The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(51)

She did not think that anymore. The fire in the night, the scene in the water-meadow, had been unmistakably malicious. That feast had been memory fouled and corrupted: an array of objects like inanimate ghosts, laid out beneath a different sky.

All of them—the water, the fire, the memory—seemed to exist under a different light. Could she see the unnatural light sooner and give warning? She found herself searching the stairs for incongruous shadows as she walked, began to give herself a headache.

Was the korrigan-king even now at court, invisible? Standing in a light she could not see?

Isabeau met her at the threshold of the garderobe, and the frantic pitch of her voice pulled Anne out of the maelstrom of her thoughts. Elesbed had not been seen at all that day. Isabeau cried, “Anne—she’s lost! When the Lost Lands are near, some things appear and some things are lost forever. Maybe one of those things is Elesbed!” Isabeau’s small hands clutched her wrists, her eyes begged Anne to do something. Henri was in the room, keeping close to Isabeau. His face was grim.

The words “lost forever” fell like cold snakes upon Anne’s heart, along with her memory of Hawiz’s faerie-tales: It is often children who are stolen by the korriganed. Isabeau shook her arm, desperate, eyes fixed trustingly on her face. Anne stepped into the garderobe, making her mind work. “Isabeau—perhaps first we search for her thoroughly? She may have gotten lost. She may have fallen asleep somewhere. We shall ask Calyx,” she added, to take the terror from her sister’s face.

Isabeau brightened. “Yes, we must ask him at once!”

Calyx came swiftly to his summons, and when he heard the trouble, he poured himself his cup and drank it off forthwith. Calyx would have little trouble finding Elesbed, if she was anywhere near Nantes.

Hawiz, watching from the other side of the room, wore a look of disquiet.

Calyx took his empty cup to the window embrasure and tipped it to the daylight. He peered, frowned. Peered again, growing steadily paler. He put his hand to his head. A cold sweat sprang up on his brow. Anne was alarmed to hear the reedy sound of his breathing. His cup clattered to the floor. All the maids-of-honor sprang up in fright.

“What is it?” Isabeau burst out, standing too.

“Calyx, what is wrong?” said Anne.

His voice quaked when he tried to speak. “Sunlight. Nightshade. A tower above the sea. In the sea itself and all around her is silver. I do not— This is no augury, Highness. This is some madness. This is a curse of the korriganed.” He put a shaking hand to his sweating face. His eyes rolled back. “They are here,” he whispered.

“Summon a physician!” cried Anne, just as Calyx collapsed to the floor. Anne turned in a circle, but she could see no unnatural lights, no ghosts, no detritus of lost things on the floor. No korrigan-king. She crossed the room in two strides and put her arms around Isabeau, met her brother’s wide eyes.

Calyx was carried away. Isabeau was white to the lips. “Elesbed,” Isabeau whispered, shaking. “She must have been stolen by the korriganed. I have to go help her, I have to—” She ran for the door. Henri caught the back of her gown, ignoring her protests, and pulled her back. He said, “No, Belle. No solitary ventures this time. Not with danger near.”

Isabeau was panting. “At least—at least summon Julien Moreau. Please—we have to speak to him. He knows—he can help. I’m sure he can.”

Anne looked from her brother to her sister’s frantic, tear-stained face. Slowly, she said, “How do you know he can help, Isabeau? He has insisted always that he has no memory of his time in the Lost Lands. What can he do?”

Isabeau looked briefly ashamed. Anne was suddenly transfixed with alertness, still trying, half-instinctively, to find a flaw in the light around them. Nothing. She touched the fillet in her hair. What had put that look on Isabeau’s face? Hawiz said, sharply, “Isabeau, what have you done?”

Isabeau said in a rush, “I went to see him just after the Triumphal Entry. Elesbed came with me.” Now all the room was staring at her.

“The guard let you in?” said Henri. “I’ll skin them all, see if I don’t. They had strict orders.”

Isabeau gave him a strange look. “There was no guard. The door was unbarred. He was as puzzled about why as I was. I brought him marchpane and said that I—I said that I wanted to talk to the king of the korriganed.”

Anne was cold. Her limbs were so cold. “Unbarred?” she asked Henri.

“Not that I ever heard of,” he answered.

Gently, Anne said, “The king of the korriganed? Why, Isabeau?”

Isabeau said, “I thought that I could get the korrigan-king to help us. If he married me. The same way you got Maximilien to help us.” Her voice became a whisper. “When you married him. I thought it would be worth it. Like your marriage was worth it.”

Anne was briefly speechless. I didn’t wed Maximilien only for you to learn that the only thing you and I are good for is sacrificing ourselves.

Isabeau said, “I thought the korrigan-king would come when I offered, but he didn’t. But someone else came. To that room. A—an anaon. Climbing the stairs. She was a woman—strangled—she had a rope round her neck.” Isabeau was shuddering. “She was very terrible. I was frightened. But Moreau—” Isabeau’s face brightened with remembered wonder. “His augury is in mirrors, remember? He didn’t have a mirror, but he had the reflection in a cup of wine. He used it—somehow—to send the anaon away. He did it! He said he didn’t remember how he did it, but he did! If he remembered that, he might remember how to get Elesbed back, even if he doesn’t know how he remembers. He must have learnt it in the Lost Lands. And he has a proper mirror now to use. He promised me, he gave his word that he would help us.”