"You can stop staring at my tits now," she snapped. "You'll wear your eyes out."
Will recognized the cheekbones then and gasped. "Dame Serena?"
"You needn't act so astonished," the elf-maiden said." It's hardly flattering that you find it so hard to believe that I was once a looker. As to where we are — this is the Land of Youth. We cant stay here long."
"Is this some kind of allegory?"
Smiling, the elf-maiden leaned forward and pinched him hard. "Does this feel allegorical?"
"No, I suppose not. Why are we here?" Will said, rubbing his arm.
"The Palace of Leaves may be an architectural wonder, but there's no expectation of privacy to be found in it. Its quite the fascist state, actually. There are spies and hidden microphones everywhere. But in the Land of Youth there are no such hazards, Marduk XVII and I used to come here to... well, never mind. But if his subordinates had known, I'd not have lived to such a disgustingly old age. We can talk safely here."
"Uh, okay, I suppose. What about?"
"They know you want to escape. Please don't try." "I am a prisoner in the palace, Dame Serena," Will said quietly, "and the first duty of a prisoner is to try to escape."
"Well, if you must, you must. Far be it from me to stand between an idealist and his conscience, however disconnected from reality they both may be. But not this afternoon. They're expecting you to try something then, and they'll be ready for you."
"How do you know this?" Will asked.
"I told you that Eitri was a gossip. We get together for tea in the afternoons. It's the only vice I have left to me."
The Land of Youth wavered and was gone, and Will found himself standing in the cabinet of curiosities again. Dame Serena, old once more, pressed something into Will's hand. It was the ivory fire-amulet he had failed to steal the other day. "Take this," she whispered. "Just in case you need it."
"Why, Dame Serena!" Will said in astonishment. You do like me after all."
"Oh, zip your lip, or I'll give you the back of my hand. You're a fool, like every other king I've ever known, and I'm doubly a fool for trying to help you." Her look softened. "But I've always had a soft spot for kings."
They were expecting him to make his move that afternoon. So of course he did.
Will was taking the air in the garden when Ariel said, "The Master of the Tests wishes to see you, sir."
"Florian? Send him to the reception room. Make him wait." "He says its urgent, sir."
"Then tell him I'll be with him as soon as possible, and an hour from now remind me that he's waiting."
Will stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit up. It was a deliberately provocative gesture, and one that engendered a response almost immediately. Eitri came running up, wringing his hands in alarm. "Sir! Sir!" he squeaked. "You can't smoke here."
"Why not?"
"There's a city ordinance against smoking in a government park. Which your gardens, technically, are."
"You have a smoking room, sir," Ariel said. "It's rather well appointed."
"Yeah? Well, I can't be bothered to go there." Will blew a mouthful of smoke in the general direction of his majordomo's voice. "So what're you gonna do about it?"
"I can't touch you, of course, sir. But I can dock all of the palace staff day's pay for every incident." Eitri, who had a gambling problem he fondly imagined wasn't common gossip, looked stricken. "If that is what you want."
Will cursed and threw the cigarette down on the ground and stomped on it. In a flash, Eitri was on his knees, sweeping the ashes into his hand. "Just... bugger off, all of you, okay? Leave me alone. If I can't smoke, at least let me have five minutes alone. Go away, both of you, and take the rest of the staff with you." Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Eitri said fervently.
"As you wish, sir."
The creepy feeling that Will always got when Ariel was near evanesced.
As soon as he was sure he was alone, Will flipped over the wicker table so that it made a basket shape with a short pedestal-well at the center, rather like the mold tor a bundt cake. He dumped the fruit from a large copper bowl on a nearby table and placed the bowl snugly atop the pedestal. Then he tossed the fire-amulet into the bowl and activated its rune with a muttered word. Heat washed up from it, not enough to make the canopy lift free of the ground — that would come later — but enough so that it tugged lightly against its guy lines. These Will untied from their stakes and retied to the edges of the basket. The tent poles he let fall to the ground.
He was ready!
Will hastily set several armfuls of potted plants into one side of the basket to balance it and then climbed into the other. "Sir? What are you doing?"
"My duty," Will said. He muttered a second word that brought the fire amulet to full power. Heat gushed up from the copper bowl and with a great whoosh the canopy overhead billowed as it filled with hot air.
Will untied the witch-knot and a brisk west wind sprang up, scattering napkins across the patio and pushing at the swollen canopy.
Alarmed servitors came running out on the roof just as the makeshift balloon lifted up into the air. Some crashed into the rose hedges and others ran around them, vaulting or stumbling over the new garden furniture. They leaped up, trying to catch at the basket, and failed. Will laughed into their upturned faces and—
"Enough."
The air grew cool. The canopy-balloon ceased to flutter. In the center of the garden Ariel had manifested in his physical form: a slim figure with a chalk-white face, lank black hair and a rooster's cox-comb. His mouth was twisted and bitter. Yet his voice was calm and dulcet.
Ariel raised an arm and twisted a hand and the balloon returned without fuss to its point of origin. Servitors ran up to hasten away the fire-amulet, to right the wicker table, to restore the scattered fruit to the copper bowl, to reerect the canopy. In seconds all was as it had been before.
They had caught him. But of course, there had never really been any question of that.
Now that Ariel stood before him in visible form, eyes cold and mouth cruel, Will found himself more convinced than ever that the creature was his household's spy master, the one that Eitri and the yakshis and for all he knew Dame Serena as well, reported to.
Slowly Ariel faded back into insubstantiality.
"Sir?" his voice said out of nowhere. "This is perhaps a little early, but... you wished to be reminded that Florian L'Inconnu is waiting."
Like most of the rooms in the Palace of Leaves, the reception chamber was far too big and far too ornate for Will to feel comfortable in. The ceiling was white with rose-colored plaster swags of fruits, ribbons, and medallions. If Fabergé had made a pink Wedgwood teapot the size of a bus depot and turned it inside out, it would look much like this.
Florian, of course, looked right at home. He rose gracefully from a leather chair at Will's approach, stubbing out his cigar in a nearby ashtray.
"I must speak to you in absolute confidence," Will said without preamble. "The other evening in the garden you said things I am certain would not have been spoken had you thought one of the palace spies might overhear them. So I presume you have means of ensuring our privacy."
Florian removed a BlackBerry from his jacket, tapped several keys, and pocketed it again. "You may speak your mind freely." "Tell me," Will said. "Am I truly the king?" "Yes," Florian said. "I honestly believe that you are." "Then kneel.'' "What?"
"Kneel!" Will repeated with force.
Florian L'Inconnu, Master of the Tests, holder of a permanent seat in the Liosalfar, and scion-and-heir of a great house though he might be, went down on one knee and bowed his head, just as the merest peasant or byre-slave would have. "Your Majesty."