Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) Read online

  “He’s right, you know,” Luck said, green eyes beginning to tinge slightly gold. “It’s an opening between two paragraphs, and it’s outward bound.”

  The hermit clapped his hands, producing a blackbird feather with a flourish of starburst magic. He carefully tucked it behind one of Poly’s ears as if it were a jewelled earring and said: “This is yours, little snowflake. Such a long time to wait, wasn’t it? But now everything will come about again, so long as you’re right, right, right!”

  “I suppose so,” said Poly, dubiously touching the feather.

  The hermit, suddenly anxious, said: “Said too much, didn’t I? I wasn’t supposed to, was I? Right, right, right, that’s all I was supposed to say. You have to go now. Off, off, off! Off you go!”

  “The book first, I think,” said Luck, holding out his hand for it and ignoring the harried shooing motions that the hermit was making.

  “It’s mine!” Poly objected, annoyed to find that he expected her to give it up at his mere request.

  Luck shot her a golden look, and then the book was in his outstretched hand without more than a whisper of magic.

  “I’ll want it back later,” she said, but Luck had already lost interest in her. He was watching the hermit’s increasingly erratic antics.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Does it matter?” asked Poly, and encountered a reproachful look from the hermit. “I mean– well, you’re a character. You’re written that way. It doesn’t have to matter why.”

  “I’m written very specifically,” said the hermit proudly. “Clever little snowflake, aren’t you? Go away.”

  Since he emphasized the command by shoving Poly into the outbound passage, Poly was left with very little to say to this. Scenery blurred, and Luck must have grabbed her in passing, because when they tumbled back into the real world his arms were rucked uncomfortably under her arms and she had formed a closer acquaintance with his mud-stained coat.

  Poly was obliged to dissuade her hair from clasping Luck to her side before he could disentangle his arms, by which time she was feeling hot and bothered and misused.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” said Luck, his eyes very green. “I don’t particularly like being co-joined to you, either.”

  Poly, who hadn’t thought she was looking in any specific way, blushed.

  Taking unfair advantage of her confusion, he added: “I thought princesses were meant to take lessons in charm and deportment.”

  It was rather a shock to be reminded that she was meant to be the princess. Poly had to close her mouth, which had automatically opened to correct Luck, before she said something unconsidered. She wanted badly to know why she had been used in an enchantment, and what exactly that enchantment was. Answers would undoubtedly be more forthcoming for a princess than a lady-in-waiting.

  “I thought that wizards were meant to be versed in international diplomacy,” she pointed out instead, feeling that it was time she put her foot down if she meant to be the princess. “You laid hands on a royal personage–”

  “I didn’t; I kissed you,” interposed Luck, curling a portion of Poly’s hair around one finger and closely observing it.

  “That’s what I said.”

  Luck disengaged his left wrist from the last of her hair and let go of the lock he held. “Then I seem to have been laying my lips on you, not my hands. Come along, Poly, and stop arguing. We have a long way to walk.”

  Out of the unreal ambience of the hermit’s chapter the triad was glowing warm and welcoming, creating its usual three-pronged shadows. The plains spread out before them, the grass flowing in great, slow waves as the gentle wind swept close to the ground, warm and scented. There were wildflowers among the grass plumes; butterflowers, pettypips, occasional patches of lavender, and even a few flowers Poly didn’t recognise. She amused herself as they walked by naming as many of them as she could remember. Gwyn the gardener had taught her their names long ago, when he found infant Poly in his garden, happily engaged in eating his prized roses. Poly had spent almost as much time with Gwyn as she had with her parents in those young years. Poly smiled, remembering his leathered old face, and with faint surprise discovered that tears were gliding down her cheeks in gentle sorrow at this memory.

  In an effort to stop them, Poly curled her arms more tightly around her remaining books and asked Luck: “When will we cross the border?”

  She seemed to remember that the border was where the southern plains met the northern forests. Much of the tension between Civet and her neighbouring country of Parras had been over claims that the already land-rich Civet was poaching forest land along the border by felling trees. Poly remembered Lady Cimone’s curled lip at the rumours and realised with surprise and sudden understanding that the Lady had known all along what her country was capable of. It was unsettling, because one always felt that one’s country was on the side of right and justice.

  “You’re not paying attention, Poly. There isn’t a border anymore. Why are you sleeping?”

  Luck’s last words were sharp and laced with a cutting edge of his gold magic; and Poly, who had indeed been falling quietly asleep as she walked, misstepped in the shock between waking and sleeping, and tumbled over a small bump in the ground.

  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.