Staff & Crown Read online

  “I was,” Annabel said, grinning in spite of herself. “I got confused. What I meant to say was that we’ve lived together for years in one way or another, and there’s no need for us to be standing on ceremony when we’re so comfortable with each other.”

  “I’m beginning to think, Nan,” said Melchior, “that there is such a thing as being too comfortable.”

  “I don’t think there is, you know,” Annabel argued. “When Peter and I—”

  “I have absolutely no intention of being comfortable with you in the same manner that Peter was.”

  “I don’t see why not,” protested Annabel, feeling slightly hurt. “I’m nothing like as difficult to get along with as Peter!”

  “I don’t believe I said you were,” Melchior said, touching one long finger to the crown of his top hat and crouching to observe the effect of his magic, so utterly invisible to Annabel. “However, I have every intention of being very difficult.”

  “Yes, and speaking of Peter—!”

  “I don’t want to speak of Peter. As a matter of fact, we weren’t speaking of Peter. I was warning you that I intend to be very difficult to get along with. I find I don’t approve of too much comfort.”

  “That—” Annabel paused for breath, and said plaintively, “That makes no sense!”

  “I really don’t think I could make myself any clearer,” said Melchior, straightening. “But perhaps I should try a different way.”

  He turned toward the doorway, and for the first time Annabel noticed that he was smiling. She hadn’t seen him smile in just such a way before, and she found it distinctly off-putting.

  Annabel took one step backward and said uncertainly, “What—”

  “Huh,” said a voice in her ear. “Here you both are.”

  Annabel jumped and squeaked, then glared at the interloper. He was a dishevelled, dark-haired man, and the look of faint absent-mindedness he wore was as familiar to Annabel as his mud-splattered overcoat. After leaving the enchanted castle, but before she and Peter managed to wriggle themselves into Melchior’s , they had both lived with Luck and his wife, Poly. Annabel adored Poly but she found Luck, with his habit of appearing and disappearing and doing exactly what he felt like, as annoying as Melchior found Peter.

  “Luck!” she said, catching her breath. “What are you doing here? Is it something to do with why Peter has disappeared?”

  “Thought you weren’t going to tell her about that?” Luck said mildly, to Melchior.

  Melchior, looking significantly more annoyed than Annabel was used to seeing him with anyone other than Peter, said, “I hadn’t. You just did.”

  “Oh,” said Luck. “Whoops.” He disappeared.

  “I knew there was more to it!” Annabel said accusingly. “I want to know—wait! Where are you going?”

  “To find Luck and throttle him,” said Melchior, in a particularly grim tone of voice. “I’ve never found his timing particularly wonderful, but it has reached its peak maladroitness today!”

  “But Peter—”

  “I’ve always found Peter less than congenial company,” Melchior said even more grimly, “but allow me to tell you, Nan, that today I find him completely insupportable.”

  And Annabel, open-mouthed, couldn’t gather her wits quickly enough to protest before Melchior opened one of his odd little tunnels and vanished into it as thoroughly as Luck had vanished. She was left alone in the hallway to the indignant thought that Luck and Melchior were sure to be talking secrets, and that both of them knew more about Peter than they were telling.

  “Just wait until I’m queen!” she told the wall into which Melchior had vanished. “Won’t I make you run around!”

  She resented the fact that when Luck appeared at the manor, Melchior was missing more often than he was around; and in this case, it was even more annoying. There was obviously something going on and Annabel was, just as obviously, excluded. Much of her annoyance could have been mitigated had Poly arrived along with Luck, but when Annabel went down hopefully to the horseless carriage in which Luck generally travelled, it was empty of anything except a small crab. That small crab was trying to climb onto the seat by pinching the passenger strap in its pincers, but its eyes swivelled hopefully when Annabel opened the carriage door.

  “What?” Annabel said irritably to those hopeful eyes; but she lifted it up on the seat anyway. Serve Luck right if he came back to find his carriage seat torn to pieces by tiny pincers. It was at times like these that she resented her complete lack of magic. There was, of course, the royal staff she had originally found in the castle when it was still a ruin—even if, at present, it was in the form of a small, well-bitten pencil—but it wasn’t the sort of thing Annabel liked to use, willy-nilly. If she had had her own magic, however, she could have gone off to visit Poly in Luck’s horseless carriage, leaving Melchior and Luck to talk secrets all they wanted. During the two and a half years Annabel had spent at Poly and Luck’s house, she had come to learn that Poly was the one who knew all the interesting things, anyway.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad, thought Annabel, trudging back to the manor, if only she wasn’t off to Trenthams at the end of the week. If she’d had longer than a few days, she would have been able to bother and tease Melchior until he answered her questions. As it was, there were only a few short days before she was supposed to begin her year at finishing school, and while Luck was around there wasn’t the slightest chance she would get enough time with Melchior to do more than ask him if he wanted butter for his toast. And if Melchior continued not coming to breakfast, she wouldn’t even get that much in the way of conversation.

  Much to Annabel’s relief, Luck’s visit didn’t outlast the day. Shortly before nightfall he came striding around the outside of the manor toward his carriage; and Annabel, who had been waiting for just such a thing to occur, caught him at the gate.

  “What about Peter?” she demanded.

  “What about my crab?” demanded Luck in return. “You didn’t let it out, did you?”

  “It’s sitting on the seat,” Annabel said. “Luck, about Peter—”

  “Oh, good,” said Luck. “It’s driving. Poly says hello. Goodbye.”

  “Luck!” snapped Annabel, but Luck only darted into his carriage.

  Either he or the crab set it bowling forward jerkily before she could say anything else, and it swept out the gate while she glared at it.

  “I hope you get sick,” she muttered, to its swiftly-departing backboards.

  She was inclined to forgive him, however, when he leant out the window as he passed the wall on the other side of the garden and called out, “The brat is safe—Well, safe-ish. He’s got something to do. Wouldn’t go looking for him if I was you—you’ll be busy enough without that.”

  That comforted Annabel somewhat—Poly might know all the more interesting things, but Luck tended to be right about the things he did know; or at least, the things he chose to share. She went back into the manor with the lightened feeling that now she could go off to Trenthams without worrying too much.

  Unfortunately, Melchior’s absence did outlast the day, and Annabel was left to eat by herself at all three meals the next day. She might have felt less worried about Peter, but she didn’t find that she felt any more cheerful in general, and when Melchior failed to show up again for breakfast the morning after that, Annabel briefly considered drawing him in with the pencil staff. She didn’t do it; she was grown up, after all, and even if she was childish enough to stomp grimly around the manor in search of Melchior, she was adult enough to know she was being silly. He didn’t seem to be in the manor at all. Annabel, who had grown used to always having him with her from the time when he was a cat to the last three years as a human, found herself indignant. Didn’t he care that he wouldn’t see her for months?

  “Rude,” she muttered.

  Then, because she felt dismal and in need of cheering up, Annabel went up to her suite and drew in her sketchbook until night fell, surrounded by b
oxes and trunks. She would have stayed there all night if she hadn’t heard the butler opening the front door, and his faint voice welcoming Master Melchior home. She rather expected Melchior to come up and walk her down to dinner, but he didn’t do that, either. She wasn’t sure when he’d started doing it, or when it had become so familiar that she didn’t even think about it any longer, but it was conspicuous in its absence tonight.

  That was silly, Annabel told herself severely; and sillier to be annoyed by it. Melchior didn’t have to walk her to dinner every night like she was a fine lady. But she was still annoyed to find Melchior already seated and eating when she arrived in the dining room.

  He made a small bow at her over the table—was there an edge of mockery to it? a hint of challenge? Annabel thought so—but only said, “Cook mentioned that you wouldn’t be down to dinner.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Annabel said, “but I heard you arrive.”

  Melchior’s hand paused above the soup ladle. “Oh? Did you want to see me particularly, Nan?”

  “No,” said Annabel, helping herself to the beans. She didn’t like soup very much. “I just thought you should know that I’m leaving for Trenthams tomorrow.”

  “I remember,” Melchior said, and filled his soup bowl, smiling faintly.

  “Do you?” Annabel was aware that her voice sounded sour. “I thought you must have forgotten. Were you out doing something for Mr. Pennicott?”

  “No,” Melchior replied, so easily and comfortably that she knew he was telling the truth. “I thought it was time I cut my hair. I went to the barber.”

  “You were away at the barber?”

  “You don’t expect me to cut my own hair, surely, Nan?”

  His hair had been cut, Annabel noticed belatedly. She must have seen it when she entered the room, but she didn’t remember taking note of it especially. Her temper slipped just a little more. If he had been away for two days right before she was to leave, she had expected that it would be on account of Mr. Pennicott; and that Melchior would at least have been careful about any answers he gave, even if he didn’t outright admit the fact.

  “I could have cut it for you,” she said, and ate her beans gloomily.

  “Good heavens.” Melchior looked startled. “No, I think not.”

  “Rude,” said Annabel. “You don’t know I’d do a bad job. I haven’t tried to cut hair before.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “Is that all you were doing? Getting your hair cut?”

  “I bought some new clothes as well,” said Melchior.

  Annabel let her face settle into the familiar, blank expression with which she found it easiest to mask her feelings. “You bought new clothes?”

  “While some people—” began Melchior, “mentioning no names, of course—while some people are content to grub around the manor in clothing either too large or favourites long since grown out of, I prefer—”

  “Yes, yes, you like to look dashing and debonair at every moment,” Annabel said.

  “—I prefer,” continued Melchior, very firmly, “to be ready to meet my future wife at a moment’s notice.”

  “Oh,” said Annabel. Her face felt slightly stiff. She was obviously out of practise with her blank face. “Are you planning on getting married?”

  “I imagine it will be easier when I’m not looking after a rather badly dressed future queen all the time,” Melchior said, as if she hadn’t said anything.

  Annabel, who didn’t care for his tone of voice—it could have been Melchior addressing Peter instead of Melchior addressing herself—lost a little more of her temper and said, “You should have said so a fortnight ago, then. I would have introduced you to the girls in my circle who were staring at you all night. Some of them were even better dressed than you.”

  “Whatever you may think, Nan, I don’t propose to consult you on the matter of my future bride. I’ve already made up my mind.”

  “Lucky woman,” Annabel said, with a hefty dose of her own kind of sarcasm. “I’m sure she’ll be very grateful for the benefit of your fashion advice.”

  “No doubt,” said Melchior coldly. “Are you prepared for tomorrow?”

  Annabel pushed at her beans and decided that she wasn’t hungry after all. She put her fork down. “Yes.”

  “I won’t bring you anything you’ve forgotten,” he warned.

  “It doesn’t matter if I’ve forgotten anything,” Annabel told him, without blinking. “They’ll just get me a new one of whatever it is.”

  “Getting very used to your new consequence, aren’t you?” said Melchior, an edge of sarcasm to his smooth voice. “Very well. Just don’t expect me to be making tunnels into the dormitories to bring you things. I’ve warned you.”

  “I don’t expect anything!” snapped Annabel, and went upstairs in a temper.

  2

  If Annabel had expected anything the next morning, it would have been that Melchior, failing to turn up to breakfast yet again, would show up before the carriage was actually at the door to take her to Trenthams. He did not. Shortly after breakfast, however, which Annabel ate with the despairing malaise of the soon-to-be-executed, three visitors arrived directly in the breakfast room without the aid of a carriage. One of them then proceeded to throw up in the chafing dish lid while another patted him consolingly on the back; and the third, a young boy of roughly ten years old, threw himself across the room at Annabel, howling in his joy.

  “Use your words, Onepiece,” said the female briskly, still patting away cheerfully on the other’s back.

  “Hooray for me!”

  “Not…much better,” croaked the one who was throwing up, between paroxysms.

  “Hallo, Poly,” Annabel said, with the feeling that sanity had arrived in the manor, despite appearances to the contrary. Between Melchior and Peter, she was always glad to feel the peaceful warmth that was Poly. She was never sure if it was an actual warmth, or if she only imagined it, but she had lived with Poly long enough to be fairly certain that it was as much of an extension of Poly’s self as her magic was. Annabel looked cautiously at Poly’s companion and said guardedly, “Luck.”

  Luck hiccoughed at her.

  “What are you doing back here so soon?”

  Luck stared at her across the chafing dish lid, made a noise that could have been a belch or a hiccough, and threw up again.

  “What Luck means to say is that we came to see you off.” Poly stopped patting Luck on the back and began to do something to the air around him instead. Her voice took on a thoughtful lilt as she added, “And if he had been so thoughtful as to take Onepiece and me with him when he took off in the carriage the other day, he wouldn’t be feeling so sick from having to use shifting magic now. We would have already been here.”

  Annabel, feeling several degrees more cheerful, watched as Luck also began to look several more degrees cheerful. She said, “I’d call Melchior to say hello, but he’s vanished ever since Luck came to see us.”

  “Ah,” said Poly. “I thought you—well, I thought the place looked a bit more lonely than usual.”

  “He’s keeping secrets again,” Annabel said gloomily. She threw a look of dislike at Luck and added, “He and Luck snuck out of the manor to talk secrets the other day.”

  “So insulting,” Poly said at once.

  Indignant in her turn, Annabel exclaimed, “Yes! It’s not as though I’ve got any magic to be able to eavesdrop on them anyway!”

  Luck gave her a particularly glassy look. “You wouldn’t need magic to eavesdrop on Melchior; you’re a hardy, determined blob of no-magic. Reminds me of someone.”

  Poly grinned.

  Onepiece said reproachfully, “Sausage, Nanabel! I have starved and starved.”

  “And now I don’t even know where he is.” Annabel stifled a sigh and gave the rest of her sausage to Onepiece, who took it with a delighted chuckle and nearly choked in his eagerness to eat it.

  “Dear me,” said Poly. She looked vexed, though not a
s vexed as Annabel felt. “I really don’t know. No, Onepiece! One sausage at a time!”

  Annabel didn’t ask what Poly really didn’t know, but she didn’t think it was anything to do with where Melchior was keeping himself.

  “I know,” said Luck.

  They both looked at him, Annabel half-suspicion and half-hope, Poly all suspicion.

  “What have you and Melchior been up to?” Poly demanded. “And why wasn’t I included?”

  “I did nothing,” Luck said, swaying.

  “All right,” said Annabel. “What did Melchior do, then?”

  “Can’t tell you,” said Luck. “Sorry.”

  But he didn’t sound sorry, and since he steadfastly refused to answer further questions directed at him—either Poly’s or Annabel’s—in any comprehensible manner, Annabel concluded that he had mentioned it only with the idea of annoying her. Luck quite often did so, though Annabel had never been able to decide if he did so because he liked her, or because he didn’t.

  Since she still wasn’t sure either way, Annabel soon ceased to ask questions and merely patted Onepiece’s head by way of consolation. It wasn’t quite the same as patting Blackfoot—Melchior’s—head, but it did away with some of her annoyance. It was difficult to be annoyed at a man-turned-cat-turned-man when a puppy-turned-boy was making visible magic in front of her. Polly didn’t look as though she was prepared to give up so quickly, but since she was far too nice to give Luck a decent dressing down in front of anyone else, it wasn’t likely that Annabel would find out what Poly discovered until far later.

  By way of retaliation, Annabel said, “Have a sausage,” at Luck in a friendly sort of manner.

  Luck went slightly green again. Poly didn’t grin but Annabel was fairly certain her eyes were brighter when she passed Luck the toast rack and the butter dish.

  “I am sausage,” said Onepiece.

  “You’re not a sausage, you want a sausage,” Annabel said, and passed him the bottom part of the dish that was still filled with too many sausages. Luck looked ill as it came within sniffing distance of him, but that could have been because the top half of the dish still contained what must have been his breakfast earlier.