long ladder.
She eyed me dubiously, but simply instructed the servants to put the ladder in place. I crouched down to calm Vesno, both of us panting. Oddly enough, I felt a little better. Less roilingly frustrated, anyway.
The servants disappeared immediately, both casting wary glances at the ceiling, as if a monster lurked up there. I climbed the ladder, finding a midway point where I could stand and still reach the trap. “It should push up and in,” I remembered.
“Unless Ambrose is sitting on it.”
“He’s not heavy.”
“Are you sure?”
I grunted, not willing to debate that. How Ambrose appeared and how he actually was didn’t always match up. I pushed, and it felt like pushing on the ceiling. Nothing gave. “Ambrose!” I shouted. Vesno circled the bottom of the ladder, adding his howls. Sondra leaned against the wall, calmly putting her hands over her ears.
I slammed the meat of my hand against the trap, yelling for Ambrose. Going up another rung took me a bit out of center but let me coil my legs, giving me spring to pound on the stone in steady thumps that bounced the ladder.
“Con!” Sondra shouted. “Give it up! This is insanity.”
“No,” I snarled, keeping up the pounding. Ambrose was supposed to be Lia’s wizard and she needed him, so he could dammed well step up and be accessible. I’d blast the trap open with vurgsten if I had to. If we had any left after squandering everything we’d painstakingly saved, all on that one battle that should’ve ended Anure forever and had instead left us crippled and broken, Lia and her realm shattered—both continuing to erode beyond recognition or repair.
The rage returning, I unslung the rock hammer from my back with the other and swung it. The leverage was wrong—and the ladder tilted precariously away from the wall with the change in balance—but I heaved the heavy mallet against the stone with a small clang.
“Conrí, please!”
I swung the hammer again, my shoulder protesting the awkward position, but managed to hit the stone harder. Clang.
“Conrí!”
I ignored Sondra, winding up to hit the door again, fury lending me additional strength.
“Con! Listen, you fucking idiot!” Sondra screamed.
Pausing, I glanced down. Sondra stood there, pointing ostentatiously at Ambrose beside her. Vesno sat on his haunches, tongue lolling happily. Ambrose cocked his head at me, his smile very like Vesno’s. “Why, Conrí,” he said mildly. “What an unexpected pleasure. Would you care to come in for tea?”
5
“Is he gone?” I asked Ibolya when she slipped into the darkened room.
“For the moment, Your Highness. But he’ll be back before long. Conrí was most distraught.”
“I heard.”
“When he returns, as he undoubtedly will, if Your Highness still wishes to keep him out, I might have to use power to deflect him.”
“You have My permission.”
“Truly, Your Highness? This is Conrí.” She carried her lit candle to light one on a far table, then moved to the lanterns. “He simply wishes to see You.”
Well, I couldn’t bear to see him. Couldn’t bear to see him worry for me and be unable to do anything to help. No one could. “No, don’t light the lamps. And blow out that candle. I prefer the dark.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Can I bring You anything?”
“No. Leave Me.”
Ibolya poured a glass of water anyway, setting it within reach, and replaced the cooled teapot with a warm one. Then she slipped out the doors, finally leaving me in blessed silence.
Except for Calanthe. As much as I tried to block out Her rage and savage hunger, the din of it roared through my mind, my heart frantically beating to keep up. In the dark, I listened to the raging storm. It only seemed to be growing wilder, tearing at my palace, my island and ripping pieces away. Once it had been second nature for me to steer storms around Calanthe. Though I tried to send this storm out to sea, I had as little strength to do that as to lift my own arm. Ibolya had sponged me clean and assisted me into a fresh sleeping gown, but I was weak as a babe, needing help to use the toilet. And what had come out of me …
I didn’t know what all the wizards had added to my blood, but it was gone now. I hoped. Expelling it all had left me shuddering in a cold sweat, and dizzy to the point of fainting.
All I could do was stare at the shrouded ceiling. My twig fingers caressed the skin of my good hand, tickling