“Did you hear what Aghamonda said?” Aislin asked as she and Tomas walked down the corridor. “She’s here to help King Ozwalt with the war.”
“I heard,” Tomas replied. “My father told me about it this afternoon. He thinks that having her on our side will make all the difference.”
“It will make a difference, all right, but I don’t know if it will be good or bad. Your father and the king shouldn’t trust her. She’s up to something and I have a feeling that the only one who will benefit is Aghamonda.”
Aislin wanted to tell him more, but that would mean revealing things she wasn’t free to share. Aghamonda had already tried to help King Tyburr by telling him about the back way into Scarmander through the land between the mountains. Even though King Tyburr hadn’t located the route, the fairy had done something that could have turned the war in his favor. And now she was here saying that she wanted to help King Ozwalt. She was playing the two sides against each other, which was wrong. What was even worse was that she was involving herself in the war at all. Keeping fairies out of human conflicts was the very reason that the fairy king and queen had left the human lands. Aislin’s grandparents were going to be furious when they heard about it, and they were bound to want to stop her. In the meantime, Aislin had to do something.
After saying goodbye to Tomas, Aislin returned to her chambers to think. “What’s wrong?” Poppy asked the minute the princess walked in the door. “Something happened; I can see it on your face.”
“Aghamonda says she’s here to help King Ozwalt, but she already tried to help King Tyburr. I need to convince Tomas’s father not to trust her, except I can’t without some sort of proof of what she’s doing.”
Poppy sounded eager. “Do you want me to spy on her? I’m very good at it now.”
“I don’t know,” said Aislin. “This wouldn’t be like spying on King Tyburr. Aghamonda is a fairy and has the power to do something nasty.”
“Don’t worry about me! I’m a fairy, too,” Poppy replied. “She’ll never even know I’m there.”
Aislin shook her head. “I really don’t think you should. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“What about contacting your family?” asked Poppy. “I think they should know what’s going on.”
“Not yet,” said Aislin. “Not until we learn more about Aghamonda’s plans.”
Although Poppy didn’t seem happy, she didn’t mention her spying mission or contacting the fairy royals again that evening. When Aislin went to bed, she was sure she’d lie awake, tossing and turning, but she fell asleep right away.
She woke in the morning, certain that something was wrong. Throwing back the covers, she jumped out of bed and ran to the next room. To her relief, Twinket was just where she’d been the day before.
“Poppy’s gone,” Twinket told her. “She left last night and hasn’t come back.”
“She went out without telling me?” said Aislin. “Where did she go?”
“To spy on Aghamonda,” Twinket said. “She wanted me to go with her, but I already have a job to do.”
“What time did she leave?”
“About an hour after you went to bed. She wanted to have the proof you needed when you got up this morning.”
“I have to go find her!” Aislin cried. “Aghamonda better not have hurt her!”
Aislin hurried to her room to get dressed. She was slipping on her shoes when there was a knock on the door. Although she knew Poppy wouldn’t knock, she was still hoping it was her friend when she ran to answer it.
“Hi!” Tomas said. “Want to have breakfast with me?”
Aislin shook her head. “I can’t eat now. I have to find Poppy.”
“She isn’t here?” Tomas asked, looking around the room.
“She went to spy on Aghamonda,” Twinket announced from the corner. “Aislin needs proof that Aghamonda is helping both sides so you can show it to your father.”
“Twinket!” exclaimed Aislin. “You weren’t supposed to tell him that!”
“Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it?” said the doll. “And he is on our side.”
“If you’re going to the tower, I’ll go with you,” Tomas told Aislin. “I know my way around there and you don’t. I just saw Aghamonda heading to the Great Hall, so if we’re going, we should go now. If she comes back and finds us in the tower, I can always say that I left something there before she took it over.”
“I’m ready if you are,” said Aislin.
It took them only a few minutes to reach the tower. Tomas tried the door and found it unlocked.
“I don’t like this,” said Aislin. “Why would she leave the door unlocked?”
“Maybe she’s forgetful,” Tomas told her. “Or maybe she assumes that no one would bother a powerful fairy’s belongings.”
“Or maybe she’s inside waiting for someone to come in, like a spider waiting for a fly,” said Aislin.
“Or there’s that,” said Tomas. “Don’t worry, she won’t hurt us. She’s in my great-uncle’s castle and she couldn’t get away with it.”
“I doubt she’d care about that,” Aislin said as she followed Tomas into the first-floor room. “I don’t think she’s the kind of fairy to let much get in her way.”
They started looking for Poppy, calling her name as they went from floor to floor and room to room. They were on the third floor when Aislin noticed a map spread open on a table. The map showed all of Morain, with a mark on the Galiman River. Another map lay rolled into a tube beside it. When Tomas unrolled it, they found that it was a map of Scarmander.
Aislin spread out a third map. She gasped when she saw that it was a very, very old map of the land between the mountains. “I wonder where she got this,” she murmured.
“Got what?” asked Tomas, coming over to look.
Aislin let it roll up again. “Just an old map,” she said.
“Here’s another one,” said Tomas. “It’s in a tube.”
Aislin leaned closer as he pulled the end off the tube. A gray mist washed out, enveloping them. Moments later, they lay on the floor, unconscious.
When she woke up, Aislin couldn’t see a thing. Everything was black, and it took her a moment to realize that she was somewhere with absolutely no light. Because she was half pedrasi, she could see in very little light, but she was as blind as anyone else in the complete dark. The air was cold, too, and the surface under her felt like stone. Reaching out with her mind, she discovered that she was underground with stone all around her. Her pedrasi abilities enabled her to see where the stone was and where it wasn’t even when she couldn’t see with her eyes. She could actually tell lots of things—what kind of rock it was, how deep it went, and where passages cut through it.
Aislin turned her head when she heard the trickle of water dripping slowly down the wall behind her. Casting around with her mind again, she located the tiniest fracture that allowed the water to escape. Apparently, the rock was filled with tiny fault lines.
Aislin sat up. She was mad at herself for not having contacted her relatives the night before. Putting things off was rarely a good idea. Lying around now wasn’t going to help either. “Hello! Is anyone there?” she called.
Poppy’s voice sounded small and far away. “I’m over here! I was looking around the tower and I heard Aghamonda coming, so I got small and hid. She found me anyway and froze me so I couldn’t move. The next thing I knew, she’d stuck me in a jar! I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t open it. I think she used some special magic to keep me in.”
“Are you all right?” Aislin called back.
“Would you be all right if you were in a jar?” the fairy said, sounding grumpy. “I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.”
“Where are we?” asked Aislin.
“In the dungeon under her tower. She caught me before I’d barely started snooping and brought me down here. I must have been here for days and days.”
“How long have I been here?” Aislin asked her.
“A couple of hours,” said the fairy.
“Then you haven’t been here all that long. Is Tomas here?”
“He’s in the cell next to yours. He’s still asleep.”
A tiny speck of light pierced the dark. Suddenly Aislin could see. “Shh! There’s a light. Someone’s coming.”
It was Aghamonda, carrying a torch as she came toward them down a tunnel. Aislin hurriedly looked around. The stone walls had distinctive striations in them and looked rough and unfinished. Other cells lined the walls of an open space; Tomas was in the one next to Aislin’s, lying on his side. The space itself was empty except for an old wooden table. A glass jar rested on the table. When Aislin noticed something move inside the jar, she knew she’d found Poppy.
Aghamonda came closer and saw Aislin standing in her cell. “You’re awake, I see. I wondered how long you’d be out. I’ve been trying some new magic and I wasn’t sure how well it would work. It should prove useful against Tyburr’s troops.”
Aghamonda glanced at Tomas who was just beginning to stir. Turning to the table, she picked up Poppy’s jar and shook it. After a particularly hard shake, Poppy cried out. Aghamonda laughed and set the jar back on the table.
“I’m leaving now,” she announced. “It’s time I used a little magic to help Ozwalt in the war. The Duke of Isely and his troops set out in the middle of the night. He thinks he’s in charge, but he’s about to learn just how little control he really has. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. It could be a few hours, or a few days, or I might forget that you’re down here entirely. No one knows you’re here. No one will hear you call for help. You’ll never be able to get out on your own. Goodbye! Have fun!”
Aghamonda took the torch when she left. The darkness seemed even more complete with the torch gone.
“Don’t worry, Aislin,” Tomas called from the next cell. “I’ll figure something out!”
Aislin wasn’t about to wait for someone else to help her. Closing her eyes, she centered herself and read the rock. Her magic allowed her to feel where it was strongest and weakest. She could feel the cracks and the fissures and how much pressure each could withstand. Reaching deep into the rock, she pulled strength from it, then touched the rock near the door and sent the power back into the fracture lines, a touch here, a little more there, breaking the rock a bit at a time.
At the sound of grating and cracking rock, Tomas cried out. Aislin was careful, though, shoring it up here, strengthening it there, so that the cracks didn’t run too far or go where she didn’t want them. She didn’t open her eyes again until the door to her cell fell to the ground with a crash.
“What just happened?” Tomas cried. “Aislin, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she replied as she stepped over the door, feeling her way out of the cell with her mind and her hands. Getting herself out in the dark was one thing, but she didn’t want to frighten Tomas.
“Poppy, could you please flutter your wings?” Aislin asked her friend.
“I’m still in a jar, you know. I can’t go anywhere,” said the fairy.
“I don’t need you to go anywhere. I just need some light.”
“Oh, right!” Poppy exclaimed. A moment later a speck of light appeared in the jar as the fairy fluttered her wings. The faster she moved them, the brighter the light became. It grew until the jar seemed to be filled with it.
“Aislin, how did you get out?” Tomas asked when he saw her standing by the table.
“I told you that I’m half pedrasi, remember?” she replied. “Fairies get all the attention, but you’d be surprised what pedrasi can do.”
“You did that yourself?” he asked, astonishment plain on his face when he saw the cell door lying on the ground.
“Yes,” she replied, “and I’m not finished yet.”
Poppy’s wings faltered as Aislin began to untie the string that held a scrap of leather on top. When the way was clear, the little fairy zipped out of the jar and flew around her friend three times. By then Aislin was already on her way to Tomas’s cell.
“Stand back,” she told him. Once he had moved to the back of the cell, she set her hand beside the door, closed her eyes, and “felt” for tiny cracks in the rock. His door fell off even faster than her own.
“You did that?” he said, his eyes wide. “That was amazing! How did you do it?”
“I can’t do a lot of things that a fairy can do, but I can do all that a pedrasi can, plus a few things that I think are all my own,” said Aislin. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Like Aghamonda said, there’s no telling when she’ll be back.”
With Poppy flying ahead to light the way, they were soon climbing the stairs to the next level. The fairy turned big again when Aislin opened the door letting the sunlight in.
“I need to find out if my father actually left,” Tomas told them. “I don’t think we can believe anything that Aghamonda says, but if he’s gone, I want to find out where he’s headed.”
A trumpet sounded high and clear; Aislin looked puzzled as she said, “That’s not possible.”
“Is that the manticore?” asked Tomas. “He sounds a lot better now.”
Aislin shook her head. “That’s no manticore! Those are my grandfather’s warriors announcing that he’s here. The fairy king has come to Scarmander! How did he know where to find me?”
“I called an eagle and sent her with a message before I went to search Aghamonda’s tower,” said Poppy. “I know you wanted to wait, but I thought we’d already waited long enough!”