“Think sideways,” I repeated. It made as little sense to me now as it had the first time.
“Like this,” he said, and vanished, as if that demonstration was going to help me. Shite on a pile of shite, I thought. The House has swallowed him up, and it will finally swallow me, too. And then he reappeared.
“I don’t know how to explain it any better,” he said. “I’ve only been able to talk for a few weeks. You have to ...”
“Think sideways, I got it.”
Right. This was going to be a challenge. I cursed myself for not trying this more when Cornelius had first brought it up, and when I had had leisure to try and fail and try again. But if I didn’t figure out Cornelius’s secret paths to the Other House, fat chance of either of us getting out, and odds were, I’d be chewed up and spat out by the sorceress without ever seeing Da again.
So, I took a step back inside my head to take a look at how I was thinking, which was confusing enough without asking the question,if I’m watching the Foss who’s thinking, who is“I”?Which is not the sort of question I was in the habit of asking myself, nor was it in any way helpful. So, I pushed that aside. I remembered the time I had first tried, back when Cornelius told me about the Other House and I had caught just a glimpse of it. I cleared my mind as best I could, and tried to make a sort of sidewaysleapin my head, like a fish twitching on a line.
Admittedly, I hadn’t expected anything to happen, so it came as a shock when the corridor seemed to make a leap of its own and change shape for a moment. A trick of the light?
“That’s it,” said Cornelius. “Only this time, do it better.”
“Thanks. That’s really, really helpful advice.”
The door to the throne room opened. I almost screamed, but then I saw Colin stagger out, and the door slammed shut again behind him. He seemed to be trying to take his position by the door again, to guard it, but he was having trouble staying upright.
“I can’t leave him,” I said to Cornelius.
“What? He can barely walk. We can’t take him with us.”
“I have to try. That’s how I could end up, if I’m not careful.”
If Cornelius could have rolled his eyes, he would have. I went up to Colin and grasped him by the shoulder, shaking him a little. “You have to hold onto me, all right?” I told him. “I’m going to get us out of here, but you have to hold onto me. Don’t let go.”
It was too good to be true, though. I don’t know if it was pure coincidence that Clarissa left the room just then, or if she had some eldritch way of knowing what we were doing, but the throne room door blew open on a blast of hot air and noise—something like how I would have imagined a dragon’s cough to feel and sound—and Clarissa burst out of it.
I staggered backward and fell, feeling my face to see if my eyebrows had been singed off, but they seemed to still be there. Cornelius clung close to my side, bristling, as Clarissa blazed in the doorway like a phoenix, lit up, and practically steaming with rage.
I thought at first that her rage was directed at us, that she had emerged from the throne room to ambush us and rip out my heart. But then I saw that she was looking back at Sylvester, who had become a dark wavering shape, like smoke, behind her fiery fury. Her face was almost too bright to see.
She was shouting something at him, but I couldn’t make out the words, and I couldn’t see his face. Her hair lifted off her scalp, just as Sylvester’s had when he was smashing the plates, limning her head like a saint in a painting.
Even her skirts were floating, as were her long bell sleeves, although the embroidered and bejeweled fabrics had formerly seemed too heavy to walk in, let alone to blow about like washing on a line. The House shrank from her and warped around her, making me feel seasick as well as nervous and overheated.
She spotted me, of course, and lunged toward me with her mouth open and snarling, as if she was going to bite my head clean off. Her teeth were very white and sharp. I kept hold of her servant’s shoulder, more out of terrified instinct than fellowship. Cornelius launched himself toward her face, and she put up her hands and screamed.
I didn’t stick around to see what happened next. Trusting that Cornelius would be able to take care of himself, I scrambled down the corridor as quickly as I could, dragging Colin behind me. I could feel the heat of the sorceress’s anger singeing the hairs on the back of my neck. Cornelius yowled, and I heard his claws skittering on the floor as he ran after me.
“Foss! Wait!” I heard Sylvester shout.
Like I would fall for that old trick. I didn’t care if I dropped dead of heartsickness at the first corner; I wasn’t letting that magic harpy take my heart. As I was almost to the front door, however, I skidded on the smooth blackness—the House had given a twitch—and went sprawling, bringing Colin down with me.
Clarissa was upon me at once, glowing like a bonfire. As I quivered like spilled jelly on the floor, unable to stand, she reached out with one long-fingered hand and lifted me by the shoulder as if I weighed nothing at all.
She shook back the lace of her sleeve on the other hand, flexing her fingers into a claw. Three ripe, red scratches from Cornelius’s claws rent her perfect face. They were already healing as I watched, tiny invisible hands stitching them up until you’d never know anything had ever marred her flawless complexion. I shuddered. She flexed her hand, a twist of triumph at the corner of her mouth—and then hesitated. I had the sense that she expected something to happen, and was surprised when it did not.
“What are you?” she hissed at me. “What is protecting you?”
Sylvester appeared as a dark blur over the fire of Clarissa’s shoulder. I saw his mouth open and shut, and dimly heard him say my name.
“Foss!”
No, it wasn’t him after all—it was Cornelius, appearing and then disappearing, winking in and out of my sight, showing me what I should do. But Clarissa still had a grasp of my shoulder like an owl’s talons on a ferret, and I couldn’t twist free. She was examining me with cold curiosity, staring into my face as if trying to read something there.
Taking advantage of her distraction, I turned my head and bit her wrist as hard as I could, tasting her oddly metallic skin and then the warm flooding of blood that told me I had bitten deep. She cursed and released me, just for a second, but a second was enough.
