Rapunzel’s sketchbook page wobbles and blurs. A drop splashes over the corner. Cressien wordlessly offers her an immaculate handkerchief, not even flinching at the streaks her pastel-dusty fingers leave.
“Thank you,” she says coarsely.
“Of course, Your Highness,” Cressien says. Then, clearly itching to change the subject, he gestures to Pascal sprawled on the stone bench. “Who is this? I believe I’ve seen him in your company before.”
“Pascal,” Rapunzel answers, a bit nervous. “We’ve been friends for years. I—I haven’t told my parents about him yet, so please don’t put it in a report?”
“I don’t know that reports are making it out of here anyway,”Cressien drawls, “but may I ask why not? Their Majesties are very fond of animals.”
Rapunzel raises a shoulder. “How many princesses have chameleon friends?”
“Fewer than have cats or dogs,” he allows. “So perhaps you’re the first. I know a kingdom where the queen collects ceramic ducks. Another where the most powerful duke bathes weekly in elderflower vinegar. Princess Verette is unusually fiendish for pickled foods, did you notice? And if your shoes are hurting you, the answer is to find shoes that don’t. You have good instincts, Your Highness, and a different perspective. One your parents will always welcome. No one wants to force you to be someone you’re not. Our job is to assist you in finding the wayyouwant to be a princess.”
Rapunzel looks at her floral study. “Like my art style?”
“I believe the saying is ‘Know the rules so you can break the rules.’ ” Cressien clasps his hands behind his back; Rapunzel suspects it’s so he doesn’t have to reclaim the soggy, pigment-smeared kerchief. The hourly bells begin to toll. “Our job is also to hold you to your itinerary,” he remarks. “Your tour of the royal university will begin in an hour. Additionally, you are addressing the council tomorrow, and I wished to offer a review of your speech.”
“Oh,” Rapunzel says sheepishly. “Was I supposed to write that down?”
Cressien glances heavenward and, with the faintest ghost of a wry smile, sighs, “We’ll draft it this evening. Together.”
Eighteen
Eugene
Two days later, Eugene isn’t sure if it’s tradition or precaution that sees them celebrating Verette’s birthday in the grand audience hall instead of the ballroom. Notably, this time he can feel the stares of many,manyguards, especially every time he wanders by the refreshment tables.
The audience hall itself is another architectural marvel, with columns and vaulted ceilings carved like luminous geysers raining pearly stars, bedecked in garlands of white and blue flowers that shine vibrantly against midnight silk drapes and golden trim. Great diamond-paned windows climb nearly to the roof, and doors to private verandas have been proppedopen to let the early evening breeze glide over the stone. And it’s needed—even though the hall is massive, it’s jam-packed with dignitaries, many of whom are lined up to approach the dais at the head of the hall.
Eugene and Rapunzel are currently parked in chairs on the dais’s right side, watching as citizen after citizen pledges deeds in honor of Verette. King Enver hovers just over her left shoulder, the empty throne bristling at both of their backs a few yards away.
“I’ve gotta say,” Eugene mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “ ‘I will save the Starlight Spring’ is a pretty hard vow to beat.”
“It’s not a contest,” Rapunzel whispers back with the beatific smile of someone who has absolutely trounced the competition. Then she blinks. “Look at the king’s hands.”
“…to paint a public mural in your honor,” a slight man is saying at the head of the line, “the most extraordinary the island has ever seen. All blessings to the queen to come.”
Enver stands with his hands linked behind his back, and only Rapunzel, Eugene, and his guards can see them briefly clench.
Then the man Eugene is assuming to be a painter—otherwise that mural is going to be extraordinary for very different reasons—does something unexpected.
He taps below his left eye, then his right, then his chin. Just as Eugene and Rapunzel did when they met Verette.
Furtive murmurs skitter through the room as he bows and walks away.
“I thought that was just old-fashioned,” Rapunzel says under her breath.
Eugene watches Enver’s hands curling once more into fists. “It is. It’s the old way to greet a monarch.”
The next person to step up is wearing bracelets subtly evoking verette charms. The one after that has moon eye moths embroidered into their collar. Rings, tassels, even cuff links—they flash on more and more people pledging their deeds. And they’re almost always an indicator that the oath maker will refer to Verette as “the queen to come.”
It brings Eugene no small degree of bittersweet triumph to see Enver’s knuckles turn whiter and whiter.
They’ve spent the last two days planning with the People’s Council for tonight, and if Enver is somehow aware, he’s done a better job of hiding it than he’s hiding his annoyance now. Still…the palace only has one audience hall.
It may be tradition, or it may be Enver sending a message; either way, Eugene is keenly aware that they’re celebrating in the room where his parents’ deaths were ordered, with the man who ordered them.
Andreas Herbert. Marietta Fitz.It’s like double vision, the way he hears the names, and the way he knows heshouldhear them. Printers. Authors. Revolutionaries.Gone.
