Page 40 of The Guardians of Dreamdark
“Poppy!” gasped the gent, and they all saw who it was.
“Kex!” Poppy cried. “What were you doing there?”
Kex Winterkill got to his feet, glared at them all, and brushed moss off his satin breeches, grimacing to see stains. “Ahem—” he said. “M’lady calls for you, cousin.”
Poppy let out a hiss of exasperation. “Tell her I’m busy!”
“Indeed?” he said, eyeing Batch with undisguised contempt and flicking unloving looks at Magpie and Calypso, too. “Do you imagine she’ll be pleased to learn you prefer the company of low creatures to her royal self?”
“I don’t care what pleases her! Tell her I’ve no more potions for her!”
“Ach,” said Magpie. “Is her hair still—?”
“Aye.” Poppy nodded. “That spell’s pulled tight. I’ve done all I know how. Kex, it’s beyond me! Call for Orchidspike!”
Kex stiffened. “You well know Orchidspike refuses to attend, m’lady.”
“Aye, I know. And now, so do I.”
Kex reddened. “Think hard on your choice of friends, Poppy. After all, these...actors...are surely soon to grace Dreamdark with the priceless gift of their departure, and then you may find yourself quite...unwelcome...in polite society.”
Poppy looked him boldly in the eyes and said, “I want nothing to do with Queen Vesper’s society! I never did!”
Before Kex could reply, they were all distracted by a chortle that burst from Batch. “Queen Vesper, did I hear you say?” he asked. “QueenVesper?”
“Don’t touch her name with your foul tongue, irkmeat!” cried the gent.
Batch laughed, and a vicious smile transformed his face. All traces of the woebegone sniveler were gone in an instant and he became, again, the predator that would have torn Poppy’s wings from her back without a thought. “TellQueenVesper that Batch Hangnail sends his regards.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Behind a painted screen, Lady Vesper heard the name “Batch Hangnail,” and her lips and knuckles went white.
“Lady?” ventured Kex when she didn’t respond.
“Aye, Lord Winterkill,” she said, an unaccustomed catch in her musical voice. “Animp...is it?”
“Aye. There’s no question, that lass is in league with him. What company she keeps! Imps and crows! It’s shocking my cousin is consorting with—”
“Sir,” she cut in impatiently. “What manner of imp is he?”
“Foulest I’ve ever beheld, Lady. Encrusted with filth! But strange—his whole tail was covered in the finest diamond rings!”
Kex couldn’t see his lady. Indeed, he hadn’t laid eyes on her since before the play, when she had retired to her chamber and refused to come out. If he could have seen her, he might scarcely have recognized her. The hair was the least of it—it was tight-tied in three layers of silk kerchiefs and further bound in pearl strands, with Bellatrix’s circlet at its crown. She might have gone out in such a headdress and inspired a new fashion, but for the fact that it...wriggled. No, it was her face that would have shocked him.
She had drained of all color. Her lips were smashed together and her eyes wild, and all her beauty was quite lost amid thefury, disbelief, outrage, and fear that moved over it fast as storm winds.
“Do you know where they have gone?” came her voice from behind the screen, each syllable sharp as a knife.
“The lass mentioned Issrin Ev, my blossom.”
“Lord Winterkill, I thank you for this news. Kindly leave me now.” Vesper held one hand out to him from behind the screen and he kissed it hungrily.
After he left, she drew back her hand and wiped the drool from it, her lip curled in disgust, the rest of her face contorted with rage. “The imp isalive?” she seethed, grabbing a gilt hand mirror off her vanity table. “Yetalive?” she demanded, peering into it. Her own face was all that looked out, but she seemed to squint beyond her reflection, searching for something deeper.
She swept the tabletop with a furious glance and, not finding a sharp instrument, took the soft pad of her fingertip between her teeth and ripped it open. She didn’t even flinch from the pain but only jabbed her finger at the mirror and flung her blood onto it. As soon as it hit the surface, her reflection melted away, and she saw through the glass to the hideous thing trapped inside it.
Its mottled brown skin had the texture of dried gut stretched over a skull, and so crude were its features it seemed to have been sculpted in the dark, and with one obvious omission: It had no mouth. Or rather, its mouth was a mass of scar tissue with no opening. It was pulled so tight it was clear there were teeth beneath, many teeth, and that they were well sharp enough to eat through its own puckered flesh andmakean opening there,as it had clearly done many times in the past. Abominably, the creature’s mouth was a wound that healed shut when it went too long between feedings.
