The spiders and snakes outside the tent grew suddenly restless, and this time it had nothing to do with laughter.
“Someone is coming,” Father whispered.
He took me by the wrist, yanking me to the front of the pavilion. I ran alongside him but felt dazed, as if the new history of this man and his kingdom weighted me like a physical burden. Could it all be true? Could he really be the victim of some plot between the shepherd and Mr. Morningside? It seemed insane, but I could not deny that Bennu’s journal confirmed the story. He and that boy Khent had been ruthlessly pursued, all because they carried something valuable to the Mother and Father.
We burst out of the tent, insects and snakes scattering like they had been fired out of a rifle. At first I did not see them, but then, I followed the origin of the fleeing creatures to where Sparrow and Finch descended from the sky. Their wings were but a flash as they landed, and instinctively I placed my hand over the spoon hidden in my apron. They had not harmed me yet, so why did I distrust them so?
“These pitiful fools,” Father hissed. “They are as blind and meddling as their leader, but perhaps more easily dispatched.”
“Wait,” I murmured. “Dispatched? They come in threes; did you kill the third one?”
“Quiet now,” he said, but he was smiling. “I am still vulnerable here. They mustn’t know.”
Sparrow came out of her descent at a sprint, then marched right up to us. We had reverted to our far less glamorous appearances, and “Father” was once again Croydon Frost. He gave her an amiable, almost goofy smile and a bow from the waist. My bones ached with cold, the urge to shiver uncontrollably growing stronger as they came so near.
“Awfully late for a stroll,” she said between gritted teeth. “What are you two up to? I thought the housekeeper imposed a curfew on all her maids.”
“There’s no need to be so hostile,” Finch murmured, taking his sister by the arm and pulling her back. She would not budge. I glanced up at my father, noticing the tight tendon in his temple, fearing that if challenged he would do something regrettable. Now that I knew the truth, that he was capable of “dispatching” one of the Adjudicators, I had no idea what the parameters of his temper might be.
“Stop giving this creepy little chit so much leeway, brother; she’s one of them, and we’re here to investigate them, not invite them over for tea cakes and ices.” She said it all without ever taking her eyes off me. I almost wanted to laugh, for she was so convinced that I was the troublemaker, when in truth she stood before a cloaked god, one clearly obsessed with revenge upon her kind.
“You’re right,” I said plainly. “We are not friends, and I am breaking curfew. Shall I fetch a rod so you can administer a beating?”
“That would be a good place to start,” she growled, leaning over me.
“I haven’t done anything to you,” I replied. “Why do you hate me so much?”
“Hate you?” She laughed and tossed back her thick yellow hair over her shoulders. “I was created for this purpose, to find truth and dispose with lies. There is mischief afoot in this house, and I know you are part of it, girl. What were you two doing out here?”
“Sparrow, please, calm down—” Finch reached for her shoulder but she shrugged him off again.
“He’s my father, all right?” I sighed. Just saying that much seemed like it was giving “Father” a victory. At my side, he smiled benignly, an impressive mask. “I never met him when I was a child. He came here to meet me, to find the daughter he never knew. I’m sure it gives you no small pleasure, finding out I’m not only a lowly Unworlder but an illegitimate one at that.”
Sparrow’s sapphire eyes narrowed dangerously, and in that moment she did not look angelic at all. Before I could react or speak, her hand darted out, closing like a vise around my neck. I gasped and flailed, but she was far stronger. Her thumb pressed hard on my neck as she dragged me close. “That is only half the truth, you little liar, there is no deceiving me. I invoke the right of Judgment—”
I did not hear the rest of what was said. Sparrow opened her mouth wide and a beam of searing gold light blasted out of it. Vaguely, I sensed that both Finch and my father were shouting, but I was not there. There was only blinding, brilliant white light and then a moment of nothingness as I floated. When my eyes adjusted to the blast, I was in a cold white room, with nothing in it but a table, and I was on that table. The surface of it felt like hot needles against my skin, and whenever I chanced to move, the scraping and stinging were unbearable.
I cried out, but there was nothing I could do—secured to the T-shaped table like Jesus to the cross, iron manacles over my ankles and wrists. Sparrow was there, I could feel her, all around me like a vapor. This was not a place of brick or stone, but a prison inside my own mind.
“What were you doing in that tent?”
Her voice emerged from the walls of the mind prison, from the very air. I struggled for breath, lost in a panic. Did the rules of the world apply here? Was there a way out? I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting a sharp urge to blurt out the truth. When I tried to speak I choked on it. Lying. Lying wouldn’t work here. . . . I thought of the girl in Bennu’s story, of her face melting off like hot, bubbling wax. . . .
“Meeting my father!” I screamed it. My voice was raw and crazed.
“What did you discuss?”
It was like I could taste her voice, as if I were breathing her in, letting her see into the darkest, most secret corners of my soul and mind. I had to get out. I would not let her win. I tossed and flailed, hurting myself as I banged against the stabs of the table. My head turned back and forth as I tried to fight her off, but it was no use. I stopped, panting, squirming with the notion that she would at any moment have the whole truth from me. My eyes traveled down my shoulder and arm to my hand, where the two scars on my fingertips lingered and where there was also a bandage. A bandage from a spider bite.
This time I had no trouble conjuring the terror and desperation to transform. Father said it was possible. What was the rhyme again? A drop of blood, a lock of hair, lands you in the Changeling’s snare. . . .
Please work, please work!
It was agony, becoming someone else. Something else. It was like the pains of growing into an adolescent body but more intense, and in reverse, my flesh and bones too big for what my powers forced me to become. I was shrinking, skin on fire, bones snapping in my ears. But then it was over, and while I still ached everywhere, I was not myself. I was small and so, so fast, and I popped up off the table. I could jump! Lord, but could I jump.
I heard Sparrow screaming in outrage, and the light blasted through me again, and then, miraculously, I was free.
Incredibly free. Freer than I had ever been. The table and room vanished, and I dropped into the grass with a soft thump. New legs. Six new legs! The grass felt like velvet as I sped away into the night, listening with a hammering little heart to Sparrow’s tantrum. I had outwitted her, and while Finch tried to quell her and my father burst into laughter, I also heard her launch into the air. She was coming to search for me.
I did not go to the forest, but straight back to the house. There were poorly fitted doors and windows aplenty, and I would find a crack big enough for my spider body somewhere in the shadows. It was a marvelous, exhilarating trick, this transformation, but I could already feel myself growing tired. Magic came at a price, and exhaustion would soon claim me. I hurried along the edge of the house until I reached the kitchens. The yard seemed like a vast, terrible forest, everything expanded into a size I found hard to fathom. At last I crawled to the kitchen door, squeezing through the crack between it and the stone tiles. It was a tight fit, but I managed it, somersaulting out of the spider’s body and into my own, crashing into the table and rolling to my side.
Naked. Stark naked.
Of course. A spider would not need clothing or boots; it all must have dropped into the grass the second I evaded Sparrow’s Judgment. I held my banged head gingerly and stood up, grabbing the table for balance, looking over the edge of it and directly into Lee’s face.
“Oh, hello,” he breathed. He had been eating a jelly pastry and slowly lowered it from his mouth, wiping a few crumbs from his chin.
My pulse had not stopped racing since landing in that horrible white room, and now I wondered if my heart would simply implode from the strain. I carefully placed one arm over relevant areas and cleared my throat, attempting to stand nonchalantly in the shadow behind the door.
“Awfully late for tea,” I murmured, blushing so hard it hurt.
Lee put down his pastry and remembered himself, covering his eyes with one hand. “I told you, I can’t sleep with those Upworlders around.”
“Right,” I whispered. “I think I’d like to be rid of them, too.”
“Would they by any chance have something to do with, um, all this?” he asked, and I could hear the poorly restrained giggle.
“Good guess.” I sighed and sidestepped my way around the room to the door. Sparrow might be angry enough to risk Mrs. Haylam’s ire and search the house, and I was eager to put as many doors, bricks, and large dogs between her and me as I could. “And if you happen to see her or Finch in the near future, you did not see me. In fact, if anyone asks, I was not here, and I was certainly not naked.”
Lee nodded, still covering his eyes, but I could see a smile peek out from under his hand. “Shall I also forget the part where you exploded out of a spider’s body?”
I opened the door and slid around it into the foyer. “Yes,” I said with a wince, using the door as a shield. “Yes, I think that would be best.”