“Have fun out there, you wacky kids,” Eugene says blithely, waving with the handnotcurrently full of chameleon.
As Hughes leads them out of the palace, Rapunzel can’t help taking a better look around, noting the architectural motifs, the propensity for geometric windows and arches carved with sun rays, floor mosaics patterned in charts of the seasons, all things Hughes highlighted last night but that only truly come to life in the day.
The daylight also reveals something she missed before: an iridescent glitter in the pale stone of the walls and columns, not unlike the shells she’s looking for. And even more curiously…in some of the halls and corridors, the stone looks cloudy, almost mottled, where the surface’s shimmer is subdued. Almost as if it’s been repaired, but not quite good as new.
“Good morning and clear skies!” King Enver booms as they emerge into the sunlight. Princess Verette is by his side, wearing an icy blue dress and an icier expression.
“Clear skies,” Verette echoes impassively, as does Hughes.
“Clear skies?” Rapunzel ventures, because that seems to be the proper response.
King Enver beams. “A quick study! Come, Teophine is waiting with the carriages.”
“Your Majesty, if I may…” Minister Cressien produces a sealed letter from a pocket. “Her Majesty the queen requested that I send her daily reports via our galleon’s messenger hawk. Might we visit the docks so I can hand this off?”
Rapunzel’s heart leaps into her throat. The little folded paper might as well be a sword over her head. No one said anything about reports before. What is he telling her mother—that she flubbed her introduction to Verette? That she keeps sticking her foot in her mouth?
That she isn’t ready to be a real princess after all?
“No need. Hughes will send a courier.” Enver waves his chamberlain over.
“Right away, sire,” Hughes says, taking the letter. Rapunzel’s gaze catches on a mark on the back of his hand, almost like a rusty sunburst of scar tissue just south of his prominent knuckles.
Verette’s lips thin. “Teophine is waiting on us, Father.”
Enver’s hand lands on her shoulder. “Right you are! Let’s be off!”
The tour takes them all over the main city of Astera, starting with grand glimmering pavilions of the same pale stone as the palace, where Teophine and a high priestess explain their solstice and equinox ceremonies. Then it’s off to the lavishopera house for a performance of King Enver’s favorite arias, and then a public amphitheater to watch a troupe of traditional Asteran dancers. A crowd gathers everywhere they stop, kept at a safe distance by a line of guards. From the shouts and cheers, Rapunzel assumes the fuss is just for King Enver and Princess Verette, until she spots one citizen at the amphitheater slashing a finger in the air by their chin as they confer with another onlooker, and mouthing what looks likeheard it was longer.
“This way, Princess.” King Enver steps between them, tossing out a quick wave to his subjects as he ushers her inside.
Rapunzel can’t quite put her finger on it, but something’s…not quite right. It’s like the tickle of a hair caught in her lashes, impossible to see clearly, maybe just a feeling. But everything is dazzling. Everything is new. It’s all the sort of thing she dreamed was waiting beyond Gothel’s tower, isn’t it?
Admittedly, she hadn’t factored blisters into the equation.
Her heels were already raw by the time they left the opera house, and when they leave the amphitheater, she can feel a full-blown boil swelling up. Climbing back into the carriage is even worse, as the back of her slipper digs in deeper.
It comes to a head—well, more like a foot—at the tour of the Northeast Secondary Sunmill while the chief engineer explains the main pump mechanism over groaning pipes, creaking timbers, and the rush of water. “…and as the sails on the mill spin, that turns…well, it turns a bunch of shafts and cogs, buteventually, it turns this water screw.” From theirperch on the catwalk ringing the interior of the sunmill’s main tower, she indicates a giant hollow cylinder rising from the ground at an angle, and a spiral-threaded shaft rotating inside, its diameter nearly twice as wide as Rapunzel is tall. A steady stream of water flows from the bottom rim of the cylinder into a great pool. “This water screw reaches all the way down into one of Astera’s natural aquifers.”
“Amazing,” Rapunzel says sincerely, because it’s the sort of engineering feat that would bore Eugene to tears but makes her want to throw the people responsible a parade. And if her heel weren’t throbbing, she’d probably have about a hundred follow-up questions, but instead at least half her attention is devoted to discreetly taking the weight off her right foot. “And this supplies all the water for the district?”
The engineer looks pleasantly surprised at her interest. “First it passes through our filtration system, and then it feeds out into our distribution system via the transmission mains—”
“I don’t think we want to bore our guest with the technical details,” King Enver lightly interjects.
“Oh no, please do,” Rapunzel lobs back, then corrects herself. “I mean, it’s not boring to me at all!”
The chief engineer’s eyes flick to the king, and at a dip of his chin, she continues. “At first, residents got water directly from the sunmills, but for the last fifty years, we’ve operated a system of public fountains. Our next stage of development will be installing pipes in community buildings to provide fresh water on demand. Does Kourenne have something similar?”
The tightness in Cressien’s face suggests she should answer carefully, but Rapunzel’s not sure why. Or maybe she’s imagining it because her left ankle is now getting a bit wobbly from doing double duty.
Either way, they’ve practiced an excuse to get her out of any dodgy questions: “I’m sorry, my tutors haven’t gotten to our water system just yet.” Then, because she chafes at playing ignorant, and shedidread the geology book in Gothel’s tower cover to cover over a thousand times (she counted): “Though I don’t think we could create anything like these structures in the capital. It’s built on a granite deposit, and I assume Astera’s springs are volcanic.” Oh no. She’s starting to lose her balance. Rapunzel overcorrects, only for her blisters to flare up. “Ow-rrris it,” she tries to cover, “a, a—karst—syst—”
A firm hand steadies her elbow. “Princess Rapunzel, is everything all right?” rumbles King Enver.
She looks to Cressien, who seems just as wary and disappointed as ever.
She remembers Eugene’s warning to stay on her guard.
