She continued her comments as we blinked at her, the arms of red and yellow energy that branched from the Grey fence circling us as she spoke. “Still, it was an edifying conversation to eavesdrop on, my little burglars. I shall have to make some changes to my spell next time to keep out people like you,” she added, glaring at me.
“We’re not burglars,” Quinton objected; his voice sounded a little strained and I noticed that the tendrils of red had twined around his legs. They must have been exerting something—pain or pressure at least.
“Callers ring the bell.”
“You don’t seem to have one,” he retorted.
“Indeed. Possibly because I don’t want any callers in the first place! And especially not those of your sort.”
“Pardon me, ma’am,” I cut in. “What sort do you mean?”
“Stalkers or supplicants from that enclave of fools in Seattle. Since I heard your dislike for the Pharaohn, I assume you’re with Kammerling’s party. I’ve done quite enough for that spendthrift fool. Tell him to go to hell and shut the door behind him.”
“I’m not here on anyone’s behalf but my own,” I replied.
She snorted in derision. “You’re a Greywalker and it’s clear that you haven’t gone completely insane yet, so you must have someone’s help. Which means you’re someone’s slave.”
I snapped at the haughty bitch. “I’m not anyone’s anything and I want to keep it that way. Is it a fair guess that you’re Chris Drew?”
“Did you imagine I would be anyone else? And you’re backward. It’s Drusilla Cristoffer.”
“What I imagined was that you bought a puzzle ball from Charlie Rice because it came from an old house out here that you had some attachment to.”
She barked a laugh. “Quite an attachment: It was my house! You go away for a few years and someone tears your house down! I had to move into this common shack until I could make arrangements to remove my stakes and leave more permanently.”
“Your house. Then you know how the puzzles work and where the maze is.”
Her eyes grew narrow and cunning. “Oh, so that’s what you want.” I could tell she was thinking very hard: The red threads around Quinton’s legs drew back and slithered toward her, as if offering their substance to fuel her mental process. Finally she spoke, dropping each word on me with careful deliberation. “I made it to protect Kammerling. I should have taken more care with it. It was never meant for a prison.” She spat the word.
My breath caught in my throat as I understood she was confirming that the puzzles somehow led to my father’s arcane cell. It wasn’t what they were meant for, but it was what they did now.
“When the labyrinth is gone, my last tie here will be broken, but for this.” She put out her left hand and closed her eyes a moment. Blood welled in the palm of her hand though she had no cuts there. She murmured and a whiffling noise rose and rushed toward us. The other puzzle ball slammed into Cristoffer’s hand as if thrown from a great height, but she didn’t move from its impact. She let her breath out through her nose in a gust and opened her eyes.
“And what would you give for it, Greywalker? I can see your desire for it, see the mark of its twin upon you. What will you give . . . ?” Her hand made a lazy turn toward Quinton, curling inward. . . .
He shivered, rooted to the spot.
I plucked the first, quiet earring from my pocket. “I think I have something of yours.” I held the garnet drop up so it swung, sparkling in the river’s light that crept and darted through the willows.
Cristoffer cast an assessing glance at me and the bauble that dangled from my fingers. “That—But of course you’ve opened the other door. I wondered where it had gone. . . . Edward’s doing, I’m sure. Overly clever of him. He always was. But it’s of no moment. Just an ornament. Do you suppose me moved by sentiment?” Her laughter made the river falter in its banks. Quinton ground his teeth and shut his eyes until she gave him a glance and then looked back to me. “More.”
I dug into my pocket and held up the second earring, its gem gleaming with unnatural light the color of dark venous blood. Brought together in the free air, the earrings sang a chord that made the grid thrum and spark.
Cristoffer’s eyes shone as hard and glittering as the facets on the garnets. I could see her breath accelerate and she leaned, just a hair, toward the chiming earrings. “Oh . . .”
“Do you want them back?” I asked. Of course they were hers: her puzzles, her jewels, her labyrinth—wherever it was. I could see her hunger for them reaching out like discorporate hands. As I stared at them the garnets seemed to run, turning to liquid blood that dripped slowly toward the ground, vanishing into red mist and river fog before it struck. I shook them, making the earrings cry and bleed. “Make up your mind.”
“You think I care for such baubles . . . ?” But her voice quivered. The red creepers of her power scrolled across the ground toward me and an answering glow reached out from the earrings.
I threw the live earring down and put my foot over it, pushing it into the mud with my boot until I felt the unyielding rock below. “I think you do.”
I shifted my weight down, a bit at a time, feeling the frangible gem grind and groan against the riverbed rock. Dru Cristoffer’s face tightened in pain and she seemed to suck her chest in as if I’d struck her in the center of her rib cage. The words came up through the muttering in my mind: “I could crush this more easily than your heart. . . .”
Her lips thinned to a frustrated line. Then she gave a sharp nod and sucked her tendrils of power back to the edge of the willow’s curtain. “All right.”
“The earrings for the ball.”
“Yes, yes. Give them to me.”
“Say it: The earrings for the ball.”
She growled. “The earrings for the ball.”
The world seemed to shiver and the grid flashed, throbbing under us, the voices shouting with its energy. I stooped and dug the buried earring from the muddy ground. I held them both out.
She turned the ball over into her right palm and spat on the bloody blot that marked where it had hit her. She chuckled quietly in her throat and drew a figure in the blood with the middle finger of her left hand. Then she blew on the figure, making the wet surface sizzle and smoke as if her breath were fire. Once it satisfied her, she smiled and lobbed the puzzle ball at me as I tossed the glittering earrings into the air near her.
I caught the ball and winced from the heat of the thing. It smelled of singed flesh and teakwood. Where she’d drawn on it, a complex symbol remained as if branded into the surface.
She snatched the earrings from the air and slipped their wire loops into her ears with a sigh. Then she looked at me, one side of her mouth curling upward. “Take it and go. You’ll only need that one, once you open the way. When you’re done, make sure they both burn to ash. The salamander’s call will start the fire,” she added, pointing at the symbol. “Be sure the other ball burns with it. You have three days, for I intend to raze the labyrinth to the very bedrock, and if the doors haven’t burned by then, they will by my command. You won’t want to be near them when they do, though I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to add an enemy or two to the pyre if you have some handy to throw in. Such things like blood sacrifices.”
She started to walk away; then she cocked her head and half turned back, the dark-red gems glittering at her earlobes even through the gloom. She regarded us over her shoulder as the willow branches lifted aside like a theater curtain. “One other thing: Your friend’s trick might work on the wards I hung for Edward. It was quite a while ago that I raised them, so I may not have buried the tap as well as I would now.” Then she chuckled and it felt like hail on my skull. “Good luck with them.”