A Clockwork Fairytale (32 page)

“She’s not here is she? Where has she gone? Is that spymaster monk involved?” Vittorio barked a mirthless laugh. “Yes, of course he is.”

“She’s asleep in her bed,” Dante said.

With a grunt of disgust, Vittorio snatched his hands away from his brother as if he was contaminated. “I should have known you would betray my trust.”

Vittorio ran up the stairs to the top floor and strode along the corridor to the princess’s apartment, where he knocked and entered without waiting for a reply. He was almost sure he wouldn’t find her in bed, but a tiny mote of hope restrained his temper.

Madam Borrelli shot to her feet from her chair, a piece of embroidery clutched in her hand. “Her Royal Highness is indisposed, your honor.”

“I need to see her.”

“Come back tomorrow morning, your honor. She might feel up to receiving you then.” The woman’s words extinguished his last remaining hope that Melba was here. Vittorio dragged in a breath jagged with bitter disappointment. Melba’s betrayal was only to be expected, but his brother’s deceit sliced through him like a blade.

He moved toward her bedroom door and Madam Borrelli hurried across the room to block his entrance. “This is not proper, sir.”

Vittorio glared down at the woman. “Get out of my way.”

She squared her narrow shoulders and her mouth tightened into a hard line as she returned his glare. “You will
not
force your way into the princess’s bedroom, your honor.”

“She is soon to be my wife. I have a right to see her if she’s unwell.”

The color drained out of the woman’s face and she blinked at him. But still she did not move aside. “Be that as it may, your honor, you will not disturb the young lady’s sleep.”

“Vitto, do
not
do this,” Dante said from the doorway. Vittorio gritted his teeth. He was certain he would find Melba’s bed empty, but he had to see for himself. He sidestepped Madam Borrelli, pushing her down into a chair, and strode to the bedroom door. Even as he turned the door handle, part of him still prayed that Dante had not conspired with spymaster Turk against him.

His breath rushed out on a gasp of pain at the sight of the empty bed and he averted his gaze. Vittorio turned slowly, hardly able to look at his brother as a spasm of grief tightened his chest. He had rescued Dante from a life as a cabin boy on a royal barge, educated him, introduced him to society, given him a decent life. And this was how he was repaid.

Dante went to Madam Borrelli’s assistance and crouched beside her chair, patting her hand. Vittorio strode to the doorway and shouted for the four guards he had stationed outside the king’s apartment just down the corridor. “Arrest these two,” he commanded, pointing at Dante and the Borrelli woman.

“Vitto, no,” Dante said as two guards grabbed his arms and another pulled the old woman to her feet.

Ignoring Dante, Vittorio led the way along the corridor and down the servants’ stairs to the bowels of the Palace. Madam Borrelli made no sound, but Dante kept up an incessant stream of arguments as to why Vittorio was making a mistake.

“Where are you taking us?” Dante demanded when they started down the old discolored stone steps into the cellars.

Vittorio finally glanced over his shoulder at his angry, disheveled brother, who didn’t look so smart and cocky now.

After unlocking the door to his laboratory, he stood aside and the guards hauled the two prisoners in. The Borrelli woman whimpered as the stink hit them. “The smell is disgusting, Vitto,” Dante said. “What in the name of the Great Earth Jinn have you been doing down here?”

“
You
have the gall to call the smell in my lab disgusting after having lived in the stinking trash for four years?”

He put down his lantern and lit a second. He carried it to the far end of the room where four cages were set against the wall, and beckoned the guards to bring the prisoners over. The cages contained dogs he’d experimented on. Two of the dogs lay dead and stiff with gray goo oozing out of their skin, their swollen tongues protruding. He had extracted the Stars from the dogs and then animated their bodies with Foul Jinns. The animals had gone rabid and eventually died. But he was sure he was on to something. He had started to extract the Stars from the prisoners who were condemned to die in The Well and was having more success animating their bodies with Jinns. A third dog had been animated with a Foul Jinn more recently and was still alive. It hurled itself at the bars, growling, saliva dripping from its canines.

In the final cage was a small stray he had picked up in Sugar Street Market, as yet untouched. The creature whined and pushed its nose between the bars as they approached. “Put the woman in the last cage,” he said, pointing at the one containing the uninfected dog.

“No, please,” she whimpered.

“The dog’s healthy,” Dante reassured her, as the guards forced her to bend down and pushed her into the small cage with the creature.

Vittorio laughed. “So what do you fancy as a cellmate, little brother, an infected corpse or a mad beast?”

“I shall likely become contaminated if you put me in with those corpses.” Dante leveled his gaze on Vittorio calmly.

“Never mind, your good friend Turk can cleanse you.” Vittorio signaled the guards to push Dante down on his knees in front of the cages. “I can understand Gregorio plotting against me, but I never thought you would take his side.”

“This is nothing to do with the old man,” Dante said. “I’m only concerned for Melba’s safety.”

Vittorio crouched, taking him down to Dante’s level. “What do the monks have planned?”

“Nothing…I don’t know.” Dante frowned at him. “I told you, my only concern is for Melba.”

Vittorio vaulted to his feet and grabbed a handful of Dante’s hair. Resentment filled him as he shoved his brother’s face toward the rabid dog’s cage. The beast went mad, snapping its jaws between the bars, saliva flying from its teeth.

“Vitto, stop!”

“Are they planning to hide the princess, is that it?”

“Stop. Stop. Please do not hurt him,” Madam Borrelli sobbed. “Her Royal Highness is returning tonight so her father doesn’t worry about her.”

Vittorio released his brother and straightened, staring into the shadows in thought. It didn’t matter if the Brotherhood had cleansed Melba. As long as she returned to the Palace, his plan should still work. All he had to do was lock her up until the wedding and keep the king isolated.

He grabbed a meat hook, wrenched open the door of a cage containing a dead dog, and dragged out the carcass. “In there,” he pointed. The guards pushed Dante inside the cage and locked the door.

“Vitto, stop and think. This cannot end well for you,” Dante shouted after him as Vittorio strode toward the door with the guards at his back. But his brother had it the wrong way round. Dante was the one who would come to a sticky end.

***

As Turk crouched in front of Melba and took her hands, he was uncomfortably aware of Gregorio watching him. But he was no longer a monk, and comforting and reassuring Melba was more important than the Primate’s good opinion.

A knock at the door made him glance over his shoulder. “Enter,” Gregorio said.

The door cracked open and Steptoe put his head through the gap. “I need to see you and Turk for a moment, Your Eminence,” he said to Gregorio.

Turk squeezed Melba’s hands and smiled to reassure her. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

As he stood, she pulled up her legs and hugged her knees. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but Steptoe had been checking her clothes for the Foul Jinn contamination and Turk needed to know the results. He hurried after Gregorio, closing the door softly behind him.

Steptoe had taken Melba’s clothes into a treatment room just down the hall. Her dress and underclothes lay in a heap on a chair while Steptoe stared down at something small on the bed. “This is the culprit,” he said as Turk followed his master into the room.

His heart pounded when he saw that the thing on the bed was his gold Earth Blessing. Gregorio’s gaze shot to Turk. “You gave her
my
gift to you,” he said in an accusing whisper.

“I wanted to give her my most precious possession,” Turk returned defensively. Gregorio’s glare scoured him as if he had just admitted to raising Foul Jinns. Turk scrubbed a hand across his face in frustration. Why did his feelings for Melba seem to be a personal affront to Gregorio?

Steptoe cleared his throat as the atmosphere in the room prickled with tension. “The Earth Blessing contains a small Foul Jinn,” he said. “From an apple, I’m guessing.”

Gregorio stepped forward and held the flat of his palm a few inches above the gold pendant. He sighed. “I never thought to see the day when an Earth Blessing would be used for such a despicable purpose.”

“I’m sorry, master,” Turk said, hating the bad feeling between them.

“What’s done cannot be undone,” Gregorio said flatly. “At least we discovered the contamination before its effects became serious. If we bury the Earth Blessing under an altar for a few weeks the contamination will dissipate.” He glanced at Melba’s clothes on the chair and clenched his jaw.

Turk waited for Gregorio to send him back to Melba. Instead, the Primate turned to Steptoe. “Go and fetch a cleansing team. We need to get the girl treated quickly so we can get her out of here.” Instead of obeying, Steptoe’s gaze shot to Turk.

“That will not be necessary,” Turk said curtly, his temper flaring nearly out of control. Why was Gregorio so insensitive to Melba’s feelings? It was as if he wanted to make this experience as unpleasant as possible for her. “I shall cleanse her myself.”

“You are not fully trained in the removal of Foul Jinns. I will not allow you to contaminate yourself.”

“Melba’s already frightened. She needs someone she knows and trusts to cleanse her. Anyway, I’m trained well enough to cleanse the minor emanations that have poisoned her.”

Gregorio held his gaze. “You really are
devoted
to this girl, aren’t you?” he said in a bewildered tone.

“Yes,” Turk said firmly, his heart suddenly thumping. “I love her.”

Gregorio and Steptoe stared at him as if he had suddenly grown horns. His cheeks burned at admitting such a personal thing but he did not look away from their quizzical expressions. He was not ashamed of his feelings.

“So be it,” Gregorio said on a sigh. “Remember that your Silver Serpent is capable of protecting you from a Foul Jinn if necessary.” Turk’s hand went to his chest to cover his medallion.

“Where did you get a Silver Serpent?” Steptoe asked, wide eyed.

Gregorio put his hand on Steptoe’s arm. “I will explain later. Let Turk go and deal with the girl.”

Turk slipped out of the door and collected the small portable decontaminator from the storeroom at the end of the corridor. He paused outside Melba’s room and gripped the silver medallion through his shirt. His heart pumped as though he had been running the skyways. Years ago, he had performed minor cleansings on his classmates, but this was a different matter. This time it was Melba.

He opened the door slowly so as not to startle her. She was still sitting on the chair where he had left her, hugging her knees. She was white-faced and glassy-eyed with tiredness and shock. “What have you been doing that took so long?” she asked.

Turk left the decontaminator by the door and sat on the chair at her side. He leaned toward her, elbows on his knees. “We had to find out how Vittorio was poisoning you.”

“So how’d he do it?”

“He used the gold Earth Blessing I gave you.”

Melba’s hands covered her mouth and her eyes rounded in horror. “How?”

“He trapped a tiny Foul Jinn in the gold.”

She whimpered in distress and squeezed her eyes closed for a few seconds. “He must have taken it from me room. I lost it for a while, then he found it and brought it back to me. How could he do something like this? I thought he liked me.”

“Vittorio’s determined to become king. He’ll probably do whatever it takes to succeed.”

“He must be poisoning me pa with a Foul Jinn as well. We must help him, quick.”

“We will. But let’s cleanse you first.” Turk felt hot, his clothes suddenly clingy and uncomfortable as he imagined what would happen next. “I need you to slip the golden robe down to your waist and lie on your front on the bed. I shall draw the poison out of your back.”

“Won’t it infect you?”

“No. I have help.” Glad to focus his thoughts on something other than Melba undressing, he called Gül out of the medallion. Her breath hissed in as the Silver Serpent unfolded from the medallion and slid up his arm to rest its head on his shoulder.

“That’s a Silver Jinn like I seen in your books.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Turk smiled at her rapt expression.

“Aye.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Let me explain while I cleanse you.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “All right. Turn your back.”

He stared at his lap and stroked his fingers along Gül’s scales, acutely aware of Melba as she partially disrobed a few yards away from him.

“I’m on the bed,” she said.