“Lord Aber?” said a familiar voice from the doorway. “Lord Oberon? May we proceed?”

I glanced over and saw Anari, an elderly man in red-and-white livery who had managed our household in Juniper. He had come here with us, I remembered. A half-dozen other servants stood behind him, all armed with mops, buckets, and other cleaning equipment.

“Please,” Aber said.

Anari motioned his forces forward, and everyone hurried inside and began to clean up—gathering the bedding, mopping the floor, straightening the furniture. One of them carried off the empty mattress casing while two more gathered all the goose feathers into new sheets and blanket, then dragged them out into the hallway.

“I guess I'm not going back to sleep anytime soon,” I said wryly. Not that I could sleep with hell-creatures, these lai she'on, loose in the house, even ones who weren't specifically trying to kill me. “What do you think Dad will do when he finds out?”

“Oh, I don't think he'll mind.” Aber nudged me, then gave a pointed glance at Anari and the other cleaners. “We have nothing to hide, after all.”

“True,” I murmured. No sense giving the servants more to worry and gossip about. Lai she'on searching our rooms were bad enough.

My brother said, “I think this calls for a drink.”

For once, I agreed wholeheartedly.

Reaching into the air, he produced a bottle of red wine with a flourish. The label showed a pair of red stags running through a dark green forest. He uncorked it, produced two goblets by similar magical means, handed me one, and poured us both large portions.

“Cheers.” I raised my glass in a toast.

“To mysteries,” he said. Our glasses clinked.

“May there be fewer of them!” I added.

We both downed the wine, grinning at each other, listening to the ongoing noises of destruction from outside. Doors slammed; furniture crashed. Then I heard boots tramping directly over our heads; apparently they had moved upstairs.

Thus, the ransacking of our father's house continued.

By the time the sounds of searching had faded to distant cracks, bangs, and crashes, several hours later, we were on our third bottle of the red stag wine.

“What's directly over us?” I asked. My tongue felt thick; my words slurred slightly.

“Third floor. Living quarters. My room, I think.”

I felt a jolt of alarm. “They're probably going through your Trumps and everything else you brought back from Juniper.”

He smirked. “Oh, I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“They're tucked away. Safe.”

I chuckled and allowed myself to relax. “Like Dad would have done with whatever they're looking for.”

“Exactly.”

More boots tramped overhead, and porcelain shattered noisily. Then a thump shook the whole house.

“Show me,” I said.

“What?”

“Where your Trumps are.”

“More wine?” he said.

“Sure.”

He refilled my goblet for what seemed the twentieth time. I said, “You're not going to tell me.”

“Nope.”

Silence fell. I found myself straining to hear, anticipating the next noise. It didn't come.

“They must have gone up to the fourth floor,” Aber said finally. “That one is all Dad's. He keeps his old experiments there.”

“Experiments?”

He chuckled. “That's what you'd call it if you want to be kind. It's mostly junk. Bits and pieces of magical stuff. Things he's researched and thrown aside. It will take anyone else years to figure out what most of it does.”

“They'll probably smash it all.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

“Don''t you care?”

He shrugged. “It's no great loss. He'd moved all the good stuff to Juniper, anyway. So it's already in their hands.”

Already in their hands? Did he know more than he was saying?

I asked, “So you think these hell-creatures are the same ones who took Juniper?”

“Lai she'on.” He frowned. “Yes. Maybe… I don't know. Don't you think so?”

I shrugged, recalling our father's magical carriage. Then I thought of all the other devices in his workshop, all the tubes and wires and strange glowing glass balls. It had been a lifetime's accumulation of magical items, and I was certain Dad would feel its loss keenly. When I envisioned the fall of Juniper Castle, with hell-creatures storming into the deserted corridors and rooms, I easily saw them smashing the things he had built.

None of the lai she'on attacking Juniper had worn crown symbols, however. Of course, they could have been disguised… a painted emblem is the easiest thing in the world to hide.

Another, more distant crash sounded.

“Fourth floor?” I asked, eying the ceiling.

“I think so.”

I leaned back and drained the last of my wine. Perhaps the search wouldn't take much longer. I certainly wanted it over and these hell-creatures gone.

“Let me fill your glass.”

Aber produced another bottle of that excellent two-stag red. When I held out my goblet, he poured, and we continued our drinking, a comfortable silence stretching between us.

Every once it a while, a distant thump spoke of the continuing search above us.

“I wonder what Dad is doing right now,” I said at one point. Had he been seen by the king? Been attacked and murdered on the way?

Something worse?

Surely we would have heard if something had happened to him… wouldn't we?

Aber said, “I bet he's having more fun than we are.”

It was probably the wine, but I found that offhanded remark incredibly funny. Somehow, I just couldn't see our father having fun, regardless of the situation.

Where was he now? I hated not knowing.

After that we drank in silence.

Somehow, I had a feeling our father had walked into a trap when he went to that audience with King Uthor. It seemed too convenient. The summons had gotten him out of this house and left Aber and me off guard here.

How long had it been? I had no way of telling time, no reference to day or night in this strange, windowless house in this accursed world. He had certainly been gone for hours… far too long for a simple audience. In Ilerium, King Elnar's audiences seldom lasted more than ten or fifteen minutes… though he sometimes kept petitioners waiting for hours.

What had happened to our father?

I could only hope he was waiting in some antechamber for the King Uthor's nod.

Chapter 6

The time passed with annoying slowness. It felt as though everything and everyone—myself included—had paused it mid-step, in anticipation of something momentous.

At one point Anari returned with two men, who silently restored the now-mended mattress to the bed. A woman followed with fresh sheets and a blanket. When she spoke to Anari, they both used hushed, almost reverential tones. And they kept glancing surreptitiously in our direction.

Neither Aber nor I deigned to notice them. We were both pretty drunk. They left, and an almost eerie silence spread over the house.

“Do you think the hell-creatures… the lai she'on… are gone?” I finally asked.

“No. Anari will tell us.” He sighed. “They must be on the fifth floor.”

“What's there?”

“Servants' quarters.”

After we finished our fifth bottle, I finally decided I had drunk too much. I felt happily numb, and though everything had a comfortably blurry shine, I couldn't tell if it was me or the wine or our location that caused it. My senses had become so screwed up since entering this place that nothing looked or felt or smelled quite right any more. Fortunately, thanks to the wine, I didn't particularly care.

Aber, too, had begun to slur his words, and several times he laughed to himself as though at some private joke. To be good company, I laughed along. Every once in a while we would exchange trivialities:

—“Do the walls look like they're bleeding to you?” (Me.)