The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards Read Online Free PDF

mean? What will happen?”
    Frank sighed and hopped off the stool. “Couldn’t say. Haven’t rotted before. Ask a dying tree.”
    “Can’t you appeal?” Henry asked. “Who’s above the district committee? Can’t my dad overturn them?”
    Frank laughed. “Not even your dad can rewrite the
Book of Faeren
or stand the mound magic on its head. Above the committees, there’s only the queene, and she’s just a pretty idea that couldn’t be shed. It’s all decentered and parliamental. She doesn’t do, she just is. Nothing but a mascot.”
    Suddenly, the faerie puffed out his chest and cheeksand knuckled his eyes. When he’d pulled himself together, he poked Henry in the stomach and glared.
    “Not a word, Henry York. Not a word. Not to no one but your father.” And then he turned on his heel, pushed through a swinging door, and disappeared into the back of the house.
    Henry watched the door swing to a stop. He looked at the mug shards on the floor, and he thought about sweeping. But he knew he was already desperately late. His mother would be wondering where he was. He might have already missed the entire processional.
    Biting his lip, Henry ran into the front room, threw open the door, and staggered onto the cobbled street. He’d run this city before, and in the night. He found the center of the street, filled his lungs with the cool air crawling in from the sea, and felt his legs accelerate down the hill, down toward the old stone bridge, and then to the square and the cathedral.
    Old Grandmother Anastasia opened her blind eyes. The front room was empty, and the heavy door creaked on its hinges, pushed with breeze breath.
    “Henry York Maccabee,” she said quietly. “Ten fingers will find you. Two are tapping at the gate.”
    Shivering, the old woman pulled up her blanket and shut her eyes tight.

CHAPTER THREE
    Henry sprawled on his bed, staring at his shadowed ceiling. A lantern flicked light on a small table beside him. It had been a long day, his head was hurting again, and he was hungry. Massaging his eyebrows, he tried to remember if he had eaten anything before or after Uncle Frank’s ceremony. He didn’t think so. He’d been too distracted before, too tired after.
    Henry’s eyes fluttered, and he fought them. He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t want to dream. But sleep came, as inevitable as the sunset, and like a slow wave it pounded him down. His body relaxed, his joints loosened, his quaking eyelids stilled. Beneath them, Henry’s eyes darkened, ready to see.
    Again, Henry was in the city square, catching up to the back of the crowd. Men and women sang, swaying and swinging lanterns with colored panes—red, green, orange, yellow, blue—while young girls danced and spun in the stained-glass light.
    Henry pushed through to the cathedral doors and walked between the city guards.
    The cathedral was tightly packed with bodies, shoulder to shoulder, all shifting and leaning, trying to get a view of the front, some with children perched high, others bouncing infants and humming quietly.
    Henry reached the long pews, loaded with people. He wouldn’t be sitting with his family.
    He could make out his mother in the front, and his father and Caleb. But his sisters and cousins had been swallowed by the sea of heads.
    Uncle Frank was standing in front, facing the crowd. Behind him three men and two women were seated, all wearing silver chains. Frank looked up and nodded at Henry. That hadn’t happened. Henry’s mind jarred as it slipped away from memory and into something new. He knew he was dreaming now. Beside Uncle Frank there stood a bishop in a bulbous hat and a blue robe. With one hand on Frank’s shoulder, he was chanting unintelligibly in some ancient language. And then he changed. The robe and hat disappeared. He grew taller. His shoulders broadened. His skin, pale as sea foam, glistened in the cathedral’s candlelight; his hair, oiled black, was pulled into a tight knot at the back of his