Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir

Author:Tamsyn Muir [Muir, Tamsyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781596069916
Google: TjilzQEACAAJ
Publisher: SUBTERRANEAN Press
Published: 2020-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

But in those early days Floralinda still congratulated herself, in her terrible secret heart-o’-hearts, that she had stolen Cobweb. She tried to justify it to herself all the time, because she was really a princess still, and it hurt too much to think that she had committed such a mortal sin as imprisoning a fairy. Floralinda still wanted to go to Heaven, and even though she hadn’t put a penny in the box since being kidnapped, still hoped she might go there if she didn’t do anything too horrid; so she had to tell herself that she had done the right thing, and that if you looked at it a certain way she had even given Cobweb much more stimulating employment than she used to have. And of course she was as nice to Cobweb as she knew how, and made a lovely little bed for her right next to her pillow, and sewed her beautiful little frocks embroidered with miniature rosebuds in the tiniest of stitches. Even Cobweb admitted these were pretty.

But if you have ever been walloped because you were naughty, and then you were taken out for a good time afterwards to cheer you up about it, you might have a good idea of how Cobweb felt, which was all mixed up. She hated Floralinda with all her fairy heart, and more besides, because Cobweb was more intelligent than most fairies and therefore quite unusually good at hating; and it was all mixed up with grudgingly admiring Floralinda for doing the exact thing she would have done, and feeling a furious pleasure at bossing Floralinda about, and then disrespecting Floralinda for being bossed, and being frightened at all times throughout. That is how Cobweb felt in those early days. So she just thought as hard and as quickly as possible, and muddled through somehow, and kept long-term thoughts boiling in the back of her pretty little head.

“Now go and see what’s on the next flight; you’re such a slowpoke that the dragon will die of old age,” said Cobweb.

“You’re teasing me; dragons live for ever,” said Princess Floralinda plaintively. Which was the first time that Floralinda had contradicted her.

The first flight they dealt with after that fateful moonlit night was flight thirty-five, which Floralinda still hoped in her obvious heart could be taken care of with some fire, or some other trick; but when they opened up that staircase door, a sooty red glow hit them with dazzling heat, like opening an oven. This was quite pleasant for the first few minutes, as the cold had drawn in, but then it grew stuffy, and Floralinda had to take off her blanket coat.

The air shimmered before them like it does in the desert, and it was quite dark except for slithery orange lights here and there. The hot, airless room didn’t have any windows, and instead was separated into rocky partitions with liquid reflections in them, as though someone had heaped up stones in a pool. Even Cobweb

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