The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards (26 page)

“Okay,” Henry said. “Go for it. Climb on in.” He stepped off the bed and gestured for Henrietta to go first. “You know which one.”

Henrietta hopped onto the sponge bed and tossed her backpack at the cupboards. It disappeared before it reached them. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” she said, and she stuck her toe into an ax-shaped door, pushed up, bent, and wormed her way into the wall. Her shins and
feet dangled for a moment, and then she kicked forward, and they were gone.

Henry nodded at Zeke. “Go for it.”

But a whistle shot back through the wall, and Beo bounded into the room and onto the bed. He turned in a circle, looking for Henrietta, and then barked, confused. The whistle came again, and he faced the wall. The dog sniffed and then jumped. His head and front legs vanished, but his hind end scrabbled and clawed at the wall. Henry and Zeke both jumped onto the bed and shoved the dog up and forward, tail-beaten for their trouble.

“Okay,” Henry said, panting. “Now you go.”

Zeke stepped onto the bed, shoved his pack forward, and in one fluid motion, he was up and through the doorway, leaving Henry alone in the flooding house.

Henry double-checked everything. He had his baseball, a few folded-up pages as samples, and some kind of ancient death-sword strapped to his back.

He really wanted his baseball glove. He needed it.

“Oh well,” he said aloud. “I could lose worse things.” Maybe someday he would knock on that cop’s door. Maybe not.

Henry scurried up the wall and slid into the cupboard, grateful that it wasn’t shrinking on him. His toe slipped, and he dangled, halfway into someplace dark and musty that smelled like fish and wet dog, and halfway in the air of his old bedroom. With a kick and a scooch, he made it in, not so gracefully as Zeke or even Henrietta, but at least better than the dog.

Coughing, he sat up. A door creaked and let in the last light of a sunset. He was in a small shed. Zeke was on his feet, opening the door. Beo was whining about something, and Henrietta—

Where was Henrietta?

“Oh, Henry,” she said in the darkness. “It’s Rags. He’s here. He was trying to find you.”

After looking carefully, Zeke opened the door all the way and stepped outside. They were down by the harbor, in a wharf shed. Nets hung on the walls. Henrietta was sitting cross-legged, and Beo stood beside her, sniffing and whining. On her lap, there was a tangle of burned feathers.

Henry slid forward. The raggant was still, his rough skin burned in places, his wings patchy.

“Oh, Rags,” Henry said. He took the drooping animal carefully from Henrietta and settled it onto his lap. Henry hunched over and pressed his forehead against the animal’s blunt horn. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I should have made you go through the cupboard first, but you know you wouldn’t have. What happened? I wondered where you were.”

Henrietta cleared her throat. “I think he’s dead, Henry.”

Zeke leaned back in.

“No,” Henry said. “No. He can’t be. I would have known. I would have felt something.”

“You really think so?” Henrietta asked. “With all that’s been going on?”

Henry stood up, carrying his animal, if it really was his.
He was sure that the raggant thought of himself as the owner.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get to this inn. Go, Henrietta. You know where it is.”

The three of them walked through the streets of Hylfing, wet and unrecognized, with Henrietta leading. Beo paced beside Henrietta, somehow aware that his city wasn’t as cheerful as when he had left it. Zeke carried the little cupboard crammed into his backpack. The sun was just hidden behind the sea, and most of the townspeople were inside, muttering their anger and sorrow over evening meals. The cobbles hid in shadows, and a cool breeze clipped in from the sea with the tang of winter storms to come, ruffling the feathers in Henry’s arms. Two galleys still squatted in the harbor, and that meant soldiers might be in the streets. Worse, how many fingerlings had been accounted for? One had died in Hylfing and one in Endor. Six more had been in Endor, including Coradin. That left two. Where were they?

Henry began staring at shadows as they passed and glared angrily at every alley, trying to squelch his nerves. If they could feel him, why couldn’t he feel them? Maybe he could? He’d have to try. It would definitely be useful when walking through cities at twilight.

“Can we go faster?” Henry asked.

Henrietta looked back at him, slapping Beo’s neck. “Are you that hungry?”

“I wouldn’t mind being inside already,” Zeke said. “With lots of light. I’ve had enough dark for a while.”

“We’re almost in the square,” Henrietta said. “Hold on.”

They wound their way down a gradual hill, passed three cross streets, and stepped into the square. It was well lit on the other end, in front of the hall. Six fires burned in wire cages around the building, and soldiers were posted beside each of them.

“This way,” Henrietta said, and sticking close to the edge, she led them across the corner of the square to an old building that had forgotten how to stand straight. Black timbers, angled with age, held up the low-slung inn. The front door was closed. Lanterns on either side of it hung dead and empty.

Henrietta grabbed the center knob and pulled. It clanked in place. The door was locked.

“Hey!” she yelled, and knocked on it.

“Closed!” The muffled voice filtered through the door.

Henry stepped forward. “No, you’re not!” he shouted, and he kicked the door’s base three times.

After a moment, a heavy bolt slid, and the door opened a crack, revealing a tiny slice of golden light.

“Password?” a man whispered.

“We were told to meet someone here,” Henrietta said.

“Wrong,” said the man. “Password?”

“Let us in or we’ll burn it down,” Henry said. “Does that work? Mordecai, my father, told us to wait for him here.”

“Is that Henry? But you blazed in the house. You’re ash.” The door opened and emptied the inn’s light into the dusk. The big cook hooked them all easily and dragged
them in. Beo was forced to his belly on the mat. The door slammed, and the bolt slid.

Henry looked around the room. It was full of faces: hard sailor faces, leathered by the sea; shepherds and guardsmen with sharpened eyes; even shopkeepers, soft in their middles. He had never been in a room so full of anger, so full of … humans. Women were sprinkled throughout the room, and others moved quickly with trays bending beneath drinks, but most of the eyes on him were male. They were glad to see him. Faces smiled, but not in any way that calmed the fury beneath the surface, and in some cases, the fury on the surface. Forehead veins twitched. Knees bounced. The place was sweltering with breathing, and the windows had all been covered with blankets.

Henry began to notice weapons.

The cook yelled, and the wall-to-wall whispering died.

“This here’s Henry York Maccabee and his dead raggant—you’ll be knowin’ who sired him—and Henrietta Willis, daughter to the mayor, both thought to be burnt to soot.” He glanced back at Zeke. “And their friend,” he added. “And Beo, their uncle’s dog.” He turned to Henry. “I’m Zebudee. Call me Zeb. Knew your father since we were weaned. This is my inn.”

“I’m really, really hungry,” said Henry. “Is the kitchen open? And I need someone to look at my raggant.”

“Who will make a trencher space?” the cook yelled. “Give a seat to Mordecai’s blood.”

Men shoved their way clear of a table, leaving space
enough for Henry, Henrietta, and half of Zeke on a bench. The three of them levered themselves in and sat quietly in a silent rainstorm of stares. Henry stroked the raggant on his lap.

Three bowls of thick stew were dropped in front of them, along with spoons. A hunk of meat, bone in, was thrown to Beo.

Henry ignored his bowl, and the stares became questions. The rain became a flood.

“Where’s your father?”

“You burn up?”

“Where you been hiding?”

“Where’s you father?”

“When’ll he be back?”

“You think we should strike?”

“Where’s your father?”

“You think we should burn the ships?”

“What would your father say?”

“How you live in all that fire?”

“Shame on us if one red-shirt still breathes in the morning. What say you, Henry?”

Henry couldn’t answer anyone. His story was too big, and his eyes, his mind, his heart were on the pile of sagging flesh and feathers in his lap. The men from the table all leaned in, facing him, watching him watch the raggant. Rows of others crowded behind them, drinking, fuming, chewing on threats and questions.

A small, steaming glass was slapped onto the table.
Zeb nodded at the raggant. “If he’s got a spark of life, that will shake him up. Works on sailors pulled from the wracks.”

Henry rolled the raggant onto his back and picked up the little glass the innkeeper had given him. The liquid was brown and as thick as syrup, cool to his touch despite the steam.

Squeezing the raggant’s lips, he tipped the glass.

“Just a drop there, lad,” a gruff voice said. “Don’t be melting his tongue.”

One fat, slow, string-trailing bead fell into the raggant’s mouth. The questions stopped while every man watched. Henrietta chewed slowly. After a moment of silence, the gruff voice spoke again. “Right then, two drops, and then give him up. More than three would kill a plow horse.”

Biting his lip and swallowing hard, fighting his own tight throat and hot eyes, Henry eased two more drops into the raggant’s mouth. After a few seconds, men began to shift and whisper with disappointment.

“He’s gone, lad. Noble beast. Pity.”

“No,” Henry said. He tipped in two more drops, and then a third. “No.” He set the glass back on the table and bent over his raggant. It was his raggant. His. His mother had bonded it to him. It couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let it. Henry looked up and around the room, at all the stern and angry faces waiting to see if he would cry. His eyes went black, and the room became a bedlam of influence, traces and strands and histories and breaths pouring from
every man, mingling together into a single mob of anger at the ceiling. He turned his eyes down to the raggant.

It was still. A translucent gray web pooled limply around it.

“No,” Henry said again. He ran his right hand, his glowing burn, around the rough animal’s face. He sent his heat into its belly. There was something there. Something pulling at his palm from beyond the skin and bones. The bond between the two of them had not been broken. The animal couldn’t be dead. Not yet. The room was full of life and strength, but Henry needed none of it. He poured his own heat into the animal; he let the pull take his strength; he let the bond grow.

The raggant’s back arched. His nostrils chuffed and flared. Writhing, his wings thumped into Henry’s chest. The creature sneezed, again and again, and on the seventh sneeze, two clouds of dandelion down erupted from his nostrils.

The raggant opened his eyes. Then, levering his front legs onto the table, he flared his damaged wings, knocking Henrietta’s bowl onto her lap and thumping Zeke in the face. Eyeing the men around the table, he bellowed, long and loud and furious.

The gruff sailor laughed. “Vicious, isn’t he. He’ll be wanting a drink with that fire in his belly.” The man slid his dark, foam-topped pint forward carefully, watching the raggant’s eyes as he did.

The raggant quieted, dangling his black tongue out of
his mouth. He dipped it through the foam and into the sailor’s draft. His lips followed, and he slurped noisily.

“Innkeep, water!” the sailor shouted. “In a bowl for the beast!”

When a wooden bowl full of water banged onto the table, Henry tried to pick the raggant up. The animal flapped hard and shook, kicking and butting, rolling his eyes and looking for something to bite. But Henry didn’t care. Blinking against the beating wings and grinning happily, he dunked the raggant’s head in the water.

Immediately, the animal went limp, burbling. Henry let its rear sag onto the table, and then he let go completely. Tucking his wings back, the raggant kept his face in the water with his tongue lolling out. His horn and nostrils peeked above the surface, and he sprayed sailors with every breath.

Henry sat down and sighed.

“I thought he was gone,” Henrietta said.

“That he was,” said the gruff sailor. “That he was. Your cousin here’s got a bit of spark.”

“No.” Henry shook his head. “Rags had a little life left.”

“Either way,” Zeke said, “I’d say he’s got a lot now.”

Henry plowed through his stew, dropped his spoon, and puffed his cheeks. Now that he was done and the raggant was calm, the men around him expected answers. A barrage of the same questions poured down on him.

Henry held up his hands. “Hold on, hold on!” he yelled, but no one so much as paused for breath.

Behind him, the innkeeper whistled sharply, and the room died.

“Okay,” Henry said. “I’m alive, and my cousin is alive.” He patted Henrietta’s shoulder. “You know that much. My grandmother is alive, too, and safe in another city. My father and Caleb are in Endor searching for a way to kill the witch. They will be coming here if they can. The witch is somewhere far south in a big city.” He looked at Henrietta. “What’s it called?” She shrugged, and he looked back at the group. “The emperor’s city.”

“Dumarre?” a sailor asked. “Mordecai knows this?”

Henry nodded. “He thinks she’s controlling the emperor.”

“And why does he think that?” someone shouted.

“The emperor’s got enough evil of his own,” said another. “They’d make quite the pairing.”

“Have you heard of fingerlings?” Henry asked the room.

Voices died. Finally, someone cleared his throat. “My gran told stories. Gave me night sweats.”

“Aye,” said another. “Old Endor tales—fingerlings and witch-dogs.”

“Well,” said Henry, “there were fingerlings with the soldiers here. More in Endor tracking my father.”

The first sailor scrunched up his face. His eyes looked young, but his skin looked like worn shoes. “With the finger and all? Really?”

“Really,” Henry said. “I killed two of them. They were wearing black, and they keep their hair knotted to hide the finger.”