about those Gnomes?” she asked him.
He nodded eagerly. “I would, indeed.”
Together they went off to find the kitchen.
HIS EMINENCE
The trouble with being raised a Princess of Landover is that it makes it very hard to settle for anything less. Sterling Silver, for example, was more than her home; it was her caregiver. A sentient being, it knew instinctively what she needed and provided it for her. A bed that was just right for her size and shape, suitably warmed each night, floors that were heated to order, food prepared and delivered, air that was sweet smelling and always fresh, a channeling of sounds that were pleasing and comforting, clothes to wear, and beautiful things with which to decorate her rooms—these were just a few of the comforts she had been provided, always without her asking. The castle was magical and capable of magical acts, and it had looked after the Kings of Landover and their families since its inception.
Nor was her transition from the castle to the Carrington Women’s Preparatory School particularly difficult. She was no longer able to rely on the buildings for special service and care, but if she wanted clean clothes to wear and fresh sheets to sleep on and good food to eat, there were people who could provide them all. And there were a plethora of advantages that even Landover lacked. Her father’s world was technologically advanced, so there were movies and televisions and radios and cell phones and computers and vast numbers of retail stores and malls to enjoy. There were airplanes and automobiles and trains and buses for transportation. There were cities that were vast in size and filled with exciting places, some of them actually educational. All in all, it was a fair trade-off for what she was leaving behind in Landover, and she had found it an exhilarating experience (when she allowed herself to do so).
There was nothing at all exhilarating about Libiris. In addition to being dark and dank and cold, it felt like a tomb for the dead. The air was stale and smelled of decay. Her room was a smaller version of the larger structure—close, cold, and dead feeling. Her bed was miserable and her pillow, a rock. She found no clean clothes to wear, no water to drink or bathe in, no toilet facilities of any sort, and no windows to let in fresh air. The silence of her surroundings was like a great weight pressing down on her. Now and then, she would hear a small noise from somewhere far away, but she could never identify it and be reassured that it meant the presence of other living creatures.
She made it through the night, surviving an uneasy sleep, still dressed in the clothes she had worn coming in. She woke to blackness, but when she arose from the bed a tiny light flickered on over the door. More magic, she noted. She found the door unlocked and walked out into the hall. Tiny lights flickered on up and down its length. She wondered where Thom might be sleeping, suddenly anxious for his company. But there was no way of knowing how to find him. She walked the hall from end to end, stopping at each door and listening to the silence beyond as if it might reveal some secret. She did not venture beyond the hall once it turned down other corridors, afraid she would become lost in what appeared to be something of a labyrinth.
Finally, she returned to her room and sat down on her bed to wait. Idly, she began sorting through the few possessions she had brought, laying them out on the bed for study. At the bottom of her duffel, beneath the few items of clothing, she found the compass, the virtual map ring, and the book on wizard spells that Questor had given her. Below all that was the fairy stone she had brought as a present for her grandfather and had failed to give to him. She had carried it all that way and forgotten she had it. She held it in the palm of her hand, feeling immeasurably sad. She found herself thinking about all the things she had taken for granted in her life before this, the way you do when you are feeling sorry for yourself and wondering what has brought you to your present state. But thinking of it didn’t make her feel any better, so she shoved such thoughts out of her mind and began concentrating instead on what it was she intended to do with herself now that she was here.
The irony of her situation did not escape her. She had fled from Sterling Silver for the express purpose of not being forced to come to Libiris as her father’s envoy, and yet here she was anyway. She could argue all she wanted to that it was a matter of circumstances; that she had come here not because her father wanted her to but because it was her own choice, a choice made out of necessity and one that she could revoke at a moment’s notice. She could rationalize that her presence was mostly due to Edgewood Dirk—wherever he was—who had talked her into coming, persuading her it was the only place in which her father would not think to look for her.
But it was all words, and none of them mattered more than the fact of her being here in a place she did not really want to be.
She stewed about it for a while, and then finally there was a knock on the door, and when she called back it opened and Thom stepped inside.
“Good morning,” he greeted cheerfully. “Are you all right?”
She brushed back her hair and gave him a short nod, unwilling to admit that she hurt everywhere and hated everything. “Is there somewhere I can wash?” she asked instead.
He took her down the hall to one of the doors she had passed earlier and opened it for her. Inside, there were counters with basins and pitchers of water. On the wall hung towels. None of it looked too clean or too new.
