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Chapter 17

Maladie moved in.

Gwen watched over the next few days as the baron had more than three dozen armed guards shoved into her home. They quickly filled the rooms around her in West Wing, and beyond. There was nowhere she could run to where the stench of iron and man-at-arms wasn’t prevalent.

The staff was worked beyond the point of endurance. There was food constantly made and shoved down their occupiers’ throats, along with enough alcohol to fill a small lake. The booze led to carousing, and the students were forced to flee as far as their wits could take them.

Doramont barricaded himself in the greenhouse, and locked the doors behind him. The trees were moved in front of the entrances, and thorned plants in front of every window. They relented only to allow the young gardener to run back and forth from the kitchens with food in hand. Nothing could get him out until Everwynn came back, and he sent a seeded message to Gwen explaining such.

Drake was around. Every couple hours or so, there was a cry of protest that echoed around the manse, followed by the boy’s trademark cackle. And then he would be flying off into the air, trailing thrown food and more than a few rocks.

Baron Maladie had taken one of the few rooms in North Wing, a palatial suite. He held court every evening, chortling as he downed another bottle. More often than not he leered at every woman who came near, with suggestions as to what they could be wearing.

Indearie learned to make herself scarce.

And Gwen, she wandered the halls. Trying to stay out from underfoot. She learned that the library was one of the few places that the men didn’t seem to have any interest in. She kept reading, trying to learn her way out of this impossible situation. But no book was helping her now. She was on her own.

Gwen snarled, and tossed away a book in the fading light. She regretted it instantly, and placed the poor tome back in its place on the shelf, apologizing. It wasn’t the book’s fault.

It was Rosamund’s. her stupid plan had all these gross men running around. And it was her fault for going along with it.

She sulked, and walked back to her room. She wasn’t feeling hungry, and she darn well didn’t want to have to deal with another round of catcalls. Gwen would sneak back into the kitchens after the partying had been taken outside after midnight. Anything to avoid her supposed saviors.

As she did every day, her steps led her past the tower. Gwen looked up, trying to find the right entrance. Some trick of the light that would let her see Everwynn. A chance to just see the Duke one more time.

Felton had not been out in weeks. She didn’t even know if he was aware that the house had more than a few noisome guests.

Gwen smirked. Felton would have to come out eventually. The head butler, standing there, being confronted with all this mess caused by those he was supposed to be hospitable to. His head might spin off his head while trying to reconcile all the contradictory formalities.

She sighed, and laid a hand on the Tower wall. “Please come back, Everwynn,” she whispered. “We need you.”

Foolish Student. Cannot even Learn her own truths.

Her hand snapped back. She wasn’t going to let the voice torment her again. She stuck her hands in her pockets, and ran off to West Wing.

Gwen had had more than enough of problems for the day. She was tired, had to wake up in a few hours to nick food, and then go back to the miserable task of waiting for stuff to happen.

The last thing she wanted to see was Rosamund at her bedroom door, arm full of sheets, books, and makeup. But there she was, haughty, sure of herself, and backed up by Gwen’s best friend. So not fair.

“What are you doing here?” Gwen asked.

Rosamund grit her teeth.

“Uh oh. Scary hots is coming in.”

Steam rolled off her hands. The blankets started to smoke.

“Gwen,” Indearie said. “We are trying to…”

Gwen walked past the both of them into her room. She shut the door behind her, and locked it for good measure.

“Come on!” Indearie shouted.

She had to be joking. This was a joke. A horrid, horrid joke that only made sense in the delirious happy mind of a dancer.

“I told you this was a bad idea.” Rosamund’s voice mumbled through the door.

“It’s not a bad idea!” Indearie said. “It won’t be because Gwen is going to let us in!”

No she wasn’t. Letting them in was a stupid idea. Then they could do crazy things, like unpack. And spend the night. Gwen shuddered at the thought.

“I’m not asking again!” Indearie shouted.

“Good, because it’s not happening!”

A crack of thunder changed her mind. Gwen may not have wanted Rosamund in her room, but it sure beat having her door blown down! She rushed to the door, and pulled at the handle. Electricity flew through her body, blowing the door and her backwards to the bed.

“Whoops.” Indearie ran over, and winced. “Are you ok?”

Gwen groaned, and rolled over onto her side. “So you’re getting…better at magic?” she asked.

Indearie smiled. “Yup! Though I seem to still need a little help on control.”

“Nah. When you got it, you make sure everyone knows it,” Gwen said.

“Really?”

“Why brandish a weapon just to poke someone in the eye?”

“Did I get you in the eye!” Indearie leaned in close, checking. “I’m sorry!”

“Indearie!”

“That could really damage your vision and…”

“I’m fine!” Gwen shouted. “Fine!”

“Good.” Indearie laughed, and hugged her close. “But let’s get you to better than fine, ok?”

“Gross.”

“Whatever. Let’s have a slumber party!”

“No.”

“Come onnnnnn…” Indearie whined. “We never get to have sleepovers anymore.”

“We never had them before!”

“Sure we did! You and me, huddled up under that box.”

“That was defensive from the rats, and you know it.”

“Talking about boys…”

“And how we were going to steal their stuff.”

“I want a real slumber party, then!” Indearie snapped. “And drink wine when we’re too young. Eat cookies, and have fluffy clothes and have girl talk. Why can’t we have that?”

Gwen pointed at Rosamund.

“Cute,” Rosamund muttered.

“Your face?” Gwen asked. “Don’t worry. I heard hate adds wrinkles to it. Gives you a nice mature look in your twenties.”

“This was a bad idea from the start,” Rosamund said to Indearie. “Let’s just go.”

“Come on!” Indearie said. “We can, we can have music. Gwen could talk about some of her books. We’ll go on into evening!”

“Not in the mood,” Gwen said.

“Great,” Rosamund said. “See ya. Going back to my room.”

“Rosamund!” Indearie called out. “You don’t have to do that!”

“I’ll be fine!”

Fine? Gwen frowned. Why would she be fine? She was just going back to her room.

Her room on the ground floor. Which was where most of the carousing had been the last few weeks. Gwen chilled, realizing what that meant for the woman. Drunken soldiers banging on her door at all hours. Crashing into it, or looking for another party friend.

They weren’t looking for a slumber party. They were looking for an escape.

Gwen groaned. “Millie!”

The maid popped out of the floor, startling the girls. “Yes, Gwen?”

“Can you get us a couple extra sleeping bags and some cookies?” she frowned. “And if any of the girls want to come with us, but like no more than three or four, ok?”

“Absolutely.” The ghost faded out into nothing.

Indearie’s eyes bugged out. “Is she just, always listening to us?”

“Nah,” Rosamund said. “Just able to find who needs her fast enough.”

Gwen stood up, and started clearing space around the floor. Books, books needed to be put on shelves. She needed shelves to be able to put books there. But when she was tired, the floor was always so handy, and it made sense after midnight.

“Um, I guess if people don’t mind the mess,” Gwen said, scratching her head. “They can come on in.”

“What?” Rosamund asked.

“I mean. Indearie and I can have fun, but a slumber party is kind of better with at least three people,” Gwen said. That sounded like a good excuse. Completely plausible.

“That was the worst invitation I have ever received,” Rosamund said. She walked in the room, and reset the door on its hinges. “Truly awful. If I were still at court, I wouldn’t even have deigned to send a reply by pigeon.”

“You were at court?” Gwen asked.

Rosamund nodded. She started lighting candles around the room. “I had a real title. A real life. That was all ruined, and now I’m here, a felon ward of the foppish heir to a disgraced line.”

“Geez,” Gwen said. “A real noble. No wonder I hate you so much.”

“And a real beggar,” Rosamund said. “Haven’t met one of you before.”

“Well, you’ve definitely seen us,” Gwen said. “Just haven’t ever taken the time to get to know us.”

“Is this a really good thing to talk about in a slumber party?” Indearie asked.

“We’re getting to really know one another,” Rosamund said. She gave a sickly sweet smile to Gwen. “I mean, if we’re going to be spending the night together, I want to make sure I’ll still have all my teeth when I wake up.”

“Or that you haven’t sold us down to Deveren for pocket change,” Gwen said. “Thought crossed my mind a few times.”

“Please. As if Deveren could afford my rates.”

“So your defense is you’re an expensive traitor?” Gwen asked.

“I wasn’t aware I needed a defense.”

“Do you?”

“Gwen and I found each other over a trash can.”

Rosamund looked at Indearie. “Come again?”

“I tripped. See, I had been dancing all day.” Indearie laughed. “Dancing, running from guards who asked if I had a performance license. Trying to sweet talk a restaurant owner out of a bill. Just after noon and I was already close to falling down. Which is what I did, just in the middle of a great performance piece. In front of an audience, even worse! My foot caught on a step leading into the market square. Slip, fall, and I could barely spin into a somersault before the pain and hunger really started creeping in. I tumbled, and almost fell into a trash can.”

The girl looked out the window. “See, I had spent the last three days trying to find my parents. We were all part of a traveling troupe. Acrobats, fire eaters, a side show and animal tamers, we did it all. And we were loved in the small villages and hamlets.

“But when we came to Callgar, everything changed. My parents were arrested for vagrancy. Our equipment was confiscated and then sold off to pay for debts we never had. And then the guards started leaning on us for free performances.

“The rest of the troupe disappeared rather than deal with the new reality. I tried to get into Sea Gate, but I was only ten at the time. Didn’t know where it was, or what I would have had to do. All I could do was dance for food.”

She smirked. “So that’s where I was before I was heading for the figurative, and literal, trash heap. And then some punky girl showed up, snatched me right out of the air. Hadn’t even seen her coming, and yet now I’m safe on the steps. She said I looked like I hadn’t eaten in years, and gave me some of her own meal.”

“Unfortunately, it turned out I was right about her not eating.” Gwen said.

“Afterwards, she slept for three days straight.”

“Long enough for my parents’ sentence to be bought, and the two of them sold off to who knows where,” Indearie admitted. “That was four years ago. We haven’t seen them since.”

She smiled, looking away. “Sometimes, I think about them. Wonder where they are, what they’ve been up to. If they even think about me. If they abandoned their little girl into the big city because they didn’t care, or if they tried to save me from the pain they knew was coming. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Indearie looked up. “But I’ve got good friends. And a home, now. Something we’re all helping to defend.”

Gwen nodded, and leaned back in her bed. She sighed, and tried to think about everything else. What the soldiers were doing, what life was going to be like if they won. How she was going to get Rosamund out of her room.

“Ahem.”

“What?” Gwen and Rosamund looked at Indearie.

“One of you!” Indearie said.

“One of us what?” Gwen asked.

“Tell your own story.”

Gwen’s eyes fell flat. “Not a chance.”

“Gwen!”

“No way! I didn’t sign up for some stupid little tellall slumber party. And I’m certainly not telling everything in front of her.”

“Please,” Rosamund scoffed. “Like your life is all that interesting.”

Gwen glared at her.

“Right. Because that’s so original.” Rosamund sighed, and looked at the stars. “Let’s see. A surly young teenager with trust issues around authority figures. I’m going to say…abandoned by parents.”

“Rosamund…” Indearie warned.

“Oh, please. That one is so obvious, it’s cliched.” Rosamund looked up at Gwen. “How old were you? Eight? Five? How old when they abandoned you?”

“…four.”

Rosamund turned away. “I thought so. So you grew up, a mongrel on the streets. Forced to steal, and necessity gave you a talent. Rich, poor, didn’t matter. The only thing that really mattered was ‘making it through the day,’ right?

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Gwen said.

“And when you could rope another girl in, you took it.”

Indearie tackled Gwen to the floor before the smaller girl could dive on Rosamund.

“Say that again!” Gwen shouted. “Say that again, I dare you!”

Rosamund turned around, furious.

“She told me,” Rosamund said. “She told me about that job of yours that got you both locked up. You tried to break into a city noble’s treasure vault. A couple of low life thieves, thinking they could break through dozens of wards, traps and defenses. All because you needed a score.

“And so Indearie is locked up, and has to spend ten years of her life here, because of you. You know what she had going, before you had her commit another crime? An audition.”

Gwen stopped. She looked at Indearie, shocked. An audition? Indearie had had an audition? A chance to perform at one of the dance halls? A chance to be…legitimate?

“She didn’t tell you,” Rosamund said. “Of course she didn’t.”

Indearie let go. “I was,” she started. “I was going to tell you…”

“Don’t defend yourself,” Rosamund said. “Not to her. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“You want to know why I don’t trust you?” she said. “Because you’re nothing. No magic, no skills, no parents to possibly think of, and no prospects. So all you can do is drag everyone down with you. You’re dead weight.”

Gwen stood up, raising her fists.

“Go ahead,” Rosamund said. She lifted her chin, defiant. “That’s what you always do. Fight, flee, or talk, right? That’s all you’ve got. Your little tricks are the only things that can help you.”

“Look who’s talking,” Gwen muttered.

“I’m someone who cares.”

“You’re someone who needs control.”

Gwen walked a few feet away. give herself some distance, some space from the two of them. If only so she wouldn’t scream.

“You think I’m nothing,” Gwen whispered.

“What?”

“You think I’m nothing?” Gwen asked. She gave a hard laugh, biting it. “I guess that’s true. The nothing from no one, that’s me. Still on the bottom, especially here.”

She glared at Rosamund. “But let’s talk about you.”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Rosamund said.

“I know you’re a noble.”

Rosamund’s eyes bulged. “How?”

Gwen paused, and made an x with her fingers. “Sorry, ex-noble. Because they don’t allow the ones stupid enough to be caught. And you, you…”

She trailed off. She wanted to say more. About how she figured that Rosamund probably tried to grab more power for herself. And now being caught and sentenced, all she could control was the rest of the students. Because Gwen wouldn’t play, she needed to go.

But really, all she wanted was to scream at the stuck-up little witch.

Gwen looked at Indearie. And walked out of her own bedroom.

She closed the door behind her. Tried to hide the tears in her eyes.

Nothing, and alone. Always a

BOOM

“Are you TRYING to get me to throw you out a window?!?”

Gwen ducked to the ground. “It’s not my fault! She start…” she stopped. Wait, she had closed the door. This didn’t make any sense.

“She’s nothing more than…”

Another blast of thunder tore through the air. Gwen covered her ears groaning.

“You can finish that sentence and your apology,” Indearie muttered. “While you meet the ground in thirty seconds.”

“See?” Rosamund’s shouts were much more muffled by the door. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! She’s totally got everyone thinking with their fists, or running away, all about her!”

“This is not about Gwen!”

“Gwen?”

Gwen turned around. Millie was there, with a serving plate filled with three steaming mugs of tea. The maid looked at Gwen, and then the door. She sighed, and sat down next to the young girl, handing her a glass.

“Thanks,” Gwen said. She took a sip, and sighed. Herbal tea with honey, just what she needed.

Millie nodded, and took a sip of her own. “What did I miss?”

“Friendships, I guess,” Gwen said. “And absolute hatred. Boiling over once they’ve reached the proper temperature.”

“Why am I the only one who can see that she’s nothing but trouble?”

“Let’s examine that, shall we? Why are you the only one who has a problem with her?”

“It’s not just me!” Rosamund exclaimed. “It’s Drake. It’s Doramont.”

“The boys are fine. Just mad that she kicked their butts.”

“My apologies that this took so long, miss Gwen,” Millie said.

“It’s ok,” Gwen said. “And probably a smart move, being out here with me for a sec. I don’t know if the teacups would survive the argument.”

“And even Deveren is trying to get her killed.”

“That’s your excuse? You’re siding with Deveren now?”

“I’m siding with this house! While everyone else has been running around trying to find themselves, I’ve been trying to come up with real solutions.”

“Like having armed guards peeking in our bedrooms?”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“To be fair, it wasn’t,” Gwen agreed. “Who knew Maladie would be such an ass.”

Millie shook her head. “The baron has never been a good friend to…anyone, truly. But his skill in magic is significant.”

“Really?” Gwen asked. “Seems pretty pedestrian. Gather guards from your own home and all that.”

“We’re supposed to be sticking together!” Indearie shouted. Millie winced, and took a sip.

“We’re supposed to be a family!”

“Wake up!” Rosamund screamed back. “That girl is family to no one. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get sent to the gallows, but she is never going to be a part of this house. Never.”

Gwen nodded, and handed her cup to Millie.

“Where are you going?”

“To see Maladie,” Gwen said.

“He’s carousing right now,” Millie warned.

“He’s always carousing. Ever since he got here, it’s been one giant party at Everwynn’s.”

Gwen walked away. “If I had any other option, I’d probably go there. But the library is locked tight to stop the guards, same’s the greenhouse. And apparently my bedroom is a war zone.”

Besides, Gwen needed to prove something to herself. That she wasn’t just useless. That she could actually help. And that started with making sure that Maladie would finally get something started.

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Dead by the Book

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I didn't ask for a destiny.

Especially one that says that I'm supposed to destroy every god in existence.

It made the name William Creed a curse. Made me turn tail and run from the only home I knew. Left my friend, my favorite ghost, and hoped that the gods would just forget about me.

But now I'm back. Chasing the one good paycheck I've seen in years. Chasing some kid who's in way over his head, searching for a book that could break reality.

I'll have to take on dragons, the undead, a whole cosmos of deities, and my own mother.

Welcome to God Street. Where miracles become realities.

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