Petra stepped into the room warily, but Iris looked normal. That is to say, she looked highly vexed, but at least her clothes were still on and she wasn’t making the floor melt beneath her.
“What did he do?” asked Petra, relieved to see that Iris wasn’t in the middle of a full-blown emotional disaster.
“Do? Do? He existed, that’s what he did! And you”—she narrowed her eyes—“what are you doing here, Viera, Sweeper of the Prince’s Study? Don’t you have some royal feet to kiss?”
“Um, actually, I wondered if I might sleep on the floor of the
Dye Works?”
“What’s the matter with the servants’ sleeping hall?”
Aside from the fact that it houses someone who would like my head on a platter, nothing at all, Petra thought. But she said out loud (and somewhat truthfully), “The girls there don’t like me.”
Iris put her hands on her hips, considering. Then she said, “What have you done with your eyes?”
Oh, no. Petra wanted to bury her face in her hands. How could she have forgotten about the belladonna? “Well, you see,” she stammered, “it’s, um, really popular to have dark eyes and I wanted to impress the other girls and I heard that belladonna could—”
Iris raised her hand. “I’m not even going to ask how you managed to get hold of belladonna. I’m just going to tell you that no, you may not sleep on the floor of my laboratory, because you no longer work here.”
Petra’s heart sank. Where would she go? She was already starving from having skipped yet another dinner to talk with Neel. Over the past weeks, she had found herself fantasizing about Dita’s cooking. Astrophil had said she was getting thin in the face. Now, on top of her hunger, she was dead tired. But she had no idea what Sadie would do if she saw Petra. Would she announce Petra’s plan to the whole sleeping hall? Would she march Petra before Master Listek and demand that she be fired? No, Petra couldn’t risk seeing Neel’s sister. She would have to find some corner of the castle where she could spend the night. Maybe there was a cupboard somewhere, or she could enter the library and sit at a desk and sleep with her head on her arms …
Iris interrupted Petra’s train of thought. “Follow me,” she commanded, and led Petra past the black curtain. Iris lit a candle and opened the door that Petra had noticed a long time ago. “These are my private chambers,” she said, ushering Petra into the room. “I don’t care to keep company with those fourth-floor flibbertigibbets. Here I’m closer to my work.”
It was a very simple room, bare of any furniture except a wooden table with chairs, a wardrobe, a large bed, and a small bed made in a boxy shape. There was a tiny window and a closet door.
“It’s not a luxury suite, but fancy furniture is hardly practical when you can burn them down to cinders once a month. Well. You can sleep there, if you like.” She pointed at the boxy bed.
“Really? Iris, that’s so —”
“First things first. Sit.” She waved Petra toward the table and then left the room.
She returned bearing a tray with bread and butter and a cup of warm milk. “Young girls like their bedtime snacks, if I remember correctly.” She set the tray down in front of Petra. Iris ordered her to eat, and Petra was glad to obey. As Petra chewed large mouthfuls of buttered bread rinsed down by gulps of frothy milk, Iris pulled bed linen out of the wardrobe. “My niece Zora used to sleep here sometimes.” She waved her hand as if dismissing the memory. “But that was a long time ago.”
When Petra had curled under a feather blanket and Iris was settled in her own bed, Petra felt such grateful fondness for Iris that it took her a few moments to speak. Then she said softly, “Iris, thank you so much. This is perfect. I—”
“Oh, don’t get too comfy! I snore.”
MEANWHILE, several floors above Petra, something small and sparkling crept along the ceiling. The spider sauntered over the heads of the fourth-floor guards (who, it is shameful to say, were sleeping). Astrophil ducked into the corner where the ceiling met the wall, and carefully inched toward the pine and oak door. The lion and the salamander stared into the hallway, but they didn’t see the spider as he made his way toward the entrance to the prince’s suite. When Astrophil reached the wall in which the double doors were set, he walked carefully down the side of the door frame until he reached the floor. The lion and the salamander continued to gaze calmly ahead. Astrophil slipped under the door.
He began to creep over the red, furry carpet of the hallway, but this was as difficult for him as it would be for you to push your way past vegetation in an Amazonian rain forest. So he shot a spiderweb to one of the walls and walked along there under the glow of the brassica lamps.
When he reached the chamber with seven doors, he crawled toward the door that Petra thought led to the Cabinet of Wonders. To his frustration, however, the crack between the door and the floor was extremely narrow. He tried to flatten himself out and push his way under the door, but the most he managed to do was wiggle a few legs into the crack. He pulled back. If he was the swearing type of spider, he might have cursed. But he just grimaced, and tried to think quickly.
Now, thinking quickly is what Astrophil did best, so he soon had an idea. He twinkled toward another door, avoiding the one he knew to be the prince’s study. He managed to slip under the second door, but frowned when this new room turned out to be an armory. He tried a third door, but walked into a bathing room with a tub the size of a small swimming pool.
The fourth door, however, led him exactly to where he wanted to go: the prince’s bedchamber. The sumptuous room was almost entirely taken up by an enormous four-poster bed. Normally this type of bed has curtains hanging on every side to help keep the sleeper warm during a cold Bohemian night, but in the prince’s room flames crackled in two fireplaces. Probably for security reasons, the bed was bare of any curtains, and the prince slumbered under thick blankets. His pale face seemed to be the same color and made of the same fabric as the white silk pillows.
Astrophil’s gaze was drawn to the nightstand. He shuddered. There, in a room filled with soft and polished things, was a fierce plant that someone in Astrophil’s position likes least out of all the plants in the world. It was a Venus flytrap. A large bell jar covered this botanic beast. Instead of flowers, it had wide mouths trimmed with jagged teeth. They were wide open, waiting for some insect to step inside. Astrophil had read about these plants, which don’t survive on only sun and water. The insides of their mouths are sweet and sappy. Many bugs, not just flies, are attracted by the smell. As soon as they step inside a mouth, it slams shut.