“Is that right? Because I saw you throw a rock at someone’s head for him, and I saw the way you kissed him the other day too. Real friendly.”
“Shut up, Syrah.”
“He’s a good one, Deli. Maybe even good enough for you.” Syrah paused and gathered his strength. He had flung himself against that boiling-hot cup for Harrow, and it had nearly killed him, but in some ways, doing this burned more. “He loves you,” he said. “And you love him. Who cares what your grandmother thinks?”
“You still think you know everything,” she muttered. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“You don’t think?” He paused. “You were right, by the way.”
“Be specific.”
“That hole in the ground, out in the woods. That was where I disappeared, just like you thought. I don’t know what it is — a fairy, or something else — but I know you were telling the truth when we were kids. You did fall in there, and it lifted you out. It must have thought you deserved to be saved. Me …” He gave a brief laugh. “Not so much.”
Deli held his gaze a moment. “You were really a frog. All that time.”
“I most certainly was.”
“What will you do now?”
Syrah was quiet. “I guess I’m going to figure that out,” he said. “I can’t go back to the way things were.” He tried to imagine it. Showing up at Marsala’s practice just to laugh at her. Chasing Deli down just to reject her. He didn’t think he knew how to do that anymore.
“I meant, are you going back to Balthasar,” she said, smiling a little.
“Oh. Yes — soon.”
“Your family will be glad to see you.”
Would they? It hurt his heart to wonder. He rubbed his chest.
“You should join the launchball team,” said Deli after a moment.
Syrah’s heart gave another painful beat. She sounded like his nana. “Why?” he asked.
“Because it would be nice to have some real competition next time around.”
“I’m not fit for that,” he said, gesturing to his new frog gut. “Not anymore.”
“Please. I could train you up in three months flat.”
“Train me? You want to kick me back into shape?”
“Kicking sounds good.” Deli eyed him. “If you want, I’ll write up a schedule for you, same as the one I follow. It’ll get you fit for tryouts. But you have to do everything I tell you. You have to work hard. No skipping, no cutting corners. Otherwise it’s a waste of my time.”
Syrah considered for a moment. “It would be pretty fun to beat you at the next ATC.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“And launchball training won’t be nearly as hard as being a frog was …”
“You could not be more wrong.”
Syrah laughed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good.” She raised her voice. “Stop the carriage,” she called to the driver, and then turned to Syrah. “Get out and run the rest of the way to the Thatch.”
“What?” Syrah cried. “I can’t start now. I was laid up in bed until this morning! I’ve barely been human again for three days, and they told me not to exercise yet because of the slumbercap …” At the look Deli gave him, he trailed off.
“Excuses, huh?” She crossed her arms. “Forget it. I knew you couldn’t —”
“No, I can.” Syrah jumped down from the carriage. “I’ll run. You go back to Harrow’s.”
Deli hesitated. “My mother —” she began, but Syrah cut her off.
“I’ll tell her you’re going to be late. She can handle being on her own for a while.”
“She really can’t.”
“Then I’ll help her,” said Syrah. “I’ll get the boys off her hands, I promise. You go.”
Deli sat back. “Okay,” she said. “But you better run.”
Syrah took off and didn’t look back. Running was much harder than he remembered — he was tired inside of thirty seconds, and he could barely hear the carriage horses’ hooves over the sound of his own labored breathing. Soon enough, he couldn’t hear the horses at all. Deli had gone back to Harrow. He tried not to think about how happy they were going to be, making up and getting back together.
Instead, he focused on home. Balthasar. White sand, clear water, warm sun. His room. His family. Launchball, even. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Marsala’s face when he showed up for team tryouts. Maybe he could leave for the coast tomorrow and be on a ship the day after that.
Nana Cava’s room was going to be so empty.
He reached the river and jogged into Market Park, then continued along the riverbank, toward the Thatch. He passed a Vangarden chittering its cheerful song of ripeness at the edge of a melon patch, and he paused. Behind the giant beetle, nearly hidden in the twisting vines, a pair of eyes gleamed.
Syrah strode toward the eyes. “Tsst,” he hissed sharply. “Shoo. Get out of here.” An orange cat — the very same one that had tried to kill Syrah not long ago — leapt out of its hiding place, meowing angrily at being discovered and deprived of its lunch. It bounded away toward the barns, and Syrah crouched beside the Vangarden.
“You had a brave friend,” he said, reaching out his hand to it. “I’m sorry that he died.”
The Vangarden stepped forward and tickled his fingers with its antennae. He ran a gentle hand over its smooth carapace, stood, and jogged on. When he came close to the docks, he saw the triplets there, fishing. Or at least, Walter was fishing. Bradley and Tommy appeared to be trying to shove each other into the river.
“There he is!” Tommy gasped. “We can ask him right now.”
“Fine, but I’m right!”
Bradley and Tommy rushed Syrah, nearly knocking him down. He held out his hands, laughing. “Whoa there,” he said. “What’s the question?”
“Was it you who went down Bradley’s shirt at the Capital Championships last year?” Tommy demanded. “Were you that same frog?”
“You weren’t,” said Bradley. “There’s no way you were.”
“Sorry, Bradley,” said Syrah, and Tommy whooped in ecstasy.
“I told you!” he crowed. “I told you it was him! You owe me five thorns, or else I get to push you in the river with your clothes on.”
“I’m not paying you anything,” said Bradley bitterly.
“Then stand on that rock.”
Bradley sighed, but stood where he was told. Tommy shoved him hard, sending him into the water with a splash. He crawled back up onto the rocks, drenched.
“I knew you were Rapunzel’s frog,” said Walter mildly, pulling a fish from his hook and recasting his line.
“What was it like?” asked Tommy. “Did you eat bugs?”
“Of course he didn’t eat bugs,” said Bradley, and he looked so furious and wet that Syrah didn’t have the heart to contradict him. “You must’ve been able to jump pretty high, though.”
“That is true.”
“It sounds fun,” said Tommy. “I’d like to be a frog.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t get anybody to notice who you really were,” said Bradley. “It took you fifteen months? You should’ve spelled out your name in the dirt or something.”
“Good point,” said Syrah dryly.
“When will you go back to Balthasar?” asked Walter.
“As soon as I can get on a boat,” said Syrah. “You’ll all come for the Crush this fall, right?”
The boys eyed each other.
“I don’t know,” said Bradley. “It isn’t the same with our families anymore.”
“When Nana Cava died, we all went for the funeral,” Tommy added. “But we didn’t go back for the Crush. And then your family didn’t come for the Turning this year.”
“Grandmother is too sad,” said Walter. “She wants her sister back.”
They were all quiet at this.
“Where are all those people going?” Syrah asked momentarily, pointing to the carriages that were filing toward the Thatch. There were
dozens of them, and more pulling up all the time.
“The public assembly,” said Bradley.
“For the election,” said Tommy. “Grandmother Luffa says we still have to have one.”
So that was why Huck had been on his way to the Thatch.
“I’d like to see that,” Syrah said, but the triplets protested that he had to stay with them and answer their frog questions. “I’ll tell you what. If you stay here and fish until supper, I’ll eat with you and tell you everything.”
They gladly agreed to this arrangement, and Syrah jogged up toward the Thatch, wheezing. His lungs really weren’t fully healed — that much hadn’t been an excuse — and by the time he reached the house, he was too winded to do anything but walk. He went around the outside of the Thatch until he reached the atrium that connected to the cabinet chamber. The place was packed; every bench was full and every inch of standing room occupied. Syrah stayed just outside, under the trees that had been planted for Luffa’s parents and siblings. He couldn’t see much from here, but he could hear Clementine’s voice.
“Yes, I knew about the Ubiquitous seeds,” she was admitting. “I sanctioned Huck’s experiment. The Purge was my doing as much as his, and it would be wrong of me to hold that back. If we’re going ahead with this election, then I don’t want to win because I was a liar. That’s not how we want to start this country’s new age of democracy. If the truth disqualifies me, so be it.”
“If I’m not disqualified, you’re not.” The voice was Huck’s. “The field is even now. The people can choose their governor based on whose positions they agree with, instead of basing their votes on who did or didn’t cause the Purge.”
“We want Burdock!” cried a voice, and this single cry quickly became a chant. “BURDOCK! BURDOCK! BURDOCK!”
Syrah listened, sickened and amazed. The story of Hansel and Gretel Rantott had been on the front of the Criers for three days. These people knew that Burdock had lied to protect his sister even when she had murdered innocent women and poisoned their governor. How could they want him in charge of the country?
“He hasn’t done anything wrong!” shouted a man. “He knows better than anyone the dangers of magic — look at his childhood!”
“He escaped the Witch of the Woods!”
The shouts of support continued until Syrah couldn’t stand to listen to them anymore. He stepped away from the atrium, angry, and walked through the ancestral grove until the shouts became too distant to understand. This couldn’t be what Luffa had wanted, when she had laid down her crown and given her people the vote.
“Syrah.”
He turned, startled, to see Luffa standing at the edge of the grove, looking out over the same pumpkin field where the wedding had taken place, nearly sixteen months ago.
“Grandmother Luffa. I thought you’d be in the assembly.”
“I have to keep my distance.”
“Why?”
“Because the election was about to collapse,” she said. “They were calling for me to step in as provisional governor.”
“And this time, you want the country to find its way without you. But what if it doesn’t?”
Grandmother Luffa studied him for a long moment. “It will.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Syrah. “Clementine just admitted she knew about the Ubiquitous seeds. Now all the people are calling for Burdock. They want him to be governor.”
“Who is to say they are wrong?”
Syrah was shocked. “You think they should elect him?”
“No. But Clementine and Huck both chose to conduct a secret experiment, and the people bore the devastating consequences.”
“They never meant to hurt anyone.”
“They made their decision without the people’s knowledge or support. If the people now feel that they’ve been done a disservice, they should have the right to elect someone else, even if I disagree. Especially if I disagree.” She looked out on the fields again. “You were a frog,” she said. “It must have been difficult.”
“Not as difficult as beheading a warlord,” he replied. “You weren’t much older than me, were you?”
“I was eighteen.”
“That’s pretty amazing for eighteen. Leading an army, ruling a country — all I had to do was hop around for a while.”
“I had no idea what I was doing,” Luffa answered. “But history has no patience for nuance. One day, they will tell your story, and they will get it wrong.”
“Do people get your story wrong?”
Luffa started walking, away from the grove and out through the field. Syrah followed. “Cava wants me to plant vines for her,” she said, and she turned back to look at the grove. Syrah stood with her and looked where she pointed. “I think perhaps there.”
“Too much shade. Vines need full sun.”
“Ah.” She studied the back of the Thatch. “It will be the first time anything has been planted here for someone who is not a Gourd.”
“Sure she is,” said Syrah. “Just like you’re a Huanui.”
Luffa was silent. Her jaw worked slightly, just as Deli’s had in the carriage, and suddenly Syrah felt his own grief swell up from the depths of him, surprising him with its strength.
“I didn’t get to go to my nana’s funeral,” he said. His head suddenly felt like it was stuffed with wool. His ears rang; his eyes were stinging wet. “When you plant those vines,” he managed, and then he had to stop and gather himself. “Maybe you’ll let me help,” he finally mumbled.
She was silent.
“I let her down,” he said. “I let you all down, and I’m so sorry. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry.”
“She knows,” said Luffa quietly. “She sees you.”
“You think?”
“The Beyond is like a window at night. Standing inside the lit house and looking out into the darkness, one can see nothing. But from outside in the darkness, everything within is bright.” Luffa paused. “She slew the warlord. Not I.”
Syrah gaped. “Nana Cava?”
“You knew her. You know it is possible.”
Syrah found that he could easily imagine it. He nodded.
“Stories take the shapes they take. My people believed what they needed to believe.”
“And it didn’t bother my nana?”
“Not at all. She encouraged it.”
“What did she think, when you gave up your crown to make Yellow a democracy?”
Luffa chuckled. “Oh, she called me a fool. I told her that she was the fool. We stopped speaking for a while, and then she wrote and told me that while she did not understand my choice, she still admired my bravery. She possessed courage of the blood, she said, but I possessed courage of the spirit. She was … a singular creature.”
They stood together quietly for some time, Syrah contemplating all this.
“You know,” he said, after a while. “Delicata’s pretty singular.”
Luffa narrowed her dark eyes.
“And she’s not responsible for my nana’s death.”
“Stop right there.”
“All she wants,” said Syrah, determined, “is for you to tell her she’s enough. And she is enough — she’s more than enough, and you know it. She’s killing herself to make you proud, but if you don’t give her a kind word, and soon, she’s going to start hating you — and you’re going to lose the only other person around here who’s anywhere near as tough as my nana was.”
Luffa regarded him for a long moment in silence before she snorted and turned away. She stalked back to the Thatch, leaving him there. But Syrah thought he recognized the tone of that snort, and he felt sure that she had listened.
Alone, he wandered away from the Thatch. At first he didn’t mean to take a long walk; he was just appreciating the twilight, and the feeling of his own feet beneath him. He passed through the pumpkin patches and out beyond the fields, until he was at the edge of the woods. Even at dusk, with little light, the greenness from within those woods shone, beck
oning to him.
He went in. The cover of trees was so dense that the deeper he went into the wood, the darker it ought to have become, but everything growing here seemed to possess its own light. It really was magic, this place — Syrah could actually feel the cool tingle of its strange power seeping into him like water through a frog’s skin. Thick moss glowed faintly beneath him and ran like a river ahead, marking the path and muffling his footsteps as he traveled through the green and silent grove. He knew where he was going.
When he reached the wishing well, he knelt beside it.
It was as deep as ever, and as dark. Syrah looked down into that darkness and wondered what it was that lived there, and why it did the things it did. He couldn’t be the only person who had come here and made a foolish wish. Did the well curse everyone who tried? He felt sure that it did not. Why had it chosen him, then — and how had it known him so well? Was it a fairy? Some other creature of the Shattering? There was no way to tell. He supposed he could have wished for the answer, but if his wish went wrong, he might wind up a frog again. Or worse. No, it was better not to fool with wishing wells.
He reached out a hand and dragged it along the inner rim of the well, where the soil was damp and black. The tingling of magic became a vibration, buzzing in his hand like a living thing. It was strong, that energy — but warm. Accepting. It did not want to repel him. He left his hand where it was, touching that soft soil, and he wondered what he would wish now, if he were brave enough to make wishes. He could wish for Yellow Country to get the governor it needed. He could wish for Calabaza to get well. Or for a chance to say good-bye to his nana.
Syrah closed his eyes. He couldn’t see Nana Cava again, but he could still become the man she would have wanted him to be. He could make her proud in the Beyond. He could make himself proud.
The soil grew warm beneath his hand. For a fleeting moment, Syrah felt a hand take his own and press it gently, as if to give him strength. Then it was gone, leaving him with a full heart and a sense that he was ready.
“Thank you,” he said. And, in spite of everything, he meant it.
IT had been nearly sixteen months since his disappearance when Prince Syrah stepped off a ship and onto the shore of Balthasar, where his family was waiting. His parents cried and held him. His sisters and brothers welcomed him. They brought him back to the Pavilions, where the Huanuis had gathered from across the islands to welcome him home with food and music and revelry by torchlight.
Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince Page 30