Companion Ysabeau said, ‘And your means of entry into our country …?’
Mella sensed she wouldn’t get away with fuzzing the answer to this question: the Haleklinders were far too concerned about their security. At the same time, the seaweed was truly delicious. Then she remembered the silver potion, took a sip and the ravenous hunger disappeared at once. She pushed the seaweed to one side, swallowed the remainder of her mouthful and said, ‘That was an accident. We portalled here by mistake.’ She realised suddenly that the conversation between Ysabeau and herself was now the focus of attention of the entire table.
Ysabeau glanced quickly at her fellow Companions, then back at Mella. ‘By mistake?’ she asked.
Mella took a deep breath. ‘We were using an old transporter that had been set all wrong, but we didn’t know that and we didn’t know the setting, of course, and my Aunt Aisling was a bit impatient -’ She gave her aunt a brief, sideways look that made up for all the told you so’s Aisling had been inflicting on her, ‘- and so instead of getting where we wanted to go -’ Where had Aisling wanted to go? Anywhere in the Faerie Realm, Mella supposed. Anywhere she could get hold of her missing brother, who was now King Consort. ‘- We ended up here.’ She treated Ysabeau to a beaming smile. ‘We didn’t even know where we were when we arrived. But it was so nice to find ourselves in Haleklind.’
Ysabeau’s face remained impassive. ‘You transported from the Purple Palace?’
Mella could feel the sudden tension in the room, but wasn’t quite sure why it was there. Had she said something wrong? If she had, she didn’t know what, or what to do about it. No matter how hard she thought, she still couldn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t tell the truth. She shook her head. ‘Oh, no – from the Analogue World. My father is human, you know. I was visiting…’ She hesitated, ‘… visiting my aunt in the Analogue World.’ No reason to tell the whole truth. Besides, her plans to visit her grandmother were none of their business.
The atmosphere in the room lightened at once in a murmured general burst of conversation. Some of her dinner companions even allowed themselves tight smiles. ‘Ah, the Analogue World!’ Ysabeau exclaimed, as if the words explained everything. She turned to Companion Marshal Houndstooth and said sharply, ‘Do we have protections against Analogue portals?’
‘We do not,’ said Houndstooth, not in the least intimidated by her tone. ‘Since there are no portals in the Analogue World.’
‘Or at least so we believed,’ put in Companion Naudin. His gaze flitted from Houndstooth to Ysabeau.
‘And apparently we were mistaken,’ Ysabeau said softly. She turned back to Mella. ‘Are there any other transporters in the Analogue World?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so,’ Mella told her. ‘This was a very old one of Daddy’s that Aunt Aisling found.’
‘And where is it now?’
‘In my bedroom,’ Mella said. ‘But it’s broken.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw Companion Aubertin slip quietly from the chamber.
Ysabeau turned to Houndstooth. ‘Companion Marshal, we need to install securities against any further intrusion from the Analogue World. And we need to install them at once.’
‘Yes, Companion Leader.’ Houndstooth nodded.
‘Level ten,’ Ysabeau said.
‘Of course.’ Houndstooth nodded again.
‘I want you to see to it personally.’
‘Indeed, Companion Leader. They shall be in place within the hour.’ He began to talk quietly into one of his medals.
Surprisingly, Ysabeau turned back to Mella with a beaming smile. ‘I must thank you, Serene Highness, on behalf of the Table of Seven.’
Mella blinked. ‘Must you?’
‘But of course!’ said Ysabeau expansively. ‘Your visit – which we so much welcome – has alerted us to a potential flaw in our national security defences.’ She leaned forward to tap Mella lightly on the arm. ‘Obviously we would never consider you or your charming aunt a threat to our country, but the fact that you found yourselves here, in the very heart of our administration – albeit accidentally, we appreciate – certainly shows that an enemy might have arrived by the same route. An assassin, perhaps, or even, quite frankly, an entire invading army. I know that might seem unlikely to one as young and innocent as yourself, but believe me…’ She allowed the sentence to trail, then added, ‘However, that particular loophole will soon be closed forever and -’
Houndstooth glanced up from his medal. ‘Done, Companion Leader.’
‘Ah, there, you see: closed already! And all thanks to you, Princess Mella.’ Ysabeau’s smile vanished abruptly. ‘Now,’ she said sternly. ‘I want you to tell me what you overheard of our discussion in the Council Chamber.’
Mella froze. The question, coming when it did, took her completely by surprise. She had gone a long way to convincing herself the talk of attacking an empire couldn’t possibly have meant the Empire and had almost managed to put it out of her mind. At least until she got back home where somebody else could worry about it. But now, suddenly, there was something in Ysabeau’s tone that told her what she’d overheard was even more important to the Table of Seven than the security breach; and given how paranoid they were about security, that meant very important indeed. This, Mella thought, was no time to keep telling the truth. She needed to lie and lie convincingly, otherwise – her whole instinct told her – she was in a deep well of trouble. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Aunt Aisling said loudly, ‘Well, I, of course, heard nothing.’
Ysabeau turned slowly towards her. ‘Indeed?’
‘I was back in the other room upstairs, quite out of earshot. Well, we could hear voices, but not what they were saying. I tried to tell the girl it might be a private meeting, but she’s her father’s daughter and quite headstrong, so… I want to assure you, I personally heard nothing, nor did she tell me anything she may have heard. Not anything. ’
Thank you, Aunt Aisling! Mella thought. To Ysabeau she said, ‘Actually, I heard very little either. Something about pumpkins, wasn’t it? I’m not sure. Honestly, we were so confused about where we were and how we might get back -’
‘Pumpkins?’ Ysabeau echoed. A twitch of her lips broke into a smile, then a laugh. ‘Pumpkins!’ she exclaimed again. Her companions joined in so that on the instant the room was filled with laughter.
‘No, honestly -’ Mella protested. Then, unmistakably, the smell of lethe was in her nostrils – heaven knows she’d used it often enough herself to recognise it – and Mella’s chair toppled over with a crash as she tried to run from the chamber. But before she reached the door she forgot why she was running, forgot where she was, forgot who she was and certainly forgot everything she had seen or heard since she arrived in Haleklind.
Thirty-Three
‘Don’t die, my darling,’ Henry whispered. ‘My love, please don’t die. Oh, Blue…’ There were tears streaming down his cheeks. He cradled her head in his lap and stroked the long red hair. ‘Don’t leave me, Blue – I can’t live without you.’
He was seated on a rocky apron that formed part of an outcrop rising up out of the Wildmoor Broads like the prow of some tall ship. Blue’s body lay sprawled like one who had fallen from the clifftop. (Fallen and died, his mind kept insisting.) They were surrounded by a sea of prickleweed that seethed and writhed and reached in their direction, but did not – apparently could not – intrude on the rock.
There was blood by Henry’s feet, quite a lot of it. The blood was Henry’s own: a strip of flesh was missing from his forearm and there were lesions on his face, legs and hands. Blue exhibited scarcely a scratch, yet Blue was the one who was dead. ‘You mustn’t,’ Henry said emphatically. ‘Your subjects need you. I need you. You must not be dead.’ Her eyes were open, but blank, staring upwards at a distant sky. There was no gentle rise and fall of her chest, no whisper of breath from her mouth. There was no heartbeat, no pulse.