flames in just the right way, drawing my gaze under the shimmering surface. All at once the water was like a river running through my hands, carrying me down to the sea. And as it swept me along, I heard a music I’d heard once before, a music that horrified me: Come, Chantress. Come into the water . . .
My first instinct was to fight free of it, but I was in too deep for that. The water and the music wouldn’t let me go. They spiraled around me, pulling me down and down, until everything blurred—sea-green to deep blue to black. And yet still I went down, plunging headfirst, until far below me I saw something at the murky bottom of the sea—a stone wall even broader and stronger than the one I’d destroyed on Lord Charlton’s lands, a wall that stretched out into shadows. Along one section of it, two massive green serpents spun round and round, chasing each other until they formed a perfect circle, tongue to tail.
As I plummeted toward them, the circle began to glow with an unearthly green light. Except now I saw that it wasn’t a circle but a hole—a hole in the vast wall. And it was from that hole that the music was coming. I flung out my arms, trying to stop myself from falling into it. But with a flick of their tails, the serpents caught me around the ankles and started to pull me through.
Come to me . . .
I couldn’t breathe, I was drowning, and still the serpents wouldn’t let go.
Kick.
I jerked my legs as hard as I could. Something cracked, and the song and the serpents vanished.
Blinking, I saw my feet splayed out in front of me, soaking wet, and the bowl in pieces on the clay-tiled hearth. An expensive accident—delft bowls were not cheap—but what I felt as I stared down at the shards was relief. I was no longer at the edge of that terrible hole.
It wasn’t a real hole, I reassured myself, head spinning. And the serpents weren’t real either. They were only symbols and signs. That was how scrying worked.
But what did it all mean? As I sat there by the dwindling flames, trying to work it out, I felt more and more confused. Melisande had worn a necklace with tongue-to-tail serpents, and the hole in the wall might have been the crack that she had talked about. With scrying, however, things were rarely what they seemed. My vision might mean something else entirely.
Perhaps Sybil could help me make sense of things. Although she didn’t have the power to scry, she was the one who’d introduced me to the technique, so there was a chance she’d know how to read the pictures I’d seen, or at least have a guess about how to interpret them. Cheered by the thought, I pushed the shards of the delft bowl to one side with the coal scuttle, then rummaged in the nearest pile for dry stockings.
Five minutes later, lantern in hand, I was on my way out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IRON CROSS
Where exactly I was to find Sybil, I didn’t know. The Banqueting House seemed a good place to start asking for directions, but I wasn’t even halfway there when Sybil’s maid Joan spotted me.
“My lady!” Wizened though she was, her voice was strong, and evidently the rest of her was too. She pushed through a throng of bemused courtiers and came up to my side, holding out an iron amulet.
“So it really is you,” she said with satisfaction as my fingers brushed against it. “The Queen’s been wondering where you were at. There’s horrible stories about the kraken—”
“I’m fine, truly. What about the Queen, and you, and Norrie?”
“The Queen?” She gave me a pockmarked grin. “She’s running the entire outfit, she is, with Norrie’s help. We’re all taking orders from them, over at the Great Hall.” She drew her scarf tighter. “I’m off to the kitchens right now, but you should go in and see them. They’ve been that worried about you.”
She disappeared into the crowd, leaving me mystified. What on earth were Sybil and Norrie up to?
Only when I reached the Great Hall did all become clear. The huge space was rigged out like an infirmary, with pallets laid out everywhere, and men, women, and children crowding onto them. Many of them wore plain iron crosses, or clutched amulets like Joan’s in their hands.
“See if you can find me another dozen blankets,” Norrie was saying