Page 45 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“Not in any lasting way,” Toil said. “Don’t you worry about us. We were glad to help you out, and I truly didn’t mean for so much time to go by. Your conversation is just so delightful.”

I smiled, and the movement pulled and twisted at my face. “And yours. Will you capture me tomorrow night, do you think?”

“I would wager so, lady, so mind you don’t forget.”

“I won’t. Nor that you sought to trick me with an early arrival tonight.”

“That’s for the best, lady.”

Toil, Sigil, and Hex disappeared off the wall, and when they didn’t blink toward me, I gathered that they’d gone the other way and departed the hotel, leaving only a trail of slime and their rumbling laughter behind.

Chapter Eleven

Bring. Take. Raise. Change. See.

Three princes, each, shall come to thee.

Monsters to guide kings to thrones,

To keep real monsters chained with blood and bone.

“Kindly open,” I shouted to the portcullis ahead.

King See’s gateway seemed to sense my urgency, and screeched upward.

I rolled under until coming to a panting stop. I set my gaze at the base of the bulbous blobs who’d halted outside the closed-again portcullis.

“Well played, Lady Patch,” Toil said. “We cannot pass inside these gates.”

Sigil made a wet sound that epitomized nervousness with a touch of relief. “Our liege will be enraged.”

Hex snapped his gums together, and I was hit with his frustration.

He said, “After last night too. I wouldn’t have thought she could run so fast.”

I hadn’t run fast at all. I’d zig-zagged my way here nearly to the point of exhaustion. When one of the princes had gotten within a six-foot blink of catching me, I’d stopped dead on the spot, so they ended up ahead of me. Then I’d taken off again. The jerky sprint here had been a long and tiring one. “Until tomorrow night?”

The princes nodded, glaring to the top of the apartment—that was far more like a complete palace tonight—where they must know King See to be.

“Until tomorrow night,” Toil said pleasantly. “Don’t relax your guard with King Nothing.”

I didn’t answer. I wished they wouldn’t insult him.

I patted the paw of the huge beast statues as I passed, and the beast purred in response. How unexpected and thrilling. Inside, stained glass now adorned the ceiling and windows, catching the soft glow from the lit chandeliers and candelabras.

I climbed the spiral stairs.

New portraits hung at intervals, their bold colors contrasting in reds, dark blues, and blacks with slashes of beige. Mournful music—violins, I thought—drifted from a hall above, and the sound was left behind as I continued to climb to King See’s dome at the peak of his palace.

“I am blinded to everything possible,” came his cold murmur when I arrived. “You come too soon for a newly healed mind.”

“Good evening, King See. I’ve blinded you a lot in recent times, and I’m sorry to add more to a hard time. I hope this conversation will be short in duration, and first, let me say how greatly I feel the sacrifice of what you did in bringing me here for my one-month rest. I have tried my best to imagine how it would be to see all possibilities everywhere and then nothing but the current moment and surroundings in the next breath. The only verdict I come to is that your discomfort must have been intense like that of waking as I did.”

“Waking in a different skin, Perantiqua?” Again he purred the start of my name, then dragged out the last of it like a thirsty man in dire need of water.

My chest ached at his words. Different skin. Yet he wasn’t wrong, even if the words stung at my fears. “Waking in a different skin, sir,” I replied.

“And why does sorrow fill your voice, rarest of minerals?”

---