He sat very straight, so different from his usual slouch. His hair fell in such perfect waves around the fine edges of his cheekbones that I wanted to weep.
Would I ever be free of this terrible pull toward him? I took a step forward, almost involuntarily.
What if I just gave in? Threw myself at his feet and told him that I would endure anything,anything, if he would only permit me to be near him always?
His jaw tensed, but he stayed still, watching me. So still. I couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest.
Another thunderous knock on the door. Even though I had been expecting it this time, I jumped. Thankfully. I had almost let the spell take me over.
“I’d better answer that, then,” I said, and waited for him to speak. He said nothing. I turned tail and stomped to the front door, flinging it open with more force than necessary. Across the doorway, Clarissa stared at me with open hostility.Still here?I could almost hear her thinking.
I made my face as stupid and simple as possible. It wasn’t hard, because faced with the inexplicable pull and attraction of her beauty, my face quite naturally fell into a stupid and simple expression on its own.
Without greeting me, she floated off to the throne room again, Colin following close behind and looking grayer and more mushroomlike than ever, and, again, I went to the kitchen to prepare tea and cakes for them both. My hands shook as I poured the boiling water over the leaves. Cornelius wound himself around my shins.
“You all right?” he said.
“Yes.”
Of course I wasn’t all right. I had half expected her to reach into my chest and pick my heart like an apple as soon as I opened the door. Well, maybe she would be satisfied with whatever he had been able to harvest.
I carried the tea tray through the throne room and to the crystal plinth the sorceress had created and did my best not to look at either of the magic-workers. An angry silence hung in the air when I walked in, as solid and tangible as a bat hanging from the ceiling. I would be glad to get out from under it and back out into the black corridor. Clarissa watched me closely as I walked back out and waved her hand at her servant.
“Colin. Guard the door.”
Well, that put a wrench in the works. Colin followed me out silently and took up station to the right of the door. It closed with a deliberate, finalthunk, leaving me outside with no way to listen in this time, lest the servant bear tales to his mistress. I stared at his blank, bland face, and he stared back—or perhaps just stared into space, because there was no focus in his pale eyes at all.
I wondered if I could persuade him to let me look through the keyhole, which was still there from the last time. After all, it would be in his best interests as well as mine, if I was able to help the Snagged. He was the most thoroughly Snagged of all of us, as far as I could tell. Was there enough humanity left in there for me to argue—or negotiate—with? I sidled up to him.
“Colin,” I whispered urgently. His eyes flickered, just a little, which I took as an encouraging sign. Either that, or my breath on his face had made him blink. I chose to believe the former. He was in there, somewhere. I had to believe that. I didn’t want to think that I would end up like that, scooped out like a melon, nothing of me left. I didn’t want to think that Dav would end up like that, back home, or all the other Snagged I had met.
“I can help you,” I said. “I know people who might be able to fix you—put you back the way you were, before Clarissa got her claws in you.”
No reaction. I reached out and poked his shoulder. He swayed a little at the pressure, but it was like poking at an odd-shaped fungus you found in the woods. There was a slight give and squish, but the thing certainly didn’t push back.
“In order for me to do that, though,” I continued, “you have to let me listen to what they’re saying. All right? They’ll never know. I’ll just look through the keyhole.”
He made a small, convulsive movement, as if to stand in front of it.
“Please. I know you’re in there, somewhere. Please. I’ll try to help you if I can.” I hoped the words were reaching him, somehow.
To my complete astonishment, he shuffled a little to one side and turned his eyes away from me, leaving the keyhole unguarded.
“Thank you,” I managed to say through my surprise and knelt at the little opening, prepared to listen again.
At first, there was nothing to listen to. I could not see Sylvester clearly, because Clarissa obscured my view of him, but I imagined that he was either glaring back or lounging in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
“Sylvester,” Clarissa said at last. She drew something from the soft leather bag that hung at her waist. I squinted. It was a jar, I thought, but she was moving it around too much for me to get a good look. Some kind of liquid sloshed about inside. My eyes couldn’t get a good look at it.
“Why are you here?” Sylvester asked.
“You know why I’m here. We have to report to the king in two days’ time, and we’re concerned about you.”
I couldn’t see him, but I heard him snort. “Why?”
She did not deign to answer. She shifted her weight, and I heard a faint splash from the jar she held as it moved more clearly into my view. I could see only an ordinary glass jar, the kind that Da kept our pickles in at home, filled with liquid and nothing else that I could see.
“I told you,” she said. “He has expectations. If you haven’t done anything about them, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take your ... housekeeper ... myself. It’s for your own good, little brother.”
