The Autumn Castle (63 page)

Christine tried the door. All the locks had snapped back into place. “Maybe we should call the police,” she said. “They might
be able to stop him before he kills her.”

“He won’t kill her just yet.” A voice from behind them.

Gerda and Jude gasped. Christine turned gingerly. Hexebart stood two paces away with a satisfied smile on her face.

“I thought—” Christine started.

“Hexebart gave Immanuel her voice for a little while,” the witch said. “Clever? You all thought it was me.”

“What have you done?” Jude demanded. “He’s going to kill her.”

“Oh, pish!” said Hexebart with a dismissive wave. “I have a scheme. Let me at the door.” She moved toward the door, but Jude
stood in her way.

“What are you up to?” he said.

“Out of my way.”

Jude grabbed her arm roughly. “Gerda, get her other arm.”

“I don’t like you, boy,” Hexebart said, trying to twist out of his grasp. “Get out of my way.”

At that moment, the lights went out and they were all plunged into darkness. Then three lights came on in the room. Gerda’s
and Jude’s flashlights, and a ball of light between Hexebart’s hands. She had escaped Jude’s grasp.

“Now stay away from me,” Hexebart said. Her haggard face was thrown into shadowy relief by the dim lights. “Let me open the
door. The queen needs our help, you know, and you can’t do anything without me.”

Jude advanced on the witch again, and she flung out her arm and cast the spell. He staggered back, his arm in front of his
eyes, a cry of pain on his lips.

“Jude?” Christine shrieked.

“I can’t see a thing. She’s sent me blind.”

Gerda backed away.

“Now, let Hexebart do her work. Stupid Real World people.”

Christine had an arm around Jude, grabbed his flashlight, and tried to peer into his eyes. “Can you see anything? Anything
at all?”

“I . . . maybe. I think I can see the light. Actually, I think it’s coming back already. There you are.” He touched her face
tenderly, and for a moment all her anger toward him dissolved.

“Mayfridh’s protection spell must have helped.”

Gerda’s gasp of horror made her turn back to Hexebart. The witch’s index finger had become as long and thin as a knitting
needle. She inserted the end into each lock individually and they all snapped open.

“Come,” the witch said, standing back, “Hexebart should very much like you all to see what she has planned for the man who
killed the queen.”

It was a scene from a nightmare. In the almost-black space of the boning room, while her hands were tied and the vat waited
hot and poisonous nearby, Mayfridh watched Mandy loom over her with a sneer. Gently he dropped the spell onto her wrists and
said,
“Extract,”
then sat back on his haunches to watch.

Extract? What diabolical enchantment had Hexebart made for him? Was it the kind of extraction spell that took a faery’s soul
and essence for use in black magic? She had heard of such spells, but had no idea that Hexebart’s ability extended so far
or her hatred extended so deep. Frantically, she fought against the ropes, kicked out at Mandy. He easily grabbed her ankles
and pinned them down.

“Frightened?” he asked.

“What have you done to me?” Then, she felt it. A slow, sweet energy moving into her fingers and hands, coursing down her wrists
and into her torso. Something familiar and comforting about it, a feeling of being safe and protected and—

Jasper! She gasped as two realizations fought for her attention. The first: royal magic was pouring into her, Jasper’s royal
magic. She finally knew what had happened to her parents. Mandy had killed them for his sculpture. And this explained the
second realization: Hexebart was helping her. At last the hag believed Mayfridh had nothing to do with her parents’ disappearance.

Mandy laughed when she gasped. “Does it hurt to lose your magic?”

The spell extinguished, the room was now pitch-black. Mayfridh was grateful that Mandy couldn’t read the relief on her face.
She didn’t answer, but began to twitch her fingers together to make the magic work and untie the ropes. They slid off her
hands and onto the floor. Still she kept her fingers on the ankles of the statue, reclaiming every last drop of her father’s
magic.

“I’ll light a few candles,” Mandy said, and his voice came from across the room. She hadn’t sensed him move. “I’ll need to
see where your throat is if I’m going to slit it accurately.”

The flow of magic slowed. Mayfridh could feel it in her heart now, pumping around with the blood. It left her temporarily
breathless. Jasper’s magic was only a tributary of Liesebet’s, less than a tenth as powerful, but it weighed in her heart
and her chest like the burden of a nation. A light flickered on the other side of the room and Mandy’s figure appeared in
the dark, silhouetted by a candle. She maintained her position, pretending she was still tied and helpless. What to do now?
She was a novice at this. She had only ever used spells spun by Hexebart or used leftover magic in her fingers. Where to start
in trying to overcome Mandy? He had the speed and strength of a beast, and a boiling vat of poison and acid stood only a few
feet away.

While she was deliberating, the sound of locks popping echoed up the stairs. Mandy’s eyebrows drew down and his head turned
in that direction. In the dark, Hexebart appeared at the top of the stairs, with Jude, Gerda, and Christine hovering behind
her.

“What’s this, Hexebart?” Mandy said.

“Immanuel, you have been very wicked.”

Instinctively, Mayfridh drew away from the statue and curled up in a corner of the room. Mandy didn’t see her move; he was
preoccupied with Hexebart.

“Wicked?” he said. “What do you call breaking into my private space just as I’m about to kill . . .” He turned to where he’d
left Mayfridh, saw she wasn’t there, and turned back to Hexebart, understanding coloring his gaze.

For a few long seconds Mandy and Hexebart locked eyes across the dimly lit room. Mayfridh held her breath, wondering which
of them would pounce first. In the candlelight, she saw Mandy’s shoulders and back tense. She was about to call out, but Hexebart’s
left hand shot up, releasing a bright spell from her fingers. It was too far off target. Its trajectory was nowhere near Mandy,
and Mayfridh wondered how Hexebart could have aimed so poorly.

Then the spell landed on the Bone Wife. The gleaming sculpture erupted with bright light and Mandy’s eyes bulged with horror.

“What have you done? What have you done?”

The light blazed once and then sucked into the bones. The sculpture’s feet began to twitch.

“She wants to dance with you, Immanuel,” Hexebart said.

Mandy approached the sculpture with frantic hands reaching for her curves. “What have you done to her?”

The twitching turned into shuddering. The left leg went up, then down. The right leg went up, then down. The left leg kicked,
the right leg kicked. Mandy backed away.

“Come, Immanuel, dance with your beautiful wife,” Hexebart said, cackling heartily.

The Bone Wife jumped—once, twice—then began to spin, dance, kick, jump, more and more frantically, advancing on Mandy.

“Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it! I command you to stop it!”

This only made Hexebart laugh louder. Mandy turned and stalked toward her. Christine, Jude, and Gerda scurried out from behind
the witch and took refuge in the corners. Hexebart was doubled over with laughter and hadn’t seen Mandy’s sudden approach.

“Hexebart!” Mayfridh shouted, scrambling to her feet. “Look out!”

The Bone Wife’s feet clattered on the floor, spinning madly. Hexebart looked up in time to see Mandy’s hands closing in on
her. She tried to duck sideways; Mandy hunted her, the Bone Wife trailing them.

“Ha, ha, this way, this way!” Hexebart cried with glee.

Mayfridh realized in horror that she was leading Mandy toward the vat. “Be careful,” she called.

Hexebart paused; Mandy stopped in front of her, his shoulders tensed to pounce.

“Dance, dolly, dance!” Hexebart cried.

The Bone Wife jumped and spun at Hexebart’s words, then curled her left leg, and released it in a devastatingly powerful kick.
It thudded into Mandy’s flesh behind, knocking him sideways and up, into the side of the vat. He turned, enraged. Kick, kick.
The Bone Wife’s feet contacted with his jaw, knocking him over, balancing him on the edge of the vat. A look of horror crossed
his face and his arms flailed out frantically. Kick, kick. This time she got him in the chest, knocking breath from his lungs.
He began to overbalance, to fall backward. He screamed once, his hand shot out and caught Hexebart by the neck.

“No,” Mayfridh shrieked, running toward them. Hexebart had the royal magic. Mayfridh had to get her home safely. “No. Hexebart!”

Splash!
They both disappeared into the vat.

“No!” Mayfridh shrieked again, narrowly avoiding the wash of hot toxins. She could see nothing in the semidark but the boiling
surface of the water. The Bone Wife still clattered and danced behind her, its frantic pace intensifying.

Suddenly, a hand thrust up out of the fluid. Hexebart’s gnarled fingers, half eaten by the acid bath, reached out to her.
Mayfridh braced herself against the vat and grabbed the witch’s hand. A sweet rush of feeling began to flow from Hexebart’s
fingers to Mayfridh’s own. The royal magic, Liesebet’s magic, at last being passed to her. Hexebart knew there was little
time and was pumping out the magic too fast. Mayfridh felt her veins might explode as the weight and pressure began to intensify,
to crowd her organs and her mind. The responsibility was overwhelming. A groaning began in her ears; her own voice. Then she
realized the hand she was holding was no longer attached to a body, that Hexebart was gone and the magic was transferred.
A loud bang sounded behind her. Something sharp hit her in the back of the head, but she barely felt it. The devastating weight
of the magic was already pulling her down. She dropped Hexebart’s hand and collapsed, the floor slamming into her body.

Christine barely had time to register what Mayfridh was doing—she seemed dangerously close to the vat and was clearly losing
consciousness—when the mad clatter of the Bone Wife’s feet reached a crescendo and she began to shake into pieces. First one
foot flew off, then the other. Chips of bone missiled through the air, and a violent shuddering signaled her imminent detonation.
From across the room she heard Jude call, “Get down!” Christine covered her head with her arms and skidded to the floor, cowering
against the wall as the sculpture blew into fragments, sending bone shards in all directions.

A quiet descended, and Christine realized she was sitting on something sharp. She supposed it to be a chip of the sculpture.
She pulled it out from underneath her and held it in front of the flashlight beam.

Not a chip of bone, a ring. Her engagement ring. Mandy must have cast it in the corner when he’d brought her hand here. She
gazed at it in the beam of the flashlight, then remembered Mayfridh near the vat and looked up to see what had become of her.

Mayfridh lay on the floor, breathing shallowly, but conscious, her eyes open. Gazing into Jude’s eyes. He crouched over her,
smoothing her hair away from her face.

Christine felt her bottom jaw tremble. She clutched the ring so hard it cut into her palm. A sob stabbed at her throat. Her
hair spilled over her fingers as her head dropped into her hands, and she cried quietly in her corner, alone.