Azalea imagined Keeper lazily toying with the teeth, bending and twisting them as they trembled, in the silence of the pavilion.
“He’s had you this whole time, hasn’t he?” she whispered.
They shuddered.
In a few minutes, dressed again, she turned up the lamps in the portrait gallery, casting a light over the display of the silver sword. So dull and old…it didn’t even glimmer in the light.
“It has to be this,” said Azalea to no one but the sugar teeth, which she had wrapped up and put in her pocket. She touched the glass over the hairline crack in the sword, and shook her head. “It has to be magic. But I can’t figure out how.”
Azalea sat on the floor, her dress poofing around her, and pulled her knees to her chest. She buried her head in her skirts.
Keeper was the High King. The portrait of the High King, hidden away in the attic, leered at her from her memory. The ancient, melted-wax skin. The painter had gotten him all wrong, painting him old and hideous. But the dead, black eyes were the same. Azalea pushed her head against her knees, trying to stop the throbbing.
He could capture souls….
Keeper was mad if he thought she was going to bring the girls down there again. She would have to keep them from going through the fireplace—without telling them anything. Keeper would know if she had told them. He knew everything. Azalea rubbed her lips into the cotton weave of her dress, wincing. The stitches…
He had promised to leave Mother alone, hadn’t he? He wouldn’t dare—not when he needed Azalea so much to free him. Azalea pushed a quaking smile and put her hand over the sugar teeth in her pocket, trying to comfort them.
“I have until Christmas to figure something out,” she said. “That’s five days. That’s plenty of time, yes?”
The sugar teeth trembled.
Well after tea now, Azalea wandered through the corridor in search of her sisters. She had descended to the second-floor hall when she heard an odd thumping noise, followed by rummaging and assorted clanks. They came from the bucket closet across from the mezzanine.
“Hello?” said Azalea. And, realizing someone had been locked in, she turned the key still in the knob and clicked it open.
Brooms spilled out. Mops spilled out. A gentleman spilled out. He had a bucket on his head. And wore an offensively green bow tie.
“Lord Teddie!” said Azalea.
Lord Teddie sprang to his feet. “Hulloa, Princess A!” he said, taking the bucket off his head and beaming. His curly hair was mussed. “We all missed you at breakfast! I ate your bowl of mush. I hope that’s all right.”
“What are you doing here?” said Azalea.
“Oh! Ha! I bet you are wondering that. I’m here on Royal Business. For the riddle! Unless, of course, you mean in the broom closet, which I’m in because we were playing tiddle and seek after breakfast and…someone locked me in.”
“That would be Bramble,” said Azalea. “Usually she locks them in the gallery. She must really not like you.”
Lord Teddie’s face fell.
“Pudding head,” he said. “That’s me. And she’s quick and smart as a horsewhip.”
Azalea marveled as he snapped back into marvelous good humor, an emotional elastic. His hazel eyes brightened.
“Well, that takes pluck anyway, I should say!” he said. “I’ve never had a girl do that to me before! What a rum girl! Absolute pluck!”
“You didn’t bring Mother’s portrait?”
The spring in Lord Teddie’s spine slumped a tad.
“Ah,” he said. “Actually, no.”
“Oh!” Completely unbidden, the portrait of Mother flew to Azalea’s mind, this time with her mouth stitched shut. It stabbed her in the stomach, and Azalea had to lean against the mezzanine railing, gasping for air, to keep from throwing up. She tried to shake the image from her head.
“I say,” Lord Teddie stammered, as she choked for breaths. “I say—are you all right? Your color—I didn’t mean—that is—Hulloa? I say, hulloa? Are there any servants about?”
“I’m all…right,” Azalea managed. “Just…I need some air.”
Azalea tried to go down the stairs, but the room spun, and she sat on the top stair, leaning her head against the cold iron posts. Lord Teddie did his best to cheer her up. He handed her a candy stick, recited limericks, guessed at all her favorite dances and told her which ones he liked best. Eventually Azalea managed to push the picture out of her mind, and even managed a smile when Lord Teddie tried to juggle the coins from his pocket and they pelted his head.
“…I don’t know where Clover is, she’s probably off helping Old Tom in the gardens, she’s been running off to do that lately—Jess, what?”
Bramble’s voice carried down the hall. Lord Teddie, picking up the coins from the rug, straightened, motionless for the first time Azalea had seen him. Bramble appeared around the corner, followed by the mass of girls, running in tiny steps to keep up with her stride. When the girls saw Lord Teddie, a ripple of excitement ran through them.
“Lord Teddie!” cried Ivy as they flocked to him in a mass of black skirts.
“Word Teddie!” cried Kale, who was just learning to talk and parroted everybody.
“What ho!” said Lord Teddie. “What ho! What could you all possibly want?” He bounced on the balls of his feet, beaming. “Hmm? Oh…all right!”