"Edghill,.Rosemary.-.Empty.Crown.Trilogy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edghill Rosemary)

Philip tapped with a thumbnail; weighed it in his hand.

"No, it doesn't," he said positively.

"It's magic," said Naomi helpfully.

There was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," said Ruth to no one in particular.

"It's the Thought Police," said the door when she approached it.

Ruth took a quick peek through the peephole, then opened the door.

"Hi, Jane."

"I hope it isn't too late. I know it's one in the morning, but I saw
your lights, and anyway, it's May Day and I forgot your birthday, so I
thought I'd bring you some flowers," Jane said, still hovering on the
doorstep, daffodils outstretched rather in the manner of one offering a
poisonous snake.

"Come on in. Everyone's here-Naomi made me a cake-and there's someone
here I'd like you to meet," Ruth said, quasi-mendaciously, falling back
full-length on trite, timeworn, hackneyed clichds. She accepted the
flowers with an overpowering sense of cusp; she'd thought no one
remembered her birthday and it seemed that everyone had, and if she'd
known in advance that they would, would she have gone out at all-and if
she hadn't gone out, would Melior even have been there?

Flowers in hand, Ruth went off to the kitchen. There must be a carafe
somewhere in there that she could use for the daffies. Daffies,
daffodils, da)yy-down oillies. . . . She saw the container she sought,
high on the topmost shelf, and strained, tiptoe, to reach it.

"Let me." Melior, behind her. He reached past her, over her shoulder,
and plucked the vase down deftly. She turned. He held it out to her,
brows quirking.

"And are you sorry, now, that you rescued me? And do you think me, as
the others claim to, mad, or misled, or larcenous?" Melior said
softly.

Ruth took the vase. "I think you're a long way from home. And I think
the first thing to do is get back your sword." She filled the vase and
put the daffodils in it, and stared firmly at Melior until he moved and
let her go back out into the living room.

Michael and Philip, heads together, were conferring over the mysterious