Tom’s mouth dropped open. “Are you sure?”
Peta leapt up and caught him between her big paws so fast she was a white blur. “Yes, quite sure.”
“Don’t hurt him!” I yelped. I could easily imagine what the queen would say if we killed one of her guards right off the start. Not exactly the introduction I was looking for.
Peta let out a yelp and leapt back, shaking her paw. “Little prick!”
“That’s not what the ladies say!” he hollered back as he zipped toward the gates.
“Hurry, we have to make it there ahead of him.” I bolted after the fairy, the glitter of his wings making it easy to track his progress. Peta was ahead of me, snarling.
Tom looked over his shoulder, yelped and sped up. Damn it. “Fairy sharts, they’re gaining on me! Open the gates, let me in!”
The gates didn’t move, though a few faces peered through the tall grills.
I held a hand up and slid to a stop. “Wait, Peta. I think . . . I think he wasn’t official.”
Cactus panted beside me, leaning over to press his hands onto his legs. “You sure?”
“Yes. If he was, they’d have come running when he yelled for help.”
The fairy hit the gates, going so far as to rattle his sword along them as we approached. “Let me in! They said the cat would eat me and pick her teeth with my bones.”
One side of the gate opened and a tall, slim figure stepped out. My heart seemed to stutter at the sight of the white leathers the Ender wore and the long white hair braided over one shoulder. He stood easily a foot taller than me, and his cool gray eyes swept us as if we were a mere annoyance. But all that wasn’t the reason. It was his resemblance to Wicker, the Sylph who’d helped Cassava take the throne and release the lung burrowers on my people. The Sylph who’d killed my mother and little brother.
He raised one eyebrow. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
Tom flew right up to his eyes. “I told you, you fecking moron! They’re here to kill me and assassinate the queen! Now let me in!”
With a casual flick of his wrist, the Ender swatted Tom, sending the fairy flying our way. He tumbled end over end and I caught him mid-air. “That’s not very nice. He might be a drunk and out of his mind, but you shouldn’t swat fairies. It’s bad luck.”
The Sylph’s lips didn’t even twitch. So much for breaking the ice. Tom groaned and I held him carefully. “I wish to speak with the queen.”
“Why?”
I made sure to keep eye contact with him. If Tom had been right and Terralings weren’t going to be allowed into the Eyrie, it was time to improvise. “We wish to visit the library. We have seen the Pit’s few books, and the Rim’s. But we have heard the Eyrie boasts the finest knowledge in all four families.”
“Scholars?” The Ender pulled back. “Perhaps your story would be more believable if you weren’t wearing a Terraling Ender’s uniform.”
Damn, the cold was making me sloppy. “An Ender cannot also be someone who seeks knowledge?”
“Not when your king is missing. We have sent the information requested, which is more than we had to do.” He stepped back.
“Wait. Please take the message to Queen Aria. Tell her I wish to speak with her.”
His gray eyes locked onto mine. “She will not see you—and I will take her no message from the lips of a Sylph-killer.”
The gate slammed shut and I let out a breath. Apparently my reputation had preceded me.
“What are we going to do if he won’t let us in?” Peta asked.
“Well, we have someone to help us, don’t we, Tom?” I held him around the waist and plucked his sword from his hands.
“What?” He slurred the word. I wasn’t sure if it was the drink, or the blow from the Ender.
“You want to get into the Eyrie, yes?”
“Yes!” He pushed at my hand. “Hey, let me go.”
“Not yet.”
Already the plan formed in my head. A secret entrance that Tom would show us; we’d sneak in, find my father and be gone in a flash. Yet that was not how things played out in the least.
The gate opened once more and an old lady peered out. Now, to say an elemental was old was usually a hard thing to determine. We aged . . . well. My father had perhaps a thousand years behind him and he had barely begun to gray.
This woman, though, she was stooped and her white hair trailed to the snow. She wore a pale blue dress dotted with tiny white crystals that caught the light, and a crown rested on her head seemingly made of gossamer silk and spider webs. Milky, unseeing, eyes turned toward me. “Child of the earth. The mother told me you would come. Here, do not mind my Enders, they are protective.”
Behind her, the tall Ender glared at us. “My queen, please do not do this. You said your death would come in through the front door. She is the one who killed Wicker.”