Mikhail let out a muffled yell from behind his closed lips, his eyes wide with fear.
“Come along, Your Majesty.” The Fate Maker reached for my arm, and I jerked away.
“No. Not until I see Jesse and make sure he’s okay.”
“I said, come along.” He got a grip on my sleeve and pulled me after him as he hurried down the hall, dragging me as he went.
“Stop it!” I tried to pull away, but he just kept dragging me down the corridor.
There was a sharp clap behind us and then a loud scream that morphed first into a howl and then the high-pitched whimper of a dog.
“What was that?” I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see anything as the Fate Maker turned into the North Tower and began to pull me up the stairs.
“Punishment. Now keep moving. Rannock gets a bit twitchy after he’s performed black magic. You don’t want him to decide to test some of his newer spells on you.”
“So what are you doing? Protecting me from him?”
“Yes.” The Fate Maker’s voice was tight as he hurried up the stairs until we reached the top. He brought his hand up, and the heavy brown door flew open, smacking against the wall inside. “In.”
“No.”
“In.” He wrapped his hands around my waist and tossed me into the room hard enough that I lost feeling in my legs when my butt hit the floor. “Stay here, and stay quiet. Don’t give Bavasama or anyone else here any more reasons to kill you.”
I pushed myself up onto my feet. “Why are you trying to protect me?”
“Because I want you alive.”
“Why? You’ve suddenly decided to become a hero or something?”
“Hardly.” He snorted and then stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. “If this were a fairy tale from your world, I’d be the very worst villain you could possibly imagine. The one that made all the other villains cry and run back to their mothers.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “This world started out as a book of fairy tales. A book you trapped us inside, remember?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Your Majesty. The Chronicles of Nerissette weren’t meant to be fairy tales. Fairy tales end with happily ever after. And, if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.”
“So if you’re such a villain, why are you trying to help me?”
“I’m not trying to help you.” The Fate Maker stepped closer. “I’m just making sure that, when the time comes, I’m the one who gets to kill you. After all, I need your soul.”
“Excuse me?”
“How do you think I got out of the Bleak?” he taunted. “Kuolema doesn’t just let his prisoners go for free. I had to promise him a soul in return for my release, and I figured why not give him yours? No sense in it going to waste after I’ve killed you and taken your throne.”
He swept out of the room and let the door slam closed behind him without looking back. I could hear him laughing as he walked away.
I stood there, staring at the door, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do now. Because if the Fate Maker was here, then things had just gone from bad to really bad. And I didn’t even want to think about how much worse it was going to be when Kuolema showed up, wanting the soul I wasn’t quite done with yet.
Chapter Twenty
I walked over to the door and beat on it, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I was a prisoner, but I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. I had to find a way out, to keep fighting until my army could get there. It didn’t matter what I did, I just had to do something. Even if it was just escaping long enough to figure out the layout of the castle so I could get Heidi and Jesse out safely once my army arrived and the fighting started.
I slammed my shoulder against the door, more out of frustration than any real hope of breaking it down, and then slouched over to the window. Enough sulking and beating myself up—I was trapped, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be useful. I just had to be smart enough to find a way to save my people while locked inside a tiny cell.
I pulled open the shutters on the inside of the window and looked at the bars blocking the way out, each piece of iron less than six inches apart. I grabbed the bars on my window and pressed myself against the wall, looking out at the castle keep beyond. I could see a small group of soldiers marching back and forth across the courtyard while men were play fighting with wooden swords in another area, swinging and ducking as their opponents pretended to attack them.
The sounds of men barking orders and the rattle and groan of heavy metal weapons filled the courtyard. I pushed my face closer to the bars, trying to see what they were hauling forward to defend their walls.
“Heave, you weaklings!” a rough, male voice yelled. “Heave or we’ll throw you in the pots to check the temperatures first. Heave! That pitch won’t float up these walls.”
I felt my stomach clench. They were hoisting bucket loads of pitch to the top of the wall. Possibly cauldrons full. Boiling oil to pour on my army as it tried to siege the Palace of Night’s walls. That wasn’t good.
“Keep those nets loose, boys. Don’t want them tangled,” another voice shouted.
I turned to watch as a young man laid out roughly woven nets and then carefully rolled them into large balls. Once the nets were balled up, another man in black robes lifted his hands and began to chant over the mess of rope. I watched as they started to glow a dull, blue-black color. When the wizard was done with his spell, he dropped his hands and stepped back, motioning for the younger men to step forward again. I watched as each boy picked up a long stick and began to push the still glowing net-balls to rest against a large wooden catapult.
I swallowed convulsively, my stomach turning as I realized that the men had been making ammunition. The nets weren’t just regular nets. They were nets meant to bring down dragons—they had to be—and I’d have bet every book in my library that the spell the wizard had placed on them would be exceptionally nasty.
I needed to come up with a plan. When the army attacked, I needed a way to get not only myself free but Heidi and Jesse as well. While the army was distracted, we’d need to find a way out, a way past those soldiers in the courtyard.
My shoulders slumped, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, staring at the room around me. If only I had a sword, I thought to myself. Or the Relics. Anything that would help me fight back from inside the palace. Not that the Relics had turned out to be much good so far. The Dragon’s Tear imprisoned my enemy in the in-between, but it was a worthless trick if the dragons that were supposed to be guarding the prisoners were so easily bribed.
I slumped over to the table and sat down on top of it, dropping my head into my hands. Everything I’d done to keep my people safe, all the people I’d let die, and we were worse off now than when we’d started. My people were suffering more now than they ever had under the Fate Maker’s rule.
I should have stayed here, never agreed to take the throne. I should have just given up and let the Fate Maker continue to run things. Forced him to find a way to send me and my friends home again. At least then no one would be dead. Half of Nerissette wouldn’t have been reduced to ashes.
I closed my eyes and thought about the life I should have had, the life I was meant to have before we were sucked into this mess. Swim team. College. Maybe I’d have become a teacher like Gran Mosely had been. I could have been a good teacher. I liked kids after all—even if I wasn’t all that good with them. I could have met a nice boy—or more likely, realized that there was a nice boy right next door and fallen in love with Winston. Except that I would have been a teacher and not a queen, and Winston wouldn’t have been able to turn himself into a big black dragon.