Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4) (32 page)

But
this
stile, Jake thought, had to be unique in all of England—namely, because one of the ladder’s wooden uprights was shaped like a giant paintbrush.

It was as good as an arrow pointing to the exit.

“Think I’ve found our way out.” A wry smile crooked his lips as he tapped Nixie on the shoulder. “Lookie there. I reckon we go that way.”

She followed his gesture, spotted the strange stile over the hedgerow, then turned and actually smiled at him. “Clever. I guess we’ll just have to follow the paintbrushes.”

He nodded. “Did the wand work at all?”

“A little, I think—” she started, when a strange sound in the distance cut her off her words.

Two deep, brassy, musical notes floated to them on the brisk air and then were instantly repeated.

Nixie turned to Jake in alarm. “What was that?”

“Dash me, it sounded like a horn,” he said, confused.

But the next noise gave them their answer: a clamor of wild barking.

They looked at each other and gasped in mutual realization of the kind of painting they were in.

The foxhunting scene!

“That creature you saw a little while ago—that must have been the fox!”

Jake pulled Nixie to her feet. “Come on. We’ve got to move or they’ll trample us! Look at all the riders coming over the ridge! They’re heading straight for us!”

“Never mind the riders, look at all those dogs!” Nixie gulped. “Jake, we’ve got to go. They’re on the hunt, they’ve scented blood! If they find us instead of their quarry, they’ll tear us apart, just like they do to the poor fox when they finally catch it!”

He clenched his jaw. “Hold onto me.” He grabbed her elbow to support her on the side where she was hurt. Then he hurried her along across the uneven field, while the baying of dozens of bloodthirsty hounds grew louder, and the ground began to shake with the hoofbeats of the riders bearing down on them.

The red-coated sportsmen flew over fences, water ditches, and fallen logs on their gleaming Thoroughbreds. The dogs streamed through the dog gates of two distant stiles.

All of them, men and dogs alike, had gleaming red eyes.

The hunting horn sounded again.

“Tallyho, lads! There’s our quarry!” boomed the master of the hunt.

“Hurry up!” Jake pulled Nixie up the rungs of the stile.

The pack’s furious barking grew deafening, and the thunder of the horses’ hooves swelled as the riders began leaping over the hedgerow on the far side of the field.

The hounds would be upon them in seconds.

“We’ll never outrun them!” Nixie cried, looking over her shoulder.

But when Jake reached the top of the stile, he stared down at the other side in confusion. Instead of solid ground, the bottom rung gave way to empty air. He caught a whiff of salt breeze from somewhere far below.

Before he could show Nixie his dilemma, she pushed him forward, not realizing he was standing on a ledge. “Go, hurry up, they’re coming!”

“Wait, no—
ahhhhh!”
Jake lost his balance at her shove.

He fell off the stile, arms flailing, and screamed as he plummeted like a stone through the clouds below.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Queen’s Flag

“D
on’t worry, this won’t take long,” Dani assured their captive.

“I know you’re nervous about meeting Queen Victoria, but it’s hours until teatime and Jake needs our help!” Archie chimed in.

The two of them had only just succeeded in dragging Isabelle out of the Bradford suite, now that her hair was curled and coiffed to perfection.

“I still don’t see what you need me for,” she protested halfheartedly as they pulled her down the hallway, each holding fast to one of her wrists so she didn’t try to escape. “Where is our cousin, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s interviewing some ghosts to find out if they saw anything last night,” Archie said. “He’ll be back soon, I should think.”

“We just want you to walk around the crowd with us and try to sense who the
real
thief is, since we know it wasn’t Jake who stole the Queen’s flag,” Dani explained.

“Oh, is that all? Pick an unknown thief out of the crowd?” Isabelle asked dryly. “I thought I had my Assessment two years ago.”

“Won’t you at least try for a few minutes, please?” her brother insisted, but Dani took a roundabout tack.

“You know, Izzy, Jake blamed Maddox for the theft. If you help us find the real culprit, you’ll be clearing Maddox, too.”

She let out a glum sigh. “Very well. But you can quit harping on about him. Mr. St. Trinian has made his feelings clear.”

“If you believe him,” Dani said with a shrug.

“Guardians don’t lie, remember? Oh, never mind. Let me concentrate.” Isabelle yanked her hands free as the three of them arrived at the top of the staircase above the entrance hall. “Hmm.”

She sauntered down the steps, perusing the throng of excited youngsters waiting to participate in the games that had been organized for them that day.

Dani and Archie exchanged an eager glance.

By the front doors of Merlin Hall, the centaur lady in charge of arranging the day’s entertainments for the children clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention, and when that failed, she banged the marble floor with her front hoof. “Quiet, now! Everybody, please! Let us begin!”

Her fairy helpers buzzed over the children’s heads, shushing them. “Listen up for your instructions!”

Isabelle walked casually along the back wall, scanning the crowd. Dani pursed her lips in thought, then leaned toward Archie.

“What if it wasn’t a kid who took the flag?” she whispered.

He shrugged. “What sort of adult would bother?”

“Good point.”

Someone in the crowd seemed to have got Isabelle’s attention. She stopped, tilted her head, gazing into the middle of the throng. She took a few steps closer, paused again, glanced around, and then walked back to the two of them.

Dani and Archie went down to the bottom step to hear her results just as the centaur lady finished explaining the rules of the treasure hunt to all the children gathered in the entrance hall. The doors opened, and the kids poured out noisily into the sunshine and rushed off to participate in the game.

“I think I’ve got something,” Isabelle said.

“Who? Hurry, they’re all leaving!”

Isabelle turned, quickly scanned the crowd, and then pointed. “There. Those three. They are definitely up to something.”

Dani let out a startled huff when she saw the children Isabelle was pointing to—two boys, one girl. “The skunkies!”

“You know them?” Archie asked.

“They’re the shapeshifter children who kept pestering me during the Assessments! Remember? They were sitting right by us. Triplets. Henry had to growl at them for me.”

“Oh, right!” Archie said, nodding. “You know, shapeshifters are usually born in multiples like their animal counterparts are born in litters. That’s why Henry and Helena are twins.”

“Well, those three are definitely up to no good,” Isabelle said, staring at the suspects. “Actually…I think they might be Lord Badgerton’s niece and nephews.”

“Who’s that?” Dani asked.

“An Elder,” Archie said.

“Uh-oh,” said Dani.

“Well, I have to go,” Isabelle announced. “I did as you asked. I’m sure you two can handle it from here. I am not traipsing around the woods with you in my tea gown and risking getting dirty before the royal audience.”

“That’s all right, sis, you don’t have to. We can manage from here. Good luck with the Queen.”

“Thanks, Izzy!” Dani called, waving, as the older girl left them to their own devices.

Archie turned to her. “Come on, we mustn’t let those wily shapeshifters get away.”

“Aye, we’re not going to let them pin their misdeeds on Jake.”

They rushed across the entrance hall, blending in with the crowd of rowdy children.

“Too bad you didn’t make some extra Bully Buzzers. Take it from me, those three are pests,” Dani said as they hurried out into the brilliant spring sunshine.

“I wonder why they’d even want to take the Queen’s flag.”

“Same reason they bothered me—just to be annoying! Little stinkers.”

“Yes, but how do you suppose they got up there? Standing on each other’s shoulders, what?”

“I don’t know!” Dani said impatiently. “Let’s just find out if they have it with them or if they’ve hidden it somewhere.” She seized hold of his arm and pulled him into a run.

The skunkies were among the flood of children pouring into the woods on the treasure hunt. The kids spread out, searching for prizes in small teams of two or three.

Archie and Dani kept their eyes on their quarry and proceeded to follow them onto the forest path. They pretended to be participating in the game, but all the while, were keeping their targets under surveillance.

The skunkies made their way through the green underbrush, and soon had led Archie and Dani quite a ways from the majority of the treasure-hunters.

“I wonder where they’re taking us,” Archie murmured. “They do seem like shifty little things, don’t they?”

The triplets giggled and snickered amongst themselves and were constantly glancing over their shoulders with an air of furtive glee.

“They’re certainly acting pleased with themselves. Like they just got away with something big.”

“Do you really think they framed Jake on purpose?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They probably just liked the pretty colors on the flag,” Dani said wryly. Then she let out a gasp as one of the boy skunkies glanced over his shoulder and spotted her. “Oh, drat! They’ve seen us! Duck!” She pulled Archie behind a tree, but he brushed her off.

“No, if they’ve already seen us, they’re going to run. We can’t afford to lose them. Come on!”

He was right. The boy had already told his siblings they were being followed, and now all three of them began running away as fast as the forest’s uneven ground and layer of knee-high ferns would permit.

“I say!” Archie called as Dani and he hurried after them. “A word with you three, please!”

“They’re not going to listen to reason, Archie, not those three,” she muttered. But they might respond to more of a rookery approach. “’Oy! You lot! Get back ’ere before I crack ye!”

It didn’t work. The fleeing shapeshifters were no more impressed with her bellicose shouts than they were with Archie’s plea for civility. They just did whatever the devil they wanted, Dani thought in frustration as she tripped, unable to see her footing amid the ferns.

Archie righted her before she fell and they kept on, but a moment later, the skunkies disappeared into the sun-dappled thicket ahead.

“Blast, where’d they go?” the boy genius exclaimed, panting with exertion.

“I don’t know.” Dani turned, looking around in all directions. Some of the branches ahead were vibrating from their passing. “That way!”

They chased again.

“Quit runnin’ away, cowards!” Dani taunted.

“Why’d you steal the Queen’s flag?” Archie yelled when they caught sight of them again.

“Aye! We want it back!”

The other skunkie brother pulled a folded, colorful length of silk out from under his shirt and waved it rudely at them, grinning.

“Hey! That’s it! They’ve got the Queen’s flag!” Dani said in shock. “Look at them! Have you ever seen such little horrors?”

“Audacious,” Archie said in disapproval. “If they’re stealing royal property at this age, imagine what they’ll do by the time they’re twelve. Come on, Dani. We’ve got to be the adults here.”

“I just want to throttle ’em.”

Once more, the skunkies ducked them. It was no fun trying to catch a shapeshifter. Sir Peter’s wife hadn’t given any tips on how to do that in her class.

They shoved on through the woods, getting scratched by branches and bitten by insects for their pains, but although they could not see their quarry, the skunkies could not have got far yet. They knew the triplets could still hear them, so they kept trying to engage them—or, at least, provoke a reaction.

The sound of tittering gave away the shapeshifters’ position in a dense thicket about twenty yards to the right. Archie pointed at it, Dani nodded, and they immediately closed in.

“I say, we just want to talk you!” Archie yelled into the woods as they approached. But he peered through the branches, confused. “Did they give us the slip again? Why can’t we see them?”

“Maybe they changed form,” Dani said worriedly, then raised her voice once more to a shout, “You’d better not turn yourselves into skunks out here, or we’re stealing your clothes and then what will you do when it’s time to walk back to Merlin Hall and the three of you are starkers, eh? Not too clever, are you?”

But the moment they burst into the thicket where they expected to find the trio, they realized—too late—that they had walked into a trap.

Skunks sprayed them full-blast from three directions at close range. Even worse, they were so startled by this veritable chemical attack that they shrieked in revulsion, only to learn the hard way that the very worst thing you can do during a skunk attack is to open your mouth.

They dropped to the ground, gagging on the taste as well as the overpowering odor of skunk.

Roaring with laughter, the skunkies turned themselves back into the rotten human children that they were, waving the Queen’s flag in their faces again. At least, Dani was fairly sure it was the flag. All she could see were the bright royal colors as tears poured down her cheeks from the eye-watering smell.

“I’ll get you for this!” she vowed amid her retching coughs.

One of the skunkies nudged her rudely with a toe in response—not quite a kick, but almost. “Next time, mind your own business!” It was the girl shapeshifter, speaking with belligerence worthy of the rookery.

“Archie, are you all right?” Dani wheezed.

“Horrible!” he gasped out. “Humiliating!”

Indeed, they had been bested.

The thieves got away.

#  #  #

Meanwhile, Jake continued falling through the sky.

Nixie had shrieked when she realized she had just pushed him off the edge of the world—at least, the world of the foxhunt painting.

But then, she, too, grasped that the only way to escape the pack of hounds and riders bearing down on them was to jump off the stile, and so she did.

Both of them went crashing through thin air, but the wispy top layer of clouds soon gave way to dark woolly thunderheads. They fell into a chaotic, highly charged stratum of storm winds that buffeted them and whirled them around like autumn leaves.

Falling and falling through the tempest, they were pummeled by rain and hail and very nearly zapped by lightning. Nevertheless, they were better off than the sailors below, as it turned out.

Jake first realized which painting they had entered when he heard a great, cracking groan of splitting wood below and a chorus of distant male screams. He wrenched his neck looking over to locate Nixie, and caught a glimpse of the sinking tall ship from the corner of his eye, its sails torn to ribbons by the gales.