The Water and the Wild (11 page)

But neither Lottie nor Adelaide paid attention to the offer.

“I wasn't trying to steal anything,” said Lottie.

“You were
snooping
. Refined sprites don't snoop,” Adelaide said, tilting up her chin in a haughty glare. “And what strange things did Father tell you, exactly? That you're nothing but a halfling? That you and all Fiskes are nothing but a disappointment? That you and your stupid birthday wish could cost Father his life?”

“Adelaide!” Oliver's eyes had turned a wild amber. “Don't talk to Lottie like that. Can't you see she's still adjusting?”

“Yeah,” Fife said, nodding in agreement. “For someone as refined as you, Ada, you really know how to—”

“SHHH!” Adelaide held her finger to her mouth and waved for the boys to be quiet; and quite unlike Lottie had expected, both of them obeyed.

“What is it?” whispered Oliver. “What do you hear?”

Adelaide shook her head and kept her finger pressed to her lips. Her face paled. She looked at Lottie, then at her brother.

“Father's back,” she whispered.

“Well, thank Titania!” laughed Fife. “That solves all of our problems.”

Fife floated over to the library doors. Adelaide leapt in front of him.

“No, you idiot!” she hissed, shaking her head fiercely. “Listen to me. Father's back, and
he's not alone
.”

Lottie could finally hear the voices that Adelaide was talking about. They were coming from just outside the library doors.

“They're headed this way,” said Fife, shoving Adelaide and Lottie into a nearby aisle of bookshelves. Oliver slinked in after them, just in time. The library doors swung open, and Lottie heard the heavy tread of marching boots.

“Bring him in,” boomed a man's voice. “We won't be seen through the street windows in here. Now drop him.”

There was a thud, and from where Lottie was uncomfortably squished against a row of uneven book spines, she saw a man drop to the floor.

“You will tell us where it is,” the booming voice continued. “Then you will tell us where the girl is. If you do not comply, you know as a Southerly citizen what your due punishment will be.”

The stooped man raised his goggles-clad face, and Lottie gulped down a gasp. It was Mr. Wilfer.

“I told you, it is not ready,” Mr. Wilfer said in a hoarse voice. “Starkling knows this. I need more time. No one in my practice can rush such a process.”

“Perhaps that is why so few in your practice are still alive,” said the voice, and at last the man to whom it belonged stepped into view.

Lottie stifled another gasp. She knew this man, too, the one speaking the cruel words. He was so easy to recognize because he was looking at Mr. Wilfer just the same way he had looked at Lottie in Thirsby Square. It was a bored and
unforgiving look, and it belonged to Mr. Grissom, Mrs. Yates' prospective boarder.

“You have been given deadline after deadline with no results,” he barked, circling the kneeling Mr. Wilfer. “And now you've betrayed the king.”

“You don't have any proof of that,” said Mr. Wilfer.

“You underestimate me, Moritasgus. You always have. You were suspicious that I was tracking your movements, I'll give you credit for that. But you were a fool to send out your own children, thinking that I wouldn't track
them
.”

Mr. Wilfer looked up. “What did you do?”

“
I
didn't do anything.” Lottie could hear a smile in Grissom's voice. “You know as well as I do that your son and his little halfling friend shouldn't have been root shooting from an unauthorized tree in Albion Park. Whose fault would it be if they were inside when the Guard chopped it down? Who sent them?”

“You could have killed them.” Mr. Wilfer's voice was low, and it pricked gooseflesh up Lottie's arms.

“They managed. But, my dear sprite, you can't pull
the wool over my eyes. I saw the Fiske girl in person. One moment she was in Earth, and the next she wasn't. We both know why that is, Moritasgus. You and I were the only ones privy to the king's plan, so that means that one of us has turned traitor. And it wasn't me.”

“No,” said Mr. Wilfer. “It wasn't you. You wouldn't have had the courage.”

Grissom grew very still. Then he struck Mr. Wilfer across the face. Adelaide let out a cry before hiding her face in her hands. Fortunately, it seemed that the echoing
whack!
of Grissom's slap had drowned out the cry, because Grissom did not look their way. Mr. Wilfer, however, did. Lottie was almost positive that he
smiled
at them—a short, sad smile. Then he dropped his eyes back to the ground.

“You have the girl,” hissed Grissom. “She is either here or somewhere close by, being harbored by Northerly sympathizers. The Southerly Guard will be here soon to find her. It will be easier on her and on you, however, if you simply tell us where she's hidden.”

Mr. Wilfer bowed his head. The shadows of dusk slanted over his stooped form. He did not speak.

“Very well,” Grissom said after a long silence. “We will smoke her out. As to the other matter. Starkling is losing his patience, not to mention his faith in you as Head Healer. He's deemed it best that you work under careful supervision from now on, to hurry things along, as it were.”

“I have told him, and I have told you, the process cannot be rushed.”

“It can, and it will. Just as you can and will fetch what you've made so far of the Otherwise Incurable, and you can and will accompany us back to the Southerly Court, where you will finish the king's medicine in three days' time.”

More silence followed, during which Lottie could hear the impatient tap of Grissom's boot and the raspy hitch of Mr. Wilfer's breathing.

“Very well,” Mr. Wilfer said at last. “My children have already lost their mother. I do not wish for them to lose their father, too. The medicine is upstairs. I keep it in my bedchamber.”

Grissom's boot stopped tapping. “Good.”

He motioned to two other boot-clad men, who dragged Mr. Wilfer back to his feet.

“Take him upstairs,” Grissom ordered.

The guards clomped out of the room, hauling Mr. Wilfer behind them. For a long, silent moment, Grissom watched them leave. Slowly, a satisfied smile curled up his mouth. Then he, too, left the dusk-darkened library.

FIFE LET OUT
a rattled breath. Adelaide was crying quietly. Oliver stood apart from the others, head bowed against a stack of books. His eyes had gone a solemn, tar black. Lottie felt that she had stumbled onto something very awful and private and sad. Worst of all, she felt as though it was somehow her fault.

Adelaide had been right the night before: Mr. Wilfer was in some sort of trouble with the king. He was in trouble because of the Otherwise Incurable, and he was in trouble because of
her
. Why?

Suddenly, Adelaide stopped up her crying and whipped her head out of her hands with a gasp. “Father is buying us time. Don't you see? He's buying us time!”

She looked entreatingly at the rest of them. “The medicine isn't in his bedchamber. Father never takes any of his experiments out of the laboratory. The Southerly Guard mean to confiscate it, but Father means to buy us the time to steal it from his study and run!”

“Sweet Oberon, Ada,” said Fife. “I think you're right.”

“Of course I'm right,” snapped Adelaide, stumbling to her feet and brushing tears from her face. “He knew we were in here. He looked at us that once, didn't you notice? No wonder he was in such a tizzy last night. Father
suspected
that this might happen. He wants us to take the medicine and escape.”

“Not just the medicine,” said Oliver, whose eyes had turned from black to a cautious yellow. “He wants us to take Lottie. You heard what Grissom said. The Guard is coming for her. She's not safe here anymore.”

Adelaide nodded brusquely in Lottie's direction. “But we have to
hurry
!”

“Fife,” said Oliver, “take Lottie back to the guest bedroom so that she can get her things. Only be careful;
we don't know what sort of keens those guards have. Adelaide and I will get the medicine from the study and meet you in the back garden, behind the mulberry bushes.”

Fife nodded and grabbed Lottie's hand. Before Lottie had time to open her mouth, Fife had pulled her up, up, up, and out of the library window to the second floor. With a startled
“Umph!”
she tumbled through the guest bedroom window.

“Quick,” said Fife, glancing around nervously. “Get whatever you need.”

Lottie pulled on her tweed coat, which was the only belonging she had to fetch.

“Who's the Southerly Guard?” she whispered, buttoning the coat up to her neck.

Fife wet his lips. “Let's hope you don't have to find out.”

He took Lottie by the hand and they floated off again. This time, they made a smoother landing. Lottie's feet hit the gravelly garden path, and Fife righted her balance. From here, she could see back through Iris Gate's glass windows into the foyer. There was a flash of movement inside, and through the window she saw Oliver and Adelaide stumble out of the laboratory. Oliver bounded
for the French doors, but Adelaide was running the other way, toward that gaping, hungry archway.

“Ada!” Fife shouted.

Somehow, Adelaide heard him through the glass. She turned around, made a motion with her hands that Lottie could not understand, and ran off again, away from them.

Oliver caught up with Fife and Lottie in the garden. “Keep going,” he puffed. “Adelaide's coming.”

They scampered down the garden path until they reached the dark, tall arms of mulberry bush branches. Oliver crouched down and motioned for them to do the same.

“That Grissom guy,” said Lottie, “is one of Mrs. Yates' boarders.”

“He was following you,” said Oliver. “There's been a rumor for weeks in the Southerly Court that you exist. He was going to kidnap you last night. Luckily, we got to you first.”

“Luckily,” Lottie repeated faintly. “He's got to be really powerful if he's allowed to treat your dad like that.”

“He's the Southerly King's left-hand sprite.”

“Who's his right-hand sprite?” asked Lottie.

“Father,” Oliver whispered. “Or, at least, Father
was,
until just now.”

“What's Ada still doing in there?” said Fife. “She's going to get caught.”

Oliver only shook his head and motioned for them both to be quiet. Suddenly, Adelaide's pale, freckled face appeared from behind a mulberry branch.

“YAH!” Fife shrieked.

“Shut up,” Adelaide's hissed, smacking Fife's ear. “I could hear you breathing all the way from the kitchen, you oaf.” She stooped down, dropping a big satchel at her feet. “I just needed to get some things.”

“Do you have the Otherwise Incurable?” Lottie asked.

Adelaide shot Lottie one long, icy stare. “Is that all you can think about? No, I haven't got it. Oliver has.”

As proof, Oliver held up the square vial labeled
Otherwise Incurable
.

Lottie, however, had become distracted. In the fuzzy edges of her periphery, she had caught sight of two pure white eyes with pinprick silver pupils. They were staring out at her from the mulberry leaves at her back. She could feel something warm and damp next to her neck,
and she realized in sudden horror that the dampness was coming from a mouth and that this mouth was attached to the same face that held those eyes. The mouth was breathing softly, slowly, against her ear, in a low growl.

“The Heir,” it snarled. “The Heir of Fiske.”

At that, Lottie had the presence of mind to tumble away from the mulberry bush.

“There!” Lottie shrieked. “That! Look!”

She pointed at the bush. The pinprick eyes had disappeared.

Fife crawled over to Lottie and cautiously plucked her back up. Lottie reddened at how her limbs trembled in the process. She was ashamed of herself, and she was also surprised that Fife, whose lank body looked weaker than a flower stem, was more than strong enough to pull her right side up.

“There, what?” Fife said. “Nothing's there. Shoo, Lottie. You can't scare us like that. We're already on the run. Tense times as it is!”

“But I saw, I heard—” Lottie broke off at the blank looks the others were giving her.

There was no sign of the eyes or mouth or voice. Lottie shrunk in on herself and shook her head. “Never mind,” she mumbled.

“They're going to take Father away,” whispered Adelaide. “The moment they find out he's lied to them and the medicine is gone, they'll take him to the Southerly Court.”

“And then they'll send the Guard after us,” said Fife.

“We can't just hide out back here forever,” Adelaide said, “and going back to Iris Gate is as good as turning ourselves in.”