The Queen's Librarian (22 page)

“But,” said Lucas slowly, “since Booths was the one who’d engineered it all along….”

“He did shut the portal,” Laurie said. “But only because he didn’t want anyone from our world talking to the Daimin so they’d find out the truth. And he made it so no one else could open it back up.”

“At the time, my people thought it must be some mistake,” said Slade. “A misunderstanding.”

“So Booths shut all the portals,” Laurie went on, “and he did it in such a way that every Daimin who had been freely wandering our world—”

“Even some who’d settled down and started families,” Slade put in sadly.

“—every one of them was now suddenly—
poof!
—gone, magically compelled to return to their own world and never cross again, unless—”

“Unless they had the key to the spells Booths used,” Lucas finished, dazed.

“
But
,” Laurie said, “once again, Great-gran’dam was not an idiot. She suspected Booths, but since no one could get the portal open again—any of the portals—there was no way to prove anything, and Tarcen—Great-gran’dam’s Magician—had already put out the news that the Daimin had turned hostile and it swept the lands. Now no one wanted the portals reopened, so they all stayed shut, but what to do about Booths Brinley?”

“Dungeons?” Alex suggested.

“No proof,” Laurie told him. “Couldn’t even have a trial. And Great-gran’dam didn’t even know
what
he’d done, exactly, only that he’d caused the Daimin to turn on us.”

“Take his land away,” Lucas mused, remembering what he’d read only that afternoon in the book of ancestry. “Come up with an archaic statute so he had no claim to the Circle, not even as the caretaker. Hand it all over to a relative.”

“But apparently no one knew about the book of spells,” Laurie said.

“So the Tripps came into possession of Rolling Green,” Alex put in, “and the Circle along with it, and the Parrys kept the book of spells. The Key that Mister-Scontun-who-isn’t-Mister-Scontun has been on about.”

“We were never able to break the spell that forbade us from your world,” said Slade. “It wasn’t until Parry opened the Circle that we learned about the Key. And by the time I met Clara, I’d already told my father about it, and now he wants—”

“Oh my god!” Lucas cried. “
That’s
why he’s been after it all this time? That’s what all of this is about?”

“What?” said Alex. “
What’s
it all about?”

“All of this ‘red librarian’ rot,” Lucas said, “and all the time—”

“I didn’t know your name!” The blur that must be Slade threw its hands out. “Not until I met Clara. All I knew was that you were the Queen’s Librarian and that you had red hair. I wouldn’t have even told my father that much, had I known how very much—”

“But
why
did you tell him about me at all? I have nothing to do with
any
of this, Booths Brinley isn’t—”

“Because Parry said you had the book!” Slade cut in, exasperated. “I mean, Parry and I became friends—he even gave me my name, said he knew a family in Red Bridge that wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it—and I was visiting him one day, he was teaching me to speak your language, and Clara had come to hire a carriage, and Parry introduced me to her, and I… I mean, she’s so very beautiful, and kind, and she has lips that demand to be kiss—”

“Yes, that is
quite
enough!” Lucas snapped.

“
What’s
enough?” Alex demanded.

“I don’t want to hear about… about….” Lucas waved his hand in what he thought was Slade’s general direction. “I don’t want to hear about him snogging my sister!”

“No,” Alex said calmly. “I meant, what is he talking about? Is this about Parry or Clara or Daimin or… what?”

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? And now it seemed there were more answers than anyone had suspected. And each one had everything to do with the others.

Lucas’s head started spinning again.

No
, he told it very firmly,
there will be no more swooning
.

Not that there had been any before.

Also, he might throw up.

“Oh my god,” was all Lucas could manage.

Alex’s grip on Lucas’s arm tightened. “
What
, Lucas?”

“Oh my
god
!”

“Love. You’re getting hysterical again.”

“Yes,” Lucas retorted. “Perhaps you should join me this time. It’s really quite freeing.”

Alex growled and gave Lucas a gentle shake, just enough to clear his head a little. “What the deuce is going on, and why are we not thumping these two louts on their respective noses?”

Lucas sighed, very heavily, and slumped. “
Because
….” He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed shut his eyes until sparkles lit up behind them. “This isn’t about an invasion of the Daimin, and it’s not about them causing chaos because they think it’s fun, and it’s not about grooms disappearing because they’re heartless cads, or even about pain-in-the-arse crazy men accosting me in my home and getting Cat to like them better than she likes me.” He dropped his hand, opened his eyes, and turned to squint at the Alex-blob behind him. “It’s about a prince who ran off to marry a girl from the wrong world, and the King of the Daimin, who wants his son back.” Lucas paused then rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh my god, I’m living in a romance novel.”

He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair—where the blazes had his ribbon gone this time?—then shook his head. There was a blurry bit of color slowly sidling up on his right, so he took a chance and swiped out at it, satisfied this time when a distinct “Yipe,
ow
!” sounded in Laurie’s petulant voice. “Lucas, what was—?”

“Shut it,” Lucas snapped. “And where are my glasses?” Lucas patted at Alex’s hand, still supportively gripping Lucas’s arm. “Hand them over, please. I’ve got a cousin to beat.”

I
T
TURNED
out that threatening to beat one’s cousin was not good incentive for said cousin to hand over one’s glasses. Alex managed to retrieve them eventually, after several somewhat satisfying exclamations of “
Ow
, Alex!” and subsequent ripostes along the lines of “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting an excuse to do that” and even what sounded like some help from Bramble, though Lucas had no idea exactly which one Bramble was helping.

Lucas wished he could see more than a vague jumble of blurs, but Slade helpfully supplied him with an analysis of the action with the occasional “ooh, ouch” and “well, that’s going to leave a mark” thrown in for color. When Lucas’s spectacles were finally set on his nose again, he first blinked away the blur and then immediately leaned up to snog a rather winded but smiling and seemingly invigorated Alex.

“My hero,” Lucas told him with a grin and tilted his chin up a little more when Alex grinned back and adjusted the spectacles’ frames so they sat straight.

“Not even bent,” Alex said smugly.

“Stop gloating,” Laurie groused, rubbing ostentatiously at his ribs and then the back of his head. “I only let you win because I didn’t want to break them.”

“You mean you only—” Lucas stopped then peered around himself. “Have we been in your bedroom this whole time?”

There was no mistaking it. Clothes worth more than Lucas’s house strewn over the floor; shelves overflowing with books of magic Laurie would never master because he couldn’t keep his mind on one theory long enough to practice or disprove it; experiments in various states of completion covering every available surface; and—most damning—a stuffed dragon that Laurie would swear up and down didn’t actually belong to him but somehow always managed to end up on his bed and wearing his circlet.

There was also the matter of plates heaped with old food piled up on the ornate clothespress in the corner, and how Laurie managed to get the Queen to decree that no servant was to enter the room to clean it without Laurie’s express permission, given at least two days in advance, Lucas would never know. But he suspected the Queen had no idea about the small colony of mice that lived behind the eastern wall and which Laurie had dubbed “The Royal Pets” and which likely subsisted on the aforementioned old food. So that might have something to do with the Laurie-doesn’t-have-to-clean-his-room policy.

Lucas peered reluctantly behind him to the spot where he suspected he’d woken up from his
not-swoon-bugger-off-Laurie
, and winced. Well, he’d rather been sprawled over Alex, so there probably wasn’t much damage done to Lucas’s trousers. He decided not to tell Alex to check the back of his own. No point in dimming that exhilarated and quite lovely grin Alex had been sporting since he’d won the spectacles back.

“All right. So.” Lucas straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. “There is still the matter of your father”—he lifted an eyebrow at Slade—“making off with Parry and how much we’re supposed to worry about that.” He narrowed his eyes. “Was Parry in on any of this?”

Slade took a timid step back. “I don’t know what that means, Master Tripp. Master Parry has been nothing but kind to me. He was trying to help. He told me to look for you in Red Bridge yesterday, but when I got to your inn, I found Prince Laurie and then I felt my father cross over, so Prince Laurie said we should leave, and by the time I came back to look for you, you had already gone.”

Lucas glared at Laurie. Then he smacked him in the back of the head.

“Ow!”

“
You
were the one who decided to disappear without even telling me you were safe? Don’t you ever use your head?”

“Of course not,” Alex put in. “It’s full of juggling squirrels and old candy wrappers. He hasn’t enough room in there for actual thought.”

“Hey!”

“What does your father want with Parry?” Lucas asked Slade. “And what will he do if he doesn’t get what he wants?”

Slade shifted a helpless shrug. “He wants me to come back. He doesn’t mean any harm, Master Tripp, you have to believe me, but….” He trailed off with a worried frown.

“But what?” Lucas demanded.

“Well….” Slade looked at Laurie, and when Laurie, still rubbing his head, nodded encouragement, Slade went on, “He thinks you stole me. And stealing a prince is sort of a hostile thing to do where I come from.”

“Uh-huh,” Lucas agreed weakly and leaned against Bramble’s sturdy side when his knees went a bit tingly. “It sort of is everywhere, I expect.” He nodded, peered at Alex for support, and when Alex only gave him a helpless shrug, Lucas shook his head. “Right. He meant to take Laurie last night. ‘You steal my prince, I steal yours,’ he said to me. Which, now that I compare it to actually instigating a full-out opening sally, I suppose was quite generous.” He sucked in a long breath. “So he wants his son back. But he’ll take the book—Key, whatever—instead so he can get him back himself. In the meantime, the Portal is open, the book is missing, and Parry, who is the only one who knows where the book is, is now in the possession of the Daimin.” He looked at Slade for confirmation. When Slade nodded, Lucas puffed out a disgruntled sigh. “So it seems the thing to do—in respect to Queen and country, and to avoid the Daimin declaring war on us for kidnapping their prince—would be to give him back Slade.”

“You can’t!” Laurie cried, along with Slade pleading, “Master Tripp, there has to be another way, please, I’ll—”

“I didn’t say we were
going
to give Slade back,” Lucas cut in through the babble, “I said it would be the thing to do in respect to Queen and country.” He pursed his mouth and glared at Slade. “In respect to a weeping sister who will never forgive me for handing over her groom-to-be and who can hit surprisingly hard for such a little thing, I don’t think sending Slade back home would be a plan of which she would approve.”

Slade didn’t relax completely but he did let loose a relieved sigh. “So?”

“Yeah,” said Alex doubtfully, “
so
? Lucas, you’re not thinking—”

“Not even a little bit,” Lucas told him. “But however some of this might look, I do believe Parry has been trying to help, in his own way. Which means that the thing he was shouting about when Slade’s father took him away probably means something. And he said he didn’t have the book but he knew where it was,
and
he’s been trying to get me to come to the castle to see the Queen since this whole thing started. Before, actually.”

“All right,” Alex said slowly. “I’m sure this means something inside your own head, but would you mind sharing it about?”

Lucas grinned and patted Alex’s cheek, then took his arm and hugged it. Good old Alex.

“We’ve been looking for a book, haven’t we? Where better to find a book than a library?”

Chapter 10

W
HEN
the Queen had created the position of Librarian and appointed Lucas to fill it, the Library, such as it was then, had sat in the bartizan of the southwest bastion of the keep. It hadn’t taken Lucas long to commandeer the entirety of the bastion to accommodate his new acquisitions—and he really needed to stop thinking of them as his, they were the Queen’s, but he couldn’t help it—and lately he’d been eyeing the wide rooms to either side of the Library for possible expansion. He was starting to run out of room in the Library itself, priceless books and scrolls crammed all the way up to the hoarding and turrets, and anyway, Cráwa had an entire tower all to himself, so it seemed only fair, in Lucas’s considered opinion.