one of the sinks and began to fill the sink with water by working the hand pump that it had instead of a faucet.
"Excuse me," said Ariana, walking up to a man who was stirring something in a pot that looked like oatmeal.
"Stir the pot seventy times seven," he said.
"Where are they keeping the prisoners?" Samuel asked, putting the push into his voice that the really dominant wolves could. His voice echoed oddly in the room.
Slowly, all the action in the kitchen came to a stop. One by one, the six people wearing silver circlets around their throats turned to look at Samuel. The man Ariana had spoken to stopped moving last. He pulled his spoon out of the pot and pointed to one of the seven rounded doorways. The others, one by one, pointed the same way.
"Forty-seven steps," the oatmeal stirrer said.
"Take the right tunnel," said a man who'd been chopping turnips.
"Eighteen steps and turn," said a girl kneading bread. "The key is on the hook. The door is yellow."
"Do not let them out," said a boy who looked about thirteen and had been filling glasses with water from a pitcher.
"Resume your tasks," said Samuel, and one at a time they did so.
"I think that's the creepiest thing I've ever seen," said Jesse. "Are we just going to leave these people here?"
"We're going to get Gabriel out and Phin," said Ariana. "And then we'll take this to the Gray Lords, who have forbidden the keeping of thralls. Only the fairy queen can release her thralls, and the Gray Lords are the only ones who have a chance of making her do that. In the Elphame, she rules utterly."
"What if she's enthralled Gabriel?"
"She won't have," said Ariana positively. "She promised Mercy, and breaking her promise would have dire consequences. And my Phin is protected against such a thing."
The path we took from the kitchen was less grand than the one we'd taken into it. The floor was made of those small white octagonal tiles with a line of black tiles running about a foot from either wall. Forty-seven paces from the kitchen, the tunnel widened into a small room. The black tiles formed a complicated Celtic knot in the center of the room. There were passageways that opened across from ours, and one to either side.
We took the one to the right. Here the floor was rough wooden planks that showed the marks of being hand hewn. It creaked a little under Samuel, who was the heaviest of us.
"Eighteen," he said, and there was a yellow door with an old-fashioned key hanging off a hook - the first door we'd seen in the Elphame.
Samuel took the key from the lock and opened the door.
"Doc?" said Gabriel. "What are you doing here?"
"Gabriel." Jesse pushed past Samuel.
Key in hand, Samuel followed her in. Ariana and I brought up the rear.
Gabriel was hugging Jesse. "What are all of you doing here? Did she get you, too?"
The room was white. White stone walls, white ceiling with clear crystals hanging down to light the room. The floors were made of a single slab of polished white marble. There were two beds with white bedding.
The only color in the room came from Gabriel and the man who was lying on one of the beds. He looked dreadful, and I'd never have recognized him if Ariana hadn't whispered his name.
Phin sat up slowly, as if his ribs hurt, and Ariana rushed to kneel beside his bed on one knee.
He frowned at her. "Who?"
"Grandma Alicia," she said.
He looked startled, then he smiled. "Has anyone ever told you that you don't look like anyone's grandmother? Is it a rescue, then? Like in the old stories?"
"No," said Samuel, who had turned to face the doorway. "It's a trap."
"Welcome to my home," said a familiar dark voice. "I'm so happy you came to call."
The woman who stood in the doorway of the cell was lovely. Her hair was dark smoke, pulled back in a complicated braid composed of many small plaits. It flowed down her back and dragged the ground like an Arabian show horse's tail and set off the porcelain of her skin and the rose of her lips.
She was looking at me. "I am so glad to have you in my home, Mercedes Thompson. I was just trying to call you on my cell when - imagine my surprise - I discovered that you were here. But you did not bring it." Having a fairy queen talking about cell