out to the Northern Plateau—it had brought her out to the very spot she’d been imagining.
The exact same spot.
“Shits.”
That’s amazing. I mean, moving rock is amazing, but moving rock so you can travel wherever you want to be—that is really amazing.
And now Tash had another idea.
If I think of Twist, can I tunnel to him?
She wanted to see Twist. He was the one demon who had tried to help her and she knew he hadn’t wanted her to be encased in stone.
“But Twist will probably be with all the other demons who do want me encased in stone. Not that they can do that to me again, ha ha. Not now that I’m the queen of tunneling.”
But they might not encase her in stone next time. Next time . . .
They might just pull my head off.
Tash knew she should forget about the demon world and head south.
I should get a job, a safe job, with money and . . . and. But I don’t want that. I want to see Twist. I want to learn about the demon world.
She looked back to her demon hollow. Frost, the girl she’d seen down in the demon world, seemed to know it better than anyone—at least, anyone else human. Tash wanted to know about her as well, and why she was helping the Brigantines.
I wonder if she can make tunnels too. But she’ll be with lots of Brigantines, who aren’t noted for being any nicer than demons, so I can’t really ask.
Tash began pacing up and down. She wanted to test her skills. But how?
She stopped pacing.
“Simple. I head to the central core. Once I’m there, I can decide about Frost or Twist or just leaving for good. But first I have to see if I can really do this.”
EDYON
ABASK, CALIDOR
EDYON HAD remained hidden behind the chair in Regan’s room, crouched and fearful, long after Hunt and Birtwistle had left. Regan took time over his ablutions, blew out the candles, and went to bed, but it was only when he was snoring lightly that Edyon dared to carefully push the chair forward, crawl out from behind it, and creep to the door. Edyon did not immediately go to his father to report the conversation he’d overheard. Instead, he returned to his own room.
Why didn’t he report the treason immediately? Well, in truth, Edyon had a feeling his father wouldn’t believe him. And he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. The whole incident seemed unreal, and this feeling of unreality wasn’t helped by the fact he had been more than a little drunk when he’d hidden behind the chair. Edyon left it a day, and then another, and with time, the more the whole event seemed more unreal and the more he began to wonder if he’d misheard, or misinterpreted, or indeed imagined the whole thing.
Birtwistle’s castle home was the last stop on the tour, so Edyon had some time to decide what to do, but time was running out. He asked his father one day, with practiced casualness, “Do you trust Lord Regan?”
“Absolutely,” Thelonius replied without hesitation. “He is my oldest friend and confidant. I would trust him with my life, and I did trust him with yours. Why do you ask?”
Edyon could only look away. “No particular reason.”
What he needed was proof. Something he could show his father so it wouldn’t just be his word against Regan’s.
Were more lords in on this assassination plot, or was it just Regan, Hunt, and Birtwistle? It seemed that Regan hadn’t been the instigator, but it hadn’t taken much time or effort to draw him into the plot.
The irony was that Edyon could understand some of the motives of the plotters—they believed Edyon was illegitimate, which was true. He himself had not been able to lie about his parents’ being married, and yet Regan had been pushed by Thelonius into perjuring himself.
Then, of course, there was the issue of money. Edyon had learned from the chancellor that all the lords had been taxed severely to finance the building of the huge border walls. Regan, Hunt, and Birtwistle had been taxed most and continued to pay. And, finally, there was the issue of the aid to Pitoria, and thus also the issue that Edyon himself, their king-to-be, was half-Pitorian.
However, none of this was reason enough for a coup nor could it excuse murder. And the traitors were with Edyon and his father every day and every evening. Edyon watched them closely, listened to them speak, and