Worse still, she could not even be sure why this particular killer had dogged her steps. Perhaps he had been sent by someone from her past who feared that she might remember some terrible secret. For all she knew, though, he might be in the pay of the family whose Wine she had spilt, or somebody else she had unintentionally offended.
Every step she took seemed to show her a new danger. Talking to strangers could kill her. Failing to remember table etiquette could kill her. Ignorance could kill her. And now it seemed that stepping outside the tasters’ chambers for a stroll could kill her.
But it didn’t, answered the newly rebellious part of her mind. I went out to investigate, and I discovered things. For once I did something that was my idea – just mine – and it worked.
She sat up and considered everything she had learned during her outing. If Simpria and Snia were to be believed, about seven years ago Madame Appeline had been buying clothes for a little girl. Perhaps the child had been a niece or the daughter of a friend, but then why would she need to be so secretive about it? And why would the Facesmith spend money she could not afford on nice dresses unless they were for her own child, her very own secret daughter?
She must have loved her very much. If the de Meina sisters had meant to make Neverfell think less of their rival by telling the story of the dresses, they had failed. On the contrary, the tale had filled Neverfell with sympathy, curiosity and hope.
In spite of all her fears, Neverfell could not help wiggling her feet in her satin shoes, as silver caterpillars of excitement writhed round each other in her stomach. She ran her fingertips over her own face. Do I look like Madame Appeline? She could still recall her reflection in the mirror. Not much, she conceded. I’m not beautiful like her. I’m tall for my age, too, and she’s quite short for hers. But we both have green eyes.
There was that influenza outbreak. Perhaps that happened because an outsider broke into Caverna somehow and brought it in with him. Perhaps he was my father, and he came to the Doldrums, and he met Madame Appeline and they fell in love, and . . .
Neverfell’s imagination stumbled mid-gallop. No, that doesn’t make sense, because then the little girl would have to be born after the outbreak, wouldn’t she? And she wasn’t; she was already at least five years old by then and having dresses bought for her. So . . . perhaps Madame Appeline sneaked out of Caverna somehow, secretly got married and had a baby, and then later sneaked back in again with her daughter . . . But how?
Neverfell hesitated then frowned, biting her lip. She was trying to force her theory to make sense, but there were some annoying knobbly facts getting in the way. She had the uneasy feeling that she was thumping mismatched jigsaw pieces together to make them fit.
Neverfell needed more information, and if there were an assassin waiting for her in the courtyards it would be madness to run out there alone again. She needed an ally fast. Snatching up a piece of blank paper, Neverfell sat down and penned another note.
DEAR ZOUELLE,
PLEASE WRITE AND LET ME KNOW THAT YOU ARE WELL AND IF YOUR FAMILY HAVE STOPPED TRYING TO STAB EACH OTHER AND LOCK YOU UP. I AM FINE AND I DO NOT THINK ANYBODY WANTS TO ARREST ME AT THE MOMENT WHICH IS A NICE CHANGE.
CAN YOU COME TO THE PALACE? I REALLY WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT SOME THINGS I FOUND OUT ABOUT MADAME APPELINE. YOU KNOW MUCH MORE ABOUT COURT THAN ME AND YOU ARE GOOD AT COMING UP WITH PLANS. ALSO DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT A PLACE CALLED THE DOLDRUMS?
ONLY SEND LETTERS BACK TO ME THROUGH THIS MESSENGER OR THE ENQUIRY WILL GET THEM.
NEVERFELL
Once the letter was tucked under her mattress, Neverfell hugged her knees once more and sat in thought. There were new ideas in her head and new feelings. For the first time, she was not hidden in a corner or feeing from one emergency to the next. This time she was the hunter, tracking down the past . . . and Madame Appeline.
Needless to say, it was a very different hunt that was being discussed all over Caverna. The Kleptomancer’s scandalous theft of the Stackfalter Sturton and the Grand Steward’s challenge were the gossip on every level of the labyrinthine city. Perfumiers brought out novelty fragrances called ‘Thief of Hearts’ and ‘Stealth of the Cat’. Artists drew up a hundred imagined figures of the Kleptomancer, most of them tall, suave, caped and absolutely nothing like the stumpy, begoggled, metal-suited figure that had last been seen leaping off a cheese plate and diving into a lagoon.
Meanwhile, a hundred measures were afoot to catch the scurrilous Stackfalter-snatcher. Such a powerful and prodigious cheese generally had a powerful and prodigious smell, and this was no exception. Those perfumiers who worked for the Enquiry were stalking the caverns, scenting the air for the slightest hint of its mossy aroma. Others were scouring the tunnels using harnessed glisserblinds, in the hope that the tiny blind snakes’ miraculous sense of smell would detect a trace even the perfumiers had missed.
The Cabinet of Curiosities now drew more curiosity than ever before. Hundreds flocked to survey the oddities there, and in particular the lanky cameleopard. The visitors noted the increase in guards, but there were many new security measures that they did not see. They were oblivious to the unseen watchers who peered through hidden slits in the walls, their senses sharpened with spices.
In the hope of finding out how the theft would take place, one Enquirer even decided to turn to cheese. In spite of all warnings, he risked taking several small nibbles of the infamous Whispermole Mumblecheddar, famous for revealing flashes of the future, and also for tasting like rotting slug juice on fire. Cheeses, however, are not meek and slavish foods, and their visions not so easily commanded. The Enquirer did indeed see glimpses of his own future, but learned only that his second son would be born with a squint, that his own nose would some day be broken by a penguin-shaped paperweight, and that he would spend the rest of the day being miserably ill due to eating food far too rich for him.
The Grand Steward, meanwhile, had designed the guarding of the Cabinet with extreme care. He had done everything in his power to make sure that the protection surrounding it was almost impenetrable. Almost. As a matter of fact, that ‘almost’ was critical. He had ensured that there was one tiny chink in the armour that only a very careful and brilliant thief would spot, a route through the main palace water pipe that only a madman or a prince of audacity would even consider. He had no doubt that the Kleptomancer would spot the flaw in the defences, and hoped that he would mistake it for an oversight on the part of the guards. If it worked, if the Kleptomancer did try to worm his way in through the prepared chink, the Grand Steward’s forces would be ready and waiting for him.
And if the trap failed? The Grand Steward smiled. If it failed, there were other traps ready and waiting. He thought it all too likely that the Kleptomancer’s strange, all-covering metallic suit would protect him from darts, poison fumes and Perfumes, but he had asked for something special to be designed for the occasion. The stuffed body of the cameleopard itself was no longer as safe as it had been when Neverfell put her arms round it. Mixed with its sawdust there was now a powerful mixture of ominous powders, just ready to release their vapours if the cameleopard was jogged or manhandled.
These vapours would not choke away the breath or addle the mind, but they had the virtue of rusting metal with supernatural speed. The Grand Steward felt a thrill of scientific interest as he waited to see the results. He doubted that the Kleptomancer would be quite so spry and speedy with every slat of his armour rusted solid.
Across the room, a venturesome spider swung from a gleaming thread, its legs curling and fiddling against each other like the fingers of a hand, every motion illuminated by the garish green light immediately below. It lowered itself an inch and another inch, tempted by the slick bead of the dead fly below, laid out on its glowing cushion. It dropped one more inch and then suddenly vanished as the jaws of the waiting trap-lantern snapped shut around it, fine teeth meshing and allowing no escape.
In the dreaded Hall of the Harps swaggered a small figure
, chattering and chirruping softly to itself. Now and then it glanced about, the whites showed at the edges of its wise, sad, cocoa-coloured eyes, but it did not seem unduly alarmed. Meringue crumbs clung to its pink, jutting pout. In the very centre of the hall where a little light pooled unwillingly, it settled comfortably on its haunches to sniff at the red hairs it still gripped in its clever little hands, tweaking and plucking at them like a housewife teasing out wool threads for her spinning wheel.
At last it pushed out its lips like an old man drinking soup, then raised itself up and continued its casual lollop to the far wall, where it tugged back the edge of a tapestry to reveal a tiny rope ladder. It began to climb, only a rising bulge in the tapestry revealing its position. At the top of the ladder it reached a tiny arched window, concealed by the tapestry, and clambered through.
The room on the other side was somewhat lighter, and filled with a rather different music from the Hall of the Harps, mostly snores and chitters. The monkey drew itself up and tottered daintily across the tabletop with both hands raised and spread like a fastidious duchess, past a cage with a snoring wolverine, a glass case of cave spiders and a tank of fish humbug-striped in crimson and cream, dozens of banded, spine-like fins floating around them in a halo. It ignored them all, and instead leaped upon an arm, then scrambled up to a shoulder, and pouted coyly as a finger scritched the fur next to its jaw.
‘Bravo, Marcel.’ The fistful of red hairs was gently taken from its grasp, and held up to the light. Marcel accepted a shelled Brazil nut, turning it over and over in his tiny hands, before pushing it into his cheek and chewing on it. ‘Well done.’
Meanwhile, his master took the frail red hairs over to a box next to a lantern. The box was fashioned from the finest mesh, for its occupants would have been quite capable of sliding out through the holes in any ordinary cage. Within, it was just possible to see a slick, slate-grey tangle that now and then stirred sluggishly, like a long abandoned knot trying to undo itself.
Marcel’s master picked up a wooden object resembling a pepper grinder. Holding it over the cage he gave it a few turns, with the confident care of an expert chef seasoning a stew, and from it fell a fine pinkish dust. This was not pepper, however, but finely ground Tommyreek, a spice famous for sharpening the sense of smell. At once the knot inside the cage gave a start. Blind tapering heads raised themselves and mouths opened to taste the air.
Gripping one of the hairs with a pair of tongs, he lowered it until it spooled in through one of the holes in the mesh. The blind mass within began to writhe in good earnest, shivers of electric blue shimmering down the glossy, slender forms as they strove against each other. The solitary hair was tugged from the tongs, pulled away by a dozen small, snapping mouths which then gaped again, looking for more.
Marcel pulled back his lips in a grin like a yellow zip.
Blind Side
To pass safely through a jungle, one must walk either with stealth or confidence.
Zouelle recited this mantra of her Uncle Maxim as she trod the intricate mosaics of the Court for the first time. She had made her debut and been a guest at one of the Grand Steward’s banquets, and thus had now won the right to enter the public walks of the palace, but she knew that rights alone would not keep her skin whole. If she flinched or showed a hint of uncertainty, others would notice her, and start to see her as a victim or an opportunity.
Even with the three palace guards accompanying her, she was sure to keep her stride steady, her face locked in a smile of radiant smugness and anticipation. She counted in her head, forcing herself to breathe slowly. One, two, three, in, four, five, six, out. I am a Childersin, she told herself. I am a Childersin. I am one whisker on a great lion. When they look at me, they see the lion.
I can do this. I can do all of this. I’m the best actress in the Beaumoreau Academy.
They had reached an arched door, presumably the entrance to the tasters’ quarters, and to her surprise Zouelle found her apprehension increase instead of diminishing.
This is silly! It’s Neverfell, remember? Just Neverfell. But . . . so much has happened now. What do I say to her? And what have other people been saying to her? Does she realize she’s the talk of the Court?
Zouelle was sure that many courtiers were already bargaining and battling for introductions to the Grand Steward’s notorious and fascinating new food taster. Neverfell was not only elevated, she was fashionable, and there was much status to be gained just by being seen with her. Zouelle had a head start on her rivals since Neverfell already regarded her as a friend, but if she did not press that advantage she would doubtless be crowded out as others jostled their way into Neverfell’s warm and impressionable heart.
When Zouelle had shown Neverfell’s letter to her Uncle Maxim, he had made it clear that his niece should press her advantage. Yes, you should go and see Neverfell, or she will turn to others with her problems and questions. Be a friend to her. A confidante. When she looks for somebody to trust, we want her to come to us. Zouelle thought she understood why. The Childersin family had rocked on its pedestal recently and nearly tumbled. At this moment it needed to increase its influence, and in her new position Neverfell could be a useful contact.
‘If you would not mind waiting, my lady,’ murmured the nearest guard. Zouelle gave a small nod of consent, and the man disappeared through the door, leaving her attended by the other two. So she was ‘my lady’ now, not ‘miss’. That was what she had always wanted, wasn’t it? Why did the words chill her? There was something so cold and final about it, like the click of a door closing behind her. Her childhood was over, and now there was only her place in the ‘great game’, and whatever role Uncle Maxim had chosen for her. There was no going back.
The door before her, on the other hand, burst open barely a minute later.
‘Zouelle!’
The blonde girl was nearly thrown backwards off her feet by a high speed red-headed hug. ‘You’re alive and not locked in anywhere! Are the rest of your family safe? Are they here?’ Evidently Neverfell’s etiquette training had only achieved so much. One reunion, and everything she had been taught about proper greetings had fallen from her mind, like precariously placed trunks from a runaway cart.
‘Steady! No, it’s just me here.’ With difficulty Zouelle extricated herself, and held Neverfell by the shoulders to examine her at arm’s length. ‘Uncle Maxim sends his regards, but thought it would look less suspicious if I came alone. And don’t worry, the family are all fine. We’re all . . . fine. It . . . your plan worked.’ Remembering Neverfell’s suicidal, hell-for-leather gallop into custody to save the Childersin family, Zouelle could not help letting her gaze drop for a moment. ‘And you, how are you?’ Neverfell’s grin was like an explosion, and at first it was hard to see anything past it. However, when Zouelle looked the younger girl up and down, she noticed swellings, bruises, reddened punctures raked by scratch-marks. ‘You look . . . Has it been bad? What did they do when they questioned you? Did they hurt you?’
‘Oh.’ Neverfell rubbed ruefully at a spider bite on her neck, and shrugged. ‘Well, they set spiders and snakes on me for a bit and blew me up and there was this really scary cake, but it’s mostly all right now, I think. Except I don’t ever want any more cake. Look!’ Neverfell held up her hands to show the steel thimbles on the edge of each of her fingers. ‘I have to wear these so I don’t bite my fingernails. I don’t really mind, but they clink on my teeth a bit.’
‘But the Grand Steward?’ Zouelle made a desperate grab at the trailing rein of the conversation before it could run away again. ‘You have his favour? His protection?’
‘Sort of.’ Neverfell bit her lip and leaned forward to whisper in Zouelle’s ear. ‘His left eye seems to like me, anyway.’
‘Good.’ Zouelle glanced about, aware that many at Court took Paprickle spice to help them eavesdrop. ‘We should sit down somewhere quiet and talk.’
Zouelle was not allowed into the main tasters’ quarters, but it turned out
that there was a little secluded parlour set aside for visitors, so they retired there to speak in private. The ubiquitous palace servants opened the door for Neverfell as she approached, and Zouelle was suddenly stung by the thought of the guards perhaps calling Neverfell ‘my lady’ the same way they had addressed her. Immediately the honour of that title cheapened in her mind, like a piece of tinsel that had adorned the neck of a puppy or piglet.
Once they were alone, Zouelle came straight to the point.
‘Neverfell, it’s not enough to be favoured by Left-Eye. You urgently need to win over Right-Eye.’
‘Urgently? Why?’
‘Because Right-Eye looks kindly on the Enquiry, and the Enquiry are not on your side. I know for a fact that Enquirer Treble distrusts you, and has suggested to His Excellency more than once that her people should be allowed to put you to the question. Neverfell, on no account let yourself fall into the hands of the Enquiry, or you will be tortured into confessing all kinds of things.’
‘But I thought they’d finished with me!’ Neverfell looked distraught. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Because our family has spies among the Enquirers,’ Zouelle responded smoothly, then laughed at Neverfell’s expression. ‘Don’t look so shocked! Anybody who is anybody at Court has agents in the Enquiry. They’re riddled with infiltrators. That’s why it’s so hard to work out who tried to have you killed in the Enquiry cells. It was probably an Enquirer, but they could have been secretly working for anybody.’
Neverfell was full of questions about the Childersins’ welfare, so Zouelle hastened to bring her up to date. Mere hours after Neverfell had been taken into the Grand Steward’s custody, Maxim Childersin had returned to his townhouse, somewhat haggard but unharmed. He had effortlessly seized the reins of the family once again, just in time to stop his relations tearing each other apart.