Heather Dixon Wallwork Quotes

It had been two weeks since they had last danced, and Azalea lay in bed, awake again. A dream hadn't roused her this time, but rather an odd tinny noise that had been clinking across the wooden floor of their room, under their beds and butting against the wainscot with a clinkety tap-tap. It sounded like ... well, quite honestly, it sounded like a spider dragging a spoon.

Azalea knew it couldn't possibly be that (or, rather, she hoped it wasn't), but even so, she heaved herself from the bed and grasped one of Hollyhock's boots, strewn across the floor. The tapping now clinked from the fireplace, and Azalea caught a glint of silver among the soot. Raising the boot, she tiptoed to the unlit hearth.

The fireplace in their room was massive - so large that Azalea could stand up in it and her skirts wouldn't brush the sides. The silver hopped. Azalea dove.

In a puff of soot, Azalea found herself sitting in the hearth, and the silver bit skittering away like mad. Azalea grabbed at it and was rewarded with a very sharp, very familiar bite.

"You!" Azalea seethed, leaping up. Now she recognized the half-hopping half-skitter motion. The sugar teeth!

He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame... it was like reading his mind. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost hear music playing, swelling inside of her.

Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners' strengths to overshadow each other's weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance. So starkly different than dancing with Keeper. Never that horrid feeling that she owed him something; no holding her breath, wishing for the dance to end. Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford's hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her.

"Heavens, you're good!" said Azalea, breathless.

"You're stupendous," said Mr. Bradford, just as breathless. "It's like dancing with a top!

I will tell you about the lady I loved."

The girls settled together on the entrance steps, not even breathing, for fear it would rustle the rosebushes about them and mask Mr. Keeper's words. Mr. Keeper stood unmoving on the dance floor.

"Once upon a time," he said. His voice dripped in silk strands. "There was a High King, who wanted more than anything to kill the Captain General who incited a rebellion against him. It consumed him. The desire to kill the Captain General filled him to his core, and he spent every breath, every step, thinking of ways to murder the Captain General.

"But he was old, and time passed, as it always does."

Mr. Keeper paused. Bramble cast a slightly bemused glance at Azalea, her eyebrow arched.

"So," Mr. Keeper continued, "he took an oath. He filled a wine flute to the brim with blood. And he swore, on that blood, to kill the Wentworth General, and that he would not die until he did.

"And then, he drank it.

"The end."

There was a very ugly, naked silence after that. The girls' mouths gaped in perfect Os.

"Sorry?" said Delphinium. "I missed the part about the lady?"

"Ah," said Mr. Keeper. "The blood. It was hers.

The King emerged from the library, paperwork in hand, eyebrows furrowed.

"Well, what is it, what is it?" he said crossly. "Can you not let me work for five minutes at a time?"

The girls burst into angry cries. Kale let out another piercing shriek.

"Him-him-him-" said Delphinium, pointing a shaking finger at Mr. Hyette, who laughed still. "He-he-him!"

"He-he-he was spying on us!"

"And we weren't even wearing our boots!"

"Or even our stockings!"

Thunpfwhap. The King threw Mr. Hyette up against the paneling. My Hyette's head slammed against the wainscot.

Kale stopped midscream, hiccupped, and giggled.

"Mr. Hyeete!" said the King.

Mr. Hyette struggled against the King's steel grip.

"Ow," he said. "I say, ow!"

The King yanked Mr. Hyette from the wall and grabbed him by the scruff of his fluffy cravat. He handled Mr. Hyette out the entrance hall doors, slamming them behind him. Outside, gravel scuffled.

"I say," said Bramble, in an impeccable impersonation of Mr. Hyette. "I say, I say! I say-this Royal Business could actually be quite a lot of fun!

When the High King was killed - first poisoned, several times, then shot with pistols, then his head cut off, then burned in the great palace fire ... no one really liked to talk about it ...

Then to everyone's shock, she pressed her lips full on his.
"Oh...my," said Clover.
No one seemed more surprised than Lord Teddie, who stumbled back under Bramble's assault. He staggered onto the magicked rug.In a blur of red, the rug clapped over them like a red snapdragon.
The entire package overbalanced and fell to the ground with a whumpf.
No one moved inside the rug. Everyone stared.
"Sorry," said Eve. "What just happened?"
From the rug came a muffled Mmm mmm mmfph.
"We'd better take them out," said Azalea. "Before they start to digest.

I suppose he'll try to court and marry Az. He likes her best."
"He arrives at the palace doors, on a fine black horse," Delphinium prompted, picking up Bramble's lost thread, and Eve spun her again, "silver flowers in his hand-"
"And the King opens the door-" squeaked Flora, who caught Azalea.
And then,everyone stopped.Azalea's skirts twisted, then settled. It occurred to all of them what would happen next.
"And boxes Keeper straight in the face," Azalea finished.
Everyone managed to giggle, though it as true. Azalea shook her head, smiling.
"Well," said Eve as they gathered the sleeping girls up from their cushions. "It would be odd if you married him anyway."
"Aye," said Bramble. "Your children would be dsappearing all over the place.

Why Do Fairies Let Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Hush," he murmured. "There now. Hush." He traced his finger along her jaw. "That is a sweet thought," he whispered. "Except, my lady, I cannot die.

You look pretty, as always," he said.
Azalea grinned, deciding not to remind him that the last times he had seen her, she had been soaked, frozen, unconscious, and a torn mess of the undead.