Thursdays with the Crown (19 page)

“We
are
home,” she said under her breath.

Rolf heard her.

“We just want all of our home in Sleyne,” he announced.

Instant warmth began to spread over Celie's breastbone, flowing out from the shard of the Eye. It seeped into her skin and though the burns did not subside, they did pain her less. Her vision cleared, and the world stopped moving as though she were on a ship.

“Please, Castle,” Pogue muttered. “Just think of it: all the griffins, all your towers, all together and safe! Wouldn't that be nice?” He sounded as though he was talking to a dog.

“Safe in Sleyne,” Rolf said.

The stones beneath their feet stirred and shifted. Celie braced herself, pressing her hip against Rufus's side to make sure he wasn't left behind. But nothing happened.

Rolf looked at Celie, desperate. “What do we do?”

Wizard Bratsch cackled. “It won't work! Give me the Eye!”

“The Castle doesn't like you,” Celie said. She closed her eyes in despair. The Castle wouldn't risk bringing Bratsch and the Arkower to Sleyne.

“I
built
the Castle,” Wizard Bratsch snapped.

“Oh, you did not,” Lilah snapped right back. “You just be quiet!” She turned to Lord Griffin. “Get them as far from here as you can,” she ordered him. “We'll wait for you!”

Lord Griffin leaped out of the milling crowd of griffins and snatched up a screaming Wizard Bratsch. Another large male griffin followed, picking up the Arkower and flapping away.

The stones began to rumble. Celie half lay across Rufus, fearing that she would faint. She felt an arm around her, and Pogue pulled her up to sit on Rufus's back. He kept his arm around her, bent so that he was holding her arms up, keeping the shard of the Eye pressed to her heart. Rolf was still dripping on the stones, chanting “Safe in Sleyne,” with the ring pressed to his brow where the crown rested.

“Here they are coming,” Lulath called out.

The two griffins came swooping down and landed in the little space in front of Rolf.

“Now! Take us to Sleyne now!” Rolf shouted.

Celie's world turned upside down. She didn't know where she was, only that Rufus was underneath her and Pogue was beside her. She heard voices, human and griffin. She heard shouting and crashing and squawking and scraping and breaking noises. A furious wind that was both hot and cold tore at her hair and clothes. She thought she heard Pogue saying something to her, but couldn't decipher the words.

And then it all stopped.

They were standing in the courtyard, surrounded by disheveled griffins. To one side was the stable, and across the expanse of yard were two hatching towers.

And beyond the towers was the bulk of the Castle, rising up against a familiar sky.

“You did it,” Lilah sobbed. She started to throw her arms around Rolf but stopped just in time. “You did it!”

“I don't feel well,” Rolf said, and slumped to the ground.

“You see, Celie, we're home,” Pogue said, his voice coming from a long way off.

She tried to nod, but her head felt too heavy. She was gripped with a sudden fear that the griffins would fly out of the Castle and hunt the unicorns, but before she could call out to anyone, she remembered that the unicorns were all gone. She shook her head to clear it, and it felt as though it would roll right off her shoulders.

There were more voices and shouting.

“My darlings,” Queen Celina cried, running toward them with her skirts hiked up around her knees. “My darlings!”

“Rolf! Girls!” King Glower was shouting, hard on his wife's heels. “Pogue! Lulath! Praise the skies!”

The queen reached Celie first, and Celie tried to push her mother away so that the poisoned water wouldn't get on her, but the queen didn't care. She swooped down on Celie and covered her with kisses. Then she drew back.

“What's happened to you, my darling?” Her eyes flickered over the others. “Oh, no! And Rolf, too?”

King Glower was hugging and thumping everyone, but when he got to Celie he froze. “Celia-delia,” he said in a hushed voice. Then he turned his head and yelled, “
Bran!
”

“I'm here!” Their brother, his official robes flapping, was running across the courtyard. “I'm here — Pogue, thank goodness for your sketches. You were right, my friend, it's all just where you — All right there, Cel?” Bran asked, seeing Celie's face. Then his eyes widened even further. “I see you found the missing bit of the Eye! That's my girl!”

“Just look at her,” Queen Celina said in a shrill voice that Celie didn't recognize. “What's wrong? What's happened? And Rolf is affected as well!”

“They are having the poison water, which is the killing of the griffin in the olden times,” Lulath said. “Please, Bran, be helping!”

“There's no cure,” Ethan muttered. “I'm so sorry. There's no cure.”

“Who are you?” King Glower demanded.

“I'm … I'm … they said I could come,” he said, hunching his shoulders like he wanted to sink into the ground.

“He's Ethan,” Celie said. Then she coughed. It felt as though there were something stuck in her throat, a chunk of hard bread or something. “He needed to get away from the wizards.”

“What wizards?” Queen Celina looked around at her children, her face taut and pale.

She had one arm around Lilah, and another around Lulath, since Celie and Rolf were both warding off anyone who tried to hug them now. There were smudges under her eyes (and their father's), her hair was uncharacteristically wild, and her gown was crumpled, as though she hadn't been sleeping and taking care of her appearance the way she normally would.

“Lulath?” Bran said. He was holding one of Celie's arms up, his hands wrapped in his voluminous sleeves to avoid touching her skin. “Those books of Grathian herbs, are they still in your rooms?”

“Unless they are being taken to a place elsewhere while I am not here,” Lulath said. “Yes.”

“Good. All right, everyone, let's get them inside the Castle,” Bran said loudly. “Lulath, run to your rooms and find those books. We'll be in my rooms.”

“What is it? Bran, what's happening?” Queen Celina let go of Lulath, who hurried away with Lorcan still cheeping from inside his tunic. “Bran, tell me!”

“This way, everyone,” Bran said, backing toward the Castle doors. “Griffins, too, I suppose.”

“Not your rooms,” Celie managed to gasp out. “The Heart. The Heart of the Castle.”

“Yes, all right,” Bran said. “Quickly.”

“Bran!” King Glower was anguished.

“They have blackblister,” Bran said, walking backward toward the Castle so that they would follow him. “It's a rare disease that crops up in Grath occasionally. I remember it from a book of Lulath's because it's one of the few diseases that both humans and animals can get just from touching each other.”

“Fascinating,” Queen Celina said, her voice clipped. “But can you cure them?”

“No, Mummy,” Celie said. “I'm sorry. There's no cure.” She felt her chin wobble. “And Rufus has it, too.”

That was the worst blow of all. They'd made it back, they'd healed the Castle, but she and Rolf were dying, and so was Rufus. She'd never get to complete her atlas. Rolf would never be king. Rufus would never be as big as his father.

“Celie,” Bran said, stopping in the main hall to look at her. “There is a cure.”

As Bran led the procession of people and griffins into the Heart of the Castle, Wizard Arkwright leaped to his feet. He'd been sitting at one of the benches, studying a book with great unconcern, as though the Castle hadn't just been made whole and the missing prince and princesses returned with a flock of griffins in tow.

Bran left, hurrying to his rooms to get some things he needed. He was already muttering under his breath and moving his hands around in the air, planning some magic.

Celie turned her attention back to the Heart of the Castle. Even feeling as ill as she did, Celie decided that she hated Arkwright, sitting there gaping at them. Also, even with her blurred vision, she could see that he was about to lie. Really, the man was a terrible actor, and it was impressive that he had managed to conceal his origins and the history of the Castle for so long.

“Get back,” Arkwright said in a voice thick with terror. He looked over Celie's head to the king and queen. “It's the plague. The plague that killed my people and our griffins years ago! It's highly contagious, and I'm afraid there is no cure.” He made a warding gesture at Rolf, who was walking toward him, supported by Pogue. “Please, Your Highness, come no closer. You endanger us all!”

“Your people never had griffins,” Rolf said coldly. “That was just the first of your many lies.”

Arkwright opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression took on a mixture of curiosity and cunning that made him look even more unpleasant than usual.

“Here is being the books,” Lulath said, running into the room.

“If Bran says that there's a cure, and that this happens in Grath, too, I believe him,” Lilah said.

“It is true what our Bran the Wizard is saying, it is happening in the Grath, from time and again,” Lulath asserted, seeing the queen's panicked look. “There is being a cure, O Our Majesty.

“And I am now of the thought that it is being brought from the Arkish lands, yes,” Lulath continued. “From those who are living on the shore with themselves kept to themselves.” He shook his head. “I am only now seeing, they must be having been the griffin riders who are living, which griffins did follow these unicorns to the sea.”

Celie stuck that in the back of her brain. She would have
to ask Lulath more questions about it, when she wasn't dying.

“Are they the people who don't speak Grathian, or any other language anyone knows?” Lilah asked. Celie vaguely remembered Lulath telling them about these people weeks ago, during their own Grathian lessons.

“Indeed,” Lulath said. “Perhaps now it is our Ethan who could be telling us where these are the people of! The Glorious Arkower? Hathelocke? After we are curing our friends, of course,” he added.

“What?” Wizard Arkwright spun around to glare at Lulath. “You don't know what you're talking about! Arkish people in Grath! Madness! And there is no cure! And no way of fixing the Eye!”

“So
you
hope,” Lilah said coldly. “Father, I want him locked up! His uncle tried to kill us, and he's just as horrible!”

“I agree,” Rolf said woozily. “Guards!” His shout frightened the maids hovering in the doorway. “Guards!”

Several guards came running. They had clearly been waiting, hoping to be needed so that they could find out what was happening. One of them saluted Rolf. The others remembered the king and hastily put their hands to their helmets.

“Lock this man up,” Rolf said, pointing to Arkwright with a blistered, shaking finger. “He's a traitor and has aided in the murders of countless men and griffins.”

“How dare you —” Arkwright began as the guards seized his arms.

But the king had also signaled to the guards, who dragged the protesting wizard away. “Insufferable man,” King Glower said. “I'm glad to hear he's a traitor. Now I can justify my dislike of him.”

“Is there really a cure?” Queen Celina was looking anxiously at Celie and Rolf, but Celie noticed that she had blisters on her hands from touching them. She saw Celie looking and hid her hands in her sleeves.

“For every very blessed ill there is being a cure,” Lulath said complacently.

“We have to cure the Castle first,” Celie said. She let go of Rufus's harness and took a few tottering steps. Her ears felt full of cotton wool, and she didn't think anyone heard her, so she said it again, louder.

“We have to cure the Castle first.”

“Agreed,” Rolf said. “Put me down, Pogue.”

Pogue, who had half carried Rolf inside, reluctantly took his arm from Rolf's shoulders. Rolf stood unsteadily in front of their father. Then he took the crown off his head and held it out to King Glower. The king was bareheaded: he generally wore his crown only during formal occasions.

“The crown of the Builder of the Castle,” Rolf said. And, when their father made no move to touch it, “Take it. It's yours now.”

King Glower started to protest, but he saw Rolf's face
and Celie's, Lilah's and Pogue's and Lulath's. He hesitated, brows knit.

“Daddy,” Celie said. “Didn't you hear? It's the crown, the real crown. The Builder of the Castle's crown.”

The king paused a moment more, then solemnly took the crown and placed it on his own head.

“And now the other ring of the Builder,” Rolf said, and offered up the ring.

King Glower took it without protest and put it on his left hand. On his right was the griffin ring that every King Glower had worn. King Glower looked down at his hands, then reached up to feel the crown. The stones of the Castle stirred and then settled, as though a sigh had run through the Castle, and through those watching. Rolf nodded.

The griffins around them suddenly stiffened. They left off sniffing at the tapestries and furnishings, and turned to face King Glower. The largest of them, Rufus's father, gave a stiff little bow and voiced a piercing cry. When the sound of the griffin's cry died away, King Glower took a few steps forward and then looked anxiously at Celie.

“Should I bow?” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“I don't know,” Celie answered, and Rolf shrugged.

The king inclined his head, and that seemed to be the right thing to do. Lord Griffin bowed again, and then he and his companions dispersed themselves about the room, lying down in corners and on the cold hearth.

“I wonder if he'd let us put that collar on him,” Pogue mused.