Lovingly dedicated to my boys—now leave your sister alone!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgments
Also by Jessica Day George
Chapter
1
It was good to be home.
Celie had spent her entire life in Castle Glower, and she wasn’t sorry about it. She especially wasn’t sorry now that she’d been to another world and been filthy and hungry and cold and scared. No one ever went cold or hungry inside the Castle, and now with her entire family around her and no one threatening them or the Castle, Celie had no reason to be scared.
The Castle loved Celie, Celie loved the Castle, and she was in no hurry to leave it again.
Her sister, Lilah, on the other hand, was of a very different opinion.
“I’m so bored, I might be dying,” Lilah announced. “I can’t believe that Father won’t even let us go to Sleyne City!”
“With a griffin? How are you going to take Juliet all the way to the city?” Celie was lying on her back on the window seat in Lilah’s rooms, idly throwing a ball for her own griffin, Rufus, while Lilah groomed her smaller griffin, Juliet.
“Why not?” Lilah brushed vigorously at Juliet’s golden-furred hindquarters, which were gleaming like real gold, she had been groomed so thoroughly. “Shouldn’t the people of Sleyne City get to see the griffins?”
“Half of the city has already come here,” Celie said, feeling a bit grumpy now that Lilah had reminded her. Rufus pressed his ball, now dripping with drool, into her hand and she threw it quickly, shaking her hand dry.
What she’d said was true: the halls of the Castle had been filled with a continuous stream of petitioners making up any reason they could to gain an audience with Celie’s father, King Glower. All they really wanted was to catch a glimpse of the two dozen griffins that Celie, Lilah, their brother Rolf, and their friends Pogue and Lulath had brought back from another world. It was easy to oblige them: most of the griffins liked to sun themselves on the top of the Castle’s outer wall, and, much to the excitement of the Glower family and the court, the formidable griffin king had adopted the human king.
Lord Griffin, as Celie had dubbed him, sat beside her father’s throne while King Glower heard petitions and stared with yellow-eyed intensity at the petitioners, who usually forgot what they’d come to ask and stumbled out after a few muttered words. No one minded. As King Glower explained, how could they expect any different? There had been griffins on the flag of Castle Glower since the Castle had first appeared in Sleyne, but no one had known that the creatures were real until just a few weeks ago.
“But they can’t all come here,” Lilah said reasonably. “We should go to them! And we should go to Grath—it’s only fair!”
“How is that fair? Or unfair if we don’t go to Grath?” Celie asked in confusion.
“Well, Lulath’s been here for a year,” Lilah pointed out. “And we’ve never reciprocated by sending someone to their court to visit. It’s like we’re keeping him hostage!” She flourished the brush.
“He came for Mummy and Daddy’s funeral,” Celie reminded her, “only they weren’t dead. And no one is making him stay.”
“Celie!” Lilah looked up at her in shock.
Celie put one hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant that to sound so terrible. She felt horrified, and more than that, disloyal: Prince Lulath of Grath had been a good friend to her, and to her entire family. She loved having him in the Castle and would be very sad when he went home. But Celie still didn’t want to leave the Castle.
“I’m sorry,” Celie said. “You know I adore Lulath! But . . . if he does leave, he has Lorcan—a griffin of his very own he can show off in Grath and Sleyne City and everywhere else along the way.”
“I suppose,” Lilah said, mollified. She took on a wheedling tone. “But don’t you want to go to Grath? You said you did just last week! Don’t you remember that?”
Celie did remember that. Just a week ago, she and Lilah had been in the griffins’ exercise tower above Celie’s bedroom, and Lilah had broached the subject of going to Grath, and then even farther.
Lilah was fascinated by the story of the unicorns that had once lived in Sleyne. They had been either eaten or chased away by the griffins, which had arrived unexpectedly one day generations ago with the Castle. The griffins had been fleeing a plague in the Castle’s home world, a plague that had later killed all the griffins and most of their riders. The unicorns, meanwhile, were rumored to have fled to Grath, where they were loaded onto ships that sailed for Larien, the Land of a Thousand Waterfalls. Once there they ascended a rainbow into the sky and were never seen again.
Lilah had wanted a unicorn desperately when she was small, and it seemed that the longing for such a pet had not abated. Not even when she had a griffin to care for. And baby griffins needed a great deal of care.
“There!” Lilah set aside the brush. “Who’s the most beautiful girl in the world? Who is she? Is she my girl? Is she?”
Juliet wiggled with pleasure and nipped lovingly at Lilah’s fingers.
Rufus stopped tearing at his ball and ran over to Celie. She sat up so that she could stroke his head and assure him that he was the handsomest griffin in the world, and that everyone loved him. Rufus had been the only griffin in Sleyne for the first three months of his life, and he sometimes got jealous of the attention the other griffins attracted.
“Could you at least put in a good word with Father and Mother, if Lulath asks me to go to Grath with him?” Lilah pleaded.
“Is Lulath going home?”
Celie felt her heart constrict a little. Would Lulath come back? He was third or possibly even fourth in line to the throne of Grath—surely his family could spare him for a while longer?
“He might be,” Lilah said, smiling a secret smile. “But only if I—we—wanted to see Grath.”
Celie squinted at her sister. What was Lilah getting at? It sounded like Lulath would only go home if Lilah accompanied him. “Are you saying—”
The door of Lilah’s room slammed open, hitting the opposite wall. Their brother Bran, in full, flowing robes and round wizard’s hat, burst through. Right on his heels was Pogue Parry, the son of the village blacksmith who had been recently knighted for their adventure in the ancient world of the Castle.
“Are you all right?” Bran yelled.
“What? Yes!” Celie jumped up, dumping Rufus’s head off her lap. “What’s happening? Where are Mummy and Daddy?”
“They’re in the throne room, but—He’s not here?” Bran circled the room, looking wild.
“Bran, the stables,” Pogue said in a strained voice.
“Yes! You’re right!” Bran started to run back out of the room and stopped dead. “Which ones, though? You don’t think he’d try the griffins?”
Pogue cursed and he and Bran both ran out of the room, leaving Celie and Lilah s
taring.
“What’s happening?” Lilah called after them, but they didn’t stop.
Celie didn’t bother to shout; she just raced past Lilah and Juliet, with Rufus at her side. It was easy to follow Bran and Pogue; she could hear their boots on the stones of the corridor to her left, hear them shouting to each other as they ran.
“What’s happening?” Lilah called out again, but she was right behind Celie, running down the corridor with Juliet in her arms.
“I’ve called out the guard,” Rolf yelled as they all reached the main hall.
The front doors were open, and there were two guards standing with spears at the ready, waiting for Bran’s command. The doors to the throne room were open as well, and Celie could hear their father shouting orders.
“I’ll go to the griffin stables,” Bran said. “You’re with me.” He pointed to one of the guards. “Pogue, you and Rolf take the horse stables, and him.” He pointed to the other guard.
“Bran, what is happening?” Celie did shout now, while Rufus and Juliet flapped their wings and screeched, disturbed by the tension and the raised voices.
“It’s Arkwright,” Bran said, pausing only briefly on his way out the doors. “He’s escaped from the dungeons.”
Chapter
2
Arkwright wasn’t in the horse stable or either of the griffin stables. The horses and the griffins were all accounted for, and none of the guards or stable hands had seen any sign of the wizard. Which was a problem.
“How did he just disappear?” Bran snarled, throwing his hat down on the seat of his chair in the throne room.
The sun was setting, and the Glower family and the entire staff of the Castle had turned over every bed, chair, and rug looking for Arkwright. The wizard, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found.
“He’s a wizard,” Rolf said. “Probably made himself invisible and walked right out after breakfast, with no one the wiser.”
“He can’t,” Bran said. “I’ve made sure of it! I placed spells on every inch of his cell!” He picked up his hat and began to wring it like a dishcloth.
“The Castle didn’t notice him leaving,” their father said.
King Glower the Seventy-ninth was sitting on his throne and wearing the crown of the first king of the Castle. Celie and the others had brought it back for him along with a ring, both taken from the tomb of the Builder of the Castle. The crown and rings were the tools that the kings of old had used to communicate with the Castle, but they’d been hidden with the Builder when the Castle was brought to Sleyne. Now that Celie’s father had them, he was able to feel the Castle and ask it to make changes, instead of having to wait and see what it would do.
King Glower paused and stared into space for a moment. “No,” he said. “It didn’t notice at all.”
“Can’t we just say good riddance, and forget he was ever here?” Lilah demanded. “I vote we bar the gates against him and simply get on with our lives!”
“Ah, but our Lilah, it is not being such the easy thing,” Lulath said. He was sitting on the floor, uncaring of his richly embroidered velvet tunic and silk breeches, playing with his griffin and his four dogs all at once. Both the clothes and the animals made it hard to take Lulath seriously, but his next words were grim enough to sink in. “A man of the very great evil, such as Arkwright is being, must being watched at all times, or more evil he is being the author of.”
“Lulath’s right,” Bran said. “Arkwright split the Castle, brought half of it here, pretty much watched everyone and their griffins die, erased the Castle’s history, and spent the next few centuries making sure it stayed that way. He belongs in a dungeon under constant watch.”
“Or dead,” Pogue muttered.
“He hasn’t done anything we can execute him for,” King Glower reminded them. “Although it would have been easier,” he said under his breath.
“Owen!” Queen Celina looked shocked.
Owen was the name the king had been given when he was born, before he became Glower the Seventy-ninth, and only the queen ever used it . . . and only when she was upset. The rest of the time, he was “darling,” just like the children. Until she was five, Celie had thought that her father’s name was Darling, and that’d she’d been named Celie-Darling, after him.
“At the very least,” Rolf said, “we should have sent him back to his precious Glorious Arkower.” The name dripped with sarcasm.
“That didn’t seem to be the right solution, either,” King Glower said. He rubbed his forehead, just below the heavy crown.
“No, the Castle didn’t like that idea,” Celie agreed. “Otherwise it would have just sent him back. He was here for weeks before the Castle sent us, and just us, to Hatheland, or the Glorious Arkower, or whatever you want to call it.” She suppressed a shudder at the memory. They’d thought the Castle was shaking itself to bits, and when it all settled, they were in another world. Alone. “He was here for weeks after, as well. We’ve been to Hatheland twice now,” she reminded them. “But it’s never sent him back there.”
“Celie’s right,” her father said. “I think the Castle knows how much trouble that man could cause if he were reunited with his uncle.”
Wizard Arkwright, along with his uncle, a wizard known now only as the Arkower, had been the cause of all of the Castle’s troubles. The Arkower and his rival, Wizard Bratsch, had started the war and created the plague that killed most of the griffin riders and almost all their griffins. The Arkower and Arkwright had broken the Eye of the Castle in two and sent half of it to Sleyne with Arkwright, out of sheer spite, because if they couldn’t control the Castle, they didn’t want anyone else to have it.
The Arkower had remained behind, still trying to gather his own army of griffins, though the griffins would have nothing to do with him. And Arkwright had done his best to erase the history of the Castle and keep others from finding out its secret, until Celie and her family had exposed his past and locked him away in the dungeons, which, until then, had been used as a cheese cellar.
“And now he’s loose,” Bran said grimly. “I’ve already sent a dove to the College of Wizardry to let them know he’s escaped. The team of wizards they dispatched to transport him to Sleyne City should have been here days ago anyway!” He gave his poor hat another twist. “What next?”
“You’re asking us?” King Glower said, goggling at his oldest child. “You’re the Royal Wizard!”
“Where would he go?” Pogue asked before a family argument could break out. “Does he have a home? Where was he before he came here to cause trouble?”
“He’s an itinerant wizard,” Bran said.
“What does that mean?” Celie asked. She repeated the word “itinerant” to herself softly, sounding it out.
“It means he travels around, helping where he’s needed,” Bran explained. “He never was stationed in one particular place or had a position at any court.”
“Helping,” Rolf sneered.
“He was highly respected by the Wizards’ Council,” Bran said. He shrugged. “Because of the way he came and went, how were they to know he was several hundred years old and—”
“Evil?” Rolf supplied.
“Yes, evil,” King Glower said. “Too evil to be caught. Where would he go? Not to Sleyne City and the College. He must have a home somewhere.”
“Is it being in my Grath?” Lulath asked.
“Why would you think that?” Bran frowned in thought. “He’s never mentioned Grath when I’ve spoken with him.”
“Is this because of that village?” Celie asked, feeling a little surge of excitement. She’d been slumped against Rufus, feeling utterly dejected about the prospect of ever finding Arkwright, but now she straightened. “Do you think they’d hide him?”
“If they are being the people of which we are thinking they are being, I am thinking it might be yes,” Lulath said, nodding eagerly.
“Someone help me understand what they’re talking about,” King Glower said, looking at Lil
ah and then Bran in appeal.
“Is that the village you were telling me about?” Bran’s frown deepened. “We’ve no real proof, though.”
“Children, please,” King Glower said, looking pained. “What village?”
“Oh, our Celie, you are speaking this better than I,” Lulath said, gesturing for her to proceed.
“Well,” Celie said, trying not to look too pleased at being asked, “there’s a village in Grath, on the sea, where they speak a very strange language. There is no other language like it in our world.” She raised her eyebrows to see if her parents were following, and her father nodded. “They keep to themselves. No one ever leaves, and they don’t like visitors, either. People have tried to learn the language, to trade with them, and they refuse. They have their own leaders, and they don’t even pay taxes!”
“How is that possible?” Rolf looked outraged. “It’s just one village! Can’t your father do something, Lulath?”
“They are having this parchment from my many greats of a grandfather,” Lulath said with a shrug. “On it is being agreed that they are being left of themselves, and they are not leaving their village or doing the attacking of others.”
“No offense,” Rolf said, “but I think that’s a terrible idea! There’s a village that is basically its own kingdom, just sitting in Grath?” He shook his head.
“We have two such villages in Sleyne,” King Glower told him, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. “One is a large farm for women who have taken holy orders and want to live in silence. The other is little more than a shrine, a well, and a single farmhouse, which is occupied by the last descendants of an ancient nation that existed before Sleyne. They just want to farm turnips and keep the shrine painted. Oh, and call themselves the Ailerites in honor of King Ailor the Last. I have no objection to that.”
“What?” Rolf stared at their father. “But . . . that seems so . . . irresponsible.”
“Why?” Bran smiled faintly. “Are you afraid a bunch of holy women are going to attack us and take the throne? For pity’s sake, Rolf, they don’t even wear shoes in the winter!”
“Why don’t we give them some shoes?” Lilah said. “I think that’s very bad of us!”