Verette’s face lights up as she turns back toward Rapunzel, Cressien, and Eugene, all still clustered by the door. She waves a handful of mismatched mugs. “Raise your hands for tea? Two? Great. So, for starters, my father has found almost every other base we’ve had in the last four years, but not this one or the one we took Fitzherbert to.”
“He seems to have ears everywhere these days.”
The voice echoes from behind them. Eugene jumps as Rapunzel flattens herself to the wall. Master Sulian stands outside the door. Behind him is another man, a few inches taller but much wider, with tight white curls cropped short and a pair of golden spectacles gleaming against a face darker even than Cressien’s, the black eyes behind them twinkling.
“Not everywhere,” the bespectacled man corrects in a deep baritone, shuffling forward. Eugene recognizes that voice as the one he dubbed Stranger, the one who once slipped and referred to the Cardinal Council asus. “Don’t mind us, now, I heard there was tea. But yes, Enver’s always seemed to sniff out our retreats, and the closest pattern we can identify is it’s always after a busy meeting or when people chatter on the way in.”
“Only place he’s never found us on the mainland is under the sunmills,” Sulian adds as he settles himself in a chair by Teophine. “We had to relocate to this safe house after you two”—he gestures to Eugene and Cressien—“escaped our headquarters. Couldn’t risk you leading Enver to us.”
“I think he’s finding you with the roots.” Rapunzel walksfully inside and sets her satchel down on the table. Pascal groggily climbs out, then scales her arm and curls up on her shoulder.
“Is that a tiny coat?” Verette asks wonderingly at the same time Councilor Teophine says, “Roots?”
“We snuck into the Starlight Spring last night,” Eugene says as he comes to stand beside Rapunzel. “The water’s all gone, and it looks like it’s feeding a huge tree growing down there.”
Everyone else seems to take in a breath almost as one, their faces spanning the spectrum from comprehension to confusion, all with an undertone of dismay. Verette’s brow furrows, a hand over her mouth as she thinks.
Stranger leans forward, adjusting his spectacles. “What manner of tree?”
“Like an apple tree, but it only had one apple.” Rapunzel pulls out her sketchbook and starts flipping pages. “Its roots run at least as far as Third Street Hospital, maybe farther. Roots are really sensitive to vibrations, so someone with the power of starlight may be able to use them to eavesdrop.” She finds her drawing of the tree in the cave and holds it up. “Here. It looked like this.”
“That’s a cloud apple tree,” Stranger says with a frown. “But the leaves should be green, not…that. And it’s the largest I’ve ever seen. Typically, they produce a single apple after three years, then die.”
“Feeding from the Starlight Spring could have changed it.” Rapunzel accepts a mug of tea from Verette. Then shealso frowns, setting the sketchbook back down. “Wait. Your Highness—”
“Verette is fine.” Verette has found the plate of tiny pickles and is eating them with what Eugene can only describe as relish.
“Did your father ever give you a strange apple to eat?” Rapunzel gestures to her own short hair. “When I had the magic of the sundrop flower, my hair was, er, unusual, too.”
Verette swallows, expression stiffening. “No, not exactly.”
Eugene’s trying to follow. “Right, we think your father is using the roots—no, hold on, that doesn’t make sense either…”
“Unlesshe…” Sulian begins.
Stranger almost spills his tea. “Of course—the reduced aging, and this root surveillance—that would explain everything!”
“Wouldit?” Eugene says dryly.
“We did promise to share what we know,” Teophine reminds Verette. “And gentlemen, introductions…?”
The shorter man nods to Eugene. “He already knows me. Sulian, palace stable master.”
“Councilor Ruvon du Val of the North,” rumbles the other man between delicate sips of tea. He correctly reads Eugene’s confusion and adds with a touch of ire, “Formerly. Katou Laroux holds the position at present, despite heregregiousdisregard for the field of anthropological—”
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Teophine interjects,looking like she’s ready to wrest control of the presentation away from the rest of the group.
“The Night of the Poisoned Dagger?” Eugene asks as he and a reluctant Cressien settle into chairs.
Verette shakes her head. “Earlier.”
“And we’re not the People’s Dagger.” Sulian leans back. “Not for a long time. I think it started…oh, fifty years ago or so, when the king moved all the international trading off the mainland, over to Merchant’s Crescent.”
“Earlier, even—Queen Gaelle’s health started declining a few years into their marriage,” Ruvon says. “Enver banned outsiders from the mainland so word of it wouldn’t leave Astera. Especially because the only thing that seemed to help her was drinking from the Starlight Spring every day. We all understood that was why the queen’s aging slowed. But years later we realized…the king wasn’t aging either. We couldn’t confirm anything, but we suspected he was helping himself to the spring as well.”
Verette has planted herself by the kettle on the stove, clearly fixating on the tea as a distraction. “They kept my mother’s pregnancy a secret, and my father took over as acting monarch, claiming she had fallen ill again.” She twists a lock of hair around her finger. “From what I can guess, Father kept giving her starlight water daily all through her pregnancy, and I came out with white hair. I’m told childbirth nearly killed us both, so…he kept us alive on starlight. And then he never stopped. Every day at breakfast, I had to finish a glass of water beforehe would let me leave. The water looks almost normal in the daylight, so I didn’t know what I was drinking for—years.”
“Queen Gaelle never fully recovered,” Councilor Teophine adds. “And Enver never announced Verette’s birth—word only reached the public when she was a toddler. At that point, he’d skipped the Fountain Festival two years in a row, claiming it weakened the Starlight Spring and the queen needed its full potency.”
