Page 38 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“How ingenious.”

Glinda knew she had to get to the Grimmerie again, but she didn’t dare do it with Miss Murth hovering about. Rain was taciturn to the world, but Miss Murth might gabble if cornered. “Rain,” said Glinda, “I think we’d better cancel your reading lessons now. The point has been made. You are not incapable of learning your letters.”

Rain’s mouth made an O. “But I’m nearly reading, real reading! Cherrystone keeps bringing me old papers and training me up on them, and I’m getting the hang of it.”

It was as if the ice Glinda could form in a glass of wine had begun to cloud the blood in her veins. “What pages are those?”

“I can’t say. Old magicks, I think, but I can’t get ’em yet.”

So he knew who she was. Pure peril now and no mistake.

“Not another word,” said Glinda, “it’s sleepytime. If you blather any more I shall subject you to more nursery verses.”

The room fell silent, and soon Murth was snoring, and Rain’s breath had silenced to below the level of hearing. But Glinda did not sleep.

The next day she requested an audience with Cherrystone. He didn’t reply until late in the day, and said he’d be up to see her at sunset. Through the intermediary, she asked for permission to allow Rain and Miss Murth to take the air in the herb garden—which she knew was sufficiently hidden from both barns and lakeside not to alarm the Menaciers—so that she and Cherrystone could have some privacy in her room. This he allowed, said his emissary.

He arrived on time, looking more worn than before.

“You’ve finally beaten my resistance,” she told him. “Here I am, General, entertaining you in all but the very bed in which I sleep.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience.” He had grown more courtly and more distant. “How may I be of service?”

“I need to know about Puggles.”

He looked confused.

“Po Understar. Puggles. My butler.”

“Oh, yes. Well, he is hanging on. He’s recovered consciousness, somewhat, but not his language.”

“What does Dame Doctor Vutters say?”

“A broken spine.”

And to think he might have left with the others had she not required a butler.

“General, I would like to talk with the doctor, and to see the patient.”

“I’ve dismissed the doctor. She’s done all that can be done, she says.”

“Where is Puggles?”

“He’s been made a chamber in a closet under one of the staircases.”

Glinda stood and began to walk toward the door. Cherrystone stood and said, “I can’t allow this.”

“Then stop me forcibly. You ought to enjoy that.” She brushed past him, angry, alert, sensitized to her earlobes and toes. He didn’t touch her.

She swept past the Menaciers in the next room with their rapiers raised. “Gentlemen,” she said. Behind her, Cherrystone must be signaling that she be allowed to pass.

She hadn’t known there was a cupboard under the west staircase. It reeked of rising damp. Mouse droppings dotted the unpainted floor. Puggles was swathed in a crude overshirt and his knees were exposed. He didn’t move to cover them when he saw her. He did see her—she was sure of that, by the tracking of his eyes—but he couldn’t move his hands. Or he no longer cared about whether he was exposing his knees to his superior.

“Oh, Puggles,” she whispered. She sat right on his bed and took his fingers in hers. Clammy and lifeless, but not cold. “Can you tell me anything about what happened? Can you talk?”

He blinked. The skin at his lower eyelids pouched, shadowy grey.

“I know you were behaving in proper service. I shall see you are tended to as you deserve, to the best of my ability. I want you to know that.” She swallowed. “Po. Po Understar. Do you understand?”

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