“Run! Malingo! RUN!”

But even if he’d been willing to abandon Candy, which he wasn’t, his death sentence had been written. The blades came at him from left and right. Candy heard him cry out, just once, then the blades cut at him with horrible speed, slicing his head from his neck, his hands from his wrists, his arms from his torso—Candy’s horror and fury left her speechless, which was no bad thing. Not a scrap of her energies was wasted on words. All of it went straight from her heart to her hands. She reached up and grabbed hold of Mater Motley’s crowded skirts, hauling her aching body to its feet.

She had killed Malingo.

Her beloved Malingo, who had said he would be with Candy forever, Midnight or no Midnight. But the Hag had taken him from her. Snatched him away with a casual gesture, as though his life was worthless, his love was worthless, as though his body was no more than a slab of meat and she the butcher, casually cutting it up—

As she climbed, Candy found Mater Motley’s gaze, and for just a fraction of a second she saw the Hag recoil, her high regard for her Imperial Self shocked when it met such an intensity of hatred as it found pouring from Candy’s eyes.

It wasn’t enough, of course, to prick the Hag’s vanity.

She had killed Malingo.

No death was too terrible to revenge such a slaughter. Candy wanted to turn the Hag’s bones to blazing wood and her blood to gasoline, to watch the Old Mother consumed by the very element she’d used to kill her own flesh and blood all those years before. But she didn’t have sufficient magic to make such an execution happen. She’d have to do whatever damage she could do with her hands and fingers: gouge out the Old Mother’s vicious eyes and tear her lying tongue out by its rotting roots. She’d start with the eyes—

But the Hag wasn’t in the mood to die today. She reached up and caught hold of Candy’s hand, her grip so tight, and tightening still, that she plainly intended to grind Candy’s finger bones to dust.

With one hand holding Candy firmly, she reached out with the other. Her Imperial dignity was once again intact. And so was the power that accompanied it. She murmured a syllable or two, and one of the wide-bladed knives that had taken Malingo apart came to her outstretched hand. She closed her fingers around the sticky handle.

“I’ve had more than my fill of you, Miss Chickentown.”

So saying, the Empress raised the knife high above her head.

Candy refused to give the old woman the satisfaction of seeing her afraid. Instead she kept climbing, grabbing hold of whatever she could find, whether it was antiquated fabric of the dress or one of the dolls. Her bruises ached and her head throbbed, but not once did she take her eyes off Mater Motley’s turkey-neck throat, even as the knife came whistling down.

Chapter 72

Truth

THE KNIFE DIDN’T REACH her. Eighteen inches from Candy’s skin, it struck something: an object that was completely invisible yet sufficiently solid to shatter the blade as though it had been made of ice.

“Who did this?” Mater Motley demanded. “Who did this?” She glanced down at Candy. “It wasn’t you, so don’t even try to claim it was.” She thrust her hand over Candy’s face and pushed her away. Her presence here, dead or alive, was suddenly of no interest to her. Somebody here had blocked the Imperial will, and she wanted to know who.

She turned her black gaze on those in her immediate vicinity, staring very hard at each dirty, scorched stitchling for a moment to assess their chances of guilt.

“You, was it? No. Too stupid. You? No. Your brains are burning. You perhaps? No, another cretin. Is nobody proud enough to own this act?”

Silence.

“Are you all just mud and cowardice? EVERY? SINGLE? ONE?”

Finally, a weary voice said:

“All right, don’t give yourself a fit, you old boneyard. If it’s all that important to you . . . I did it.”

The crowd of stitchlings parted, a figure emerged from behind a flickering Distraction Shield.

“You,” the Hag said.

“Me,” said Christopher Carrion.

“Why must you always defy me?”

“Oh, Lordy Lou. I didn’t want you to kill the girl.”

“And again I say: why? You had a reason to protect her when she had your Princess in residence. But now?”

“I don’t know,” Carrion said. “But please, don’t . . .”

The Hag thought for a moment, then grinned.

“A favor for a favor, then?”

Carrion’s thin lips curled.

“What do you want from me?”

“Tell your father, Christopher,” Mater Motley said. “Tell him how he’ll be welcomed.”

Candy turned this phrase over and over in her head and watched Carrion’s face very closely. Her belief that there was indeed a mystery here, some family secret that was teetering on the rim of revelation, was deepening. She still had absolutely no idea of what it was. Her one clue was that the Hag had made that bizarre remark that after death her son would not be alone.

Was there somebody else held prisoner in Mater Motley’s dolls? Another soul—or souls, perhaps? Yes, it was several—she knew it the instant she thought it—and they were all being held prisoner in all those wretched little dolls made of filth and rags.

Suddenly, she understood.

“The children!” Candy said. “Oh God, she’s got all the children!”

Mater Motley didn’t respond at first. She had already moved with unnatural speed to stand in front of Zephario and had begun to sing a death lullaby to him. But Candy’s outburst silenced the slaughter song.

“Shut her up,” she ordered Carrion. “Quickly, you fool. Shut her up!”

“What’s she saying?”

“It doesn’t matter what she’s saying! Just SHUT HER UP!”

For a few seconds the Hag unglued her gaze from Zephario and threw Carrion a look, which briefly lit up his face with a burst of stinging, bitter green light, as though she’d just plunged his head in gangrenous waters. This was a new trick and it was only with the greatest effort that he succeeded in controlling his revulsion.

“Did you not hear me?” the Hag was saying.

“Yes,” Carrion said.

He didn’t need another lesson from his Empress. This newfound ability to render his own sanctuary poisonous was a terrifying escalation in her skills. He had no choice but to grovel. He stumbled toward Candy, his head roaring from the toxins still in his system, telling her as he did so: “You should have gone when I told you to. Now I have to kill you.”

“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” Candy asked.

“Not one more word!” Mater Motley instructed.

She’s afraid, Candy thought. I’ve got the truth!

The sudden certainty gave her voice power.

“Carrion, listen to me! She’s got your brothers and sisters!” Carrion looked at her through the strangely stained fluid in his collar with a look of puzzlement. “In the dolls. She’s got all your family right here with her.”

“SHUT HER UP!”

“Your father thinks they’re in paradise. It’s what kept him sane. But it was a lie, Christopher. Just another of her cruel, vicious lies. She’s had their souls all along.”

“In the dolls?” Now he started to understand.

“In the dolls.”

“And my mother too?”

“Don’t ask me. Ask—”

Carrion was already turning on his grandmother.

“Is it true?” he demanded. “Well, is it?”

“Haven’t you slit her throat yet?”

“I asked you a question.”

“You really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you know me. I’m frugal. Nothing ever goes to waste. Not when it can be turned into power. I wasn’t going to let all those souls fly off to paradise when I could use them, here, close to me. They’re family, after all. My flesh and blood. They wouldn’t even have existed if I hadn’t endured the gross befoulments of the womb. I even let them sense one another, which does help them to hope. And they yearn, of course, for what they will never see again, never touch again, even though they’re so very close to one another.” She ran her bony fingers over the dolls as she spoke. “And the longer I keep them, the deeper the yearning gets.”