Midnight in Everwood(76)
Dellara threw herself down under the throne a beat later. ‘Why haven’t you opened it yet?’ She wrenched the mouse from Marietta.
‘I am merely waiting for us to be discovered instead,’ Marietta snapped back at her, aware that the minute they’d stolen beneath the throne, time had become their enemy. Dellara set the mouse on the trap door, her sugared arms glittering. With a whir and a twitch of its whiskers, the enchanted mechanism within the mouse sparked to life. It ran over the trap door, locating some invisible lock, slotted its tail in and twisted. A collection of low thuds released a section of the floor, springing down to reveal steps descending below the palace.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They lowered themselves in. Marietta closed the trapdoor behind them, Dellara pocketing the mouse as they turned to assess their surroundings, their breaths crystallising.
The chamber was carved from ice. Silent and thick with secrets. A single staircase had been cut from it, a tight coil that plummeted into the depths of the cliff the palace had been constructed on, encircled by thick frozen walls. Alcoves had been chipped from the ice at regular intervals, displaying a variety of the king’s stolen treasures, and the entire chamber was lit with a low blue lighting that felt as if they were trespassing in a jar of boiled sweets.
‘We must locate it as a matter of urgency.’ Marietta’s whisper swirled around the chamber and returned to them. She stepped onto the first ice step. ‘It had better not be hidden too deeply; our time frame is too limited for that length of a search. Are you able to sense it in any manner?’
‘I feel it calling but we have been separated too long and my power is weaker; akin to searching for a single snowflake in a bank of snow.’
Marietta took another step down. Her weight rushed out from beneath her, the ice staircase a sudden terror. She cried out, reaching for purchase, but her hands slid against ice. Dellara lurched forwards and grasped the material of Marietta’s bodice, dragging her back onto her feet and steadying her as she composed herself. ‘Thank you,’ she said, sitting down to avoid slipping again. The echo of her panic was still being tossed around by the chamber. The eeriness swelled.
A sharp splintering sent her attention skittering back onto Dellara, who had ground the heel of her stiletto into the ice, anchoring herself. ‘King Gelum must possess a pair of ice boots in order to walk down here,’ she said, passing Marietta. ‘Look at the imprints in the ice.’ Each step was dotted with perforations.
Searching the alcoves, Dellara voiced aloud a running inventory. Marietta followed her in a seated position that felt rather undignified. ‘A tiara, an ancient jewelled set of tails; that’s a popular game here in Everwood,’ she told Marietta. ‘An old book in a language I can’t decipher; I’m surprised our king hasn’t burnt it. Another tiara, a nutcracker from Crackatuck crafted from a single ruby – they mine rubies there – and some kind of battered hat.’ They paused to consider it. ‘Stay away from it.’ Dellara wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m sure it’s wrapped in a curse of some sort.’
‘Have you encountered anything promising?’ Marietta asked a few minutes later. ‘What about Pirlipata’s armour?’ Not a sound filtered down from the throne room above but their distraction would be short lived; sooner or later, the ball would resume. And then nothing would shield them from the king’s wrath.
‘Yes, I stumbled upon it a while back, I just decided not to mention it and I’m still searching because this ice pit is exactly where I’d love to while away an evening.’
‘Why do you feel a need to always be so— Wait, could that be it?’ Marietta peered into the slim alcove in front of her. It was situated lower to the stairs, sliced into the wall with slashing diagonal lines which rendered it near-invisible unless you were seated at an awkward position. Inside rested a narrow strip of forest-green lacquered wood, its surface mottled with shadows that undulated like smoke.
Dellara’s face appeared beside Marietta’s, cheek to cheek. Marietta felt the smile that carved it into delight, reaching out to liberate the wand. ‘Oh, how I’ve missed you,’ Dellara crooned to it.
‘Brilliant. Now let us make haste. I’m not returning without Pirlipata’s armour.’
Dellara closed her eyes. She whispered to her wand. It shuddered and sparked, releasing an iridescent curl of light, a floating moonbeam. It slinked a few stairs down and hovered before a set of crimson armour. ‘There,’ she said with satisfaction, making her way over. Marietta helped her gently lift it down. This was no suit of armour that Marietta could have envisioned. It looked as if it had been designed by women for women. The metal was thin and light, crafted with thick leather for moveability and in several parts that would ensure full coverage once donned. Marietta ripped her petticoat out from under her dress and carefully wrapped it around the armour, fashioning it into a kind of bag she looped over her shoulder to carry. Dellara rendered it invisible and tucked her wand down her bodice as they ascended.
Her bare arms numb, skin chilled, Marietta was growing aware of the need to return to the softer temperatures that rippled through the palace in one of the many enchantments designed to smooth life into something more pleasurable. She pressed her ear to the oval trapdoor. Deep, resounding silence. The ice had gobbled up any hint of activity above. Huffing out tiny clouds of exertion, Dellara reached Marietta. They shuffled around to allow Dellara, who had produced the mechanical mouse from her bodice like a magician, to insert it into the lock. Marietta waited. And waited.