CHAPTER 7Bayne whistles long and low.
Vespa frowns. “What is it?”
“If I’m not mistaken, that is the sacred language of Saint Boole,” Bayne said.
“Saint Boole, who revealed the Doctrine of Logic?” Vespa asked.
“The same.”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what you two are talking about.”
Bayne spreads the paper in front of me. “These groups of ones and zeros mean something in the language of Logic and Mathematics.”
“It’s a code,” I say.
“Yes. Someone is trying to send us a secret message.”
“The Empress must be told of this,” I say, rising from my rickety stool. I lean forward to scoop the egg and the scroll off the table, but Bayne stops me.
“Leave it here, if you please. I’d like to examine it further. Perhaps there are other compartments with more hints as to this note’s origin. We may even be able to detect who wrote it.” He glances sidelong at Vespa in challenge, and she raises her chin a bit. There will be a competition when I leave.
Piskel refuses to go along this time, yawning and crawling into his little basket without so much as a “good night.” I would go as a hound, but the embarrassing circumstances it leaves me in after transformation are less than desirable for talking to an Empress. So I run. Back through the dusk, with Truffler at my heels. As long as we won’t be touching iron, he’s fine with a bit of night air.
When I arrive at the warehouse, the guards recognize me, but they still cross pikes over the front door.
I pretend I’m Bayne with all his lordly ways. “I’m here to see Her Majesty on a most urgent matter!” Perhaps if I’m more businesslike, they won’t question further.
And they don’t.
They nod and slide the pikes aside. A satyr chamberlain leads me up to the Empress’s receiving room, the one we saw her in just yesterday. It’s chilly in here, and I feel chagrined. I need to get that boiler up and running.
When the Empress enters accompanied by one of her maids, I have the distinct feeling that she had already been undressed for the night. Her hair, usually pinned up in some fashion, is down across her shoulders. Her gown is very simple—at first I think it’s a nightgown—and she walks without the stiffness of a woman in stays.
She notices me watching her. “It’s a new fashion I’m trying, do you like it?”
I blush. “I suppose so, Your Majesty.” I don’t know what to say. All the girls in the Forest wore patched skirts and checkered headbands, the symbols of their clans. The old ladies wore hats with the white chicken feather to symbolize the day we escaped marauding shadowspiders, because of the white rooster who crowed at dawn. Our women have been wearing that without variation since we can remember. I do not understand this thing called fashion.
She purses her lips, and I have a feeling I was meant to say something else. “I would guess you didn’t return here for viewing gowns, though. What’s so urgent, Mr. Reed?”
I tell her about the note that Piskel found.
“May I see it?”
“Vespa and Bayne wanted to try to find out more about its origins, but they thought you should know immediately.”
She begins to pace, the white gown swirling around her like moonlight on leaves. Perhaps I do care a little for fashion after all. She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I’m unsure whether she even remembers I’m here.
Then she turns to me, her gaze deadlier than any of my darts. “I’m going back with you.”
“But Majesty . . .” I can’t tell her what I want to say. That there may be dangerous xiren walking our streets even now. Bayne forbade me to mention it, and I must hold to that. Perhaps I can convince him to tell her the truth once she’s in the townhouse.
Under that gaze I fall silent. Truffler clutches my trouser leg.
“I’m going along, Mr. Reed. I need to see this for myself.” After a breath she asks, “May I call you Syrus?”
You may call me anything you like, I want to say. But I nod instead.
She comes closer. There is again that light, clean, almost metallic scent. She smiles and says, “And you may call me Olivia when we are alone like this.”
When we are alone like this. It echoes in my head until I can feel it radiating out through the blush in my cheeks. Will we be alone like this often? It is only for her to say.
She seems to be waiting for me to say something.
“Thank you, M—Olivia.”
The smile lights her eyes as she nods. “I’ll just get them to fetch my cloak and alert the guard to escort us,” she says. “Meet me by the doors.”
A contingent of faun sentries escorts us from the building. I’m glad of them. Even if I can’t tell her why.
It’s full night. The moon is obscured by webs of cloud, and a stiff breeze nearly puts out the torches the guards are carrying in addition to their pikes. I turn to the Empress and almost tell her to go back inside, so filled am I with foreboding, but she has already gestured the guard forward.
Truffler is clutching my trouser leg again and muttering. “All will be well,” I say, but it really comes out as more of a question than a statement.
He looks up at me, and I don’t like the fear in his eyes.
It’s when we turn down an alley not far from the townhouse that I know something is very wrong. The moon disappears entirely. A nasty, skipping breeze blows out all the torches. The fauns sense the same wrongness I do, and the Captain calls for them to drop torches and ready pikes. Olivia looks over at me, and her eyes shine eerily despite the lack of light, like I imagine mine do when I’m in houndshape.
“We’re nearly there,” I say, trying to be encouraging. But I’m cut off by the whisper-sound of things dropping to the ground, the stuttered cries of fauns as their throats are cut. I drag Olivia with me against the wall so that our backs are against something. I look up and see eyes for just a moment. Spider-eyes. And the golden markings of the shadowspider glimmering on its forehead. Xiren.
“They’ve crossed the River.” I hear myself say it as if from a distance. I can just about hear Nainai saying, “You can bet sure as sure that Ximu has something up her silk sleeves. She’ll be back, have no doubt.”
How right she had been.
“What’s happening?” Olivia asks, huddling close.
I don’t answer her. “Truffler . . .” I start to tell him to take Olivia and run as I draw my knife. But there’s no time. The xiren falls upon her, and I hear her gasp.
I leap onto the back of the thing, trying to stab through its heavy cloak.
Truffler moans and wrings his hands behind us. There is nothing he can do.
The xiren has Olivia by the throat. It tries to throw me off its back but can’t quite manage it. Finally it lets go of her to deal with me.
“Truffler,” I shout, “take her and run!”
That at least the hob can do. I see him help her to her feet, and then the xiren takes up all my vision. The moon escapes the web of cloud then, and I am left gasping.
The xiren who has turned to face me stops.
Everything stops.
I’d know that face anywhere. It’s engraved in my dreams. I still see it, telling me to go right before I dive through the window and the thunderbuss blast shatters behind me. Even despite the golden markings and the blackened skin, I know that face.
Uncle Gen.
“Syrus.”
I can’t speak. All I can do is gape at him. I am a fish slung from water to stone, desperately trying to breathe.
“You must come with me.”
I flex my fingers on the dagger hilt. I don’t want to kill him—not that nightmare again—but I also am fairly certain that I should.
I finally find my voice. “Why?”
“Because our Queen commands it.”
“And my Empress forbids it.”
He takes a step toward me, and I raise my dagger, stepping back. Uncle Gen makes a slight nod, and I realize my mistake as the arms enfold me from behind.
“Why?” I manage to choke out.
But the fangs descend into my neck, and all dissolves into darkness.