Celie came around the corner of the shelves, and found herself face-to-face with Arkwright.
The wizard stared at her, his arms full of food. He had a cloak draped over one shoulder that looked like the noise-muffling cloak the Castle had once given her. She supposed that was how he’d snuck into the kitchens.
“I guess living on nothing but cheese isn’t very pleasant,” Celie said, recovering from her surprise before the wizard recovered from his. She gestured to the things in his arms. “Would you like a basket for that?”
Arkwright threw the food at her, whirled around, and ran. Celie ducked a flying armload of apples and shouted for help. The wizard ran out into the kitchens, tugging his cloak around him, and Celie followed. She ran past the gaping kitchen maids and the frozen spit-boys, following the equally silent Arkwright, whose cloak was indeed of the type that muffled every sound.
“Come, Rufus,” she cried as she passed him, and her griffin followed.
They tracked Arkwright out into the hall, where he leaped into a cupboard and slammed the door shut. Celie yanked it open again, and pushed the shelves back to duck into the passageway right behind Arkwright. This was the same one they’d gone through the night they’d found her father tied up with his men.
“Why didn’t they lock this door?” Celie panted, following the bobbing light of Arkwright’s lantern. He was freakishly tall, and could run very fast for someone who was over five hundred years old.
Rufus surged past her, pushing her against the wall, and pounced on Arkwright, bringing the wizard down. His lamp flew out of his hands and smashed against the wall. The oil splattered and burned, and Rufus screeched and jumped back, but he didn’t release the wizard’s robes from his talons.
“The egg!” Arkwright cried in sudden anguish.
“What egg?”
There was nothing in the passage but the three of them, and the broken and burning lamp.
“There!” The wizard pointed at a turn in the passageway just ahead.
The fire was between Celie and the turning. She climbed over Arkwright’s legs and threw her shawl over the flames, hoping to smother them. She edged past and around the corner, feeling her way carefully in the darkness, and barked her shins on something.
Groping with her hands, she found an egg in a nest of blankets. It was extremely hot and rocked in excitement at her touch.
“You’re about to hatch, aren’t you?” Celie said to the egg, her words coming out too fast, too shrill. “That’s why he wanted more food!”
It rocked again at the sound of her voice, nearly standing up on one of its narrower ends.
“It’s mine!” Arkwright screamed. “My egg! Mine, girl!”
Rufus screeched and Arkwright cursed.
“Keep him down, Rufus,” Celie yelled.
She had to get the egg out of here. When had he taken it? All the eggs were watched and accounted for, or they had been as of yesterday, anyway. This was probably the orphaned egg from the west hatching tower, the one that Rolf was hoping to bond with.
“Stay, Rufus,” Celie shouted. “Don’t let him follow me!”
Celie wrapped a blanket around the egg to keep its shell from burning her hands, and picked it up as best she could. It was too big for her to put her arms all the way around, but she didn’t have far to go.
No one knew the Castle as well as Celie. In the past few days she’d been in several hidden passages that she’d never seen before, ones that ran through the newer parts of the Castle. But this wasn’t the newer part of the Castle, this was the part that had always been in Sleyne, and now that she wasn’t worried about her father or tripping over the tied-up guards, Celie knew precisely where to go.
She went straight for six paces and took the left-hand branch when the passageway forked. Twelve more paces and the backs of her hands smacked into a wooden door. She pushed through into a confusion of hanging clothes and shoved her way out of her brother Bran’s wardrobe.
Chapter
18
She managed to stagger over to the bed and lay the egg down before she dropped it.
Celie could only pray that Rufus could hold Arkwright until she brought help. She ran out of Bran’s bedchamber and into his workroom. She decided to see if she could brace the door to the wardrobe closed with a chair to buy more time, and grabbed the chair at his worktable.
But something caught her eye, and she froze. It was an open-sided box with a knob on top. Inside were some gears and a clear glass tube full of blue liquid.
“Bran is making his own lockbox!”
This made her even angrier than his note had, and she forgot all about finding something to wedge the door closed. How could he make their mother feel like she was wrong for “dabbling” in magic . . . then use their mother’s creation to make his own lockbox?
But she didn’t have time to dwell on it; she had to find help for the egg, and for Rufus. She headed for the door and nearly lost her balance when the Castle twisted her around again, and she found herself facing Bran’s worktable.
“What?”
She turned around, and the Castle swirled around her again.
The only thing on the worktable that Celie even dared to touch was the lockbox. As soon as she picked it up, the Castle turned her around so that she was facing the door. She hurried out into the corridor, and found herself facing a narrow, curving set of stairs. She had no desire to make the Castle turn her around again, so she went up the stairs without protest.
At the top of the stairs was a tower room, the same tower she’d found earlier, with the odd tools mounted in the windows. Celie paused, not sure what to do. She didn’t know what any of these were for or how they were supposed to help her summon someone.
She went to the trumpet thing, hoping that it would show her Bran or her mother or father, but looking through it revealed nothing.
“Wait,” she said aloud. “It’s a trumpet.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Halloooo?” Her voice echoed across the roofs of the Castle. “Hallo!” she cried out with more confidence now: it was some sort of magic speaking tube. “This is Celie! If you can hear me: Rufus is holding Arkwright in the passage that leads from the linen cupboards to Bran’s rooms. And there is a griffin egg on Bran’s bed that is trying to hatch!”
That done, Celie started back down the stairs, but a griffin screamed right behind her. The noise scared her, and she caught herself before she could tumble headlong down the stone steps. Whipping around, she saw Lord Griffin swooping into the tower, carefully tucking his legs up to get past the speaking tube she’d just been shouting through.
“There’s an egg about to hatch in Bran’s room,” Celie told him. “Bran’s room.”
He lowered one wing, inviting her to get on his back.
“I have to help Rufus,” she told him. She was never sure how much the king of the griffins understood. “Ru-fus.”
Lord Griffin stepped forward, lowering his shoulder to encourage her to get on. It would certainly come in handy to ride a very large adult griffin into battle with Arkwright, Celie decided, and climbed on.
The griffin swooped out of the tower and flew in a tight arc that brought him down in the main courtyard. He loped up the stairs to the Castle doors, where the guards saluted him and Celie as they started to pass, but then Lord Griffin stopped.
“Hurry,” Celie said, “this way!” She pointed.
“Is something amiss, Your Highness?” The guard hesitated, and then he said, “We heard you. You sounded like a voice from heaven.”
The other guard nodded fervently.
“Can we do aught to help?”
“Yes,” Celie said. “Follow me!”
She led them through the hall, feeling a little strange to be sitting on a griffin as they walked along beside her. But Lord Griffin was a fast walker, and too tall for her to easily dismount. Besides which, he was headed right where they needed to go: Bran’s rooms.
They burst into Bran??
?s workroom and then his bedchamber, where they all froze in shock. The griffin egg had hatched, and a plump, moist baby griffin was rolling around on the bed in sticky bits of shell, cheeping happily. The maid from the kitchen, the one who had let Rufus sniff her hand, was feeding the little griffin pieces of a sandwich from a tray she held on her knees.
“Cora!” The guard on Celie’s left leaped forward. “What have you done?”
The maid, Cora, leaped off the bed. “He was hungry, and no one was around,” she said, defensive.
But the little griffin cried out, and she sat back down, cuddling him and feeding him more food. She looked at Celie with tear-filled eyes.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she said. “He was so hungry!”
“I know,” Celie said. “They always are.”
“And I know I can’t keep him, but could I at least come and visit him sometimes?” the girl pleaded. “Or maybe my brother could have him?” She pointed with her chin at the guard on Celie’s left.
Celie shook her head, and the girl let out a gasp of pain, her eyes clouding up.
“Oh, no!” Celie said, holding up both hands. “I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t shaking my head because . . . I was shaking my head because you can keep him! He won’t go to anyone else now! He’s yours!”
“He is?” Cora looked down at the griffin with an expression of wonder and guilt mingled.
“If he’s eating out of your hand, that means he’s bonded to you. Forever,” Celie explained.
Cora’s expression of guilt deepened. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a shaking voice. “I didn’t know!” She looked at her brother. “I’m not on the list . . . I’m only a kitchen maid . . . what will the king do?”
“Nothing,” Celie assured her. “Anyone could put their names on the list! That was only to tell us what people were interested in having a griffin. And the griffins don’t care if you signed up or not. If one likes you, he likes you—it’s not like they can read!”
“Really?” Cora’s face was alight, and she put one arm softly around the little beast. “I can really keep him?” she whispered.
“You really can!” Celie said, and smiled at the girl.
Secretly, though, Celie was thinking that this would be another blow for Rolf. She did not want to be the one who told him that he’d lost another chance to bond with a griffin. It was becoming more than a little strange that the heir to Castle Glower didn’t have a griffin, and Rolf had been jealous when Lilah had bonded with Juliet . . . Hearing that a kitchen maid had bonded a griffin by accident would drive him wild.
“We have to help Rufus,” Celie said, drawing her thoughts back to the present and her own griffin. “Do you know where the griffin stables are?”
Cora nodded.
“Take your little fellow to the griffin stables. Ask for Ethan. He’ll make sure you have everything you need,” Celie said. She knew, too, that it would be rather a pang for Ethan, but it just couldn’t be helped.
“All right,” the girl said, in a daze. She looked up at her brother. “I’m sorry I got one first,” she said.
“It’s all right, Cor,” he said fondly. “Wait ’til Mum and Da hear! They’ll be so proud of you!” He reached out and tentatively patted the griffin’s head. “What will you call him?”
“I’m going to call him Geoffrey, after Granddad,” Cora said after a pause.
“That’s a lovely name,” Celie said, edging Lord Griffin toward the wardrobe. “But we really need to see to Rufus and Arkwright now!”
“Yes! Sorry, Your Highness!”
Cora clutched her protesting griffin to her chest and scuttled out while the two guards drew their swords and came in a line behind Celie. The grandeur of their group—the large griffin king, the princess, and her guards—was somewhat spoiled by the fact that first they had to fight their way through Bran’s robes before entering the dark passageway.
One of the guards—Cora’s brother—fumbled to a lamp and lit it. They made their way slowly along the passageway and around the corner, where they found . . . nothing. Celie let out a cry of anguish when she saw the empty passageway. Or not entirely empty: two golden-brown feathers lay on the stone floor. The other guard edged around Lord Griffin, picked up the feathers, and offered them to Celie with shaking fingers.
“We have to find him!” Celie said, taking the feathers and clutching them to her breast. “Right now!”
Lord Griffin surged forward, but Celie sat back, hard, and made him stop. She took the lockbox she’d been holding and handed it to the second guard.
“Take this back to the door we just came through,” she instructed. “Put it over the latch, turn the knob, and the door will disappear.”
“But, Your Highness,” he said, eyes wide. “How will we get out?”
“There are two other doors along this passage,” Celie said. “Locking Bran’s door is one less way Arkwright can escape me. Us.”
“All right, Your Highness,” the man said. “I trust you.”
“Thank you,” Celie said. “Take that lamp and find us as soon as you’re done.”
She and Cora’s brother, whose name turned out to be Trevor, started down the passageway. Lord Griffin sped up when they heard voices around the next turn, thinking it was Arkwright struggling with Rufus. But when they came around the corner, they found themselves face-to-face with Bran and half a dozen guards.
“Cecelia!” Bran held a lamp in one hand, the original lockbox in the other. “What are you doing here? And with him?” He gestured to Lord Griffin.
“Arkwright has Rufus,” Celie said. “Rufus was holding him, down there.” She pointed down the passageway to where they’d found the feathers. “I went to get help, and when I came back, he was gone!”
“He didn’t go down this way,” Bran said. “They must be that way.” He pointed down the only other branch to this passage. “We’ve closed the other doors; he’s running out of places to hide!”
There was a faint stirring in the Castle.
“What was that?” Bran cocked his head to one side. “That felt like someone closing a door!”
“It was probably the other guard with me,” Celie said.
“What? But how!” her brother spluttered.
How was answered by the other guard running up to them, flickering lamp in one hand and lockbox in the other. He stopped short and bowed, panting, when he saw the Royal Wizard.
“My Lord Wizard,” he gasped. Then he turned to Celie. “It’s gone, Your Highness! Just like you said! There’s nothing there but a blank wall now!” He held out the lockbox to Celie, who took it.
“Celie! That is highly dangerous,” her brother scolded. “More dangerous than this one, even!” He held up the one their mother had made. “I haven’t tested that lockbox yet.”
“The Castle wanted me to have it,” Celie protested. “And you shouldn’t have left it lying about if you didn’t want people to use it!”
“Lying in my room on my workbench,” Bran said. “Where I’d only just finished it! It might have killed him!”
“What?” The guard wiped his hands down his tunic, his face ashen.
Celie felt like her face was so hot, it was probably glowing in the light from the lamps. She couldn’t believe that her brother was scolding her now—now—when Rufus was in trouble.
“It didn’t kill him, Arkwright has Rufus, and you can yell at me later,” Celie snapped, and turned Lord Griffin down the other branch of the passageway.
Chapter
19
They found nothing down that other branch, either. Bran closed the door himself, and then they all shuffled back the way Bran had come with his guards, going out through the linen cupboard. Bran locked that door, and when he did, there was a great grinding noise and a wave of queasiness that told Celie the entire passageway was now gone.
“What do we do?” Celie said, tears dripping down her face.
The guards were spreading down the corridor in either direction, looking
in the tall cupboards with their weapons drawn.
“Where’s the nearest secret passage?” Bran asked. “The kitchens?”
“There’s none in there,” Celie said. “Not that I know about, anyway.” She wiped her face with her sleeve and reflexively stroked Lord Griffin’s neck. It felt strange to be riding him all over the Castle this way, but he seemed to want her to, and it was very comforting. “Lulath’s room!”
“There’s one in Lulath’s room?” Bran asked. “Is that how you spied on him during the time Khelsh took over?”
Celie urged Lord Griffin along the corridor. It was funny to think that she’d once hidden from Lulath, not sure if he was evil.
“No,” she said, “the secret passage is on one side of his fireplace. The Castle created the spy hole I used; it’s not part of these Arkish passages.”
Lulath’s rooms were the largest and most luxurious of the guest rooms, a sure sign of the Castle’s favor. It was how Celie had known that Lulath didn’t mean her family any harm.
The Grathian prince was on the floor of his sitting room with a platter of meats, hand-feeding his dogs and griffin. His manservant bowed them in with a look of surprise, but Lulath appeared delighted.
“It is our fine only wizard and our best Celie!” he caroled, scrambling to his feet in a tangle of velvet and lace. Then his welcoming smile faltered. “Is more being amiss? Shall I to be sitting beside our much-loved King Glower if you are not?”
“Arkwright has Rufus,” Celie blurted out.
“This cannot be a thing!” Lulath said in shock.
“We have to go through your secret passage, and seal it behind us,” Celie continued.
“At once!”
Lulath hustled his little dogs into their pillow-filled canopy bed and told them to stay. Then he grabbed a sword from a nearby rack and whistled for Lorcan, who immediately became tense and alert.
“Lulath . . . ,” Bran began.
“Have no fears, brother of my Lilah! I am knowing which end from which,” Lulath said, and strode toward the fireplace as he buckled on his sword.
The wooden wall panels on each side of the fireplace were elaborately carved with angular flower shapes, exactly like the flowers on the Arkish tapestries. Lulath poked one of the flowers with a long finger, and the hidden door swung open.