After classes, we headed toward the mess hall for dinner and passed Master Fosco, who was walking with a group of dragon warriors. Some wore the red uniform of dragon riders, but the half-ogre in the front wore the burgundy of a dragon mage. He turned to our group and grinned. “Rufus.”
Master Fosco raised his brows. “Another brother, Livens?”
“Yes, and a powerful one, too!” He clapped Rufus on the shoulder. “Come and join us at the Warrior Queen for a goblet of dragon’s tears. Bring your classmates. I will introduce you to the drogott team.”
“This is your chance,” hissed Fyrian. “Make an excuse.”
Rufus turned to us. “Are you coming?”
The others gave him a thumbs up, but I stepped back. “I’m going to study.”
Master Fosco narrowed his eyes at me. “There is no homework during assessment week.”
“Yes, sir, but I wanted to read up on what I missed this morning when I ran out of Healing class.”
He gave me a reluctant nod, and the group of males strode across the courtyard in the opposite direction. Walking as slowly as I could, I kept glancing over my shoulder so they wouldn’t see me enter the main building. The Director shot me a lingering glare, but he continued along with the others.
When they disappeared around the building, Fyrian said, “I think he’s suspicious.”
“Then we’d better make it quick.” I waited a few more moments to make sure he didn’t double back and try to follow me, then I rushed through the wooden doors.
Dim lanterns shone in the reception area, a square space with doors around its edges and bisected by Evolene’s long desk. I hoped they weren’t the kind that would burst into brightness when they detected motion. At this time of the evening, any strange activity spilling from the skylight would arouse suspicion and get me caught.
Mr. Jankin’s room was the nearest on the left, and further on was Master Fosco’s. At the very end was a door signposted ‘APPRENTICES,’ which I assumed was for the Academy taught by the Director. I crept around the desk, sweeping my gaze over its clear surface. Then I made a note to check the drawers for clues later if I got the chance.
“Hurry up and get to Jankin’s room before someone catches us!” Fyrian hissed.
“Catches me, you mean,” I muttered.
“If I die, so do you.”
My stomach plummeted, and I swayed on my feet. “I-I think Master Fosco believed me when I said we were connected.”
She didn’t reply, so I hurried to the reception area to Mr. Jankin’s room. The faint scent of burned wood lingered on the door frame, which gave me hope that Master Fosco hadn’t cleared the evidence.
“I don’t understand why no one heard the dragon roar or smelled the burning,” I said. “Master Fosco was in the room next door.”
“He probably shot the flames out of his hands or something,” said Fyrian.
“Maybe he destroyed the body to protect Mount Fornax as he said.” I pushed the door open, and light flooded the room.
My heart pulsed, and a thrill of terror tickled my spine. I had to be quick in case someone saw something suspicious from the skylight. With one quick glance over my shoulder to check that the light wouldn’t be visible in the reception area, I stepped into the room and let the door click shut behind me.
“Quick. Look around,” said Fyrian. “I want to examine everything.”
There really wasn’t much to see but a white room blackened by dragon fire. I scanned the walls, taking in every detail. Then I raised my head to look at the ceiling.
“Wait!” she cried.
“What?”
“Look at the pattern of the scorch marks.”
Residual, brown stains marred the wall on which the door was hung, but the wall opposite was completely scorched. There were also fewer burn marks on the side walls. I rubbed my chin. “It looks like the dragon attacked by sticking his head through the door.”
“Look at the floor.”
The sandstone floor tiles around the door were unmarked. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You are… but there’s no way a dragon could have done this.”
“Why?” I glanced up at the ceiling. The side furthest away from the door was scorched, confirming my theory. If a dragon had attacked through the skylight, most of the scorch marks would be on the floor directly beneath the opening in the skylight.
“See for yourself. Rapier Reds are the smallest types of adult dragons. Go to the hallway and see if Rubens would be able to squeeze his way through to the reception area.”
“I already know the answer.”
The only type of dragon who could access this room was a dragonet, and their flames were only powerful enough to cook small chunks of meat. I wasn’t sure how much fire a dragon mage like General Thornicroft could generate, but it was looking like a powerful warrior committed the crime, rather than a dragon.
“Let’s go,” I muttered.
I opened the door and walked into a scowling Master Fosco.
A yelp escaped my lips.
His mahogany eyes burned like the coals in a blacksmith’s forge, seeming to incinerate me from the inside. I staggered back into the room, letting the door slam shut behind me.
“Run!” shouted Fyrian.
I looked around the blackened room. The only other exit was the skylight, but I had neither wings nor a magical cloak. “Where?”
“I don’t know. Duck under his arm when he comes in!”
“Bluford,” he snarled from outside the door. “Come out of there at once.”
‘Don’t go to him,” she screamed. “He’ll kill you, and we’ll both die!’
“What else can I do?” My inner voice shook.
Ducking under his arm would only lead to him grabbing me around the middle. Then I would struggle, and then he would crush my neck with his mighty fists. As a quarter-ogre, I had the limited physical strength of a witch—good for fighting humans but useless in the face of an enraged, ogre-hybrid male.
Fyrian didn’t provide any suggestions, so I opened the door with as much dignity as I could muster. “I surrender.”
Master Fosco grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and marched me across the reception area into his office. The lights came on, illuminating a huge mural of Aunt Cendrilla riding her purple dragon. Smaller paintings stood on the desk, but I didn’t dare crane my neck to see them.
He held up a scroll. “I sent a missive to Rilla earlier today.”
My stomach dropped. Once again, he was using that nickname. “I…” Words dried up in my throat. Anything I said would incriminate me. “What did it say?”
“I told her about the boy with fairy magic who had enrolled as a dragon mage. Then I asked her if he had your permission.”
My feet shuffled backward on their own accord, but he held me firmly by the scruff.
“I know,” said Fyrian. “Tell him you’re the product of a liaison between a human and a fairy.”
What she was describing was an imp, and they were child-sized creatures with beautiful little faces and stumpy wings. In light of Master Fosco’s manic eyes and bared teeth, I didn’t bother to dignify her suggestion with a response.
“Do you want to know what she said?” he growled.
“No?” I squeaked.
He unrolled the scroll and scanned its contents. Aunt Cendrilla must have written a lot more, because it took a moment for him to reach the right paragraph. “Here it is… I was in Metropole earlier today with Armin and the twins. If this boy really is an ogre-fairy hybrid, I would like to meet him.”
“Oh.” My shoulders dropped. At least she hadn’t said I was an impostor. “I didn’t say I was Queen Cendrilla’s son. Everyone just assumed it.”
“Because you’re wearing the face of her boys!” He dragged me over to the desk and pulled out a fist-sized piece of gravestone. It was a rare mineral that temporally canceled all types of magic. “Let’s see who you are under that enchantment.”
My stoma
ch dropped, and I struggled within his grip. “No!”
Baring his teeth, he pressed the stone to my face. Then his brows furrowed. His gaze flickered down the front of my uniform. “You’re…”
A pitiful whimper reverberated in my throat. This was it. I was caught, and he would lock me up for impersonating a Prince.
His fingers loosened, letting go of both me and the stone. “You’re the Bastard Princess!”
Chapter 14
My mind went blank for the second it took the slur to seep through my skin and hit me in the gut. A jolt of anger pierced my heart, and heat flushed through my veins, melting away my terror and replacing it with that twitching, itching, ants-skittering-across-the-skin irritation.
How dare he? My jaw tightened, my fists clenched, and I prepared to defend Mother’s honor. Lower fairies didn’t get married. They mated, and she’d been mated to Father for years before they’d had me. It wasn’t Mother’s fault that Aunt Cendrilla had needed a trustworthy regent to save the country from civil war, and it wasn’t Mother’s fault that Father was obsessed with her half-ogre sister.
I glared up into Master Fosco’s wide, mahogany eyes. “I’m not a bastard.”
He stared back for a few heartbeats then strode to his desk. The tightness in my fists and forearms loosened.
“Don’t relax too soon,” said Fyrian. “He can still burn you to a cinder from a distance!”
Master Fosco pulled back his chair and sat. “Do you know how much I hate your father?”
I reared back. “What?”
“Bluebeard is a fraud, an interloper, and a murderer of the worst kind! He has bewitched poor, sweet Rilla.”
“No, he hasn’t—”
Master Fosco slammed his fist on the table, making me jump. “Do you deny the existence of his six dead wives?”
I bowed my head. Years ago, when I had been exploring the mansion, I stumbled across a basement crypt containing six coffins, each with inscriptions of women bearing the Bluebeard surname. There was a seventh, unoccupied coffin, and I had panicked and told Mother to run. She had explained that Father's previous wives had died during pregnancy, and by the time Mother was pregnant with me, Father had discovered how to sacrifice two of his lives to ensure that we both survived.
I raised my head, meeting him squarely in the eye. “He didn’t kill—”
“Everybody in Steppe knows of your Father’s wife-murdering past!” he roared.
“You’re not listening!” I shouted back.
Master Fosco clenched the edge of the table, as though it was the only thing keeping him from ripping me into a dragonet’s meal. He bared his teeth. “Then Bluebeard impregnated a fairy of dubious morals and married her purer, more beautiful sister.”
Fyrian might have said something, but it was drowned out by blood roaring through my ears. I rushed to the desk, white-hot fury powering every step. “You don’t know anything, you moth-minded muck-spout!”
A slow, wide grin spread across his face. It was the type I’d imagine a dragon would make after pilfering another dragon’s hoard. “What a foul-mouthed little Princess you are!”
My throat spasmed, and I took a step back.
He leaned forward, teeth seeming to sharpen. “I will take great pleasure in my retribution.”
Every ounce of blood drained from my face and gathered into my plummeting stomach.
“Run, Alba!” cried Fyrian.
My legs went numb, and I couldn’t get them to move. Of all the times for my body to fail! Master Fosco’s manic, burning eyes incinerated the last of my survival instinct. At any moment, he would burn me like he burned Mr. Jankin. Then he’d throw my body into the mountain’s interior for the dragons to eat.
“What are you doing?” Fyrian screeched into my mind. “Get out of there, now!”
“I… I can’t move.” Looking into Master Fosco’s eyes was like trying to stare down a dragon. A dragon who had already decided to make me his prey. A dragon that couldn’t be defeated, outrun, or outsmarted.
Master Fosco picked up a quill and grabbed a piece of parchment.
I clenched my teeth, trying to calm my breathing. Was this the beginning of a new kind of torture?
Then, he dipped the quill into an ink pot and dictated while he wrote. “To the self-styled Prince Regent Bluebeard.” He glanced up at me, his eyes burning with malice. “Your daughter’s manners are almost as bad as yours, but to her credit, at least she does not stink.”
I reared back, brow furrowed. “What?”
“I have the little scoundrel in my lair. You know where to find me. Duel me at dawn or I will incinerate your offspring.”
A shocked huff of air forced its way out of my lungs. “What are you doing?”
He rolled up the parchment, picked up a chunk of wax and melted it with a flame from his index finger.
“M-Master Fosco?”
He stamped the letter with the Mount Fornax dragon head seal. “Holding you hostage until that blue-haired piece of excrement agrees to a duel.”
My jaw dropped. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” He bared his teeth, fist clenching so hard, the parchment bent out of shape. “Do you think Fosco lacks the strength to face the Sword of Lightning?”
“No!” I spluttered. “You can’t give me back to Father!”
“I do not follow.”
My shoulders slumped. He already knew my identity, and I had nothing else to lose by telling him the truth. “Father wants to marry me off to King Magnar of the Savannah Empire.” My voice shook. “That’s why I disguised myself as a boy and came here.”
Master Fosco leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “The Known World is full of better alternatives. Why would King Magnar consider you?”
The insult didn’t even make me flinch. Not after I’d endured a lifetime of Mother and me being relegated to Bluebeard Mountain while Father lived in the Capital to deal with Senate business and to be closer to Aunt Cendrilla. Master Fosco meant nothing to me, and I didn’t need his approval.
I swallowed back a lump in my throat and blinked hard to stop my eyes from stinging. It was hard to admit to anyone, even to an oddball like Master Fosco, that Father didn’t care. “He…” My voice broke. “King Magnar wants to marry Aunt Cendrilla. Father wants to send me as a replacement.”
Master Fosco’s face dropped. Then he erupted into a roaring laugh that shook the entire room. I glanced around, looking for signs that the sound had been magically enhanced. “This is precious!”
Feeling trickled back into my legs, and I wriggled my toes, ready to escape if he turned feral.
“Bluebeard’s precious daughter would rather hide in the den of a mortal enemy than with her own father!” He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “Stay for as long as you like, girl. I will keep your secrets for now. I cannot wait to see what he will do when he discovers you’re missing!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Father wouldn’t notice if I was gone. “T-thank you.”
Master Fosco ripped up the letter. While he placed the torn pieces of parchment into the wastebasket, I dipped down to take the piece of gravestone and hid it behind my back. “May I leave, sir?”
He waved me off, and I sprinted out of the office.
‘That went better than expected,” said Fyrian.
My legs trembled so much, I bumped into the side of Evolene’s desk. It had been sheer luck that Master Fosco’s hatred for Father had distracted him from punishing me for snooping and for being a girl in disguise. I pulled open the door, sprinted down the hallway and didn’t slow until I’d reached the terrace.
“At least we’ve confirmed one thing,” she added.
“What’s that?” I pushed open the door, stepped out onto the grassy terrace and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. The sun had set, and the first dragon moths flew out of the stalls.
“Master Fosco is insane enough to commit murder.”
I walked toward Fyrian’s terrace
to find her sitting on her haunches like a sphinx. She leaned forward, lowering her head to my level and flared her nostrils as though checking that I was unharmed. Staring into her huge, crimson eyes was nothing like being caught in the gaze of Master Fosco.
I had to admit. There were males out there like Father who did exactly what they wanted and made no secret of their wrongdoings. I was beginning to think that Master Fosco might just be one of them.
All through the night and the early hours of the morning, I lay awake in bed, thinking over my encounter with the deranged Director. If he had been the killer, he wouldn’t have been distracted when he had discovered my true identity. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, he was still in control of Fyrian’s fate. The poor dragon couldn’t sleep either, as the sound of every footstep on the terrace brought back memories of the witches who had been ordered to execute her.
I glanced out of my bedroom window into the mountain’s interior. Streaks of sunlight streamed down, illuminating the dragons launching themselves off the back of their stalls and swooping to the bottom of the mountain. I got out of bed and pressed my head against the window, but the surface was too far down. I wondered if it was breakfast time for dragons, but didn’t ask Fyrian, because the reminder of being locked up might be too upsetting.
“I’m going to find Madam Maritimus and tell her about the scorch marks,” I said.
There was no reply from Fyrian, and I stood at the washstand, examining my features in the mirror. Madam Skinner hadn’t exactly made me look like the twins. I looked more like myself but with a squared jaw, broader nose and a masculine brow. Their skin, eyes, and hair were darker than mine, but I supposed we all shared a resemblance, since we were all the grandchildren of Prince Evander of the fairies.
“Are you still there?” I asked out loud.
When Fyrian didn’t answer, I pulled on my silk underclothes and then the leather armor. At least one of us was getting some sleep. I reached the door and turned the handle, ready to share my suspicions.
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