After consulting a map on the wall of how the books were arranged, Petra went to the natural history section. Using a railed ladder that had a silence spell on it, Petra climbed up to gather a few likely books on minerals and their uses.
Stay under my hair, she sternly ordered Astrophil. Don’t even think about gallivanting all over the library.
You have become joyless in your time here at the castle. I prefer the old, fun-loving Petra.
She stepped down the ladder and was about to return to the entrance when she realized that someone was watching her.
He was a reader. His robes, like Sir Humfrey’s, were black. His brown hair and beard were long, flowing down his back and chest. There was a buzz of energy about him, and he didn’t stare at Petra the way humans normally do. A human looks away when he is caught secretly gazing at someone. His brown eyes watched her the way a fox watches anything, waiting to see what the thing moving across its territory will do first.
Petra turned her back on him, unnerved. She walked toward Sir Humfrey, trying to keep her pace steady. When she approached Sir Humfrey’s desk, the blank wall appeared behind her, and her shoulders sank with relief.
The librarian noted down the books she was taking. “There you go.” He handed the small pile to her.
“There was a man in there …” Petra described the reader who had stared at her. “Who is he?”
“Ah, that would be Master John Dee. He’s the ambassador from England. A very learned man. He speaks many languages, even dead ones.”
Despite her plan, Petra did not feel eager to return to the third floor, if the third floor held Master Dee.
BUT RETURN SHE DID. Luckily, she did not see John Dee again during her third-floor excursions. Unluckily, it did not seem that what she really wanted was on the third floor: bedrooms.
“Well, I could have told you that,” Sadie said. “The private chambers of anyone of rank are on the fourth floor. That’s where I work.”
They were at dinner, talking quietly amid the uproar of hundreds of men, women, boys, and girls. Dana, one of Sadie’s friends, had finally turned away from them to tell anyone else who would listen about her latest crush. Petra seized the opportunity to ask Sadie for a favor.
“Can you find out something for me?” Petra asked casually, reaching for the large bowl of stewed cabbage.
Sadie’s face grew wary. She lowered her fork. “What?”
“Have you ever heard of something called a Worry Vial?”
When Sadie shook her head, Petra began to explain what the vial was, and what it looked like. “The darker it is, the better. Would you tell me if you see one that looks really purple, and whose room it’s in?”
“Petra, you’re going to get into so much trouble. Don’t you understand that you could get really hurt? You should go back to your village.”
“I’m not going to take anyone’s Worry Vial. I swear.” Petra crossed her heart in mock solemnity. “Anyway,” she continued lightly, “the worst thing that could possibly happen is that someone will catch me cleaning a room where I don’t really belong. Then I’d just say that I’m sick of working for Iris. That’s believable. I could claim that I’m hoping to prove myself in a new position as a chambermaid. Maybe I’d get fired, but I won’t get sent to prison. Hey, will you pass me the salt?”
Sadie shook her head. “Don’t try to pretend that we’re not talking about something truly dangerous, Petra. If the Worry Vial works the way you say it does, don’t you think that if they catch you playing with some powerful lord’s vial, they’ll be a tiny bit suspicious?”
Petra shrugged. “As far as anyone knows, Worry Vials are foolproof. And the gentry don’t expect people like me to even know that the vial is anything other than a decorative vase. If someone sees me handling a vial, I’ll just say I’m dusting it.”
“You’re going to do it whether I help you or not, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But it’d take me a lot longer. I’d have to search dozens of rooms. Of course, I’m more likely to get caught that way. But what else can I do?”
That worked.
A few days later, when they were tucked under their wool blankets in the darkness, Sadie whispered, “Try the captain of the guard’s private chambers. Fourth floor, northwest corner. The doorknob is shaped like a boar’s head. But it’s usually locked. I don’t know how you’ll get in. And I won’t help you do that.”
“Is the vial dark purple?”
Sadie paused before replying. “It’s black.”
“THE POWDERED BERYL does absolutely nothing!” Iris pressed her forehead against her fist. “The dye is still yellow.”
The gap of time between now and the birthday celebration was narrowing, and as they worked harder on the production of a new primary color, Iris grew ever more distressed.
“It’s not that yellow,” Petra tried to comfort her.
“I could fill my chamber pot with that dye!”
I think you are going about this in the wrong way, Astrophil commented. You keep mixing things together in the hope that you are going to produce a color that cannot be made by blending other colors. Do you not think that you should look for one thing that can produce one color?
Petra repeated Astrophil’s suggestion to Iris as if it were her own.
Iris considered this, and murmured, “Rainbows.”
“What?”
“A rainbow is one thing that shows us many colors.”
“Yes, but we already know what those colors are. There’s nothing new about them.”
“But sometimes stones seem to have rainbows inside. Like diamonds. A diamond is clear, but if you look closely you can see flashes of rainbow light—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. But what if there’s a color that we haven’t noticed, hidden among the rest?”
“You want to turn diamonds into dye?” Petra was skeptical. “Don’t be daft! Diamonds are too hard. You can’t grind them or melt them down easily. Perhaps a moonstone.”
Petra fetched a handful of the clear, translucent jewels and began to melt them down in a bowl held over a green flame fed by brassica oil. The moonstones puddled into a bluish gel.
Try an opal, Astrophil suggested. These milky white stones with sparkles of different colors had a reputation for bad luck. But Petra was not a superstitious sort of girl, so she put an opal to the test.