Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Huxley pointed. On the door to the café, Jacob and Pip noted several cubbies filled with informational pamphlets.

"In case anyone gets lost," he noted winkily.

"That's perfect, Ralphie, sir!" Pip said. "I was getting tired of reading those detective stories!"

Huxley grunted in agreement. "I admit that atlases might make for more suitable reading material during a sky cruise, but I actually acquired the Kitty-Cat Tale mystery series in bulk. I caught the author when he was on the cusp of burning his entire stock!" He laughed hugely despite the total lack of joke there, as if life itself was the joke. Pip didn't get it, but she guffawed.

"Ah, one more thing," she said just as Jacob was rising to leave. "Would you happen to have any more tasks lying around for us to do? Any more interesting experiences?" She winked at Jacob.

Ugh. He didn't appreciate her making such an obvious hint. And he figured that if her references got too close to disclosing his systemlessness, that might make Huxley actually suspicious. Safest to take the reins and reply directly.

"Stop it, Pip. You know we don't need permission to make our own experiences together." Then he muttered to Huxley, "We were thinking of going on the deck together at peak sunset." Fat chance.

Huxley closed his eyes and hummed, "Mm, yes. Take a load off. You'll need it." Turning his attention to Pip's request, he said, "There is something onboard that needs doing, and it might indeed take the delicate touch of a well-tutored maid."

Pip made a clicky sound with her mouth and shot Jacob an "OK" hand sign. Jacob would accept this.

"Have you been to the Polar Expedition exhibit yet?"

"No. It's still closed, isn't it?" Jacob said.

"Yes, for a reason. The creatures in the enclosures are out of control."

Ack. Murderous, revolutionary polar bear rampages entered their thoughts.

"They aren't breaking down the cages or anything!" Huxley assured, waving his hands and a napkin. "...But," he added thoughtfully, "they might."

Jacob said, "Well, let's backtrack. What do they actually need?"

"Their daily food, daily water. This morning they started refusing meals. Zookeepers leave and come back, only to see parts of the enclosures damaged and moved. Several keepers have been attacked without warning." He said sternly, "Jacob my boy, Pippy my girl, I think what they most need is a thing you two know very well: good old tender loving care."

His words hung in the air for a minute, causing a great shiver. Huxley thought the shiver was the frisson you feel after hearing a great opera. It wasn't, it was just kinda disturbed.

"Okay, so Pip will calmly feed them and rub their backs," Jacob said. If it was that simple, good. There were thousands of ways they could use that to test the Maid-Class System. If it was more complicated, even better. Bloodshed helped.

But the implication that the animals had all decided to rebel at the same time, across different enclosures, was unsettling, to say the least.

The Polar Expedition happened to be pretty close to the guests' suites. Jacob wouldn't have been surprised at all if employees and guests were connecting the two, claiming that a murder in their midst—really a crime without justice, in which none of the parties would gain or lose what the law decreed they should—had set the animals' instincts off. That animals were more sensitive to such things. That old wives' tale.

...Okay, Jacob had just made himself curious. He wanted to see this with his own eyes.

Pip said, "I'll do it. We'll do it together."

"I can't help you," Huxley said. "I have work in my office."

"Uh, I didn't mean with you."

"As long as we can have complete and total secrecy," Jacob threw in, only going so far because he knew Huxley would provide it, "we're game."

Huxley slapped them both handshakes, one after the other.

***

The entrance to the Polar Expedition exhibit was blocked by a hanging sign, several wooden "DO NOT SLIP" standees, and two guards. Those guards may well have been the exact same guards they'd seen yesterday at Huxley's office.

What'd changed since the morning was the amount of employees moving about inside those darkened corridors. True to his word, Huxley had cleared out the space for Jacob and Pip's labors and...amusement.

The prince and his maid moved through the short hall toward the door. A few other guests were hanging around here, hugging the walls beside the bathrooms and having overly long chit-cha—

A man locked eyes with Jacob.

Not a familiar man, but the flowers in his shirt pocket were familiar. They were red lilies.

Jacob, with his well-rounded education, knew that red lilies symbolized resurrection, in the style of a fiery phoenix. He didn't know whether that was intentional or what, in this context, it'd be meant to signify, but more important than that, they were the same flowers that Prince Oraias had sent.

The man smiled. Jacob turned away and sped up.

Pip kept pace, but leaned awkwardly across his shoulder to get a look at this guy. "Aw, dude," she whispered, "why are we leaving? He has to know about—"

"That's why we're leaving," Jacob groaned. He went faster, ignoring the cries in his legs.

Speed was no issue for the man with the red lilies. Neither was making a scene. At first he'd been leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, but now he was jogging, raising a hand like he was hailing a cab, and calling out, "Hey!"

It was all very irritating to Jacob. Sadly, it was starting to sink in that there was no good way for even a mildly dignified prince to turn down a duel.

Low-level bullies must be dealt with.

He and Pip stood face-to-face with the man with the lilies. His toothy grin was monumental. "Hey, Prince Jacob!" he said, holding a hand out to shake. "Pleasure to meet y—"

He choked on his words as a spire of ice was driven through his now-purpling palm. This was a full-on spear that sent blood onto his shirt, went through the whole hand and pierced the bone.

Then Jacob removed his hand and shook it out. He examined it for damage. There was a mild burn on his wrist where the man with the lilies had gotten his fingers, but that was more the equivalent of a joy buzzer.

The man actually passed out.

Jacob turned himself and Pip away as gasps and whispers began to fill the hall. "You're shivering, Pip," he murmured, bolting her closer with a shift of his arm.

"It's just the ice," she said, chipper. "That was...way more than I've ever seen you use."

Yeah, and if he got too crazy with his friam, he'd run out soon. At least he could do that about three more times before he was out, and maybe more magic could be scrounged up.

"Well, a message has to be sent," he told Pip, though he wasn't at all convinced that this could make the duel stop. "Almost there. Don't look back. And let me lean on you—especially now that we're coming into the cold."

"Would you like for me to Iron your gloves? Back? Chest?"

"Th—" His jolt of anger quickly faded. "That might actually be an okay idea."

***

Soon the door of the employee locker room was shut, and Jacob and Pip could see hardly anything besides a blisteringly chilly enclosure. The thick snow surrounding them looked authentic, but was part friam. Jacob wondered if that was remotely safe for children to eat, let alone animals, but he supposed no one cared.

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Standing in here was like being in the tundra, only with strange black shapes every so often reminding you that yes, there were windows and walls, and yes, you could be observed by mysterious, magic-blurred figures. The dense flurries and the contrast made the glass panes bizarre, like mystic monoliths flying in space.

It all would've been impressively uncomfortable—true to the arctic—if not for the heavy coats they'd borrowed from employee lockers. Jacob, on top of his favorite long coat, wore a parka with a furred hood, plus a scarf that wrapped tightly around his mouth. He felt swaddled, but better safe than sorry, in this state. Pip wore a fur coat and a fur pillbox-shaped hat. Both outfits were as black as the void.

Pip hated the snow. She sniffed at it like an angry dog. You know a scarf could have prevented this, Jacob thought smarmily.

But also: Pip hates snow? What the fuck? Most kids love snow.

"You hate snow?" she said to Jacob, shocked. This was true—it must've been obvious by the way he was bundled up. "But you are snow! Your weapons, your heart, your soul..."

"Ice. All those are ice, Pip. Lead the way."

Her gloved hands clumsily took a pamphlet from her pocket. It was the wrong pamphlet, and snow collided with it immediately, soggying up the pictures of islands. She shoved it back in her coat and took out the other pamphlet, the one with animals.

"Past that bean-shaped window," she said, pointing to a shape hazily seen, "and to the right, there's a polar bear enclosure!"

Going with the big one first, huh? Jacob felt an odd twinge of pride, as if the pupil was showing the master's guts.

A minute later:

"RRROOOOOAH!"

"Oh god!" Pip leaped backward into the doorway and threw it shut.

Now she was in the cool, soundproofed zookeeper quarters. It was a very small space with coats hanging on one wall and to-dos pinned to the other. Jacob stood at the other door, arms folded.

"You lasted half a second," he said.

"It wasn't like the bats!" Pip cried. "I-it was—its eyes were, like, hollow! And its nose!"

That's called the color black, Pip...

Admittedly, seeing three dots of black, maybe four, in the midst of a white sea was startling in its way. Still. Pip had been, he had to admit, brave a few times yesterday, and she'd faced off against tides of electrified fangs without a care...so could she really have been such a bundle of phobias? Disturbed by recordings, afraid of fucking dots?

Well, he figured she was only human...probably.

"I swear I had a plan," she said.

"What was it?"

She pointed to the to-do list and recited, "Feed the bear." Then she reached into a high-tech mini fridge and pulled out a transparent bag of liquidy chum. "I was gonna find a suitable place to set my Ironing Board, then tastefully arrange the food on top. There's serving bowls here, right?"

Uh, no. The cabinets beside their heads held first-aid, whips, and gin.

Jacob paused to think.

Then he said, "You believe in this plan?"

"Yeah, enough."

"You think it'll work?"

"It could work. A bear might like to see a ritual like that in its honor. It shows I care, technically!"

He ignored how kind-of-actually-right-in-a-way she was. Setting a hand on Pip's shoulder, he said with determination, "Okay, then. Pip, I order you to feed that bear."

A fire lit in her eyes.

Toadie, Toadie: what was your finest use? In the past several hours, Jacob had picked up the subject now and again, tossing it in his head like a ball. He had fresh questions, some having to do with the increases it'd give her stats, but most being more...existential.

"A nearly impossible task." What the fuck did that mean? To whom? Persuade and Curse worked by "agreement": you and your target believed that the command was valid. One would assume the same for Toadie.

But...why assume a Maid-Class System worked so much like others when assumptions were so dangerous?

For a concrete example, what if Pip was immobile yet Jacob told her "get out of my face?"

He looked through the foggy window as Pip stepped out, carrying a bag. With the spark of Toadie in her and the knowledge of what polar bears looked like, she now had a chance.

The bear was at the other end of its glorified cage. A hill and various rocks were its entertainment. That and the food, plus the food that carried it.

Pip, with measured calm, summoned her Ironing Board and stood it up one-handed. It was grayish, fragile, a no-frills object. Without a sorting bowl, she'd have to pour the chum on its fabric—which she accomplished with stunning neatness.

Hot damn. If she was ever going back to the castle, Jacob suddenly thought, she deserved a rank-up. (Sadly, maid ranks didn't work that way and she would've gotten bullied by fellow servants for clear favoritism.)

Though Jacob couldn't hear it through the window, Pip concluded by saying, "Dinner is served."

She opened the door and saw herself out.

Then the bear pounced on the food, devouring chum along with chunks of fabric.

The creature had been starving, even weak. Pip watched next to Jacob with a hand on the glass, looking oddly tender.

"A lot different this time, huh," Jacob said. He was trying to bump up her confidence by yet another degree.

"Yeah. The eyes weren't as black."

...Hm...

"What did you mean by 'hollow eyes?'"

"It was probably just my imagination," she said with a laugh that was more like a cough.

Jacob refused to trust that phrase "just my imagination," especially not from a person who got here by dream.

"The way light hit the face, I thought the black parts were sizzling. Darker than black."

He nodded. "That's like the shit I saw, the thing I told Huxley about. Why wouldn't you think it's anything more?"

She said quickly, "I was trying not to."

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