Moon Spun (24 page)

The entire crowd burst out laughing, slapping their knees and poking each other with bony elbows like I was the funniest stand-up comedian ever.

When Delphine sobered up, she said, “Are you talking about Argyle?”

Confused, I swiveled my head back and forth between Delphine and the spider. I pointed at the arachnid. “Is that Argyle?”

She nodded. “You needn’t fear Argyle. He tells us what’s going on outside the kitchen.”

I crept closer to Delphine, all the while keeping my eye on Argyle. Ari and Maddie, alarmed by my outburst, flew to my shoulder. Ari patted my cheek to get my attention.

“Will Argyle eat Ari and Maddie?”

I glanced nervously at the spider busily rappelling up a single silken strand to the ceiling. I hoped he would stay there.

Delphine said, “No, little one. Argyle will not harm you. Moths are his favorite meal. I believe he has a large number stashed away.”

Still nervous, Maddie grabbed her sister’s hand. “We’ll be over here.” They pushed off my shoulder and zipped over to the children.

I’d just begun to breathe a little easier when Argyle dropped down directly in front of my eyes. I jerked backward but managed to disguise my startled squeak as a hiccup. Delphine held out her hand. Argyle settled into her palm and reared back like he was sitting down. He waved his two front legs in my direction. Delphine said,

“Argyle, meet the Princess Avalon. She came to free us.”

And a big help I am, locked away in the kitchen. Ashamed by my squeamishness, I steeled my nerves and stepped closer. As I did so, a tiny head slowly emerged from the spider’s body. Astonished, I realized the spider had a face, complete with bright blue eyes and a big, fang-filled smile. 368

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said in his unlikely baritone.

“Likewise,” I said and burst into hysterical laughter. When I was able to speak, I gasped, “Too funny . . . can’t believe I’m talking to a spider . . . a spider with a face.”

Argyle waited politely until I got myself under control. “I believe I have an idea that will help you.”

“I’m all ears,” I said and then added, “Of course, you’re all legs!” Off I went again, laughing heartily at my own joke. I sobered quickly when I saw the forest faeries exchanging puzzled looks.

“Sorry,” I told the spider. “This is all a little strange for me. You see, I’m a . . . ”

Swear to God, every living creature leaned toward me, breathlessly waiting to hear how I would define myself. Funny thing was, I didn’t know what I was. Finally, I just shrugged. “Never mind. What’s your plan?”

Argyle folded his fuzzy front legs. “I have the run of the place because I can squeeze through chinks in the walls. Most recently, I was in Phaedra’s chambers. She has locked Melia in the guest quarters and refuses to talk to her. At the moment, Phaedra is cosseting the Love Talker, who sustained a large bump on his head during the fracas in the great hall.”

Delphine inhaled sharply. “What fracas? My son is injured?”

I gave Delphine the shortened version of the bogey/pixie/moon missile incident. Argyle added, “Hawk has come to his senses and is chafing under Phaedra’s ablutions.

”

I gave a snort of disgust. “If Phaedra won’t talk to Melia, what can we do?”

Argyle rested his chin upon his folded legs. “The Princess Oleander, unlike her mother, has a kind heart. She is most fond of pixies. If you allow me to take your pixies to Oleander, I’m quite sure she will listen to them,”

“And then what? Can she talk her mother into releasing Melia’s people?”

“Probably not.” Argyle blinked up at me. “But, I do believe she will unlock the door to the kitchen. Then, you can figure out a way to make it happen.”

I thought about it for maybe two seconds, before nodding in agreement. What other choice did I have? I had no clue how to summon Luminata. Once free, Melia and I could join forces. With a little luck, we’d find a way to bust her people out of Creep City.

Convincing the pixies to trust Argyle was a different story. After Maddie’s near death experience, the two were perfectly happy to hang out in the kitchen with their new friends. In the end, it was Argyle who won them over.

“I need somebody with tiny little fingers to scratch my belly,” he announced. He rolled over onto his back, his eight legs splayed open and relaxed. “Do I have any pixie volunteers?”

“Me! Me!” Maddie said, hovering over the spider. She dove down and gave Argyle a tentative poke before darting away.

Argyle flashed a big, toothy grin, flipped onto his feet and began to dance to the spider music playing in his head. Swaying and shuffling to and fro, he reared back to stand on his back legs while waving his other six legs rhythmically in the air. He glided backward, sliding his feet across the table in slow moonwalk. For his grand finale, he spun on his back. An astonished Maddie clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled. Ari threw back her head and laughed out loud. She flew over to Argyle and touched down next to his head. “Ari wants to tickle Argyle.”

“Be my guest,” the spider said.

After a few encore performances, the pixies would have followed Argyle to the end of Boundless and back. Still, when I saw the Maddie and Ari disappear through a small opening where the ceiling met the wall, I felt like I was sending them to their deaths. The Unseelie Court was filled with nasty pixy-eating creatures, many of whom lurked, unseen, in dark corners. 369

Like an anxious mother, I called, “Be careful! Remember to look both above and below.”

Maddie poked her head back through the opening. “You already said it about a million times. We got it.”

I smiled. Not long ago, I’d said the exact same thing to Faye.

An hour passed and then another. I began to pace. Horrible images filled my head. What if someone had squished Argyle? What if the bogey I’d conked with the moon missile spotted the pixies and wanted revenge? Geez, if I spent much more time in Boundless, I’d have wrinkles and gray hair from worrying.

Finally, the sound of a key turning in the lock. Afraid to breath, we stared at the door. It opened a crack and the pixies zipped in, looking none the worse for wear. Huge collective sigh of relief. They landed on my outstretched hand. Maddie raised her arms over her head in triumph. “We’re back! And look who we brought!”

Princess Oleander, holding a giant key ring in her trembling hand, slipped through the door and closed it behind her. Her face was pale. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead. After a few nervous glances around the kitchen, she stepped over to join us. I had the distinct impression this was Oleander’s first kitchen experience.

I looked around for Argyle. “Where’s the bug?”

“Up here,” came the unmistakable voice from directly overhead. “And, if I may be so bold, spiders are not insects. We belong to the arachnida classification, if you please..”

After I apologized to Argyle, I spoke to Oleander, “Are you going to help us?”

Oleander took a deep breath and her words poured out like a royal proclamation. “The pixies informed me of your dilemma. As a princess of the Unseelie Court, I am permitted to make my own decisions, providing my mother does not find out,” she said. “So, at great risk to myself, I took two goblets of sangria into my mother’s chamber. I told her I had prepared a sleeping potion to alleviate Hawk’s suffering. Then, quite cleverly, I gave the goblet containing the sleeping potion to my mother and the untainted wine to Hawk. After my mother fell into a deep slumber, I relieved her of her keys. The door is now unlocked. After you leave, I will lock it and quickly return the keys before she awakens.”

She looked around as if she expected us to burst into applause. Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if the words “after you leave” referred only to me or to all the folk in the kitchen. I didn’t ask for clarification.

“Grab the kids!” I yelled. “We’re so outta here.”

Poor Oleander almost got trampled in the rush for the door. I was the last one to step into the corridor and was relieved to see Ryker there, wrapped in his mother’s embrace. Oleander locked the kitchen door. I touched her arm. “Thank you so much. If and when I meet up with Luminata, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

Oleander gave me a regal nod. Before she slipped away, she cast several flirtatious glances toward Ryker who, in his usual clueless fashion, completely ignored her and stared intently at me. After she disappeared into the dim corridor, I said, “So, Ryker, Oleander’s hot for your bod. Or, didn’t you notice?”

He frowned. “Hot for my bod? What do you mean?”

I waggled my eyebrows. “She wants you, big boy. Hey, you’re looking for a mate. She’d be perfect. She even has wings.”

Ryker glared at me. “You are yanking my chain again, are you not, Avalon?”

I grinned and gestured at the forest faeries lined up against the walls of the stone corridor. “What are we going to do with this bunch? Is the drawbridge up or down?”

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“They pulled it up after you and Melia crossed.”

“What about Uncle Davey? Can he swim them across?”

Ryker stroked his chin. “It is possible. But, first, I must hide them. When the next meal time rolls around, the folk will be missed, so whatever we do, it must be fast.”

“Speaking of Melia. Is she still locked in the guest quarters?”

Ryker looked puzzled. “Guest quarters?” he repeated, scratching his head.

“Yeah, two faeries who looked like goats, marched her away. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember very little of what happened in the great hall. I woke up in Phaedra’s chamber. When I left with Oleander, Melia was nowhere to be seen. Maddie! Ari!” he called. “Have you seen Melia?”

Ari flew to my finger. “Ari did not see Melia anywhere. Not upstairs, not in scary place where they eat pixies.”

Maddie fluttered in and took hold of her sister’s hand. “We’ll go look for her.”

“No,” I said. “We’ll go look for her together and Hawk will find a hiding place for the others.”

Ari put her hands on her hips and glared. “What about Argyle?”

I looked around for the spider who, thank you, God, was nowhere in sight. “Argyle is tired from all that dancing. He probably wants to eat some moths and take a nap.”

After Ryker and I agreed on a meeting place, he led the forest faeries away from the kitchen. The pixies and I struck out in the opposite direction. Before we reached the stairs leading to the ground floor, I heard the ominous sound of toadling feet marching in precision, the sound of their big flapping feet growing louder by the second. I found a dark place beyond the glow of the candles and shrank back against the wall. The pixies clung to my hair. I hoped and prayed Ryker would hear the toadlings before it was too late.

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Chapter Thirty

I tried to make myself invisible. In a semi-crouch, I hid my face—the whitest part of me—in my folded arms. I balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to sprint back toward Ryker and the forest faeries if the toadlings spotted me. The other choices weren’t good. The great hall was full of dark fae who would love to get their claws/paws/fangs on the pixies and me. The other choice was the staircase leading to the upper levels. Before we parted company, Ryker had described the layout. I knew it held living quarters for Phaedra and Oleander as well as guest rooms, but I didn’t want the toadlings to trap me there.

The sound of the marching toadlings grew louder. I risked a peek as they marched through an illuminated section of the corridor and counted twelve bobbing heads.

Dang! Were they heading for the kitchen, or was this just marching practice? I buried my face in my arms again. The pixies, quaking with fear, hid in my pony tail.

Slap, slap, slap! When the guards drew alongside our hiding place, I heard an inquisitive grunt and they slowed to a shuffle. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure they could hear it. With their enhanced reptilian senses, could they smell fear? I got ready to run. An answering grunt by the leader must have been the toadling equivalent of “Nobody’s hiding here, dumb ass,” because off they went. When they were safely away, Maddie said, “I’ll go warn Hawk. Ari, you stay with Avalon. I’ll be right back.” She zipped away before I could answer.

With Ari directing me, I hurried down the corridor until we reached the stairs. Surely Melia had to be somewhere above us.

Knowing I would be completely exposed on the staircase, I scampered up the steep winding stone stairs as fast as humanly possible. By the time I reached the top, I was gasping for breath. The first thing I noticed was the lack of hiding places. Blazing torches set in wall sconces illuminated the hallway. No dark shadowy corners. No stone pillars to duck behind. No handy little alcoves to duck into. I felt like a deer caught in headlights, not knowing which way to jump. On the plus side, there were no guards. Neither were there any sounds or signs of life, other than the light. Ari climbed onto my ear and pointed at a closed door. “Ari thinks that room is empty.”

My anxiety level ratcheted up a notch. “Ari thinks?” I whispered. “Does Ari know for sure that room is empty?”

The pixie thought it over. “Ari knows it’s not bad queen’s room. Bad queen’s room is there.” She pointed down the hall to our left.

“Good enough for me.” I turned the big iron handle, pushed the door open and looked into a sea of impenetrable darkness. Oh great, the last thing I wanted to do was walk into a pitch black room concealing who knows what? Since I didn’t relish the idea of something ripping off my arms and legs and eating them raw, I hesitated at the threshold. I opened the door as far possible, hoping the torchlight would illuminate part at least part of the room.

Maddie zipped up and hovered in front of my nose. She waved her arms and shrilled, “Hawk says to come quick. Uncle Davey is caught in a net. Hurry! Hurry!”

Looked like Melia would have to fend for herself. I pulled the door shut and followed the frantic pixie back down the stairs and into the deserted corridor. I darted past the kitchen, around a bend and, a few strides later, screeched to a halt. A second corridor snaked off in a different direction. 372

Maddie, holding her sister’s hand, stopped and spun in the air, as if trying to make up her mind. Finally, she pointed to the right. “I think it’s this one. You stay here.