Kate just stared at the girl for a moment, making a mental note to pass that bit of advice onto the next client before shaking her head and returning to the task at hand. “Though that may be arranged, one stain or spill and I’d be stuck spending the afternoon in the uniform maintenance department getting your dress dry-cleaned. We’re going to wait for the dress and shoes until just before we do the teleporting.”
“Am I still going to be stuck with those glass shoes you were talking about? Because I was thinking about what you said about Rupert stepping on my toes, and I don’t think it would help the magic if I screamed because there was a broken piece of glass stuck in my foot. And I really don’t want to get blood on this dress.”
Kate smiled, secretly proud of herself for already having a plan for this part. “Actually, we’re not going to have to worry about that,” she said confidently, pulling out the set of old, nearly worn-out slip-ons she’d brought from home (Rellie never seemed to be wearing shoes, and Kate didn’t want to get within fifty feet of any of the stepfamily’s closets). “I have the perfect solution right here.”
Rellie looked skeptically at the shoes. “I don’t think they match my dress.”
Reminding herself not to be annoyed, Kate pushed herself to her feet. “Just be grateful you didn’t have to find them yourself.” Mentally reviewing the order she’d cobbled together from two separate sets of shoe spells, Kate circled the wand counterclockwise three times around her open palm before spiraling it upward like an ice cream cone. Then, because just using flourishes would make the spell take about twenty minutes, she sprinkled in a couple of preprogrammed keywords random enough that normal conversation wouldn’t accidentally trigger them.
Rellie’s brow wrinkled. “Badgley Mischka?”
A swirl of fairy dust, and there they were. Kate held the newly transformed shoes out to Rellie with pride. “Voila. Your shoes.”
Fascinated, Rellie gently poked the completely clear shoes, now far more ornate and festooned with tiny, equally clear bows. “Are those . . .” The clear shoes bent under Rellie’s finger, making her yank her hand back in surprise. “Okay, those aren’t glass.”
“Think of it as a glass substitute.” Kate held out the shoes, gesturing for Rellie to try them on. “Believe me, they’ll be much more comfortable to dance in, and if you decide you want to leave one behind at the end of the evening you can just kick it off.”
“Why would I want to leave one behind?” Rellie, who had dropped to the ground to put on the shoes, froze and looked up in confusion. “They’re pretty, and I don’t think Rupert’s going to be very happy with me if I start throwing my shoes at him.”
Kate fought back a smile, both amused at the image and pleased that the girl clearly liked the shoes. “Actually, the girls normally leave it just outside the front doors so the prince can find them after they mysteriously run off.” She paused, thinking about some of the things Jon had said about Rupert. “With your prince, though, we should probably leave an actual note with your address on it.”
Rellie finished putting on the sandals, then stretched her feet out in front of her and wiggled her toes in satisfaction. “That makes way more sense than the shoe.”
TWELVE
Back to Bite You
No one was willing to inform Madame Stewart that the ice sculptures she had set out for the evening’s ball were not, in fact, made of ice. This wasn’t normally the case, as the palace had a standing contract with a local craftsman who normally did such work. But when a page had arrived at his shop with the news that they needed their usual batch of thirteen completed in two weeks, he had begun giggling in a highly unstable manner, making pointed gestures with his chisel. Not knowing what else to do, Stewart’s assistants had scoured the attic for old glass sculptures, which they then misted with water and threw in the palace freezers. As for Madame Stewart herself, she had recently been struck down by a bout of canapé poisoning and was, as of yet, too ill to notice.
Jon was quite sensibly hiding. Since the maids and secretaries were highly bribable and knew where all the offices were, he’d brought the paperwork he’d been avoiding to a walk-in closet in one of the bedrooms reserved for less important guests. As an extra precaution, he’d left the documents in terrifyingly large stacks between himself and the closet door, an early warning system that had the added bonus of hopefully destroying some of the papers should anyone try to come through.
Of course, that didn’t stop people from making the attempt. Jon’s head shot up as he heard the sound of the doorknob turning, then the muffled thud of the wood hitting the solid wall of paperwork. It was only when he heard swearing, the source unmistakable despite being muffled by the door, that he let himself relax. “Don’t move,” he warned Lawton, pushing to his feet just long enough to move some of the piles out of the way. “My paperwork has been trained to kill all intruders on sight.”
Lawton raised an eyebrow at him. “Being in love has clearly done little to improve your sense of humor.”
Jon carefully shoved a particularly ornate invitation to the bottom of a pile. “Kate would have thought it was funny.”
“Which, tragically, shows that love has made her delusional.” As Jon laughed, Lawton surveyed the closet with a resigned expression. “You know, Jon, most people would have considered a locking door to be an integral part of their chosen hideout.” After eyeing and then rejecting a particularly hideous green and purple pinstriped footstool, he gave up and leaned back against the door. “Perhaps even—oh, I don’t know—a chair.”
Jon smirked a little as he returned to the next document in the stack, a request from a local school of wizardry to run tests on and possibly dissect an heirloom frog skin purse. He immediately signed it—the only reason they still had the purse was because the frog was his Great-Aunt Gertrude’s ex-husband. Now that she was dead, it was definitely time to get it out of the house. “The maids don’t even look at these rooms unless someone is actually scheduled to be sleeping in them. As an added bonus, most of Madame Stewart’s staff seem to be at least mildly allergic to dust.”
Lawton’s lips quirked upward in amusement. “I take it that you’re not about to rush downstairs and start overseeing preparations for the ball?”
Before Jon could respond there was a sudden crashing noise from the general direction of the ballroom, loud enough to be heard even several floors up. Both Lawton and Jon winced. “Someone figured I was the one who wanted the ball thrown together on such short notice, then felt the need to share this insight with Madame Stewart.”
“I see.” Lawton was trying not to grin at whatever vision was running through his head. “I take it she is less than pleased with you?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Jon said dryly. “Thankfully, though, she’s too sick to be much of a threat at the moment. Her assistants, on the other hand . . .” Temporarily setting aside the family tree of an enchanted turkey who was requesting sanctuary before he ended up on the King of Nearby’s dinner table, Jon made a dramatic slicing motion across his neck. “You’d be surprised how many nails, needles, and scissors those people can pull together on short notice.”
“Not to mention the various lengths of measuring tape and ribbon they must have at their disposal.” Amused, Lawton gave Jon a carefully appraising look. “Given how pivotal this evening is to join efforts with your darling Katharine, I would have presumed that far more strategizing would occur on your part.”
Jon sat back, gaze going distant as he let himself visualize the best part of the evening in front of him. “The Golden Goose has reserved one of their private dining rooms for me the entire night—I don’t want us to feel pressured to get there by a specific time, and if she wants to stay until the place closes I’ll be an extremely happy man.” Careful questioning had left him pretty certain she’d like the food, and if by some off chance she didn’t, he’d already made it clear that the restaurant would then locate some food she did like. “When we do get there, I’ve got candl
elight, flowers, the whole deal.”
Lawton raised an eyebrow. “And then you’ll tell her?”
Jon made a frustrated noise. “And then I’ll tell her.” He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “She’ll forgive me. She’ll be annoyed, and she’ll have every right to be annoyed, but I’ll make her understand why I did it, and she’ll forgive me.”
Lawton smiled slightly. “And if that doesn’t work, there’s always jewelry.”
Jon was inspired to a smile of his own as he returned his attention to the family tree. “There’s always jewelry.” He signed off on the sanctuary—with the condition that the turkey accept a job in the kingdom’s petting zoo—then hesitated again as a niggling case of nerves made him look back up at Lawton. “Do you think I should have something ready, just in case?”
“I think you’ll be fine.” A second later, however, he winced. “Rupert, however, may need to have a necklace and matching earrings on hand if he wants to keep this Rellie girl for longer than a few hours.”
“Actually, he’d have better luck bringing her fluffy bunnies.” Next in the stack was a letter from a Mrs. Peter, who was suing her husband in the royal court for inflicting “years of psychological damage.” Apparently, Mr. Peter had a nasty habit of getting drunk and trying to shove his wife’s head into a pumpkin shell. “Still, she seems to be pretty easygoing. As long as he doesn’t bring up the word ‘self-actualization’ in front of her, I think they’ll be okay.”
“Where is Rupert, by the way? From everything you’ve said about this Rellie girl, I can’t imagine even she will be agreeable enough to appreciate the new, even more exasperating Rupert we’ve all been suffering these last few weeks.”
“Hopefully, that’s starting to wear off,” Jon admitted, surprised at having forgotten about that aspect of things for a moment. But really, someone usually had to be shouting—or be Kate—to make it more than halfway up the list of things Jon worried about. “I checked on Rupert this morning. There wasn’t much time to actually talk, but he had that cheerfully unconcerned expression that used to be pretty constant with him.”
Lawton grimaced in mild distaste. “As much as it pains me to say this, I’m afraid that I’m relieved by the thought of Rupert returning to his former state of relatively harmless idiocy.”
Jon nodded. “If nothing else, he’s—”
Another series of crashing noises cut in from the ballroom, followed by a high-pitched scream and the sound of several people running for their lives. If the occasional shriek that followed was any indication of escape, not all of them made it.
After it was quiet again, Lawton glanced over at Jon. “Do you suppose Madame Stewart finally took a closer look at her ice sculptures?”
Finally, it was almost time for the best part of Jon’s evening. Unfortunately, that was only going to happen after the worst part was finally done.
He timed it as finely as he could, waiting until the absolute last second before heading downstairs to the ever-increasing swarm of newly arrived guests. He took the backstairs to get there, avoiding the area of the palace where his mother had spent the last several hours being sewn, stuffed, and starched into miles of satin and gemstones. After slipping from her grasp during the last ball Rupert would no doubt be pinned down in the next room over, enduring equal trussing in preparation for tonight’s hosting duties.
All Jon had to do was make sure everything was ready for Kate, then spirit her away at the first opportunity.
“Prince Jon! Thank the curling papers I’ve found you!”
Vowing to take sneaking lessons from someone in Lawton’s spy network, Jon reluctantly stopped at the frantic cry of his mother’s hairdresser. “As long as it’s not a fire hazard, I don’t care what’s happening or what you and my mother consider an appropriate outfit,” he said quickly, hoping to stave off the conversation before it started. “Even if it is a fire hazard, just have one of the pages follow her around with a blanket and bucket of water.”
The hairdresser’s panicked expression didn’t lessen in the slightest. Without a word, she grabbed Jon’s arm and promptly dragged him toward the small room just off the upper balcony in the ballroom. Commonly referred to as the staging area, the balcony was the place the royal family and other nobles gathered for last-minute touches before making a dramatic entrance down the main staircase.
Which, in short, meant he was being dragged right to his mother. “I will pay you not to force me to get involved in whatever problem my mother is causing.”
Her grip didn’t loosen and her pace didn’t slacken as they skirted past rows of pages, all of whom were helping organize the parking of dozens upon dozens of coaches. When Jon dug his heels in and forced the woman to slow down slightly, she made a small sound of distress and yanked even harder on his arm. “Your mother is beside herself with panic and shaking her miniature songbirds loose. I’m doing all the repair work I can, but if you don’t calm her down before the cage breaks I can’t be held responsible for what happens.” When Jon didn’t respond, she turned her head back to look at him. “Caged songbirds are angry songbirds, Your Highness, particularly with the amount of hairspray we’ve been using.”
Though Jon was desperately trying to convince himself that this was simply a fashion disaster blown out of proportion, he could already feel the tension headache forming behind his eyes. “I know no one seems quite able to process this, but comforting Mother has never been one of my specialties. It’s Rupert’s presence that always manages to soothe her.”
There was a long, terrible silence from the hairdresser before she hauled him forward with more force than should have been possible. Noticing this, Jon’s stomach immediately plummeted like a lead weight, and he dug his heels in deeply enough to jerk the hairdresser to a full stop. “Madame Durrell?” he asked, his deathly calm voice completely at odds with what he was feeling. “What’s happened to Rupert?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, eyes somehow growing even wider and more frantic. Jon finally just tore his arm out of her grip, then ran past her and down the hallway toward the staging area.
When he got there, he had to skid to a very quick and awkward stop. The staging room doors burst open only inches in front of him, spitting out three shrieking maids who nearly ran Jon over as they made their exit. Jon ducked at the flash of wings that immediately followed, the songbird barely missing his head as it shot out into the freedom of the hallway.
Inside the staging area, things were only marginally more controlled. Two pages were running in frantic circles around the room, trying and failing miserably to catch the second bird. His mother had, naturally, fainted across the ornamental couch, managing to fall in such a way that the sweep of her skirt still managed to drape itself artfully. She was flanked on one side by Madame Durrell’s assistant, who desperately tried to repair the wire cage in the queen’s hair that had presumably once been home to the songbirds. On the other side was Jon’s father, valiantly trying to pry open Mother’s fingers to get at the crumpled paper she somehow still held in a death grip.
Rupert, Jon realized, was nowhere in sight.
Oh, no.
Acutely aware of the immense crowd milling around in the ballroom—and the two very important people who would be joining them any minute now—Jon strode over to a side table and grabbed one of the voluminous floral arrangements. Yanking the flowers out, he carried the vase back to his mother and promptly dumped the water over her face.
The king backed away as his wife shot upright, sputtering and waving her hands in front of her face. “What—? Who dares—?” The assistant, deciding this was beyond the realm of the hazard pay she received, scurried as far away from the queen as the room allowed.
By the time the queen had all the water wiped out of her eyes, all she had left to look at was Jon glaring at her. Almost immediately, she burst into tears again. “I told you that your brother needed you.” She dissolved into incoherent sobbing, out of which only the occ
asional sentence fragment could be heard. “Ignore your family for appointments . . . might as well have no sons . . .”
Jon turned to his father, who had slightly more experience translating his wife’s crying jags, but all the man could do was shrug helplessly and gesture at the note still clutched in the queen’s hand. “A page came in with it about ten minutes ago. You saw what happened next.”
Oh, please no.
Feeling himself go very cold, Jon grabbed his mother’s hand before she could move it away. “The note, Mother. Now.” Since the sobbing continued unabated, it seemed at first that she hadn’t heard, but when he pried her fingers apart they gave in much more easily than they had for his father.
When he had the entire paper safely in his hand, he smoothed it out and angled the words away from everyone so he could read it. In the background, the noise from the ballroom took on a decidedly restless edge.
Dear Family,
I’ve gone to seek in enlightenment. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what it looks like, since most of the books I’ve been reading use really big words I don’t quite understand. Not even Jon was able to help me with them, but since he said I should go find someone who could, I think he’d think this is a good idea.
I’m giving the crown to Jon, since he’s a lot smarter than me and does most of the kinging stuff anyway. If someone sees him, they should probably tell him he’s the heir now, and that I left the crown on the top shelf in the closet in my room next to a box of old hunting trophies.
Cheers,
Rupert
Jon closed his eyes a moment, swearing softly. It was a poor substitute for what he wanted to do—scream, beat his head against the wall as a punishment for his sheer stupidity, and kick Rupert so hard he couldn’t sit down for a week—but he didn’t have time for any of that.
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