38. Frin Is Fine

He fell for perhaps one second. Then the tower itself stretched out to grab him. He thudded onto the spine immediately below and rolled. Just before he slid off that one as well, the spine jerked backward, and he was able to get his fingers into a join and pull himself up. His whole body ached, and he clung to the roof, groaning.

The tower was swaying. A tremor must have struck. The pier's movement forward had put the spine in his path, and its movement back had helped him to safety. It was a miracle of the Lady, or so he would have said only a few days ago. He pushed the panic to the back of his mind, telling himself he would feel it later.

On the horizon, the flock was careening toward Grey. As he watched, it exploded into a sphere of wheeling birds around the tiny tower, and gradually settled, black specks against the snow.

Frin had never thought seriously about the Beast. It was a topic of story and song, but hardly the only one. The deeds of Ladies and Robins, romances of star-crossed lovers, quests of Sparrows, all were equally common in the courts of Black. The Beast had risen rarely. Frin only knew of four distinct times, but the stories overlapped so much, and travelers from other parts of the palace brought such different versions, that there could have been more appearances, or far fewer. Certainly it would have no effect on his life.

Hawthorn's faith in the Beast had been a little strange, but everything about Hawthorn was strange. People and things from Grey seemed to belong to the time of songs rather than the time of stories, and Hawthorn herself did nothing to dispel this impression. She spoke with a peculiar accent, she wore odd old-fashioned clothes, she didn't know the first thing about flowers, and if there was a spare moment, she spent it reading. But she had been right about the way to the throne room, and she was now, apparently, right about the Beast, for nothing else could shake the Great Tower.

As recovered as he would ever be, Frin resumed crawling. The wind still pushed and the pier still moved, but he was on his guard this time. He'd landed a floor or two below the Wasp's Eye, which meant Hawthorn would have to wait even longer.

The nearest cornice was wide enough for him to stand on. He stepped onto it in the lee of the spine and, sliding his feet carefully along it, reached a window at last. It had no glass, only wooden shutters hanging half-open, so it was a simple matter to climb inside. His legs gave way immediately, and he curled up on the floor. Panic surged over him, and he covered his face with trembling hands and struggled to breathe.

In, out. He was alive. In, out. He could still help Hawthorn. He was not useless. In, out.

At last he sat up and looked around. He was in a smallish room full of baskets of faded yarn, and in one corner was a loom upon which spiders had been weaving their own tapestry. The dust on the floor was disturbed only by his own footprints. Frin grabbed a skein of yarn, just in case, and headed out.

On the way in, days ago, he'd seen that the pier had very little interior space. Built to take the immense weight of the tower proper, it was riddled with small passageways and rooms, but no grand chambers like those in the rest of the tower—except in the uppermost floors above the buttresses, according to Hawthorn's map. That was where the retreats of the Ladies and their attendants lay, leisure spots away from the stresses of court life. The Wasp's Eye was one of them. Those floors could be reached only by a spiraling central staircase, very narrow and very steep. He had already been forced to climb it once, his hands bound, while Hawthorn was carried along behind. He did not relish doing so again.

But Hawthorn needed help, so up Frin went. The staircase was lined with a frieze of scrollwork: thorny vines and tiny peeping figures in armor—Sparrows. Their eyes had been carved as if staring in awe or fright. Were there any live ones up ahead? Frin had heard no guards when he was still in the cell, and perhaps the Willow Lady trusted in the remoteness of the prison to keep them from rescue or escape.

Up and up and up he climbed, and his legs were very tired. He should have arrived: he hadn't fallen that far. But there were no doors, so he couldn't have missed an exit. The Sparrows kept staring. Their eyes seemed to follow him. Was it possible the Lady herself could see through them? Frin knew little of the strange virtues of Ladies. Well, even if something could be done about their staring, it was too late. If anyone were watching, they would already know his destination.

At last there was a door. It didn't look like the one he and Hawthorn had been taken through, but even if it were the wrong one, he had somewhere to sit and rest a minute away from the stairs. The frieze reached the doorframe and coiled around it, and in the center of the lintel, the vines came together to form a veiled face. The door itself stuck, and he had to throw himself against it to budge it.

Inside was another study. Covered with maps and books and papers, empty plates and empty green vials, it had gone unused at least as long as the one he and Hawthorn had previously found. Rubbing his bruised shoulder, Frin sat down in a chair of faded leather.

Among the books on the table was one with worn covers, its pages falling out. It was full of beautiful pictures of horrible things. Scrolling leaves and flowers decorated the edges. Gold leaf glinted here and there. Though the vellum smelled faintly of decay, Frin picked it up. Hawthorn liked books; she'd probably want this one, and it was small enough to carry easily.

Though he could not read the words, he turned each page slowly, drinking in the details of the art. There was a picture of beekeepers about their labor. The artist did not seem to have ever watched the keepers work, for they were shrouded in netting, and the hives themselves looked more like baskets set on a table. Indeed, if it wasn't for the bees everywhere and the recognizable buildings, it wouldn't have looked like home at all.

There was a picture of Grey Tower, alone in a sea of empty ground. What a desolate place it must be. From the air, it had seemed tucked in cozily among its cloisters, but the perspective might be misleading. A lot of people milled about the edges of the ground, as if at a festival. Before the tower itself grew a stalk of yarrow. There were trees all about, green, growing trees, such as existed almost nowhere in the palace but home.

Next was a picture of a Lady in grey. She was attended by many women of simple flesh in wimples and grey robes, and her four hands were carving a green mask. Didn't Hawthorn have one very similar to that? At her foot was a stalk of yarrow. Three finished masks in red, yellow, and blackish-blue lay around it.

Next was a picture of a Lady in black. She stood beside Grey Tower, twelve of her thirteen hands full of asphodel flowers. The thirteenth held the green mask out toward the tower. No Sparrows attended her, but there were several smaller Ladies, heavily shrouded in black, their faces like a crow's, bearing a heavy chain in their hands. And behind them were people of simple flesh, hands uplifted to the Ladies. Hawthorn's hand gripped Frin's face and he smelled honey and ash. He flipped the page.

Next was a picture of a Lady in blue. She lay nestled amid frogs from whose mouths came all kinds of fruit and flowers—though no yarrow. In one outstretched arm was a wooden staff, warding off something from outside the page. People of simple flesh helped her other hands harvest the produce of the frogs; some of them were chopping and cooking it over great burning logs, others were butchering and roasting the frogs themselves. Frin shuddered.

Next was a picture of a Lady in red. Her head was a bowl full of fire. She wore a tiger skin, and each of her four hands wielded a sword or a dagger—again, directed at something off the page. All around her feet were people of simple flesh, also laden with weapons, and many of them were dead. There were many trees, now leafless, and just as many stumps.

Last was a picture of a Lady in yellow. The ground around her bubbled with little mounds, and from them, her hands drew people of all shapes and sizes, from the sleek blues like One Robin, to the otter-faced like Rhyolite the trader, to the rabbit-eared like Frin himself. Nowhere were there people of simple flesh. They were, of course, relatively uncommon in real life, but their exclusion here made Frin uneasy, given their preponderance in the other pages.

The next page had been torn out, and beyond it was just more words. Frin wondered what the missing page could be, but after looking at the remnants of it and seeing a grey beak eating a yellow eye, decided he would rather not know. Hawthorn might not want the book after all.

But he kept it just in case. Getting up to resume his climb, he noticed a scrap of white paper under the table. It was long and thin, like a ribbon, and at one end it had an eyelet as if it were meant to be hung from something. He left it there, but he took one of the vials; it might come in handy.

Farther and farther up the stairs he went, until he came to the short hall where the cells were, and found the door unlocked and Hawthorn gone.