” said Queen Haywith. “If you want to live.”
“Of course I want to live,” said Chantel, but she wasn’t saying it with her mouth, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was still alive. The queen pulled Chantel up onto Lightning’s back.
Things were still slamming into them, and the flood dragged them along, and Chantel wanted to live. And so she . . . did something. She was never sure afterward quite what.
And then they were floating in a quiet, green place, Lightning, Chantel, and the queen. Nothing banged into them. Breathing didn’t seem to be a problem anymore.
“Am I dead now?” said Chantel.
“Wrong question,” said the queen.
“Well, here’s another one!” said Chantel, furious. She swung around so violently to face the queen that she fell right off the dragon.
This didn’t seem to matter. She floated easily in the green glow. That didn’t make her any less angry.
“Why didn’t you tell me this would be the price of the third summoning?”
“I didn’t know,” said the queen with infuriating calm. “It—”
“You tricked me! I summoned you to help! Not to destroy the wall! I know you don’t like the wall, but that was just sneaky!”
The queen frowned, and stepped off the dragon. “I will ignore your insulting manner, Chantel, on the grounds that you are upset by recent events.” She sat down on the greenness and floated, with one knee up, and an arm resting on it. “The fact is, Chantel, that you did not want the wall either.”
“I did too!” Chantel stood bolt upright on nothing, which seemed to be an easy thing to do here, and clenched her fists. “Why else would we have gone to all the trouble to make those spells?”
“You wanted to protect your people,” said the queen, floating imperturbably past Chantel and then circling her as if caught in the eddy of a green stream. “But you thought the best way to do that was to take the wall down.”
“How do you know what I thought!”
“I don’t. Tell me.”
Chantel looked away. Lightning had drifted on and was lying belly up, kicking his legs idly.
“I wanted the patriarchs and the king to give the Sunbiters what they asked for,” Chantel said. “And I wanted to see the Roughlands again. And for other people to see them. And maybe I did think that I’d like to go to High Roundpot and the Stormy Isles some day. But that doesn’t mean.”
She let it go at that. They floated on, through an infinite gentle green glow. It was as endless as the sky.
“This much water can’t have come out through Dimswitch,” said Chantel. “And anyway it wouldn’t be so clean, or so—”
“You seem to have summoned a brief interlude from lost time,” said the queen. “Very nicely done.”
“Are the girls all right?” said Chantel. “And those men on the wall, and the sorceresses, and—”
“It’s very likely that there’s going to be a certain amount of not being all right,” said Queen Haywith. “I’m sorry.”
The haggard faces of all the people on the wall seemed to float in Chantel’s mind. “It’s my fault, then.”
And Franklin . . . where had Franklin been?
“The situation existed,” said the queen. “You were among those who chose to act. There is no time for the luxury of guilt. Things are going to happen very quickly now, and it may be possible for you to forestall complete disaster.”
“Forestall it?” said Chantel. “It’s already—”
“Are you prepared to act?”
“I already did, and look what happened!”
The queen repeated her question.
“I—I guess so,” said Chantel. “But what do I have to do?”
“You will know that only when the moment arrives,” said the queen. “As we all do. However, if you are willing to act, you may be able to summon someone to help you. Someones, I should say.”
“Who—”
“They have been watching you for some time,” said the queen. “And they are called the Circle of the Mages of the Dragon. Is that enough? It may be all I’m permitted to say. I’m not in it yet, you see. I won’t be until I die.”
“Oh, great,” said Chantel. “What?”
“Can you see the way to summon them? It may be a sort of fold or a tucked corner of reality.”
Chantel looked at the gentle green all around. There were no folds or tucks. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“No,” said Queen Haywith. “Because I cannot see it. Summoning is your talent, not mine. The important thing is that you have made up your mind to act. Remember not to think too small, because the time to come will call for large thinking.”
“Will you stay with me?” said Chantel.
“No,” said the queen. “Trust yourself.”