What else? My skull felt overheated from the force of my thoughts. What else could I do to save him from himself?
The sweep of black fabric in the corner of my eye saved me from further descent. Merulo sat beside me, wincing as the concrete shifted slightly beneath us. “This room,” he said, with a stiff carefulness, “is, ah. Very nice. Thank you, Cameron, for sharing.”
“But it’s not enough.”
He exhaled through his teeth.
“Alright,” I said. An odd urge struck me, to tear this stupid carpet up by the roots and shove the relics out to fall onto the street—but instead I put on another smile for Merulo, and stood. “Let’s go back, then.”
CHAPTER 40
In Which Glenda and the Witch Have Been on the Road Too Long, and In Which, despite the Cushions that Liberally Line the Carriage, Glenda Is Experiencing a Fair Amount of Pain in Her Tailbone.
Apile of scorched material lay before the Vaillancourt manor.
Glenda leaned out of the carriage window as they passed, but the ashes failed to reveal their former shape. “That better not be what I think it is.”
The manor house was middling, consisting of the usual grand rise of stone and slanted roof, with requisite ivy climbing the walls. If it didn’t have any modern flair, at least the greenery looked well-tended, cut into rounded bushes that bordered the gravel entryway. The squawking chickens ruined any hold the manor might otherwise have had on old majesty; it looked pedestrian with the birds pecking about and shitting wantonly, the home of a family in decline.
A servant exited the manor at their approach. He looked bewildered to find no carriage-beast to tend to.
“You can stroke her neck and tell her she’s a good girl,” thewitch said apologetically, descending the carriage steps. “She likes that.”
Glenda flowed down the steps after her, all perfect elven posture, her fear of the carriage’s beastliness forgotten. She felt, rather than saw, the admiring gaze of the human man. Another servant, a short, flustered woman, emerged to bring them to the lord of the manor. The woman quaked as she led the elves—probably, thought Glenda, intimidated by the better examples of her sex. The mongrel witch might have . . . deficiencies, but with her silver hair and jutting ears, she still ranked infinitely higher than a human.
The servant deposited them in the great hall. A table ran down its center, lined by elegant seats, beneath a hanging chandelier—unlit, Glenda noted in annoyance. The hide of a slain manticore lay before the long table, its glass eyes bulging. Glenda exchanged a look of mutual disapproval with Domitia, before separating to prance about the room, evaluating its style. She passed a wooden cupboard, carved in the elven fashion, a hanging shield with the crest of a roaring lion, a richly embroidered tapestry depicting God’s Descent . . . and most satisfying of all, the painted portrait of a stern man with two golden-haired boys. The taller boy, it warmed Glenda’s heart to see, had his face scratched out, as if with the fury of a knife.
“My apologies, I hope you have not been waiting long.” The lord of the manor greeted them with tempered politeness as he strode into the room. His hair was scoured white with age, but Glenda thought it might once have shone a familiar gold.
“Not at all,” said the witch. “Thank you for welcoming us on such short notice. I am Domitia Dragonheart.” She did not,to Glenda’s horror, use her elven father’s surname. “And this is Glenda Bellerose, of the Knights of Order. We’re here about your son.”
Glenda cringed at the witch’s bluntness. The lord’s expression darkened, his wrinkles deepening. “He’s never been right. Never.” The man seemed keen to match Domitia’s forthrightness. “To think, we fed and clothed that . . . if I’d only known, I would’ve strangled the wretch at birth.”
Movement, in the corner of the room. Glenda tensed, ready to draw her knife, but it was only a boy. No, not a boy: a man, but short and fresh into adulthood. He hovered at the room’s entrance, likely thinking himself out of sight in the shadows.
Elves can see in the dark, Glenda thought, with a fair amount of venom. Low intelligence must be a familial trait.
“Ah, yes.” The witch sounded uncomfortable. “We’re hoping you might have a belonging of his. Something of personal significance that we might take with us.” Domitia gave no indication of having spotted the boy. Perhaps the witch had other shortcomings to her vision, in addition to that lazy eye.
“I’m sorry for the trouble my son has caused.” Lord Vaillancourt seemed to be in a world of his own. “There’s such anger in me, and nowhere for it to go. A personal belonging, you say?”
The witch nodded serenely. She’d taken pains, Glenda noticed, not to stand on the manticore rug.
“Did you see the ash heap upon entering?” the lord asked, and Glenda stifled a groan. “We’ve extracted his poison from this house. Everything of his, we fed to the flames. I’m sorry, good ladies, but nothing remains.”
Glenda glowered as they left the estate. The slow strides ofthe serving girl who led them reminded her of the days spent scouting the woods with Cameron. Always, she had reined in her elven speed to match his pace, even when their sluggish progress made her feel like screaming. It enraged her now, thinking of all the times she’d lowered herself forhim.
“Excuse me,” a timid voice called, as the women made to re-board the carriage. “You needed something of Cameron’s? Would you . . . are you going to bring it to him?”
Glenda grinned in predatory rapture. “Of course,” she answered before the witch could speak. “It would help his heart, to have something from home.”
The young man shuffled, twisting his hands in his shirt. He looked to be in his early twenties, face hidden under a heavy bang of curls, his otherwise fashionable clothing marred by the smear of animal shit across one pant leg. Chickens crowded about his feet with a chorus of clucks. He stared down into their midst, as if drawing comfort from them. At last, he decided. “It’s this way.”
They followed the lordling down a path that bordered the manor house. The stink of dung filled the air, as did the rasping cries of animals. Their source soon presented itself: goats, a fenced pen of them, chewing happily on a stack of hay.
Muttering an apology for the detour, the man unhooked the gate and wove through the animals to reach their wood-walled shelter. He reached into the underside of the shelter’s thatch roof, and withdrew something lumpy, made of cloth. Goats swarmed him on his way back, nipping at his pants and shirt. He sternly shooed them away—but Glenda could see his faint smile. Latching the gate firmly behind him, he paused, reluctant to give up his prize.
“I made this for him,” he said, fiddling with the plush, worn-out toy. “People say he’s a coward and a traitor. I don’t know if it’s true.” A she-goat reared to better bleat over the fence, and the man paused to scratch her muzzle. “When we were younger, Cameron . . . he had these episodes. He’d be crying and hiding, like there was something after him, but there never was, nothing at all. I made him this”—he held out the toy, a roughly sewn four-legged beast—“because my animals help me, whenever I’m feeling down.”
