Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) (5 page)

Luck hauled her up by one arm, and said: “Poly, you’re deliberately making a nuisance of yourself.”

“But I’m not!” Poly protested, stumbling blindly without her glasses. A moment later they were thrust onto her nose, and Luck’s annoyed face swam into sight. “I was just walking and you were talking, and then I was asleep.”

The annoyance in Luck’s face faded, to be replaced with a thoughtful look. “We were talking about Civet,” he said. “But what were you thinking?”

“The same, I suppose.”

“No you weren’t. You’re always thinking something different from what you’re saying. Why were you crying?”

Poly, who had thought Luck hadn’t noticed her tears at all, decided that his vague look wasn’t entirely to be trusted.

“I was just remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“Castle things,” Poly said, purposely vague. Gwyn, like Lady Cimone, was something she preferred not to discuss with anyone, particularly Luck.

Luck gave her one of his long, green, thoughtful looks, but when he spoke it was to change the subject entirely.

“Do you have that spindle about you?”

Poly gazed at him in mild puzzlement. “What spindle?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Luck. “You’re determined to sleep, and a wizard could find that offensive.”

Poly opened her mouth, closed it again, and at last said plaintively: “But you said you weren’t a wizard!”

“I’m not,” said Luck, unexpectedly lunging at the skirts of her gown. His hand found the single, tiny slit of a pocket and tugged something out of it. “And I find it offensive that you keep falling asleep.”

Poly, looking in confusion at a familiarly carved spindle that she hadn’t remembered just moments ago, protested: “I can’t
help
it! Luck, how did that get in my pocket? Did you put it there? I’m sure I’ve–”

“–seen it before. Yes, you have. Poly, you’re incorrigible. You should be waking up, not falling asleep again.”

“Maybe you didn’t wake me up properly.”

“Of course I woke you up properly!” Luck said, pinioning her with a hard look. “My kisses are notoriously effective.”

“Oh, is that what they are? Do you wake up a lot of cursed girls, then?”

“Spindle.”

“What?”

“Spindle.”

“What spi– ow! Let me go! What is that? Where did it come from?”

“Well, this is just ridiculous,” said Luck. His fingers were wrapped tightly around her hand, and somehow there was a spindle pinched uncomfortably between her fingers and Luck’s. More uncomfortable still was Luck’s fascinated gaze: a gaze that was entirely too close and interested and golden.

He said: “You’re such a delightful little puzzle, Poly! We have experiments to do when we stop for the night. And I have to kiss you again.”

“No we don’t, and no
you
don’t,” said Poly positively.

“Also, we’ll need scones.”

“How are scones relevant?”

Luck gave her a blank look. “Scones are always relevant.”

Poly was relieved when he stepped back and released her, though she wasn’t quite sure if the preoccupied air he sank into was comforting or worrying. At any rate, that blank look from Luck was the last sign he gave Poly that he remembered her existence for quite some time.

She didn’t mind: it gave her time to try and remember exactly what had happened the day she went to sleep. The last thing Poly remembered was laying down on her neatly made bed to rest briefly before the rigors of the Midsummer Night’s Festival. She had been wearing her own grey cotton, she was certain: a waiting-lady’s dress with too many petticoats and too much whalebone, but certainly her own dress. How had she ended up in the princess’ dress, not to mention the princess’ bed?

It wasn’t that the dress wasn’t pretty. It was embroidered satin, light and cool, with huge, fluffy petticoats to add to the airy, summer feel of the gown, and a creamy ruff that sat softly against her neck. Although it was now very much the worse for wear, it had once been one of the princess’ favourite party ensembles.

It wasn’t at all suitable for striding through the countryside, however, and Poly, constantly curling a section of the skirt around her wrist to keep it out of the way, knew she would never have dared to wear the thing. She could only imagine what Persephone would have done to her if she’d been caught wearing it.

No, Poly had gone to sleep with her own grey-striped cotton dress on, one hand lying on the taut bodice of whalebone and piping, the other tucked behind her more austere ruff. She remembered gazing up at the ceiling with the thought of caramel corn puffs threading through her mind.

So when had her dress been switched? Poly thought she had woken up again: but had she? Was that just one more dream in her three-hundred-year night?

Chapter Three

It was noon by the time a blot sprang up on the horizon ahead of them, the triad sitting above it like three red-gold juggling balls.

Poly gazed at it in blank surprise. “Oh. What’s that?”

“A dirty little town,” said Luck, rousing from his own preoccupation. “I want to visit it.”

“Why?”

“You can’t wear that,” he added, his eyes travelling over the overblown green gown. “You’ll have to change.”

“Into what? I haven’t got another dress.”

“Transform it,” said Luck, giving her a vague, puzzled look.

“I haven’t got magic,” Poly told him, sighing. He ought to know that.

“Yes you do.”

“I’ve never had magic. Believe me, I would know.”

“Rubbish. You must have.” Luck’s eyes were very green and narrow, but much to Poly’s dismay, curls of gold were beginning to lick at his pupils. “Poly– No, Poly, don’t run away.”

“Don’t you touch me!”

“I’m not going to touch you, I just want to–”

“No!”

“Poly–”

“
No!
I’ve had quite enough of magic, thank you very much.”

Luck gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment, then said with interest: “How are you going to stop me?”

Poly sat down, a miserable pouf of green satin and white petticoats, and regarded him balefully.

“I can’t,” she said, in a gruff voice.

“You’re angry again.” Luck’s voice sounded surprised.

Poly threw him an incredulous look and folded her arms. Luck tilted his head back to look at her, his eyes almost completely golden and unfocused, and she felt the whisper of his magic slithering around the outskirts of her mind, too close for comfort. Apparently Luck’s disregard for personal space extended to his magical as well as his physical aspect.

She caught a whisp of the golden magic between her fingers, felt it slip over her fingertips like silk, then pinched and tore it away from herself.

Luck gasped, then groaned through his teeth.

“
Don’t
do that!”

“Don’t slither around me like that!”

There was a brief silence while they both glared at each other.

Then Luck hazarded: “Do you like the dress?”

Poly had the feeling that he was still trying to discover why she was angry, and in spite of herself she was amused.

“No,” she said. “It’s huge and useless and annoying.”

“Oh. Well, what do you usually wear?”

“Something sensible. Small ruff. Grey pin-stripes, no ruffles. Big pockets.”

“Grey? Why do you want to wear grey?”

“I don’t know, it sort of fades into the background,” suggested Poly, remembering too late that the princess would scarcely have liked to fade into
any
background, and that she was meant to be the princess. Soft colours had helped her to survive in the castle.

He gave her a dubious look. “All right. Picture it in your mind.”

Poly did so, remembering the no-nonsense quality of dress with its big pockets, stiff whale-boned bodice and quiet, narrow sleeves. A pleasant little shiver shook her as a cool tingle of magic trickled down her back, and when she opened her eyes again, the grey pin-stripe was falling in neat folds around her on the grass. After that, it was delightfully easy to slide her remaining two books each into a pocket, and Poly huffed a little sigh of relief to find her arms free again.

“Blue would have been better,” said Luck. He was surveying her with a frown, but when her eyes met his, his head snapped around. “Well, come on, then.”

It was late afternoon when they entered the town. It had proved to be further away than it looked, to Poly’s dismay. Her legs were shaking with weariness by then, but she didn’t seem to be actually sleepy, and Poly came to the conclusion that she was merely out of condition. Luck didn’t have any such difficulties and continued to stride ahead of her until it was evident to Poly that he’d forgotten about her again. His head was swinging from side to side, his eyes wide and vague, and with his dishevelled hair and mud-spattered coat buttoned crookedly, he looked just a little mad. As they walked further into the town, Poly found herself thinking that it was just as well: there was a suggestion of menace to the dirty streets that she didn’t care for, and so long as Luck looked wilder and more dangerous than anything they were likely to meet, she was inclined to think that they would be safe.

She hurried along behind and collided painfully with him when he stopped suddenly outside a tea shop, her glasses jerking off the end of her nose.

Luck snatched at her glasses as they tumbled and passed them back to her. “Oh, there you are, Poly. I wondered where you’d got to.”

“What are you looking for?” Poly panted.

“Tea!” said Luck.

He ducked into the shop and Poly dashed after him willy-nilly, shoving her glasses back on. She found herself pushed down into a seat at a tiny corner table that surprised her by being spotlessly clean.

“Tea for two,” Luck told the little boy that came to wait on them. “And scones. Lots of scones.”

“What are you looking for?” Poly repeated, when the little boy had gone. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Luck had dodged her questions at least twice today.

Luck looked at her with bright eyes and said: “Magic. A great big snarl of it. It wasn’t here when I passed through before.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“
Where
is it?”

He shrugged and ran a careless hand through his already untidy hair, forming new spikes.

“Don’t know that either. It’s snagged on every thread of magic through the town and pulled them off-centre. I thought you could see magic? Why can’t you see it?”

Poly blinked and pulled back defensively from Luck’s intent gaze, thankful when the boy returned with a plate piled high with scones to provide a distraction.

“More scones!” said Luck firmly, and the little boy scuttled away again. Luck buttered four scones, coating them with raspberry jam and thick cream, his eyes still on Poly.

“Well?”

Poly jumped. “Well, what?”

“Have a scone,” said Luck, shoving one into her hand. “They’re good. Why can’t you see the tangle?”

“Um,” said Poly, trying to pull her thoughts together. Luck’s golden gaze was distinctly off-putting.

She pushed away the discomfort, as well as the thought that Luck was taking advantage of her distraction to eat all the scones, and concentrated.

The little boy returned once but Poly didn’t take any notice of him. Luck’s huge golden glow of magic was
there
, and
there
was the warm blue-and-brown swirl of someone (the baker, probably) just through the kitchen doors beside them. Something had caught in the blue-and-brown, snagging a very tiny thread with it; and as Poly gazed at it, it occurred to her that many other threads were caught up in it as well. It was a huge, tangled mess of magic with a pulsing ball of something at its centre.

“You do see it,” remarked Luck. “Huh. Interesting.”

Her concentration broken, Poly yawned and focused sleepily on him again. Things were beginning to take on a muffled consistency, but she noticed that all the scones were gone and glared at Luck, who gave her a wide, glassy look back.

“Don’t fall asleep, Poly; it’s time to go.”

Poly started after him, hastily eating the scone in her hand as she hurried to keep up. No doubt she was fortunate Luck hadn’t eaten that, too.

She didn’t have either the time or effort for disgruntlement after that. Luck was fairly dashing down the streets, one dizzying turn after another, and Poly had to put all her effort into keeping up with him. It was far from dignified, and more than one pedestrian turned and gazed after them in astonishment as they thundered past. Once, they startled a horse into trying to bolt, and the strident abuse of its rider followed them for several streets.

Luck’s legs were longer than hers, and Poly had just despaired of catching him up when she collided with him again at a street-corner. Luck gasped a little on impact but caught her glasses again, and straightened Poly with one distracted arm. His head was swivelling between two different streets, his eyes wild and fascinated. Poly only had time to shove her glasses back on before he grabbed her hand with a gleeful laugh and dragged her after him.

“This way!”

They ploughed through a group of silent, watchful men some way down a darkened back street. Luck didn’t notice, intent on his prize. Despite their lingering gaze, Poly couldn’t help grinning as she was dragged mercilessly in Luck’s wake: she wondered exactly how much Luck could miss when he was concentrating on something else.

Poly thought she had almost worked out their course by the time they stopped briefly at a dubious old wood and metal staircase. It ran up the outside of a building, barely held against the rotting woodwork by a few rusted brackets, and shaking in the light breeze. For an unsettled moment Poly thought Luck would drag her up that as well, and while they dithered, a small cannonball shot out of the shadows and artfully careened into Luck. Poly saw the dirty little hand that slipped into Luck’s waistcoat pocket and opened her mouth in warning, but it wasn’t needed. The thief, attempting to pull out his hand again, had quickly discovered that he couldn’t. A look of horror spread over his pinched little face and he tried again to free his hand, this time with more desperation and less stealth.

Poly saw the glimmer of gold thread and gave a sudden, delighted chuckle. There was magic lining the pocket: Luck had thief-proofed it.

The urchin looked up at her desperately, his eyes pleading, but Luck darted off again obliviously, dragging both Poly and the urchin behind him.

Poly gave herself up to the irresistible pull, giggling madly, and the urchin stumbled along with her, his eyes wide with panic and by no means sharing her enjoyment of the situation.

At last they tumbled into a blind alley where Luck skidded to a stop, spinning in a tight circle that towed Poly and the urchin helplessly behind him.

He looked distinctly offended, as if the walls had moved to spite him, and said: “No, this can’t be right.”

Poly threw an amused look around, taking in the few doors of disreputable appearance and the one small, likewise disreputable puppy that was tied by a piece of thin rope to a dirty drain-pipe. She disengaged her hand from Luck’s while he was distractedly turning in another circle, and wandered a little further, charmed by the puppy.

It was a caramel-coloured mongrel with a cheerful, wiry little beard of fur on its tiny chin, and it stood on its hind legs for her. Poly crouched beside it, offering a friendly hand, and heard the sounds of a scuffle from Luck’s end of the alley. She looked up, discovering to her delight that Luck had finally noticed the pickpocket, and was chasing him in a tight circle as the boy scampered close to Luck’s coat in a vain attempt to evade capture. It was rather like watching a dog chase its own tail.

“Poly! Poly, what is this?” Luck seized the child by the scruff of the neck at last, and tugged his hand free from the waistcoat pocket.

“It’s a little boy,” Poly told him. “A pickpocket. You picked him up several streets back.”

“Did I?” Luck gazed down at the child in bemusement. “I thought my coat felt a bit heavier. Well, I suppose you won’t do that again in a hurry, will you?”

The pickpocket shook his head soundlessly, desperately. Luck dropped his hand and made a vague shooing motion.

“Off you go, then,” he said mildly. The pickpocket took to his heels without waiting to be told a second time and Luck turned his attention to the walled alley.

“It’s gone. Poly, can you see anything?”

Poly tore her gaze away from the wriggling bundle of muddy fur that was attempting, with great determination, to lick her face, and threw a cursory look around.

“No. It’s all gone. Even the threads are gone.”

“Huh. That’s what I thought. What is
that
?”

“It’s a puppy. I think it likes me.”

“It looks like a dirty mop-head,” opined Luck, eyeing it with disfavour. His horrified gaze fell on a lock of Poly’s hair that the puppy was gleefully chewing on, and to Poly’s great amusement, looked as if he were about to be sick. “Make it stop!”

Poly gave the puppy’s lean little stomach a brisk rub, ignoring Luck. She was surprised that the puppy was still attached to its lead: this little scrap of doghood was still coming into its first, sharp teeth. By this stage it should have been chewing everything around it to ribbons, including the thin black rope that tethered it to the drain-pipe.

“One of the doors has something on it,” she told Luck, to distract him from his fascinated horror.

He blinked. “Hmm? Oh, that’s just a sigil. It means the owner sells spells.”

“Journey spells and such?”

“Yes,” said Luck. “Convenient, isn’t it?” He had begun to look thoughtful, which worried Poly slightly.

The puppy, annoyed by her preoccupation, uttered a shrill little bark and leapt up to lick her face, trailing its string lead over her arm. Poly felt the pull of savage cold where it touched her, and gasped in pain, tumbling the puppy from her lap. It barked at her again, the cock of its ears offended, and Luck’s eyes flicked to them both for a vague moment before he raised his hand to knock on the marked door.