Oh, Celie, what have you done?” Bran asked in a strangled voice.
They had gotten the griffin to Celie’s room before anyone else could come along the corridor. There Bran ascertained in quick order that the creature was not hurt, that it was indeed a griffin, and that it was male, and demanded to know once again what Celie had done.
“Why do you say that like this is such a bad thing?” Celie pushed her hair back in exasperation. It was damp with sweat from carrying the griffin, and sheer nerves, and she had lost her ribbon somewhere along the way. “It’s not like I purposefully brought a griffin here. I don’t even know where griffins come from!”
“That’s true, I suppose,” Bran said, rubbing his chin. “But you’re sure that you didn’t ask the Castle for it?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “What would I have said? Dear Castle, may I please have a griffin egg? And could it hatch on my favorite gown and ruin it?”
“All right,” Bran agreed, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “It was a silly question. But where did you get a baby griffin? And when?”
“He hatched only an hour ago,” Celie said.
Then she related the whole story to Bran. A minute into her tale, Bran took out a notebook and began to scribble, his face intent. The griffin began to chew on the rug and whine again, so while she talked, Celie fed him the dried fruit and nuts from her bag, and then the winter apples she had in a bowl by her window.
When she got to the end of her story, where she ran into Bran in the corridor, she found her brother gazing at her in wonder.
“You really hatched a griffin?” Bran asked softly.
“Yes,” Celie said, feeling uncomfortable.
“That’s amazing, Cel,” Bran said. “Truly it is. You managed to care for and hatch an egg—in this weather, no less—and now look at him. He clearly adores you.”
The baby griffin was indeed crawling all over Celie, nuzzling her and crying for food.
“He just likes me because I gave him food,” Celie said, blushing.
“That’s exactly right,” Bran said, sounding just a bit jealous. “You fed him first, so he thinks you’re his mother.”
“He—what?”
The griffin, now that he was dry, was quite a bit larger than Celie had originally thought. He was roughly twice the size of one of Lulath’s lapdogs, and that was without the wings. And as for his wings, they were constantly getting tangled up in his feet or caught on the furniture, and his cries of distress were harsh and loud. Adorable as he was, in an ugly way, she was rather hoping that the Castle would soon send him back to his parents. Taking care of him was going to be quite a chore, even without keeping it secret. She had already sworn Bran to secrecy, knowing that the Castle wouldn’t mind him knowing, and having a wizard’s help might come in handy.
“Imprinting,” Bran said, nodding his head. “A great many animals imprint on the first adult animal they see, or the first that feeds them.”
“Oh, dear,” Celie said. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m sure that the Castle did, though,” Bran said, thoughtful. “The Castle wanted this griffin to imprint on you.”
“But why? Why couldn’t the Castle just leave it for its parents to raise?”
Celie tried not to sound frantic. She knew that he would need to eat again, and soon, but she had a feeling that biscuits and raisins weren’t going to sustain him forever. And those were all gone anyway.
“Because it doesn’t have parents,” Bran said. “There’s no such thing as a griffin; they’re myths. That egg was most likely a fluke: a wizard’s experiment from long ago. And who knows how long it has been in that tower, waiting for the Castle to pull it out of … wherever the Castle was keeping it.”
“Griffins are not just a myth,” Celie said hotly. “They come from the Castle. They drove out the unicorns in the third century.”
Bran stared at Celie.
“Unicorns?” he asked finally.
“This valley was once the home of a herd of unicorns,” Celie said. “Then one day there was an earthquake, and when the shaking stopped, Castle Glower appeared. Griffins came flying out of the Castle and attacked the unicorns. Those that survived fled.”
“Where did they go?” Bran had gotten caught up in the story in spite of himself.
“To Larien,” she said promptly.
“The Land of a Thousand Waterfalls?” Bran murmured. “Interesting. They say that you can see a rainbow there every day.” His fingers twitched and he looked thoughtful; then he started scribbling the story down.
Celie went on. “Supposedly they were taken to Larien on ships that sailed out of Grath, because the Grathian fleet took pity on them. But even Larien was not far enough away, and eventually the unicorns had to seek sanctuary elsewhere.”
“Where?”
Celie squirmed a little. “Well, this part is definitely just a myth, but they say that they galloped up a rainbow and into another world. It rains so much there that they really do have rainbows every day. And they’re bright, too, and big—you can imagine … you can imagine a unicorn running up one.”
Celie rather wished she hadn’t said anything. It was a fascinating story that she’d found in another book Lulath had given her, and even though it hadn’t been about rocs, she’d read it several times because it talked about the Castle.
“Where did you hear this? In one of those romances Lilah is always reading?”
“No,” Celie replied quickly. “It was a book Lulath gave me, when I asked him about rocs.” Seeing Bran’s confusion, she added, “I thought it was a Grathian roc egg.”
“Do you still have this book?” Bran asked. “I’m particularly wondering about the part with the Castle. If there’s a description of what the valley looked like before, and any indication of how old the myth is and when the event was supposed to have taken place, I would love to see it.”
“Er,” Celie said. “Sort of. It says something about a flat meadow, and now it’s a valley. But when I was done with the book, I forgot and left it in the library… . I think it got shelved by accident.”
She made a face, and Bran winced in sympathy. The Castle librarian was very old, and very possessive, and sometimes it was hard to make him give up a book once he’d gotten his paws on it.
“I’ll have to speak to the librarian about that,” Bran said reluctantly. “Or maybe I’ll have Pogue look into it,” he added, half to himself, as he continued to write in his little notebook.
Celie yelped and snatched her fingers back. The baby griffin had just tried to eat them.
“We need more food for him,” Bran told her in an irritatingly knowledgeable way.
“I can’t just order the kitchen to send me up a plate of … I don’t even know what he eats!” Celie fretted. “They’ll get suspicious no matter what! I never ask for food in my room, Cook hates that. And he probably needs raw meat or liver or something!”
Celie had been reading a book on falcon keeping, and the author recommended raw organ meats, but also dried corn and flax seeds—all of which were sure to raise Cook’s eyebrows and have her asking Queen Celina for an explanation.
“Allow me,” Bran said. He stood up and gave her a small bow.
He strode over and tugged the fat-tasseled bellpull in the corner of Celie’s room. A few minutes later, a maid knocked on the door. Celie tried to cover the griffin with her body, but Bran blocked the view into the room with his tall form and sweeping robes.
“Ah, hello!” Bran greeted the maid. “I am helping my sister, Princess Cecelia, with an experiment for her lessons. Could you please go to the kitchens and ask Cook for some raw meat? It doesn’t need to be the choice cuts, it can be the organs and fatty bits. Also a bowl of fruit—”
“Dried corn,” Celie said in a low, urgent voice.
“And some dried corn.”
“Yes, my Lord Wizard,” the maid said, and hurried off.
“I wish I was the Royal Wizard,” Celie grumbled.
“We’ll see if we can’t get something set up with the kitchens,” Bran said. “I’ll go and talk to Cook myself.”
“What if she says something to Master Humphries?” Celie asked. “What happens if he tells her that I haven’t been assigned an experiment involving raw meat and dried corn?”
“Well,” Bran began, “perhaps—”
As Celie turned her attention to the griffin, to stop him from gnawing on the leg of a stool, she had an idea.
“I’ll ask the Castle,” she said. “After all, it wants me to take care of the griffin, so it should provide the food!”
“Do you think it’s going to do what you ask?” Bran said, looking skeptical. “It’s been very … capricious lately.”
Her clothes were filthy, and the bites and scratches on her hands were beginning to sting. She had a griffin to take care of, and she didn’t know how, and for all Bran’s speeches about her being entrusted with the griffin and its imprinting on her, he didn’t seem to think she knew how to take care of it, either. She suddenly felt like crying, and she wanted Bran to leave.
“Celie, do you want to get washed up?” Bran, with his wizardly intuition, seemed to guess her mood at once.
“Yes,” Celie managed to say without quavering.
“Why don’t I hurry the food along, and you and the griffin can freshen up. We’ll just deal with this one day at a time.”
“Oh!” As Celie stood up, her stomach growled audibly, to her embarrassment. “Is it dinnertime?”
“Yes,” Bran said, looking vague. “I think we’d better … Hmm.” He tapped his lower lip. “I’ll go on to the dining hall and tell them that you’re working on a project for Master Humphries and can’t join us,” Bran said. “I’ll have a tray sent up for you, and I’ll come check on you after dinner.”
“Perfect,” Celie said. “Thanks, Bran.”
She didn’t burst into exhausted tears until after she had latched the door behind him.