‘Why me?’
‘It is thy story.’
‘How can one person stop a war?’
‘Thou are not one person: thou art two.’
‘How can two people stop a war?’ A note of desperation had crept into Mella’s voice, but the Yidam was relentless.
‘Thy story is thy fate.’ The Yidam stared at her silently.
After a while, Mella ventured, ‘Will you help us?’
‘The Old Gods cannot interfere in the affairs of faerie,’ the Yidam told her piously.
Mella lost it. ‘Of course you can!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re interfering all the time! You’re interfering now! ’ She was shouting at an Old God and she didn’t care. Loki had interfered. The Yidam knew her mother. The Yidam was the leader of the manticores. Of course the Old Gods interfered! The Old Gods were practically control freaks!
The Yidam grinned at her benignly.
After a while, Mella calmed down enough to ask, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ She had a vivid mental picture of herself as a tiny, tiny figure at the head of rebel soldiers they’d drummed up from somewhere. It was ludicrous, but the picture would not go away. Maybe she could wear high heels.
‘That is not for me to say,’ the Yidam told her irritatingly.
‘He means we have to figure out for ourselves what to do,’ said Mella II brightly.
‘That is what I mean,’ the Yidam echoed.
Mella looked from one to the other, half in fury, half in panic. ‘We can’t figure out something like that!’ she shouted so loudly that a nearby manticore shied away. ‘That’s politics and military decisions and the fate of nations and the future of our empire and I’m not even sixteen yet! We can’t do stuff like that! We can’t! We can’t!’
‘Yes, we can,’ said Mella II.
‘Go back to first principles,’ suggested the Yidam.
Mella decided she hated the Yidam, even if he had known her mother. He was smug and he was bossy and he was totally unhelpful. She wasn’t all that keen on Mella II at the moment either: she was far too gung-ho for their own good. She took a deep breath and asked sourly, ‘ What first principles?’
The Yidam didn’t answer, but her irritating sister did. ‘He means we should think carefully about what’s happening here; and what’s about to happen. He means we should think about Lord Hairstreak’s dastardly plot to take over the Realm and how he’s proceeded with it so far. We know…’ She sat up straight and began to count briskly on her fingers, ‘… dastardly plot step one that Hairstreak made me to replace you… then, dastardly plot step two, he arranged a coup to overthrow the legitimate government of Haleklind… then, dastardly plot step three, he encouraged the new revolutionary Haleklind Table of Seven to breed manticores as weapons… and finally, dastardly plot step four, he plans to unleash the manticores on the Realm, probably any minute now.’
‘Yes, I know all -’ Mella began.
But Mella II would not be interrupted. ‘Now the great thing is we’ve already foiled dastardly plot step one. He can’t replace you with me, because we’ve both escaped his dastardly clutches -’
‘I wish you’d stop saying ‘dastardly’,’ Mella muttered. ‘It sounds silly.’
‘All right,’ said Mella II mildly. ‘We’ve escaped his dastardly clutches – I won’t say it again after that – and we’re working together so he can’t replace you with me and even if he did, I wouldn’t do what he told me, so it would be pointless. That means all we have to do now is undo the other steps of his das- of his plot and we’ve won. We need to warn our parents about what’s going on and especially about Lord Hairstreak’s involvement. That’s probably the most important thing. We simply have to get a message to the Purple Palace.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose you could do that, could you, Lord Yidam?’
‘No,’ the Yidam said shortly. But he was watching her with interest.
‘No, I thought not,’ Mella II muttered, frowning. ‘Actually they might not believe a message unless we delivered it personally.’ She looked back at Mella. ‘But that wouldn’t be enough, of course. Ideally we also need to stop the Table of Seven launching an attack. Once we’ve done that, everything falls into place. War averted, parents saved, Lord Hairstreak locked away in some deep dungeon, perfect ending to your story. Our story, as it must be now.’
‘Why don’t we just change the entire world while we’re at it?!’ Mella snapped. ‘ How? You tell me how! We’re surrounded by manticores somewhere in Haleklind with no transport, no money, no weapons and a big fat toothy supernatural entity who tells us what to do but won’t raise a finger to help us.’ She glared at the Yidam. ‘Well, come on – tell me how!’
The Old God gazed at her almost fondly. ‘Nobody knows thy story except thyself,’ he said. ‘But thou hadst better think of something quickly. Lord Hairstreak is already in the forest.’
Mella felt herself go cold. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know everything,’ the Yidam told her. ‘Except thy story, of course.’
‘Is he close?’
‘Not yet. But he is on thy trail and following his own story. Thou dost not have much time.’
Mella stared at him wide-eyed. ‘He can’t get us while we’re surrounded by your manticores, can he?’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ the Yidam said softly. ‘But thou canst not hide forever…’
Mella wondered if there was some penalty for strangling an Old God. The Yidam was the most infuriating creature she had ever met. She wasn’t planning to hide forever. She wasn’t planning to hide at all. All she wanted was a little support from -
‘I have an idea,’ said Mella II abruptly. She grabbed Mella’s arm. ‘Let’s go somewhere private for a minute.’
‘Stay thou clear of the trees,’ the Yidam told them. ‘Aboventoun was my messenger, but I do not control the forest manticores.’
Forty-Seven
‘Can you suggest an alternative?’ Blue asked coldly.
Henry hated it when she was in this mood, although he had to admit it went with the territory. Above everything else, above being his wife, his lover, his very best friend in two worlds, Blue was Queen. Her prime responsibility was the welfare of the Realm (along with the welfare of Hael, but he didn’t like to think of that too often) and just now the Realm was threatened as it had never been before.
‘Not as such,’ he said carefully. ‘But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine the proposal carefully. It’s an extreme course of action.’
‘It’s an extreme situation.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Pyrgus said. ‘They’re innocent animals.’
‘They’re military weapons,’ Blue said shortly.
The proposal had been voiced by Madame Cardui, promptly backed by General Vanelke, who, Henry suspected, was still irritated about the abortive plan to save Mella without involving his soldiers.
‘Look,’ Henry said, ‘I think we should concentrate on Mella. We still -’
Mella’s disappearance was driving Blue crazy, not that Henry would have expected anything else: mother love always beat father love hands down. It would be killing her that there was nothing they could do for Mella until they had new information on her whereabouts. But Blue’s way of handling it was to go on the attack.
‘You know we have no way of finding Mella yet,’ she snapped. ‘So perhaps you could stop wasting everybody’s time and -’
Henry avoided conflict whenever he could, but that didn’t mean he was afraid to push when it was necessary; and it was definitely necessary now. He held Blue’s gaze and said firmly, ‘It’s no waste of time where our daughter’s safety is concerned. Can’t you reactivate your follower?’ He caught the startled glances in the Situation Room. Followers might no longer be illegal, but they were considered extremely bad form among Faeries of the Light. The thought that the Queen of Faerie might actually use one was as unthinkable as the idea that the Queen of England might appear on Horse Guards Parade dressed in frilly knickers. He knew Blue wouldn’t thank him for mentioning the follower in public, but he was getting desperate.