The Water and the Wild (36 page)

“We know,” Adelaide said softly. “I heard all of it.”

“Lottie, do calm yourself,” said Mr. Wilfer, taking Lottie by the shoulders. “You think I care about that medicine more than your well-being?”

“It was your life's work,” wailed Lottie. “It could have saved you from execution!”

“But it didn't,” Mr. Wilfer said calmly. “Did it? Believe me, Lottie, Starkling has been waiting to kill me for some time now. The only thing preventing him was the simple fact that I was the finest healer of my age. None of my colleagues could boast a recipe for Otherwise Incurable. Not, that is, until Grissom grew greedy. Then, as you see, I became expendable.”

“You became expendable because of me,” Lottie insisted. “You were kidnapped for rescuing
me
.”

“Lottie,” said Mr. Wilfer. “I want you to listen to me closely. I've chosen this path. The day that King Starkling told me he'd heard rumors of the existence of a living Fiske, that he meant to find and kill the child of Eloise and Bertram Fiske, a girl to whom I'd sent birthday gifts all her life, I knew the time had come for me to do something that I hadn't had the courage to do before: rebel.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Fife, clapping loudly.

Oliver was staring at Lottie with warm amber eyes. “You,” he said, “have done a braver thing than all the Worthies did.”

Adelaide sighed. “What Oliver means—”

“It's okay,” Lottie said, smiling sadly at Oliver. “I think I know what he means.”

“Keats is sorry that he lost you,” Oliver said. “He got scared outside the dungeons and came flying back to me. You don't know how glad we all were to hear that he had found you, that you were okay.”

“Then after what Adelaide heard up there in the throne room,” said Fife, “we thought the king might have killed you on the spot.”

“He's going to kill us anyway,” whispered Adelaide. “He's going to have us all executed as traitors.”

That was when Lottie remembered the guard Dorian and what he had whispered in her ear. That whisper suddenly made sense.

“Listen, everyone,” she said, waving frantically and lowering her voice. “I think there might be a spy outside. A spy for the Northerlies. Someone on our side.”

Mr. Wilfer stepped back in surprise. “Whatever makes you say that, Lottie?” he asked.

“His name,” she said. “One of the guards called him by his last name,
Ingle
.”

“You mean like
Mr.
Ingle?” asked Fife.

Lottie nodded. “I think so. Don't you remember what Roote and Crag told us in the forest? That Mr. Ingle had a nephew in high places. Mr. Ingle told me so himself. Well, I think this might be the one. He told me he'd be
listening
to us.” She pointed to Adelaide. “He's got a hearing keen, I think, like yours. Which means—”

“—that he can hear everything we're saying right now,” finished Adelaide. “But what about the other guard?”

“He has another sort of keen,” said Lottie. “The king's screaming was only bothering the Ingle guy.”

“So,” Oliver said slowly, “this spy is waiting outside for us to make a plan?”

“A plan of escape!” said Fife.

“Is that it, spy?” said Adelaide. “Are you just waiting for us to come up with a plan you think won't get us all fifthed in the process? All you've got to do is give me a whisper.” She tensed for a listen, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, that's what he's waiting for.”

Fife rubbed at his neck. “What kind of escape plan will get us out of the dungeons? This place is a maze.”

“But Dorian could help us with that,” said Lottie. “He's a guard, so he knows his way through the dungeons. What we have to worry about is running into trouble on our way out.”

“Dorian?” Fife snorted. “What a stupid name. Only great-grandfathers are named Dorian.”

Adelaide smacked Fife. “Can you focus for half a second? Our lives are at stake! Anyway, I think Dorian sounds sophisticated. It's charmingly old-fashioned.”

“So, Lottie,” said Mr. Wilfer, who Lottie thought was being frustratingly calm in light of their present predicament. “What do you think is a feasible plan of escape?”

“I've been thinking of something,” said Lottie, “but it might be a terrible idea.”

“Tell us,” encouraged Mr. Wilfer.

“Well,” said Lottie, “in his throne room, the king has a collection of rare concoctions. One of the jars is full of Piskie Dust.”

“You mean,” said Fife, “you want to dust us out of here?”

“Well, why can't we break in, throw a little dust on ourselves, and be out of here?” said Lottie.

“That could work,” Oliver said. “Couldn't it?”

Mr. Wilfer nodded slowly. “It certainly could. But how will we get to the throne room undetected?”

“Adelaide can help us there,” said Lottie. “She can use her keen to tell us where the king and his guards are.”

“There are three guards in the throne room, by the sound of it,” said Adelaide, “but the king's in another wing of the palace. He's been throwing things around for the past minute.” She winced. “It's loud.”

Lottie nodded. “So, three guards to take on in the throne room, if we go now.”

“What are we supposed to do, fight them off?” said Adelaide.

“You bet we're gonna fight!” Fife said. “Our lives are at stake, Miss Priss.”

“We'll have Dorian with us, too,” said Lottie, “and he knows the guards. If they see him leading us, it should confuse them, maybe even take them a few minutes to figure out what's really going on.”

“I think it's a good plan,” said Oliver. “The king would never expect for us to be let loose, and definitely not in his own throne room. If we're quick about it, like Lottie says, and if this Dorian really does help us, there's a chance that we could make it.”

“And if we can't?” whispered Adelaide.

“We've got nothing to lose,” Fife said grimly.

“But Dorian,” said Oliver. “He has something to lose. Revealing his identity this way could cost him his head.”

The cell door swung open. Dorian was looking in, and his fellow guard lay unconscious at his feet.

“That's a risk spies sign up for,” he said. “Now get out, and let's get moving.”

They piled into the hallway, Dorian in the lead. Though Lottie had been down these halls twice already, she felt
just as daunted by the distorted reflections and dozens of identical turns. She wondered how the king's guards ever managed to learn their way around. Dorian, however, did not pause or falter for a moment. He led them straight to the spiral stairs. At their base, he turned.

“There are four guards in the hall above,” he said, “and the three in the throne room.”

“I hear five in the hall,” said Adelaide.

“Four
guards
,” Dorian said.

“Lead us up,” Mr. Wilfer whispered, “and we shall deal with whatever surprise lies in the hallway.”

They climbed the stairs, Lottie just behind Dorian. When they reached the top landing, Dorian pushed open the door to the palace hallway.

Four guards stood crowded at the entrance, waiting for them.

“What's this, Dorian?” said a burly voice. “Taking an unauthorized stroll?”

Lottie could not make out what happened next. Arms tugged under hers. There was a sudden, confusing jumble of loud thuds and growls. She felt wet fur brush across her legs. She saw a flash of deep red cloaks and deeper black hair. She was knocked down. She heard Adelaide scream.
Then everything came into focus again, and Lottie was lying facedown with a mouthful of velvet rug. She pushed herself up, coughing, and found her shoulder seized in the hand of one of the guards. The guard hoisted Lottie up, pressing her back hard against the wall. He jabbed the cold, blunt end of his mace under Lottie's chin.

“You there!” he barked back to indistinguishable shapes. “Wilfer! Let him go, or I swear I'll—”

Then his mouth went a funny shape. The mace fell from Lottie's neck. The guard gagged and shuddered, his face blooming a shade of sickly orange, then green, then deep charcoal. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he slumped off Lottie, unconscious but twitching, his discolored face turned up toward his attacker.

“Oliver.” Lottie rubbed her throat, trembling. “Th-th-thanks.”

Oliver's eyes were a frightening shade of red. He was still staring at the unconscious guard. Slowly, he nodded.

“Come on,” he said.

Lottie stumbled to her feet, grabbing Oliver's elbow for support. She looked around. Two crumpled guards lay on the floor, and a Barghest—
her
Barghest!—stood
panting over them. A fourth guard was still standing, locked in the arms of Mr. Wilfer.

“Don't look!” screamed Adelaide, dragging Lottie to her feet. “Just go!”

The candles in the hall sputtered out as Lottie and the others ran past, straight for the golden tapestry that hid the throne room doors. The Barghest scampered ahead of them. The tapestry swung back, and the three guards that Adelaide had predicted piled out just in time for the Barghest to leap on one of them, dragging him down in a howling heap. The fallen guard's mace swung out of his hand and cracked into another guard's ankles. He screamed and buckled to his knees.

The remaining guard stood facing them, his mace shaking in his hands.

“Don't come any closer,” he said. “I'm warning you, the rest of the Guard will be here soon enough.”

“But they aren't here now,” said Dorian, swiftly plunging a fist into the guard's stomach.

“You're a traitor,” the guard grunted, stumbling back.

“We're both bad guards,” Dorian agreed, lobbing a punch at his eye. The guard dodged the blow and lifted his mace over Dorian's head. But before the blow could
fall, another mace clonked the guard's head from behind. He collapsed, senseless, revealing a hovering, triumphant-looking Fife.

“Nice mace, that,” Fife commented, tossing the weapon aside.

“Thanks,” Dorian said curtly. He pushed open the throne room doors.

Lottie hurtled straight to the shelf of rare concoctions. The jar marked
ROYAL PISKIE DUST
was right where she had remembered it, a third full of powder the color of robin's eggs. She lifted the jar down with both hands and unscrewed its lid.

“Wait!” cried Adelaide. “Wait for Father!”

Mr. Wilfer stumbled into the room with the Barghest.

So did Grissom, and a dozen red guards just behind him.

“Draw close,” Mr. Wilfer ordered the others. Then to Lottie, “Throw the dust!
Now!
”

Lottie heaved the jar up with all the strength she had. The Piskie Dust did not come out at all like Lottie had expected, like an emptied pack of sugar. Instead, it remained suspended in midair, and then it shifted upward in a swirling spiral of blue. The spiral flung outward, wrapping around her in a powdery vapor.

Lottie opened her mouth to shout a destination. Then her lips froze. She hadn't taken the time to think of
where
to take them. She hadn't thought of a place to say! Piskie Dust whirled into Lottie's mouth, sending her into a coughing fit.

“NO!” shouted Grissom, leaping toward their circle.

Then an image flashed in Lottie's mind: her green apple tree. That was where they needed to go!

“Tree!” Lottie coughed out.
“Apple tree!”

The dust swirled faster, blowing so hard into Lottie's face that she had to shut her eyes. When she opened them again, she was standing outside.

But they had not been transported to her apple tree in Thirsby Square.

They were in a heap of vines, standing before the sickliest apple tree that Lottie had ever seen. The Piskie Dust had only taken them just outside the Southerly Court walls, to the plagued orchard.

“No,”
said Lottie. “This wasn't what I meant!”