The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones

Alicia. “ You can talk! If ever I saw a marble iceberg, it’s you !”
    Now he looked really amused. His face relaxed, and he very nearly smiled.
    â€œIt’s not funny !” I snarled at him. “I can see you made my mother terrified of you by behaving like this! Most of the time you’d make her think she wasn’t worth noticing , and then you’d make fun of her!”
    Then I gave a gasp and tried to hold my breath—but I couldn’t because I was panting with rage—knowing that a strict person like my grandfather was bound to jump to his feet and order me thunderously out of the room.
    In fact, he just said musingly, “Something of that, but Annie brought her own difficulties to the situation, you know.” The mild way he said it surprised me. I was even more surprised when he said, “Come now, Arianrhod. Tell me what is really upsetting you so.”
    I almost burst into tears. But I didn’t, because I suspected that Mam would have done and Grandfather Gwyn would have hated it. “If you must know,” I blurted out, “there’s a plot—in England—and most of the Court have been given bespelled water, even the King. The Merlin’s in it!”
    â€œI know,” he said. “This is why I asked for you to come here, before the balance of magic is disturbed even further.”
    For a second I was thoroughly astonished. Then I thought, Oh! He’s a wizard! And that made me feel much better. I could tell by the way Grundo’s face snapped round to look at Grandfather Gwyn, and then went much pinker, that Grundo had had the same thought.
    â€œTell me in detail,” my grandfather said to us, “every word and sign and act that you remember.”
    So we told him. It took awhile, and Grundo absentmindedly ate two more pieces of cake while we talked. He probably needed to. It couldn’t have been pleasant for Grundo, having to describe what his mother did. Otherwise I’d have called him a pig. Grandfather Gwyn leaned forward with one forearm stiffly among the tea things and seemed to drink in everything we said.
    â€œCan you help at all?” Grundo said at last.
    To our dismay, my grandfather slowly shook his head. “Unfortunately not,” he said. “I am about to become vulnerable, in a way I very much resent, and will be able to do nothing directly for a while. You have just shown me the way of it. But there is something you can do, Arianrhod, if you think you have the courage. You will have to work out most of it for yourself, I am afraid. It is magic that is not mine to deal in, and it is something your mother never could have brought herself to do. But if you think you are able, I can put you in the way of it tomorrow.”
    I sat in silence in that tall, cold room, staring at his intent white face across the plates and crumbs. Grundo looked to be holding his breath. “I—I suppose I’d better,” I said when the chills had almost stopped scurrying up and down my back. “Someone has to do something.”
    My grandfather Gwyn could smile, after all. It was an unexpectedly warm, kind smile. It helped. A little. Actually, I was terrified.

ONE
    I sat down again after Romanov had gone. For some reason, I fitted myself carefully into the exact place I had been in before, with my back against the wall and my heels in the scuff marks. I suppose I wanted Arnold and Co. to think I’d been sitting there all the time. But I wasn’t really attending. I was shaking all over, and I pretty well wanted to cry.
    I was full of hurt and paranoia and plain terror that someone had wanted me killed. I kept thinking, But I told them in the Empire I wasn’t going to be Emperor! They’d taken me there into those worlds, and I’d signed things—sort of abdicated—so that my half brother Rob could be Emperor instead. It didn’t make sense .
    I was full of hurt and paranoia, too, at