Castle & Key, page 13
“What about when someone doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do?” enquired Susan. “Is that the sort of thing that needs to be made tidy?”
Regan didn’t look at her; she beat the rug harder instead, focusing all of her attention on it. “That’s when people start falling through the glasshouse roof and brides start knocking their brains out on the front step,” she said. “That’s why it’s better if we stick to our own kind and they stick to theirs. I can’t help them catching it, but I can help catching it myself.”
“Catching it? Can you catch a Perfect Result?”
“No, but you catch it if you can’t turn out the Perfect Result,” Regan said, grinning. “And we’ll catch it if we’re not done in the next two hours, Miss Susan, so I’ll save my breath for beating the rugs, if it’s all the same to you.”
Seven
Susan woke in the early hours of the morning to find that she was once again alone in the suite.
She huffed an exasperated sigh up at the ceiling and thought that if Janet had been as determined to explore the manor as Susan was, she couldn’t have been oftener absent. At least the windows were all decently closed this time, which meant that Janet must have taken to the halls; it was also a comfort to see that she had taken the hound with her again. Susan suspected that the hound would press to Janet’s side during the entire excursion after their last outing.
Since there was no telling where they might have got themselves to, Susan resolved not to worry and took herself out of bed and the suite alike to wander the halls alone. Her exploration throughout the day with Regan at her side hadn’t done a great deal of good; she hadn’t had enough unobserved time to search the rooms for anything so delicate as what had been done to Brennan, and had no more idea at the end of the day than she’d had at the beginning if the other horselords really did exist in furniture form around the manor.
The halls were dark and shifting with shadows when Susan left the suite. There was no sign of Janet or the hound in the hall, but that wasn’t surprising: Susan rather thought that the other woman had slipped out some time ago. She would just have to hope that the hound would keep Janet safe enough while Susan checked the left wing for any other signs of sentient furniture. It was evidently necessary to find them as soon as possible if they really were in the manor: Susan had spoken to Brennan from time to time throughout the day, and each time she did so, it seemed to make him a little less fuzzy about who he was and where he had come from. She didn’t like to think how easy it might be for him—or the others—to be lulled back into the stiff, woody certainty that they were just pieces of furniture.
She tried the doors along the hallway as she went and found only one of them unlocked. That was no issue, of course: Susan could pick locks with the best of housebreakers in the Two Monarchies—had, in fact done so for a good three months as a part of learning how to pick those locks. The first door she opened was a linen press with no space for any kind of furniture. Susan touched her fingers to the linens there despite that, alert to any kind of difference in the threads or the folds of the material. There was nothing to be discovered there, so she moved on to the small wooden plant stand between that door and the next. The plant stand was also merely itself, but Susan took a few minutes to talk persuasively to it anyway and moved on again regretfully when it didn’t talk back.
She picked two locks in the hall before she turned into the upper grand hall. A crack of light met her eyes as she turned into the otherwise dark hall: someone was in the little room that Janet had been warned off, and that was fun and a little bit interesting. Susan didn’t think it was Janet: Janet wouldn’t have had the light on. She might be more reckless than Susan thought was sensible when it came to her position in the house, but Susan didn’t think she was stupid.
Emmett certainly wouldn’t have left the light on, either, which left the servants and the master to consider. Susan was inclined to think that it was the master, and regretfully decided against surprising the room’s occupant with a confused, bumbling entrance to enquire why they were within. There would be time enough to meet with the master later.
* * *
It was quite early in the morning when Susan passed back along the grand hall. She had gotten as far as the ballroom in her search with absolutely nothing to show for it but a faint headache that reminded her she ought to get some sleep if she wanted to be functioning the next day.
The ballroom shouldn’t take too long to go through; she would try again tomorrow night. It might be larger than the rooms she had passed through in the darkness, but there was bound to be less furniture to search through in there. There was also the chance that it was going to be distinctly more dangerous than the other rooms—Susan had yet to see exactly how a servant could absolutely disappear within the manor as she had heard they had, but she knew that there had been something in the ballroom that wanted to get out when she passed this way the other night.
When she came back the way she’d already passed, Susan turned, almost by instinct, down the right side of the manor rather than down the left. She wasn’t quite sure exactly why she did, except that she thought she wanted to make sure Emmett was safely abed and not walking anywhere in his sleep.
It wasn’t until she had gone to edge slightly to the left—another instinctive move, to allow for the angling of the hallway—and found herself nearly walking into the wall, that she realised something wasn’t quite right.
When there wasn’t an opening to allow a branching away to the left a little later on, Susan positively grinned. There should be an opening right about where she was. She stopped and put a hand to the wall, wondering at the solidness of it, and backtracked just a little with her hand resting against the wall. All of it was solid, sure, and entirely without the kind of moveable quality that would be required for a trick wall.
Now that, thought Susan, her mind sharpening as she moved down the hallway again, was very interesting! She was quite certain of her way, and she was even more certain of the shape of the manor from beneath. The hallway she was exploring tonight was not the same hallway along which she had wandered the night she met Emmett as he walked in his sleep.
She couldn’t say for sure which was the correct configuration, either; she could say that they were different, and that neither iteration matched the lower configuration of the manor. She could also say with reasonable certitude that the walls were entirely solid and unmoveable, and that there was nothing of roughness or incompleteness to the carpeting that would have suggested a hidden door anywhere, either.
No; the manor itself seemed to have changed configuration between last night and tonight. More, it had done so without recourse to any spell that she was aware of. Susan wondered briefly, shivering a little, if it had changed after Janet passed through, or before. She began to walk a little more swiftly, eager to catch sight of some sign that the other woman had passed through the hallway ahead of her.
She found herself being directed toward the right by a hallway that seemed to be narrowing gradually via the left-hand wall angling itself inward, and for the first time caught sight of the marks on the carpet.
They were chalk marks: faint, small, and easily scuffed away by an unwary foot. By them, it was easy to see that the left-hand wall was indeed converging on Susan, and it struck her that the marks were exactly for that purpose.
Susan wondered for the first time, with crystal clear mind, exactly why the bride—or indeed, Janet herself—would be wandering down changeable hallways, clearly prepared for the changeability of them, when it was much safer to be abed.
“Have I been duped, I wonder?” she asked aloud, her voice falling softly in the heavy air. “But then, she wouldn’t have thrown herself over the banisters like that. Whatever she is and whatever she’s doing, she’s clearly in danger.”
And more than half in love with the master and Emmett alike, remarked a small, acerbic part of her mind. That was something that bothered her rather a lot, although she was honest enough to admit that not all of her irritation was strictly to do with the curse-related complications that Janet’s shifting attention was likely to cause.
She wasn’t sure how much of that irritation was personal, however—or exactly what she should be doing about it. It wasn’t as though other women hadn’t shown interest in Emmett in the past, so it shouldn’t bother her so much now.
Mind you, Susan thought, incurably honest with herself, Emmett had never before shown the faintest sign of a returning interest in anyone else. She couldn’t say he’d shown an interest in Janet, either; it was more that he hadn’t repulsed her at all, and Emmett had never been afraid to kindly and gently detach potential interest.
Susan was still considering that troubling point with a frown when the vague fluttering of light and shadow at the end of the hallway caught her attention. If the first shadow moved past before she was able to see it properly, the second, half its height and considerably longer, was unmistakeable.
The hound—and undoubtedly Janet—had just passed along whatever part of the manor met with the end of this particular hallway. And now that Susan looked, she could see the faint luminescence of moonlight further down, dawning into the hallway where it certainly hadn’t been before.
She hurried toward the light, as certain as she was that she didn’t want to lose Janet, that if she didn’t leave while the moonlight fell into the hallway, she might not be able to get out again. Susan didn’t like the thought of continually walking down a hallway that never ended, walking ever onward as it gradually became narrower and narrower.
She found herself back in a part of the manor that she recognised: and as she had seen it the first time, there was Emmett standing in the shadows far ahead. This time, he stood as though in thought where Susan fancied there had been a staircase the first time she saw him here. There was no staircase there now, though there was a small, banister-bounded square of plants and decorative stands where it had been.
Impossible for someone to fall down there, thought Susan, suddenly amused again. Perhaps it was because the air felt lighter here than it had in the last section of the manor. Perhaps it was just nice to have visual confirmation that Emmett was alive and well and not in any immediate danger.
That feeling of well-being lasted for the few seconds before Janet’s head jerked up as she saw Emmett.
“Emmet!” said her hushed voice. She sounded tremulous and relieved. She crossed the remaining space between them, and Susan saw her wipe chalky fingers on her skirt and then reach out to Emmett as she said, “I’m so glad to see someone! I thought I’d gotten lost!”
“You shouldn’t be in the halls at night,” Emmett said. He said it as if perplexed, and Susan noticed that he didn’t remove Janet’s hand from his arm. “It’s dangerous.”
“You’re here,” Janet said, gazing up at him.
Susan wondered if she was calling attention to the fact that Emmett himself had braved the dangers, or if she was, more simply, suggesting that the hallway was no longer dangerous now that she was with Emmett.
Either would have been equally true, but Susan couldn’t help the twisting feeling of irascibility the statement caused. The girl who had spoken of the master with stars in her eyes had no business gazing up at Emmett with the exact same expression.
It was also, Susan thought, a dangerous thing to be doing when the master could be supposed to be sleeping not too far away from where his valet was, and could in fact, emerge at any time to see his bride passing the time of night with his servant in the moonlight.
More worryingly, the hallway around them shifted and softened around the edges as she watched—it seemed almost as if the whole place was thinking and reforming around them as they stood there.
“Bother,” said Susan softly to herself, because she rather thought she knew what the curse was.
If it was what she thought it was, she and Emmett were in for a very delicate job. She had a little experience in such things, and Emmett was very good about not being misled by magic, but this wasn’t normal magic.
Susan nearly went forward and joined them but caught herself at the last moment and turned and slipped away in the darkness. If Janet was with Emmett as well as the hound, she was bound to be safe. Emmett would be safe, too; to think otherwise was ridiculous. There was also very little Susan could do about the way the air around the two of them seemed to thicken the longer they stood together—not while together with them, at any rate.
That was something for tomorrow’s Susan to figure out. Today’s Susan had some idea of what needed to be done, but a good night’s sleep would undoubtedly help develop that idea.
* * *
Susan woke the next day with a heavy feeling she was quite sure Janet shared when she woke the other woman later.
“Some breakfast in bed might be better than going down to the breakfast room,” she suggested to the pale, dark-circled eyes that gazed woefully up at her.
“Oh no!” Janet said. “I couldn’t!”
“You could and you should,” Susan said grimly. “You have dark circles—and a bit of mystery is good for budding romances, after all.”
Janet bit her lip. “There’s no time for that.”
“I wasn’t aware that you were in a hurry?” Susan allowed her voice to rise slightly, turning the statement into a question. “What with all the night-time wandering you’ve been doing, no one would suspect you to be a bride in danger of her life at all!”
Janet’s eyes dropped.
“One would almost,” pursued Susan, her eyes sharp as she remembered the chalk marks in the hallway, “suspect you of having an ulterior motive.”
“I took the hound with me,” Janet protested, lifting her chin a little. “I’m not entirely stupid, you know! And shouldn’t I try to discover the secrets of the manor before the manor kills me?”
“Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Find out the secrets of the manor?” Susan didn’t have to affect the tone of slight disbelief. “Walking through the fireplace and dangling from the banisters wasn’t enough for you?”
“I didn’t do that on purpose!”
“I didn’t imagine so.”
“I don’t intend to sit back and die without doing something to stop it, anyway,” Janet said defiantly.
Susan couldn’t help smiling. “Janet,” she said persuasively. “I really do think it would be better if you told me exactly why you came to the manor.”
She said it on an instinct, without any reason other than chalk marks to think that there was anything to it, but Janet’s face coloured at once, and although she said hastily, “I don’t know what you mean!” Susan knew she’d struck a nerve.
She said briskly, “Nonsense. I don’t know who made you do it or why you did it, but you came here on purpose and with a goal in mind.”
“The only goal I had in mind was to stop the young women in my town from being sacrificed, one by one,” Janet said fiercely. “I had no choice. One of us had to be the bride, and this time it was me.”
“Yes, but you volunteered, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know why you’d think that, when I was hiding in a closet when you first saw me.”
“Perfectly reasonable to get cold feet for a moment!” protested Susan. “I suppose I could have felt the same if I’d volunteered myself to do something that was almost certain to lead to my death. Besides, I’ve got a very good idea that it wasn’t exactly my wardrobe when you climbed into it.”
“You came here,” Janet pointed out, climbing out of bed and removing a rather dusty night gown. “You knew the same as me.”
“Don’t think I don’t see you changing the subject,” Susan said cheerfully. She was already well-prepared with a soft, loose morning dress in delicate yellow. Her own tunic had been another couple of inches longer this morning, and the offerings in Janet’s closet had all been of the same harmless, fluffy sort. The curse, it would seem, had very firm ideas about correct clothing for ladies and ladies maids. “It’s no good, you know: I might look like a wolfhound, but I’m actually a terrier.”
“I’m going to breakfast, anyway,” Janet said. “You’re not to try and stop me.”
“Shouldn’t dream of it,” said Susan. “I have my own shenanigans to be getting on with, and if you want to run yourself ragged meeting with the master, I’ve nothing else to say.”
It was by no means all that she wanted to say, of course; happily for Susan, she would be meeting with Emmett later that day and could then say all that she would like to. In pursuance of that happy end, she wiggled her eyebrows at Emmett across the breakfast table—noting, with concealed triumph, the distinct amusement in his eyes—and happily dragged him into the butler’s pantry with her after a quick, gleeful look around the empty hallway once everyone else in the manor was off on other errands.
Emmett allowed himself to be dragged into the pantry and propped up against one of the walls while Susan shut the door, but he sent her a quizzical look.
She grinned at him and explained, “It’s good policy to seize the day, lummox! I know it’s not our usual meeting time, but I fancy we’ll be quite busy later in the day—and Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Oswald have sneaked away somewhere.”
Emmett let the quizzical look rest on her for a few moments more before he said, “You’ve got an idea what’s going on, don’t you?”
“The curse,” said Susan, her eyes sparkling, “—whatever it is, and whoever is doing it—I think it’s pushing us toward a certain course of action.”
“The Perfect Result,” Emmett said, nodding. “The master mentioned it this morning, too.”
“Did he tell you what it was?”
“No.”
“Neither would any of the others,” Susan muttered. “Not without pulling themselves up about it, anyway. Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Oswald won’t talk about it at all, and the younger two will only say as much as they think they can get away with. It’s as if they think it’s catching, and that by talking about it, they might catch it.”
