“There’s a room full of them. I can smell it, rotting away down there.”
“Can you find it? Can you take me there?”
He snorted, as if that should be obvious, and started walking, tail up. “Come on,” he said, without turning.
Walking through the king’s Other Palace was no picnic. I felt blind—even though shadows of the walls, floor, and ceiling remained—because it was so difficult to think, let alone see, through the sickly miasma. I might as well have been wandering through one of the city sewers.
I concentrated on Cornelius’s upright tail, like a soldier focuses on his flag bearer in the midst of battle chaos, until I grew somewhat used to it, and the sickness eased enough for me to look about a bit.
It was still recognizably the palace, and so I suppose there had been a fairly solid castle here onto which the king had simply superimposed his magic, rather than a chaotic and overgrown mess like Sylvester’s House that had strangled the structure beneath. All the rooms seemed to still be there, just a little shadowed, with an odd halo around the edges of all they contained.
I discovered quickly where all the servants had been lurking. Evidently, the king didn’t like to see the commoners wandering about his palace, for there were doors hidden behind tapestries that led to a rabbit warren of narrow, evil-smelling corridors and rickety back stairs, the ceilings almost black with lamp smoke.
There were no windows that I could see, and so I imagined the servants breathed the sooty air in all day, every day, scurrying about in the dark and stink like a panicked litter of mole pups.
Plenty of them passed by us, and through us, because here in the Other Palace, they were as insubstantial as the choking smoke that was probably blackening their lungs every working day.
I felt a chill when they passed through me, and they seemed to shiver a little as well. I wondered if they thought we were ghosts.
Like Colin, they seemed mazed and absent to varying degrees, some with a little more life in them than others, but all were clearly missing part or all of their hearts. I seemed to have developed a sense for it: sniffing out those who had been snagged, or worse.
“How much further?” I asked.
“It’s right down underneath everything,” said Cornelius. For a moment, he became a shadow cat as he passed back through to the king’s palace to snap up a slice of ham one of the kitchen maids had dropped, and then he reappeared in the Other Palace with it lolling from his mouth like an oversized tongue. A manservant that had been about to trip over Cornelius righted himself and looked about for a moment, puzzled, before continuing.
There were definite advantages to being a cat. No one batted an eye at a cat wandering about the palace—I’m sure they had dozens, official and unofficial, for the inevitable army of rats that lived in any such large household. And no one batted an eye at a cat suddenly disappearing, either. It was just what they did.
I was starting to feel dizzy again from the noxious air. I made my way down another few flights of steps. The scurrying of shadowed servants increased the farther down we went, and I felt their rush and urgency even from the Other Palace, shivering the air around us like a heat haze. Something was clearly going on down there.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked Cornelius, whispering even though no one could hear us. He shot me a look of utter contempt over one shoulder.
At the base of the last staircase was a door, humble, as befitted a servants’ entrance. Everyone who entered and left through it closed it very carefully behind them.
“That’s it,” said Cornelius.
I had imagined the Room of Hearts as some dank and secret cellar, not a thoroughfare. I pushed against the door of the Other Palace, and it opened sure enough, but into nothing.
The shadow servants passed through us with trays full of food and glasses, setting the air to shimmering, but the ones who went into the nothingness just disappeared. There must be a banquet taking place in the room.
“It must not exist here, whatever it is,” said Cornelius. “I can still smell it, though. It’s that strong.”
I supposed that made sense. Somewhere that stored that many hearts, if Cornelius was right, was bound to be warded with powerful magicks and perhaps entirely made of the stuff. So, I would have to pass back to the king’s palace in order to find it.
Cornelius could probably pass unnoticed as one of the palace cats, and the worst that could happen to him was being shooed away. I, on the other hand, could hardly stumble in wearing my shift, appearing out of thin air.
I stood in the doorway and thought, shivering now and then as the servants passed through me. Dozens of them. Scores, even. They had probably called in extra help for the occasion, because this seemed like an excessively large staff, even for the palace. That gave me an idea.
“Can you take me to the kitchen?” I asked Cornelius. Silly question—he could sniff out bacon anywhere.
We wended our way through the labyrinth of back stairs until we reached the kitchens—a vast and bustling space fogged with steam, that probably felt warm and muggy and smelled wonderful on the other side of whatever barrier we had crossed.
Cornelius and I found the busiest, steamiest spot where we would least likely be noticed. I took a deep breath and managed to sidle my way into the king’s palace again, bumping into a thick-armed cook who was elbowing her way to the sink.
“Watch it!” she said sharply, but otherwise gave me nary a second glance. I fit in down here, among the plainly dressed, harried, and sweating kitchen maids—as I had hoped—and everyone was far too busy with what seemed to be a grand banquet to be concerned with me.
I spotted a mobcap and apron drying over the range and snatched them up quick as winking; with the apron tied over my underdress, it could pass for a servant’s outer garment if no one looked too closely.
My bare feet I could do nothing about, but the dress brushed the floor and hid them well enough. Cornelius kept close to my heels.
