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He didn’t.
She clucked at him.
He pulled cat attitude and acted as if she were empty air. Instead the freshly made bed became his chief interest. He padded over to it, examined the height and leaped up, landing soft as dandelion down in the center, where he curled up, suddenly exhausted.
By the time I looked at the doorway, Healer had gone.
Chapter 6
In Which I Am Offered Something Even Better than Surcease
‡
“Thank Titaniathatone is gone.” The brunette sighed, then winked at me. “Now we’ll have some peace! Bhrta, Mina, come help Lady Gwynn out of this dress. You’ll have to let us, lady. Lord Darling, I’m going to close and lock this door for privacy—do you care to stay or go?”
Darling tucked his head under, stretched, and to all appearances fell into an immediate and deep sleep.
“That answers that. Now release the spell, Lady Gwynn—I’m sure you’re perishing to get clean. I know I would be.”
“You know, my name isn’t Gwynn.”
“Lord Rogue says it is, Lady Gwynn. I’m not one to gainsay him.”
She stood before me, bright black robin’s eyes expectant. The maids, little brown sparrows of girls, waited quietly behind her, eyes cast down, ready to flee. I pulled on the spaghetti straps, but couldn’t quite seem to get a grip on them, no more than I could tug on a raised mole. I reached behind me to the zipper. It felt sewn on.
“Lady,” Brunette said gently, “release the spell first, then we’ll get the zipper for you.”
Okay, I’m a dunce.
“I don’t know how,” I confessed. “Besides, don’t these—” I held up my wrists, “—keep me from doing any magic?”
“Undoing is not doing,” she assured me gravely. “So my granny always said. Though I’ve no experience with such things myself. Shall I call Lord Rogue? Surely he’ll know.”
“No! I mean, I’d rather not involve him in any…well, undressing on my part.”
She winked at me again. “No worries, love—I wouldn’t let that rascal near my bedchamber either, even were I so lucky as to have him express interest.”
The little sparrow girls exchanged a glance, fluttering giggles at each other.
“Let’s see.” She pursed her lips, clearly marshaling her problem-solving skills. This was a woman—or, whatever, since, though shorter than many, she still sported the odd bone structure they all shared—who knew how to remove obstacles from her path. “The magical types all have different ways of doing what they do. Some use wands, some words, some funny costumes. You just don’t know your way yet. Like a youngling first come into power.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting politely.
“This is helpful—keep going, please.”
“Well, maybe you just need to think about what you did when you cast the spell and work backward. Just as if I spilled soup on the floor—I might think about how I’d get it unspilled, as it were.”
“So I kind of need to wipe it up?”
Interesting.
I pictured the Dog standing over me by the brook. Uneasy, I slid my eyes to the group, but no hysterics ensued. They only waited. None of them, thankfully, seemed to hear my thoughts, or at least didn’t respond to them.
At a whispered word, Bhrta went to add more hot water to the tub. Thinking about the Dog made my heart clench. Like digging into a wound to find the sliver of glass, I prodded my memory, ignoring the pain. In the fraught swirl of birds and terror and the Dog leaping for my throat, I found an image in my head of wishing the dress to stay on. It glowed there, like a bubble preserved in amber. I could feel the shimmer of—magic?—around it.
I mentally felt around the bubble. It flexed, resilient, part of me and yet not. Experimentally, I popped it. It vanished as if it had never been. I slid one strap of the dress down. Easy peasy. “I think I did it!”
“Of course you did, dear.” She bustled behind me to slide the zipper down. “Such a simple thing for a powerful Lady Sorceress as yourself.” She slipped the dress down my legs and I stepped out, clad only in the woefully overworn black silk panties. “No wonder Lord Rogue has gone to such lengths. Slip that off, pet, and we’ll get you into the tub.”
At the brunette’s direction, one of the sparrows bundled up the clothes I’d stepped out of and moved to the fireplace. My last anchor to who I had been was about to go up in flames.
