“Is he going to try again?”
“I’ve put the protection spells back up, but ...”
His eyes were milky, streaked with dark veins.
“Sylvester.Sylvester.But what? What do I do?”
His eyes flickered. I wanted to shake him and embrace him all at once. “Sylvester!”I hissed again.
“They will hold,” he said, as if every word was a great effort.
“What can I do? How can I help you?”
“Pocket,” he said.
“What?”
“The carriage ... in my pocket.”
“Are you delirious?”
He shook his head violently from side to side, eyes closed. “Pocket,” he repeated.
I rummaged through the pockets of his cloak. There seemed to be an infinite amount of them, and my fingers brushed against textures I didn’t recognize or want to investigate too closely. At one point, I could have sworn that my hand disappeared into one pocket and poked out of another.
It was a wildly disorganized manner of storing one’s magical items, and I made a mental note to talk to Sylvester about this later, when he wasn’t about to die. Finally, I felt something that thrummed with the texture of “carriage” under my fingertips. I grasped it and pulled it out, keeping it concealed in my fist.
It was an uncomfortable sort of thing to hold, smooth but somehow complicated, and felt impatient in my hand. Somewhere inside it, the horses were stamping on the ground, ready to run.
I shook Sylvester until his eyes opened. “What do I do?” I hissed.
“Throw it,” he managed to say.
I threw it onto the cobbles, where it exploded. From a tablet the size of a snuffbox, it burst open and became, once again, a full, heavily ornamented carriage and two horses with steaming nostrils and restless, stamping hooves.
“We have to go,” said Sylvester, struggling to hold himself up on one elbow.
“You’re no match for your father in this state!”
“I’m no match for him in any state,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “But we have to try.”
Cornelius hopped up into the carriage, and I hauled Sylvester up to follow. He was heavy, but I could just about manage it. I bumped him up the carriage steps in an undignified manner, arranging him on one of the seats before checking his pulse. It was steady, but soft.
“Leave it,” said Sylvester. “I’m fine.”
“Of course you’re not,” I said. The success of our mission seemed more and more unlikely with every passing moment. I went back for Millie and did the same with her, arranging her against the opposite door so that her head was propped up, and spreading one of the heavy furs over her. “How are you holding up?” I asked Sylvester.
“I’m fighting it,” he said, panting a little. “But we have to go.”
“Go where? We don’t know where they are yet! They could be anywhere in the kingdom.”
“No,” he said, his breath still coming raggedly. “One good thing ... about the spell. It’s like an arrow shot at me ... from far away ... with a rope trailing behind. I can follow it back ... see where it came from.”
“You can tell where he is?”
“By holding on to his spell, yes. I can trace it back.” He closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Foss.”
“Why are you ...” But then I realized.
