Had the trees slid closer tous?
There was a more important matter to attend to. “We have to get Sam to the castle,” I told Clem. “He needs treatment.”
“Aye.” She nodded. “We kin figure oot th’ rest efter.”
Kit and Jack managed to get Sam upright and stumbling forward, supported on both sides. At some point, I didn’t fully notice when, Jack picked up the looking glass, which was still mumbling dire warnings about me. I was somewhat distracted by the fact that while Clem lowered her bow, she kept it strung and ready at hand.
I couldn’t blame her. If I’d wanted to make a case for my innocence, I doubted I could have done a worse job. Although I still wasn’t sure exactly what I’d been doing. Or how. There’dbeen no kiss this time to enhance my abilities. What had just happened?
I’d have to be more convincing at the castle. Or at least less terrifying than when I’d threatened Jack. Never in my life had I sounded more like my stepmother.
Maybe I had learned something from her after all.
Part VI
Mirror, Mirror
Chapter Twenty-Five
A Fevered Imagination
At first, I thought I was hallucinating the lion on the other side of the bars, pacing back and forth outside my prison door. Then I remembered there really was a lion living in the castle. Although that didn’t necessarily mean this onewasn’ta hallucination. If you imagined there was a toad sitting on your head that would eat your face if you told a lie, it wouldn’t mean every face-eating head toad was imaginary. They’re quite real, as it happens. I once met someone who had one. It was inconvenient; he was never able to find a hat that fit properly.
Now I was hallucinating a toad on my head.
High fever,I thought.Elevated skin temperature, shivering, sweating. Delirium and confusion. Recommendations—keep the patient hydrated. Prepare willow bark tea. In severe cases, cool the patient in a bath.
My throat actually felt a bit better than it had. It was only everything else that felt worse. I regretted not chewing on any willow trees when I’d had the chance.
“Tell me who your confederates are,” the toad said.
The stone walls of my cell shimmered and swam, as if distorted by a heat haze. I wasn’t hot, though. I was cold, very cold, unless I touched my palm to my forehead. That was so hot it burned.
Through the one small window up near the ceiling, I could see nothing but a slice of dark night sky. Never before had I so longed for the power to make a window into a somewhat larger window. At least the one in my stepmother’s tower had a nice view.
Stone surrounded me on three sides of my narrow cell. On the fourth was a row of iron bars serving as the door. In the dim light beyond, a stairway built from the same stone as the walls spiraled upward into the unknown. I vaguely remembered being dragged down it, but my memory did not stretch to whatever might have lain above.
The undulating walls were making me nauseous. I had already thrown up once—two times? More? However many times it had been, I’d managed to get most of it into the bucket someone had left in the corner, but the whole cell reeked of vomit.
“Tell me who your confederates are,” the toad repeated. “Is it the women? The women in disguise?”
“I don’t have any confederates,” I told it. “I didn’t do anything. Get off my head.”
“If you reveal your allies, the king may yet have mercy.” It wasn’t the toad talking. The toad wasn’t real. It was the lion. It shoved its muzzle closer to the bars and peered at me through its spectacles. Lion real, toad fake. I had to remember that.
The whole room pulsed, closing in and drawing back, like lungs. The scattering of straw across the floor shifted and writhed. Or no, wait. Those were insects. They’d left bite marks all over my legs. So they were actually there, crawling around, not just in my mind. Weren’t they?
I closed my eyes. If I was lucky, the insects would be gonewhen I opened them. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m the princess of Skalla.”
“Thare wis a time whin ah micht hae believed ye,” someone said.
I cracked one eye open and saw a masked hunter squatting on her heels outside my cell. The lion was gone.
“Ah wis hauf-convinced ye were tellin’ th’ truth. Till we fun th’ sketches. Drawings o’ th’ monsters ye created.”
A weak stream of winter sunlight trickled through the window, brightening the room from dark to dim. Dust motes danced a slow pavane in the beam. I wondered if sunrise had somehow come while I blinked. It didn’t make me feel any warmer.
“Those drawings aren’t mine. I told…” Who had I told? The lion? Gervase? I wasn’t sure I’d had a chance to talk to Gervase. “I told someone. I found them. We have to go there before—”
