Chapter Two hundred nine – Can’t Beet Fate

George carried the pasta carpet through the door The Father held open for him.

Lord Conroy glanced around furtively, then closed the door behind him, but it didn’t quite latch, leaving a Pandy-sized crack in a door that had never been there before.

Pandy slipped through, ducking to the side as soon as she entered, watching for either of the totally-not-suspicious men. The space was empty of all but a set of stairs that spiraled upwards, and a few tables with vases sitting on them. One vase was empty, but the other had dried brown stems in it, bent over in supplication, petals long since dried up and swept away.

She crept forward and placed a paw on the bottom step. She’d broken her back on these steps, and then Thaniel nearly burned to death in the room at the top. It wasn’t her favorite place, but it certainly wasn’t Thaniel’s either, so she needed to know why it was here, in his perfect dream.

Hopping up the steps was surprisingly easy. She clung to the outside wall, ears pricked straight up to catch any approaching steps. There was nowhere else for George and the Father to go, so they had to be in the lab at the top, where Lord Bryan Conroy once cast a spell that tied Pandy’s spirit to the body she now inhabited.

Pandy had no idea how far she’d gone when she started hearing voices. Time and space stretched oddly in dreams, and while she knew the tower was three stories tall, she was fairly certain she’d already hopped up at least five flights of stairs. She pressed herself up against the wall, freezing as if someone might fail to see her simply because she wasn’t moving. No footsteps joined the voices, though, and she started moving again.

“...go!” said the Father.

“You can’t-” said the second voice, and Pandy froze again. That wasn’t George. That was The Mother, Grace.

“...lose… sick… not safe,” Bryan said. He didn’t sound angry, though. He was… pleading with her?

“-have a choice!” Grace exclaimed. She didn’t sound angry either, more anguished.

“I can fix…” Bryan said, voice fading to a murmur as Pandy finally reached the top step and found herself outside the wide-open entrance to the laboratory. There were more vases here, but these were full of flowers and greenery, all in the rich colors of autumn. Had she gone back in time again?

“We need help, Bryan,” Grace said, and Pandy peered through the door. Lady Conroy was standing in a room that didn’t look like it belonged to a mad scientist any more. Or maybe not yet?

On one side were some of the same things she’d seen on that terrible night when the room caught on fire, but there were also partially-finished paintings, paintbrushes in jars, sheets of paper filled with meticulous handwriting, and sprigs of dried flowers along with sketches of animals that were so lifelike they might have sprung from the page. This might be the lair of a Dark elementalist, but it was also an artist’s nook.

Grace and Bryan were standing together in the center of the room. Grace had her hand on Bryan’s cheek, and he was leaning his face into her palm, a tormented expression on his face. Grace had her back to Pandy, so she couldn’t see the lady’s face, but Thaniel’s mother wore a loose, soft dress that might even have been a nightgown, along with a shawl draped across her back, between her elbows, as if it was far colder than the warm summer days of Thaniel’s dream.

“If I don’t go now, I won’t be able to go at all,” Grace said gently. “My cousin wrote that he expects the roads to be closed any day now. This sickness is bad.”

“If it’s that bad, then you shouldn’t go at all. They’ll want you to heal everyone, and you can’t. Not now,” Bryan said stubbornly, catching her fingers in his. He began to rub them between his, as if they were cold. “I figured it out. I’m certain. Give me one more week-”

“And what if you’re wrong?” Grace asked, stepping back. Pandy ducked back out of the doorway, but Lady Conroy wasn’t leaving yet. She wrapped her arms around herself, tugging the shawl up around her shoulders. “I can’t risk it. I’m sorry, Bryan. I believe in you, but this is a matter of life and death.”

The Father’s expression shuttered, closing down into something much more like what Pandy remembered. His shoulders stiffened. “I won’t let you,” he said, and he must have seen something in her face because he swallowed hard, then shook his head. “You can be as angry at me as you like. But I’ll tell the staff they’re not to fetch a carriage for you.” His tone became pleading again. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to take care of you and our children, Grace. I promised you that. Please. Trust me.”

Lady Conroy’s knuckles went white where she clutched her shawl. “I do trust you,” she whispered. “But our children have to come first. There’s only one place we’ll be safe, and that’s Ismara’s temple in Knightmere. If you didn’t hate the church so much, you’d see that.”

Bryan Conroy’s jaw flexed. “They hated me first,” he told his wife bitterly. “No Dark mage is safe with them.”

Grace stepped forward, reaching for him. “Come with me. It’s different now. Let me show-”

“No,” Lord Conroy said. “You’re going to stay here, and so am I. If there really is a new disease sweeping the country, we’re safest here anyway. Healer Alden will-”

“Do nothing,” Grace said, stepping away again, “because we won’t be here. Bryan, I’m not asking.” She took another step backwards, and this time Pandy vacated the doorway completely. Lady Conroy pulled her shawl around herself and spun, rushing from the room. She ran toward the stairs, tears streaking her face, and Pandy half-expected her to fall. But Thaniel’s mother had died in a carriage accident, not a tumble down the stairs, so she must have made it.

Pandy hesitated, torn between following Grace and watching Bryan Conroy, but as soon as the Mother’s slippered foot touched the second step, she wisped away into nothingness, a cloud of smoke that faded almost before Pandy could be certain it was even there.

Bryan stood in the center of the room, head hanging, fists clenched. His face was pale except where it was red, and he rocked forward and backwards, swaying indecisively until even Pandy knew it was too late to follow his wife.

They both looked up as more footsteps sounded on the stairs. Had Grace returned? But these weren’t soft slipper-steps, but rather hard, thunking, clacking steps, and when the stepper rounded the last turn, Pandy was astonished to see it was George. This time he, too, looked younger, his hair not yet white, brushing his shoulders but not trailing down his back in scraggly, limp strands. His clothes were unpatched, the hems still whole, and his heavy workboots were still in good shape.

“Ah, m’lord?” he said tentatively. “You said to let you know when the Imp Briar bloomed. It’s today.”

Bryan looked up, sudden hope pushing the fear and worry from his face. He grabbed a fine blue coat from over a nearby chair and slung it around his shoulders. “Good! That’s the last of it, then.” He paused at the top of the steps. “George?”

The groundskeeper was already heading back down, but he stopped and looked back up at Lord Conroy. “Aye, m’lord?”

“Do you know anything about carriages?” Lord Bryan asked.

George frowned. “Not much, m’lord. They’ve got wheels, and horses pull them, just like a cart, I suppose.”

Bryan’s fingers slid into the pockets of the coat, and his fingers moved as if he was holding onto something that had already been there. “Can you make it so ours doesn’t work?” He pulled a key from his pocket and held it out to George. “Nothing serious. Just something that would keep a cart from going anywhere for a day or so. That’s all I need.”

The groundskeeper took the key, but even Pandy could see his uncertainty. “Break a wheel or something? I… suppose so, m’lord.”

Lord Conroy’s empty hand closed, as if he’d take the key back, but then he dropped it and nodded. “That’s fine. Just make sure no one can leave Dunning estate for a little while.”

“Aye, sir,” George said, pocketing the key. “Right after I show you the Imp Briar. It’s the last bush we planted. The red one.”

The Father nodded, tugging his coat closer as he followed the old man down the stairs. Pandy hopped after them, down and down and down, until the two walked out into what was now a beautiful, sunny day, past a boy who stood just outside, holding a book as if he’d been about to ask a question about its contents. When Bryan Conroy asked if he needed anything, however, Lian just shook his head.

The world swirled, and Pandy staggered. She really hated when this happened. Sure enough, in a moment she found herself with Thaniel again, but this time they weren’t playing or eating or getting ready to sleep. Instead, they stood in Thaniel’s room, and Grace Conroy was thrusting clothes into a small suitcase in a very haphazard fashion. She was bundled up in a large cloak, and once she managed to get the suitcase closed, she placed another, smaller cloak around Thaniel’s shoulders. Tugging the hood up around his face, she kissed his forehead.

“There you are, my love,” she murmured, then winced, her face going pale as she gritted her teeth. She grabbed the edge of a nearby table and hung on until Lian entered from the door to the hall. He dropped the matching suitcase he was carrying and hurried to his mother’s side.

“Mother, are you certain we should go?” he asked, tucking his shoulder beneath Grace’s arm, propping her up. “I’ll tell someone to send for Healer Alden. You should-”

But Grace shook her head as some color returned to her face. She wrapped an arm around Lian’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll be fine,” she told him, kissing his forehead as she had Thaniel’s, though she didn’t have to lean down in order to do it. “Don’t worry, my sweet boy. Once I can sit down, I’ll be right as rain.”

Pandy stared from Thaniel’s embrace. The cloak had covered her briefly, but she had definitely heard Grace Conroy call Killian her ‘sweet boy’. Moreover, he was acting like exactly that. He hovered around his mother, tucking her cloak together when it threatened to blow open, and carried both suitcases rather than allowing Grace to get Thaniel’s. His blue eyes watched Grace worriedly as she made her slow way down the stairs to the front door, pausing to catch her breath again halfway down.

Outside, the wind was chill, far from the warm weather Pandy had grown used to. Thaniel’s arms tightened around her and he shivered, burying his face in her fur. “I don’t like this,” he mumbled. “This isn’t right.” He stared down at the frost-tipped grass, then up at the gray sky, with the sunrise just beginning to tinge the clouds a soft pink.

Hoofbeats sounded, and a carriage pulled up in front of them. Two horses pranced anxiously, their breath puffing out in hot clouds. A coat-wrapped maid hurried forward, pulling the door open and helping Lady Conroy up into the passenger compartment. The lady sat down with a grateful sigh.

Once his mother was settled, Lian reached up and tapped the driver on the leg. “Gus? You’re sure everything’s all right?”

The driver was a rather cranky-looking man, so wrapped up in two coats, heavy gloves, a scarf, and a woolen stocking cap that Pandy could really only see his tightly-compressed lips. He nodded, a quick jerk of his head. “Yessir. Checked it myself.”

Lian hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. After sliding the suitcases in after his mother, he all but lifted Thaniel in. Thaniel was almost as pale as his mother by now, staring around with huge, terrified eyes. He began to cry. “I don’t want to go,” he sobbed. “I don’t like it. We should stay with Daddy. Please.” His voice rose to a shriek as he lunged for the door, almost dropping Pandy in his desperation. “No! I don’t want to go!”

Lian grabbed Thaniel, pulling him inside the carriage. “Hush, Thaniel,” he snapped. “Can’t you see you’re making Mother sad?”

Both boys turned to look at Lady Conroy, who was curled forward, eyes huge, with a thin trickle of sweat coming from her hairline. She looked more nauseated than sad, but she managed to nod at Thaniel. “I know you’re tired, my love,” she croaked. “You can come sit next to me and go back to sleep.” She lifted an arm invitingly, and Thaniel stared from the door to that arm before slowly, reluctantly, taking his place beside his mother.

Lian knocked on the wall behind him and called, “All right, Gus!” He picked up a book, and the carriage began to roll.