And another memory, this from just a few days ago, returns: Enver reaching for the same place on his stomach when he thought the People’s Dagger had crashed the reception ball.
And another: Sulian sayingTorch swears it was all planned. That she got him in the belly.
And another: Teophine saying the starlight water alone isn’t enough to heal a mortal wound.
It finally snaps into place.
Enver and Eugene have something in common after all: a killing blow they never should have survived. But Eugene’s healed for good.
Enver’s didn’t.
The apples aren’t just keeping him young, like Gothel.
They’re keeping the king alive.
Just then, Eugene has one more realization, perhaps even more dangerous: Pascal is nowhere to be found.
Nineteen
Rapunzel
Rapunzel pulls her gray cloak tighter against the chill of the night as Verette fumbles with the door to the Starlight Spring. The heavy iron key has gone on a journey tonight, passing first from Hughes to Teophine, then from Teophine to Verette once they’d both left the hall.
“Got enough light?” Leona whispers, nudging her lantern closer. Its flame wobbles in place, a vivid cornflower blue thanks to some sort of chemical compound in the oil. (Rapunzel asked. And then she made Leona promise to write the particulars down for her later.)
“I just—there.” The door swings open, and all three women hurry into the passageway.
Rapunzel pulls the door shut behind them, and the lock automatically resets as it latches. Enver should be too preoccupied to eavesdrop on them through the roots as long as the party lasts, but that’s not the only deadline they have to meet. “How much time do we have?”
Leona squints at the lantern. “We’re to meet the others at the fork in half an hour. The coloring agent will have fully burned off by then, so once the light’s pink, we need to hustle.”
Rapunzel nods, then looks to Verette. “I can take song duty first.”
“No, you’ve been here before. You focus on leading the way.” Verette draws a breath, then starts quietly humming the lullaby. Roots ignite up and down the walls of the path, even brighter and farther than they did for Rapunzel. So long as Verette’s controlling them, the roots can’t betray them to Enver.
Rapunzel starts down the passageway. Originally she and Verette had planned to split up, with Verette going for the harbor to cause a diversion and Rapunzel going with the group headed for what they’ve been calling the starcloud tree. Leona herself had raised one very salient logistical issue, though:
“So as long as one of you hums the song, the roots can’t alert Enver. What if you have to stop?”
Which is why both of them are here now. Even Verette storming out of her own party early was part of Plan A-for-Apple; she and Rapunzel just had time to change into plain shirts and breeches and the gray cloaks while Councilor Teophine returned to tell Enver Verette had run off to her party barge again.
In truth, somewhere far above, Councilor Teophine, Minister Cressien, and Hughes are combining their efforts to keep King Enver fully distracted while Verette, Rapunzel, and Leona figure out what he’s planning with an entire secret fleet. In half an hour, the second group of Sulian, Eugene, Ruvon, and Torch will enter the passages after Eugene picks the lock, and Rapunzel’s team will double back to meet them before they all head for the tree.
Then Verette will take them to have a very firm talk with her father, and if all goes well, the price of the Asteran throne will be a single apple.
Rapunzel heads right at the fork, watching the roots shudder as they pass. In the past few days of testing, they’ve only done that for Verette, but by now Rapunzel can almostfeelthem in the walls, not entirely unlike the strands of her golden hair. There’s no sensation to them, just an awareness, the way she knew whenever a lock had snagged on a chair leg or slipped out of a tie.
(Former) Councilor Ruvon’s best theory has stuck with her—that even though the sundrop’s power is gone, it left its mark on her. “After all,” he said two days before, “even as we lost the effects of our starlight, no one’s hairrevertedall these years. Magic like that changes us. And what is a star but a more distant sun?”
It lights their way far better than the lantern now. When they get close to the entrance of the hidden harbor, Rapunzel holds a hand up, and Verette’s humming pauses. There’s nosound echoing back this time besides the faint creak of ship timbers and breaking waves.
“All clear,” she whispers. They sneak through the opening and crouch at the top of the ramp; the glimmering roots are much scarcer here, running only through the cave’s rock ceiling above. “I don’t think they like salt water.”
“Good.” Leona peers down to the moored ships. Her face tightens. “What the devil…?”
“What’s wrong?” Rapunzel asks under her breath, following the light of a single guard as he moves down the docks. She doesn’t see any lookouts, but then again, considering the number of soldiers patrolling above tonight, Enver may have diverted all his forces to security for the party they’re missing.
Leona’s scowling ferociously. “Those are all warships. And look, they’re being loaded—that’s why all the gangways are down. This is an armada. And it’s going to sail this week. What is my brotherdoing?”
