Blue climbed out of bed.
The strange thing was she’d actually been sleeping, but she was wide awake now and excited. The glow-globes responded to her movement, but she switched them off with a whispered command. Best to alert no one just yet. She walked to the window and silently drew back the curtains. The twin moons of the Realm hung low on the horizon and bathed the room in a soft glow, enough light for her to get dressed.
She moved to the wardrobe, pulling her nightgown over her head. Most of her outfits were severely functional. She’d long preferred boys’ clothes and even now she was Queen her taste hadn’t really changed. But tonight was a special occasion and she had to look her best, so she selected the dress of spider silk she’d commissioned for Pyrgus’s coronation. It was formal, but well suited. Her only regret was that it wasn’t new, but she’d yet to commission another and until she did, the Silk Mistress’s creation was by far the most fetching thing in her wardrobe.
As the slick material flowed over her body, she felt the familiar enchantment. Even without the aid of a mirror she knew she looked superb. She certainly felt elegant and confident. Exactly how she should feel on such an important night. She wondered briefly about make-up, but decided she really needed no illusion spells. She was young, she was fresh, and in the spider silk she knew she was attractive. Nobody needed more than that.
As she left her quarters, her personal guard moved to accompany her, but she waved them away with a gesture. They’d talk, of course. They’d speculate about her midnight wanderings. But that didn’t matter. In an hour or two, everyone would know anyway.
The Purple Palace was a building so gigantic that new servants often disappeared for days while they wandered its passages and corridors. Ten years ago, one unfortunate actually starved to death in a disused wing, unable to find a food store. When the emaciated body was discovered, Blue’s father, then the Purple Emperor, ordered maps placed at strategic locations with spell coatings that would locate the individual and plot a course to any major spoken destination. Blue, who had wandered the labyrinth since the time she learned to walk, had no need of them. Besides which, none of the spell coatings contained her destination.
In the carpeted corridors with their heavy curtains, night staff flattened themselves against walls, bowed and curtsied as she passed. But she soon passed into the old quarter of the palace where carpeting gave way to stone flags and the velvet curtains turned to cotton pennants, then nothing at all. The air grew noticeably chill away from the central furnaces. There was condensation on the walls. She’d need to do something about that later. No part of the palace should be cold. But for the moment she had other things on her mind.
She turned a corner, hesitated for a moment – even she was not familiar with much of this wing – then saw what she was looking for. The doorway was oak, banded in iron and so small a grown man would have had to bend almost double to pass through it. The wood smelled of ancient spells. The lock looked rusted and disused.
Blue produced a heavy key, but knew better than to use it. The protections might be ancient, but they were still lethal. She was dealing with something crafted in the olden times, long before any faerie acceded to the Peacock Throne. This entrance was forbidden even to a Queen. She would never have dared to use it without help.
From the same pocket as the key, Blue fished out a scrap of parchment and squinted at the runes that squirmed across its surface. The light here was not good. The old quarter of the palace drew its illumination from the stonework of the walls, which contained a residual luminosity nobody quite understood. It was cheaper than glowglobes and perfectly adequate for an area that had been disused for generations, but it was an irritation now when she wanted to be certain of the shapes she was seeing. To help, she traced them with the tip of her finger, feeling the warm tingle of the magic they contained. She whispered the words beneath her breath and almost caught their meaning.
After a moment, something inside told her she was safe. Without hesitation she inserted the key in the lock. There was no howling, no spell-driven outrage, no attack. But the lock itself was stiff with age so that it took all her strength to turn it.
The little door swung slowly open. Blue bent her head and stepped across the threshold. She licked her lips. She was standing at the top of a narrow, spiral, stonework staircase that wound its way downwards into darkness.