The Fragile Tower - Book 1 of the No.1 magical fantasy series

The Fragile Tower Chapter 23 - The Liar

Grace couldn't help looking towards the window, seeing the darkness that had grown up there for what it was. It was a storm, called up by possibility, the edges of each cloud crackling with power, and the centre of the towering cloud she could see an absolute black.

Grace heard the elderly woman raise her voice in anger.

"Nobody is going anywhere," she said, addressing Afi. "This girl is a danger, and as such-"

"I'm sorry, Dedora," Afi told her, and Grace looked back at him, a little surprised at the iron in his voice, "but that doesn't matter any longer. The danger is out there - and soon, it will be in the palace. We have to leave."

He looked over at Grace, and for a strange moment an understanding seemed to sing between them as she saw for the first time that he was afraid. And then he smiled, and she knew that she had to smile back, and pretend that she was eager to face whatever was out there.

"I'd like to see you try," the elderly Dedora said, and even in her fear, Grace didn't miss the warning look that she gave Merrily. The blonde, dimpled Merrily was flicking her eyes back and forth between Afi and her colleague in indecision.

Afi just slid a key from his sleeve and put it into the lock.

"Let's go, Grace."

Grace's arms and legs felt detached from the rest of her, and when she stood, she did it clumsily. She made to put the book in her pocket, and realised that she was still wearing the loose trousers and top.

"Now you wait just a minute," the old woman said. But nobody listened to her.

Grace looked around for something to carry the package in, but none of the colours in what she looked at seemed quite right and she couldn't tell what anything was. Flickering visions of flesh wolves and evanescents kept coming between her and the room.

"Here," the brown-haired girl said, picking up a little embroidered gold sewing-bag and emptying out the contents onto her bed. She pressed it into Grace's hand. "Put it in here."

Grace looked at her, and then out at the sky again, and realised that everything she had planned had been turned on its head. She couldn't use the girls to break the bond now when the Queen's magic might be the only thing that could stop the invasion of the Cold.

But that didn't mean they couldn't help.

"What's your name?" she asked the girl.

"Aniela," the girl told her, and Grace could see that she was waiting to be told to do something.

She's so young, she thought. Shouldn't she be staying here, where there's some safety?

But Grace thought about the years these girls had spent in safety, feeling their powers dwindle day by day, and she realised that it wasn't so very different from how she had felt sometimes at home. She had known what she might face when she had come here, and these girls would know just as well what was out there.

"Where did you grow up? Here?"

Aniela shook her head. "I'm an outlander."

Grace nodded. "So you know how to fight the cold? You know about them?"

"Grace?" Afi called.

"We're bringing them too," she told him, shoving her two cloth packages into Aniela's sewing kit. "All of them."

She expected to have to argue, but every one of them started to move when she did, Aniela the first.

Afi nodded and swung the door open wide, but the Dedora almost ran over to push past him and stand in the way. She stopped there, an absurd figure which, overweight as it was, still couldn't block the whole doorway. She extended her arms and turned to face them all, shaking, her eyes wide and overly bright.