“Is this your queen?” the blond man walking beside the Fate Maker asked.
I glanced over at the man, the Fate Maker’s exact opposite in every way. Where the Fate Maker was tall, dark, and menacing, with glowing eyes, the man beside him was short—not even as tall as my own five feet six inches—and pudgy with small brown eyes and an upturned nose that made him look more than a bit like an overgrown pug.
“Who are you?” I asked, looking between him and the wizard I’d banished into the Bleak ten months before.
“Rannock, Prince Consort to her Graciousness, the Night Lily of Bathune, the great and powerful Empress Bavasama, Ninth of her Name. Oh, and I’m also the Grand Vizier, of course. Charmed, I’m sure.”
“Not in the slightest,” I said, not taking my eyes off the Fate Maker.
“Really?” Rannock asked. “I’m rather charmed to meet you. Any queen with the guts to trap a wizard like Piotr in the in-between not once but twice? If you weren’t standing in the way of my empress’s throne, I’d be impressed. Now, why are you in the South Tower instead of shackled to a wall at the top of the North Tower?”
“Sire—” Mikhail started.
Rannock glanced over at the young man standing beside me and frowned when he caught sight of Mikhail’s burned, twisted hand. “Ah, that’s not good. What have I told you about touching magical elements, boy? Never a good thing. It always leads to trouble, and any idiot would have known that a crown would have protections on it. I would heal you, but perhaps it’s better to let you learn from your mistakes.”
“But—” Mikhail looked at him, his eyes wide, and Rannock grabbed the wounded hand, squeezing it.
“Perhaps the wound will remind you not to mess with things you don’t have the power to control. Now hush,” Rannock ordered before he snapped his fingers and Mikhail’s mouth shut, his teeth snapping together with a loud
“Piotr,” Rannock said, snapping his fingers at the Fate Maker this time. “See her back to her cell—if you don’t mind, my friend—while I deal with my disobedient Hound.”
Mikhail let out a muffled yell from behind his closed lips, his eyes wide with fear.
“Come along, Your Majesty.” The Fate Maker reached for my arm, and I jerked away.
“No. Not until I see Jesse and make sure he’s okay.”
“I said, come along.” He got a grip on my sleeve and pulled me after him as he hurried down the hall, dragging me as he went.
“Stop it!” I tried to pull away, but he just kept dragging me down the corridor.
There was a sharp clap behind us and then a loud scream that morphed first into a howl and then the high-pitched whimper of a dog.
“What was that?” I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see anything as the Fate Maker turned into the North Tower and began to pull me up the stairs.
“Punishment. Now keep moving. Rannock gets a bit twitchy after he’s performed black magic. You don’t want him to decide to test some of his newer spells on you.”
“So what are you doing? Protecting me from him?”
“Yes.” The Fate Maker’s voice was tight as he hurried up the stairs until we reached the top. He brought his hand up, and the heavy brown door flew open, smacking against the wall inside. “In.”
“No.”
“In.” He wrapped his hands around my waist and tossed me into the room hard enough that I lost feeling in my legs when my butt hit the floor. “Stay here, and stay quiet. Don’t give Bavasama or anyone else here any more reasons to kill you.”
I pushed myself up onto my feet. “Why are you trying to protect me?”
“Because I want you alive.”
“Why? You’ve suddenly decided to become a hero or something?”
“Hardly.” He snorted and then stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. “If this were a fairy tale from your world, I’d be the very worst villain you could possibly imagine. The one that made all the other villains cry and run back to their mothers.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “This world started out as a book of fairy tales. A book you trapped us inside, remember?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Your Majesty.
“So if you’re such a villain, why are you trying to help me?”
“I’m not trying to help you.” The Fate Maker stepped closer. “I’m just making sure that, when the time comes, I’m the one who gets to kill you. After all, I need your soul.”
“Excuse me?”
“How do you think I got out of the Bleak?” he taunted. “Kuolema doesn’t just let his prisoners go for free. I had to promise him a soul in return for my release, and I figured why not give him yours? No sense in it going to waste after I’ve killed you and taken your throne.”
He swept out of the room and let the door slam closed behind him without looking back. I could hear him laughing as he walked away.
I stood there, staring at the door, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do now. Because if the Fate Maker was here, then things had just gone from bad to really bad. And I didn’t even want to think about how much worse it was going to be when Kuolema showed up, wanting the soul I wasn’t quite done with yet.
Chapter Twenty
I walked over to the door and beat on it, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I was a prisoner, but I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. I had to find a way out, to keep fighting until my army could get there. It didn’t matter what I did, I just had to do something. Even if it was just escaping long enough to figure out the layout of the castle so I could get Heidi and Jesse out safely once my army arrived and the fighting started.
I slammed my shoulder against the door, more out of frustration than any real hope of breaking it down, and then slouched over to the window. Enough sulking and beating myself up—I was trapped, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be useful. I just had to be smart enough to find a way to save my people while locked inside a tiny cell.
I pulled open the shutters on the inside of the window and looked at the bars blocking the way out, each piece of iron less than six inches apart. I grabbed the bars on my window and pressed myself against the wall, looking out at the castle keep beyond. I could see a small group of soldiers marching back and forth across the courtyard while men were play fighting with wooden swords in another area, swinging and ducking as their opponents pretended to attack them.
The sounds of men barking orders and the rattle and groan of heavy metal weapons filled the courtyard. I pushed my face closer to the bars, trying to see what they were hauling forward to defend their walls.
“Heave, you weaklings!” a rough, male voice yelled. “Heave or we’ll throw you in the pots to check the temperatures first. Heave! That pitch won’t float up these walls.”
I felt my stomach clench. They were hoisting bucket loads of pitch to the top of the wall. Possibly cauldrons full. Boiling oil to pour on my army as it tried to siege the Palace of Night’s walls. That wasn’t good.
“Keep those nets loose, boys. Don’t want them tangled,” another voice shouted.
I turned to watch as a young man laid out roughly woven nets and then carefully rolled them into large balls. Once the nets were balled up, another man in black robes lifted his hands and began to chant over the mess of rope. I watched as they started to glow a dull, blue-black color. When the wizard was done with his spell, he dropped his hands and stepped back, motioning for the younger men to step forward again. I watched as each boy picked up a long stick and began to push the still glowing net-balls to rest against a large wooden catapult.
I swallowed convulsively, my stomach turning as I realized that the men had been making ammunition. The nets weren’t just regular nets. They were nets meant to bring down dragons—they had to be—and I’d have bet every book in my library that the spell the wizard had placed on them would be exceptionally nasty.
