Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I by L. Jagi Lamplighter Read Free Book Online Page A

goodness we were in the hall when this happened!”
    “You can say that again!” Mab nodded. “North Wind only knows what might have been released if that fire had been allowed to burn unattended. I’ve heard stories about some of the forbidden powers Mr. Prospero, in his foolishness, keeps bound—stories that would scare your socks off.”
    “That is not all.” My fingers flexed about my flute protectively. “If we had arrived a few moments later, my staff would still have been in the hands of my statue when the incubus came.”
    Mab scowled and put on his hat. “Forgive me, Ma’am, if I don’t dance a jig over the preservation of your precious little flute, but I think I’ve done enough dancing to its tune today.”
    “You don’t understand, that’s . . .” I began.
    “You can say that again,” Mab interrupted.
    “That’s what the demon was after,” I finished, “He was looking for my flute!”
    “Shame he didn’t get all the staffs. World would be better off with those atrocious pieces of kindling in the hands of people who can’t use them,” Mab grumbled. Then, his head snapped up. “That black staff! You said it was Mr. Gregor’s . . . the demon was using it!” An expression of supernatural horror came over his features. “Holy Croesus! Are you telling me that if we’d arrived a few minutes later, some minion of Hell would now be in command of my entire race?”
    “Yes.”
    Mab’s craggy face froze in a grimace of terror. Then, he stood and reached out his hand.
    “Tell you what. Hand me the damned thing. I’ll solve the problem once and forever.”
    “Luckily for us both, it’s not damned yet.” I added, “Not that I would give it to you under any circumstance, but just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, what, specifically, would you do with it?”
    Mab shuffled his feet and scratched his head. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. “Take it down to the wood shop and saw it into a thousand tiny pieces. Then, I’d give a piece to each of us Aerie Ones, as a perverse kind of memento.”
    “Kind thought, Mab, but no.”
    I ran my fingers down the polished grain of the flute and imagined its soulful voice singing out amidst the smoke and moaning in the flaming pits of Hell, its gentle beauty perverted to nefarious ends. The thought of losing it—of being stuck in the mundane world without its voice to remind me of higher things—disturbed me tremendously, perhaps even more than it disturbed Mab.
    “Huh!”
    “What’s that, Mab?”
    “See those designs on the back of the door, Ma’am?” He jabbed his finger toward the far end of the hall, where the oak doors stood open. “Those faces carved into the four corners? They are guardians. Together, they forma word. I don’t think it was a coincidence the incubus showed up while we were here. Mr. Prospero had those doors chained with cold iron for a reason. Between the chains and the enchantments woven into the doors themselves, the demon could not have entered this hall any more than I could have. It had to wait until we opened the way for it. Must have had some kind of spirit servant waiting around to inform it if the doors ever opened. The thing could have been hanging around for weeks, months even. When we entered and left the doors ajar . . .” Mab hung his head. “Should have thought of that and insisted we lock it up from the inside. Guess I’d gotten lazy, too used to the outer wards of the house doing their job.”
    “Don’t blame yourself, Mab. You had no way of knowing what was in here.”
    “On the contrary. I knew it was important enough that Mr. Prospero, who thinks nothing of leaving phoenix feathers and unicorn horns lying around in the open, thought it should be locked up.” He shook his head again. “Still wish I knew how the incubus or its servant got through the outer wards and into the mansion to begin with!”
    I frowned. “So do I!”
    Mab stared at the door a moment longer