Dalliance had never felt so terrible in his life. As Cadence dropped her, Dalliance ran to Whimsy, scooping her up in his arms. As much as he resented them, the points in Grit and Might had really made a difference, he reflected, as he ran, carrying his unconscious sister toward Earnest's house.
"You have to help ," he begged at the door. It was Earnest's mother, and the woman was horrified. "I need . . . I need to borrow your horse," he pleaded. "I'm going to go to the Mallows."
"Nonsense. You’ll do no such thing. We will take my carriage."
There's a certain kind of woman who enjoys a brisk trot down a country lane, does not enjoy riding a horse, but enjoys horses. For these won, there’s a kind of carriage that corresponds: small, with two large wheels, and a long, slender pair of shafts to which a horse is harnessed, which can then trot at full speed as it pleases. The driver is carried along on the comfort of her suspended two-wheel carriage. These are not generally designed for three, much less for four.
Earnest, with a concerned look at Dalliance and then back towards the Rather farm, chose to stay ho. And so, Earnest’s mother, Dalliance, and Whimsy pulled up in a cloud of dust at the Mallow residence.
Dalliance regretted having chosen to return ho, for having participated in the confrontation with his Da at all. He could have procrastinated. If he had, perhaps the Mallows might not have been in their beds, asleep. But they were, because the sun was shining, and they didn't hear his frantic jingling of the alarm bell or his pounding on the door. They did, however, hear the strident, screech-owl howl of Earnest's mom calling for Holiday Mallow to get his derriere to the door if he knew what was good for him.
And the man did, sleepy family in tow.
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Under the ministrations of Circe’s mother, the blue around Whimsy’s lips faded, to be replaced with a healthy pink. She still didn’t wake up. He watched her sleeping, a tiny form on the mattress they'd allowed him to use only weeks prior. Or was it months? She looked so still.
"The body is ant," explained Mistress Mallow, "for a certain gaseous environnt. You know that you drown from the inhalation of water. Similarly, the inhalation of the more noxious gases produced by your own body . . . well, it’s not drowning, but it is similar. And as with those who drown, sotis they wake after a period of rest, or sotis do not wake at all. It has to do with the head and its organs."
She was breathing, but so slightly he couldn't see it easily. Like she might stop at any mont.
"Just tell ," Dalliance said, his voice raw. "Did I kill her?"
"You did nothing wrong," exclaid Mistress Mallow.
They had separated him from his sister, and a rather stern tribunal of Verity and Mallow won had conducted their inquiry before they had reached this conclusion.
In the end, the facts were clear: he had received a point or points, about which his father should not have known. His father had, through so chanism discovered them, most likely loose lips, and had told him to spend them upon arriving ho, at which confused refusal, his father had tried to coerce him into spending them the way he wanted in the future, via smothering his sister, causing her to lose consciousness.
His casual last words—"I'm sure she'll be fine: sotis the lips go blue”—suggested habitual abuse, or perhaps he simply didn’t care about his daughter's health. Perhaps none of the above.
Dalliance, more than ever, cursed his family’s obsession with Grit. If not for that obsession, he mused, he might be able to kill Cadence Rather.
Waiting on the hard wooden stool beside Whimsy's bed, he began to weigh his options.
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