(no subject)
It’s all my fault, Alanna thinks sourly. She’d laughed at Jamie’s attempts to charm his way out of trouble or into a stranger’s good graces; encouraged Grace’s cleverness and questions; and shown great pride in Thom’s quiet determination and the way, if left alone to puzzle it through, he often arrives at the right answers to questions she didn’t even think to ask. Any parent worth the title would do the same, or so she’d thought. In light of her current predicament, Alanna is starting to feel infuriatingly like a fool.
Why had the Goddess cursed her with such perceptive children?
A dramatic sigh doesn’t ease the tightness in her chest or calm her temper; it does make her feel rather like a petulant child who’s been caught pouting or making faces behind someone’s back. She’s known for the length of the hallway -- and palace hallways are longer than most -- that the triplets have been following her, and would have had plenty of time to form a plan had she not been silently berating herself for teaching them how to track with the utmost stealth. A useful skill for other people’s children, as it turns out.
Still, Alanna knows they have been lucky to keep the door hidden from them this long. When they first entered the palace, she’d used a subtle disorientation spell on Thom and Grace. Jamie had been asleep, smelling curiously of rum, and hadn’t needed the subterfuge; in a clear sign of her alarm or madness (or both), she’d since contemplated thanking Jack for that. The days in between have been full of carefully constructed explanations. Adam doesn’t want them to know about his past just yet; Alanna is equally reluctant to discuss her brother. However, the triplets have increasingly and with great fervor come dangerously close to inquiring about both.
“Do the dead really live there?” Jamie had asked one afternoon, while Alanna was preparing to meet with Myles, Raoul and Jon.
“Yes,” she’d answered impatiently. “In a way.”
“Have you ever seen anyone dead that you knew?” Grace blinked large green eyes and tilted her head.
“Yes.”
Thom frowned. “Who?”
Torn, Alanna had stared at her son. “It will have to wait. The king is expecting me,” she said at last. Five seconds later, she’d remembered to move her feet.
The cowardice of that single moment is largely responsible for her current temper. But she knows it’s not time, not yet. Eventually it will be, and the whole sordid story of Roger and Thom and everything that had happened at the end of the universe will unfold whether she likes it or not. Part of her, the part that had never wanted to explain about their uncle’s role in the attempted coup, wants to protect them from that as long as possible, even though she suspects the wait will cost her in the end. Even though she’s aware that someone else might tell them first -- if they get back through the door.
The words never and over my dead body come to Alanna’s mind. The relief in knowing that she can usher them through to Milliways in a crisis is very nearly offset by concern over what mischief they might do there, or who they might meet. It will take longer than a council-and-Immortal-packed fortnight for her to reconcile those warring emotions.
Behind her, the soft slide of a slipper on polished marble serves as a reminder that she doesn’t have that kind of time before they discover the door. She has no other purpose for being here, and after she hastily explained away her impending absence with another meeting, they’d followed her to the council rooms, the stables and now this floor of the residential wing. Confronting them seems a poor option, as it would do nothing to deter their interest, but not as poor as allowing them to see her exact destination. Unless...
Alanna smiles slyly. It’s a gamble, and not one she’d willingly take without the memory of Raph’s Spidren tale. If she can shut the door in time to buy herself a few minutes, then maybe the situation won’t prove as dire as she feared.
Increasing her pace, she reaches out for the iron ring of the suite door and slams it shut behind her, flipping the latch into the locked position.
The door rattles a few moments later.
“It’s locked,” Thom hisses.
“Shhhhhhh,” Grace insists. “Is that your idea of a whisper?”
“You can break it. Right, Grace?” Jamie sounds hopeful, a smile in his voice.
“Of course.” There’s a faint sound of metal prodding metal: the lock pick, courtesy of Jamie (and George).
“Do you really think this is it?” Thom pauses, as if watching the play of green light resulting from his sister’s efforts. “What if it’s not? What if there really is a meeting and we-“
“Shhhh! I’m concentrating.”
“We’ll see, yeah?” Jamie audibly shifts his weight.
“It is. Ah!” The lock pops open. “You first.”
Jamie is nearly silent as he pads forward. “Well it’s not that door.”
“There’re others,” Thom points out reasonably. Then, in a whisper: “Suite.”
Grace says nothing. A turn around the room and through the bed chamber yields unsatisfactory results. Wardrobes are wardrobes. Other chambers off the main rooms are small and meant to be there. She even checks the trunk at the base of the bed: nothing. Her foot taps the hearth rug. “Mother?”
Jamie’s head snaps up guiltily. “Where?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“She came in here."
“Yes,” Grace replies slowly, crossing her arms with a rustle of fabric. “She did.”
It doesn’t take Thom long to work it out. “We can’t see the door again.”
“Mithros bless my crooked arse,” Jamie exclaims, then seems sheepish at his phrasing. Too much time running with the older boys has him using new slang he sometimes gets wrong. When his siblings let it go, his characteristic laugh returns.
Annoyed, Grace grumbles, “It’s not fair.”
“It’s not unfair,” Thom counters. “We don’t know how it works. Maybe we hafta be older.”
Jamie lets out a low whistle at the look Grace turns on Thom. “Why? We’ve been there before, haven’t we? There’s something they don’t want us to know. What if it’s like the Spidren?”
“Maybe.” Thom is uncertain. “Maybe they’ve got reasons.”
“Maybe we need a better lock pick,” says Jamie. “C’mon. We’ll look again tomorrow.”
“Maybe it comes and goes, Grace.”
Grace’s hesitation is palpable, but eventually the triplets leave, shutting the door on their conversation.
A minute or so later, a grunt sounds from the fireplace, followed by a shower of ash and soot.
Alanna drops down soon thereafter, legs shaky, wiping black gook from her eye and making a bigger mess of her cheek. Grinning, she retrieves her sword from amongst the fireplace pokers, then bows to the empty room and saunters through the one door the triplets didn’t try.
They didn’t even know it was there.