Back at the palace

Bellatrix woke up to someone gently shaking her and looked up sleepily into the anxious face of her friend, Ancilla. Still half-asleep, she looked at her window but no light was coming through it so what in the world had Ancilla woken her up for when it was not even dawn yet? Ancilla kept shaking her until she woke up so she had no choice but to sit up and rub the sleep out of her eyes. Unlike Jadis, Bellatrix made friends with the servants and they obeyed her out of love and not fear or forced submission. This was why Bellatrix did not order Ancilla to leave her alone and let her sleep in case she had come to ask for help as a friend. Speaking of Jadis, the last time Ancilla had come to her this upset was when…

"She has not paralyzed your other hand, has she?" asked Bellatrix, sitting straighter in her bed. She was appalled that Jadis would use her magic to teach servants a lesson and thought that it was abominable. However, Jadis was her older sister (if only by three minutes) and the heir to the throne of Charn, so there was nothing that she could do.

"No, Princess Bella," said Ancilla, using the nickname used by all special friends of Bellatrix, "Princess Jadis left the palace a couple of hours ago and has not returned yet to sleep."

"Then what in Charn have you woken me up for. It is clearly not morning yet and…Wait a minute. Did you say that Jadis has left the palace and has not come back to sleep yet?

"Yes, Bella. Your royal sister summoned me to her room earlier this evening with a most strange command."

Ancilla related all that had happened to her that night to Bellatrix.

"She is up to something," muttered Bella when Ancilla was finished. "And knowing her, it can't be anything good."

Bellatrix quickly got out of bed and dressed, ignoring Ancilla's offer to help her ("I can manage perfectly well on my own.").

"Do you know which way she went, Ancilla?"

"Her footsteps went off in the direction of the servants' staircase."

"Then she does not want to be seen."

"If she was looking to hide her scrolls in a better place, then maybe I should have told her that she had forgotten them."

"Scrolls? What scrolls?"

Ancilla held out two scrolls that she had been holding under her arm so that she could have one free hand to open the door to the bedroom and shake Bellatrix awake.

"I found them earlier today as I was cleaning out her closet in a hidden compartment which I accidentally opened."

Bellatrix took the scrolls from her and lit a lantern hanging near her bed to read them by and after she was done she looked at Ancilla.

"Jadis has been studying the Deplorable Word."

Ancilla was a mere servant and did not understand the ways of her superiors.

"What is the deportable…?"

"There is no time," said Bellatrix as she rolled up the scrolls. "We have to find her before she…"

Then it occurred to Bellatrix that Jadis could just as well have said the Deplorable Word in the privacy of her own room. She must have gone on another errand and would have at least packed something if she planned on staying away for long. Besides, how could she start chasing her if she did not even know where outside the palace to start looking?

"No, we will wait until she comes back," she decided. "Put these scrolls back where you found them before she finds them missing," she said as she gave the scrolls back to Ancilla. "You better get back in her bed, too, before she finds that you have disobeyed her orders and paralyzes you completely."

This was enough for Ancilla and she ran from the room and back into Jadis' bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her as she entered. Then she went into the closet putting back the scrolls in the secret compartment and got out to close the door. Finally, she got back into Jadis' queen-sized bed and shut her eyes tight trying to slow down her breathing and look like she had been there the whole time. Hours after that, Bellatrix was still awake wondering why Jadis would be studying such dark sorcery. Since she was going to be queen, such evil would make her doubly powerful and dangerous. Tired from only a few hours of sleep and worrying about what her sister was up to, Bellatrix eventually fell asleep not knowing that at that very moment Jadis was meeting the woman who would bring her one step closer to the Deplorable Word.