“It hasn’t been such a problem,” she declared quickly, shrugging the matter off. She paused. “Let me make a suggestion,” she said impulsively. “A compromise. You leave me here and go back to my parents and tell them where I am. Let them know I’m fine, and I’m doing what Father sent me to do in the first place. Sort of, anyway. Ask him to give me a chance to work on this a little while longer before he hauls me home. Tell him all I want is a chance to prove myself. Besides, Thom risked a lot for me, and it wouldn’t be right if I just walked out on him.”
“I am not comfortable with the idea of leaving you here alone,” the old man declared, pulling at his whiskers. “If Craswell Crabbit were gone, as I had hoped he would be by now, I would feel better about your staying. As it is …”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I have my magic to protect me, don’t I? Didn’t you train me yourself? Besides, I don’t think I’m in any real danger. His Eminence hasn’t threatened me or anything.”
“He won’t bother with threatening you if you get in his way. I know him. He is a snake. He never should have been appointed director of the library, but the old King was failing and didn’t see.” Questor shook his head. “Are you sure he doesn’t know who you are?”
“He hasn’t said or done anything that would suggest he thinks I’m anyone other than Thom’s sister, Ellice.”
But she wondered suddenly if she had missed something. Was it possible that His Eminence had recognized her and was keeping her here for reasons of his own? The possibility sent a sudden chill up her spine.
“This business with the voice bothers me, too. I just don’t like any of it, Mistaya. I think you should come with me.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “It was your idea for me to come here in the first place,” she pointed out, brushing aside her concerns about His Eminence. “Yours and Abernathy’s. Well, I did what you wanted. What my mother and father wanted, too. And now you want me to just walk away, to give up. Like I did at Carrington?”
She reached out and took the old man’s hands in her own. “Please, Questor. Let me stay. Let me see this through. This is as much for me as it is for Thom; I know that now. I need to do this. Please!”
Questor Thews cleared his throat. “If I agree to this—and I am not saying yet I will—I want your word that you will not do anything to place yourself in danger. I do not know what hearing that voice means, whether it is Libiris speaking or someone else, but before you go off investigating the source—no, no, Mistaya, let me finish—before you do anything that puts you at risk, you will call on one of us to help you. And I do not mean this boy, whoever he is. I mean myself or your father or someone else who can protect you. Otherwise, you can pack your clothes and prepare to leave right now. I want your word.”
“You have it,” Mistaya declared, prepared to say or do whatever it took to get him to agree to let her stay.
“Then I have something for you.” Questor reached into his pocket and withdrew a round stone not much bigger than a pebble. It was infused with striations of various colors that swam through its surface like the currents in a river. “Take this,” he ordered.
He handed it to her, and she held it in the palm of her hand, looking down at it. “This is a rainbow crush,” the wizard advised. “Should you need to call for help, this stone will allow you to do so. You give it a message and tell it who you want the message to reach—you say the words in your mind—then drop the stone to the ground and stamp on it. Whoever you summoned will hear your voice speaking the message and respond accordingly. If you feel you are in any danger at all, you are to use it at once. Understood?”
She nodded. “Understood.”
“You are not to rely on your own magic to protect you except as a last resort. You are well schooled in its use, but you are not well practiced. Too many things can go wrong. Use the crush instead and summon one of us.”
She was tempted to remind him that her magic had helped save his life five years earlier, but decided that was pushing things. “I’ve never heard of a rainbow crush,” she said instead.
“That is because there are only a few in existence. They are very precious and difficult to come by. So take care of yours and use it wisely.” He stood up. “Time for me to be going. Morning is almost here, and I do not want to be found inside these walls when it arrives.”
She put the rainbow crush in her pocket and hugged him to her. “Thank you, Questor, for trusting me. You won’t regret it.”
“I’d better not,” he declared. “Do not forget that when I leave here, I go back to the castle and your parents. I cannot speak for what they will choose to do; they may come here whether you like it or not. So whatever you need to do, do it quickly.”
“All right.” She stepped back from him. “But you can tell them you’ve seen me and I’m fine. Assuming His Eminence doesn’t throw me out after our meeting. After hearing from Rufus Pinch, he might do exactly that. Thom and me both. I might be home before you are.”
He gave a disapproving grunt. “That would not be the worst thing in the world. Think of the satisfaction you will feel if he does throw you out and you return as Princess of Landover and his new employer. Then you can throw him out!”
She grinned. “That does have a certain appeal.”
“Just remember one thing.” He was serious again, his frown back in place. “Craswell Crabbit is no one to fool with. He has skills and trickery of his own to call on if he needs them and an appalling lack of morals to back them up. If there is something to be gained, he will not hesitate to sacrifice anyone or anything that stands in his way. You keep on being the poor little peasant girl who doesn’t know anything and let him toss you through the door if that is what he wants. No heroics.”
“I promise to be careful.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Now you’d better go.”
“One thing more,” he added, turning back as he reached the door. “I am taking those G’home Gnomes with me. Keeping them here is just asking for trouble. All they are doing out there is plotting ways to steal the livestock. That does nothing to help you. They do nothing to help you, come to that. So back they go!”
She felt a momentary pang of regret for Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel, who had tried so hard to help her. But she also felt a huge relief. “Say good-bye for me.”
He smiled anew, nodded his approval of something or other, and disappeared through the door into the darkness of the hallway. She stared after him, smiling back. When he was gone, all that remained was the whisper of his robes and the warmth she felt on thinking how lucky she was to have him as her friend.
“It seems you have a problem understanding the difference between obedience and disobedience,” His Eminence declared, his over-large head cocking to one side as if somehow dislodged from his neck. He rocked back in his chair with his fingers steepled and gave them a stern look. His tall, angular, skeletal form seemed to fold over on itself as he leaned forward suddenly. “A rather serious problem, it appears.”
It was first light, and Mistaya stood beside Thom on the other side of the desk facing their judge and jury. Rufus Pinch lurked off to one side, hunched over and frowning, which was pretty much what he did the rest of the time, so there was nothing troubling there. His Eminence, on the other hand, was scowling in a way suggesting that the outcome of this trial was unlikely to be favorable to them no matter what their defense.
“The rules are quite clear about use of the Stacks,” he continued, looking thoughtful. “You are to be there only during working hours. You are to stay in your assigned area of work. You are to concentrate on the task you have been given and no other. You are not to go outside your area of work and never are you to go back into the Stacks unaccompanied and without permission. I believe I made that quite clear to you, Thom, on your arrival, did I not?”