“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Your head has to be throbbing, and you’ve got to sleep. We have a long walk tomorrow.”
My mind was too overwhelmed. If I didn’t take the pill, I wouldn’t sleep. I swallowed it, and Greer moved over to his sleeping bag. “You’ll feel better soon.”
I nodded, still in shock from my discovery. I was glad for the pill because my next thoughts were too terrible to comprehend. Claudette in the hallway. Bollard could change people into birds and if he did that, turning them into other animals wasn’t a stretch. Claudette called all those animals by human names. Ms. Lisa Sanders of Barnbury loved lollipops. She was real. They had all been real people.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Chapter 24
Burnt Silver
In the morning, Greer checked my stitches and lightened my load by taking a few supplies. He asked if I was in pain. Yes, I was in pain all right, but it was all mental. My big revelation about Bollard and Manon tormented my thoughts. I was sure I was right about Bollard and thinking about the extent of what he’d done made me look at the people at L’Autre Bête in a different light. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would work for the Merrics, knowing at any moment Bollard had the capability to turn them into a slug. And yet people wanted to be around them, worshiped them. For the briefest moment, I thought about sharing the information with Greer, but I let that feeling pass. I could trust no one in this world. I had to figure it out myself.
Grandma had obviously come home after she’d discovered the truth about the Merrics’ dark powers. But that couldn’t be entirely true, I thought, because Bollard had said Lothaire had broken up with Grandma because he saw her powers. So, Grandma had powers, but hers couldn’t be as terrible as Bollard’s. My grandma was much too good of a person to do that. Besides, Lothaire still cared about her. He said he still loved her.
There was more to the story. More to the necklace.
I needed to find the words, whatever they were, but I felt further away from them than ever. I had been in a palace with people who’d known Grandma and with a doctor who specialized in the Tennabris, but here I was on a walk with a stranger who didn’t really talk. Not that being at the palace mattered anyway. I hadn’t trusted people there with what Grandma said, and that was the right choice. It didn’t matter, anyway. I hadn’t trusted people at the palace with what Grandma said, and that was the right choice. Enzo might have told Manon, Manon might have told Bollard. Doc would have told everyone when they drugged him. I had made the right decision there, and I was making the right decision now. I refused to tell Greer anything I didn’t have to. I couldn’t trust him. I could only trust myself. Not that we’d have time. We walked the entire day, even with my wounds.
By the time we stopped for the night, I was too tired to let my thoughts keep me awake. Without any help from medicine, I fell asleep.
~*~
Claudette’s legs dangled over the side of a large red throne. All done up with nowhere to go. She played with a toy, a ballerina swinging around and flipping back and forth on a string between two pieces of wood.
A bald man in a gray suit knelt on the floor. I couldn’t see the man’s face from where I was. I wanted to see his face, but I couldn’t move in the dream, which was odd. I’d always walked around in every other dream I remembered. I willed myself to move, but it didn’t work. That’s when I looked down and noticed I had the bulky arms of a man. I was in someone else’s body watching this moment.
“Your Highness.” The bald man bowed. “The man who was caught in the failed murder attempt...” He stopped talking because Claudette wasn’t paying attention. She found playing with the ballerina more interesting. She flipped the dancer, holding her in the upswing position.
The man continued. “We have brought him here for his punishment.”
Claudette still didn’t bother to stop with the flipping. “The Libratiers have questioned him and... and... he isn’t Galvantry.”
“You!” A voice screamed in my head, and it took me a moment to realize it was from the body I was in. “You stole everything from me. You take me now too!”
“I’ll read about it in the papers.” She dismissed us both with the flick of her wrist and again, she flipped the ballerina.
“Your Highness?”
“I’m bored.” Flip, flip, hold, flip, flip, hold.
“But the attempt—“
That got her attention. She stood up. “Attempts happen, and often. Plans happen, and often. I don’t need a lecture. Have someone dispose of him.”
“You do it yourself, you dirty—” The voice in my head yelled every profanity I had heard and then some. “You do it. Do it. Cut me down like you cut down my Millie, my Fran.”
Claudette ignored my yelling voice.
The bald man wasn’t done though. “The life of a Merric has been threatened,” the bald man continued. “That’s not how it is done. Bianca has commanded you.”
Anger flashed in Claudette’s eyes and the bald man cowered. “You presume to tell me about my family. As if you could understand what it is to be a Merric.”
The bald man groveled to the floor. “Forgive me, your Highness.”
On the top of his head, a small silver wisp floated, and then another, and another. All three swirled together into a solid cord.
Claudette’s face was white, her eyes full of hot rage. She looked as if she wanted to yank the silver cord out of his
