Verette eyes him with mild caution, but says, “You may.”
“The invitation mentioned you and your father. Do you have any siblings? Cousins? Embarrassing uncles I should watch out for?”
“No, it’s just us.” Verette gazes stonily ahead. For a moment, that seems like the end of that—then, surprisingly, she counters. “And you? Are you an only child?”
“I—Well, I helped with other kids in the orphanage,” Eugene stumbles.
The brief lift of Verette’s eyebrows seems to betray surprise. That’s strange; Rapunzel would have expected King Enver to loop his daughter in by now.
But Verette seems to have different concerns, glancing from Eugene to Rapunzel and back.
“An orphanage? Do you know anything about your parents, then? Or where you come from?”
Even Eugene can’t hide that that hit a nerve. His answer is a short “No.”
“What a shame.” There’s a stiff pause. Verette lifts an eyebrow at Rapunzel. “Your parents must be very…understanding.”
Eugene flinches.
“We are fortunate that Their Majesties value a person’s deeds more than their lineage,” Minister Cressien finesses, to Rapunzel’s surprise.
Rapunzel reaches for another tactic for managing Gothel’s moods: changing the subject to Gothel. Or in this case, Verette. “So the ball is the day after tomorrow, and then your coming of age ceremony is a few days after that? Are you excited?”
“That is the current schedule,” Verette says, retreating back to toneless brevity. “And I will be honored by the celebration next week.”
“I can’t wait.” Rapunzel pauses, but when Verette doesn’t elaborate, she ventures another prompt: “What’s your favorite part of the ceremony?”
“I enjoy it all equally.”
All right, maybe Verette doesn’t like to talk about herself as much as Gothel did. Rapunzel switches gears, scanning the view from a passing window until inspiration strikes in the form of a glittering sunmill sail far below. “Oh, I wanted to ask—I know what the other sunmills are for, but what about the one in the tower here? It doesn’t look like it’s active.”
At that, something like concern ghosts briefly throughVerette’s face before it closes off again. “It’s no longer of use to Astera.”
“But it was before?” Eugene prompts.
No dice. Verette only snips out, “Yes.”
Another strained pause stretches taut as they pass through a stone arch and into what Rapunzel assumes is the royal family’s quarters, given the large portrait of Enver and Verette that watches them go by. It looks recent, capturing Enver’s knowing smile and Verette’s, well, reticence.
Rapunzel makes one more attempt at chitchat. “Thank you for bringing us here. I know it must be annoying answering all our questions, and I haven’t even seen much of my own kingdom yet, but there’s so much in Astera I’ve never evenheardof before.” She laughs. “Even the bugs—I saw these silver worms in the garden today, and I didn’t—”
“Silver?”Verette’s frowning. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“You don’t strike me as the gardening type,” Eugene drawls.
Her dark eyes flick to him. It’s almost like someone shook the real Verette awake, her stare suddenly focused. “You’d be surprised. What did they look like, exactly?”
“Long, and really thin,” Rapunzel says quickly. At the edge of her sight, she can see Cressien trying to hide both bewilderment and dismay, doubtless because decades of refined etiquette have been superseded by a mutual enthusiasm for worms. “It almost looked like a—a herd of them. They were all moving in the same direction.”
“And this was in the gardens?” Verette leads them through a door flanked by guards into a dining room smaller than Rapunzel expected. The view is still spectacular, through one wall made entirely of glass in star-shaped panes that overlooks a harbor drenched in the tawny golds of early-summer sunset.
King Enver waits for them at the head of the table, gripping the back of his chair with both hands. His face hardens as they walk in.
“Good,” he says tersely. “You’re here. I’ll get right to the point.”
Only then does Rapunzel realize the dining table…is completely empty. Not even a butter knife is sitting on the plain white tablecloth.
This isn’t a dinner.
