Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  Finally, Flissa’s feet thumped down onto a lumpy dirt floor, and the start of a long stone-walled path. There were more torches here, so it was easier to see. Galric was waiting, pacing. His shoulders hunched, and his dark, stringy hair hung in his face. He cradled Nitpick in his arms.

  “You brought the cat!” Sara cooed. She let go of Flissa and stumbled forward on the uneven floor. Galric instantly released Nitpick and lunged to catch her before she slammed to the ground.

  “Thank you,” she said. She tilted up her head to smile gratefully at Galric…which made her hood fall back off her head.

  Flissa closed her eyes and inwardly groaned. The hoods were supposed to stay on. Now Flissa had to keep covered no matter what so Galric wouldn’t see their identical faces.

  Galric peered at Sara curiously. “You like Nitpick now?”

  “Well, yeah,” Sara said. “I always liked Nitpick.”

  Flissa stomped the floor. She felt like Balustrade, but since her voice was as identical to Sara’s as her face, it was the only way she knew to remind her sister there was a reason Galric might think Princess Flissara didn’t like the cat.

  Unfortunately, Sara wasn’t the one who noticed the stomp. Galric did. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t realize you were bringing someone else,” he told Sara. “The person I know with the Underground…I only said I was bringing one person. It’s dangerous with more.”

  “I understand, and I’m sorry,” Sara said. “But this is my most trusted servant. I can’t get along without her.”

  Galric shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, okay…but you could have told me. I mean, we’re in this together, so we have to tell each other stuff.”

  Under her hood, Flissa rolled her eyes. She wanted to say they were not “in this together.” She was his princess, and he was doing her a favor because she’d asked.

  “You’re right.” Sara smiled warmly. “I’m sorry. I should have said something.”

  Galric smiled back, and Flissa could see all the tension release from his long limbs.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset. I mean, you’re the princess. I just got really nervous before when you didn’t show up right at two, and—”

  This was taking forever. Flissa stomped her foot again.

  Galric looked at her and frowned. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s mute,” Sara said. “Sad, really. Interesting story, though. We found her on a processional through one of the outer reaches—”

  Flissa buried her hooded face in her hands. If Sara told one of her stories, they’d be standing in this same spot for a lifetime. Holding the hood down tight, she stomped both feet, close enough to Sara that she jolted.

  “Another time,” Sara said. “We should keep going.”

  “Right. Of course,” Galric said, but he threw Flissa a confused look before he started walking again.

  Sara fell into step next to him. “Does anyone else use these tunnels? I mean, is it okay we’re talking out loud?”

  “As far as I know, no one does,” Galric replied. “I mean, they did, at some point, but I’ve never seen anyone down here. I only found the tunnels because I heard the rumors when I was a kid, so I looked for them.”

  “Rumors?” Sara asked.

  “In the kitchen. That’s where they sent me to work after…well, when I was old enough. All the older kids talked about this scary dungeon below the castle with magical torches that never went out. They said the Keepers of the Light—when they started, back in King Lamar’s time—magically carved the place out so they’d have a place to take and torture anyone magical.”

  Flissa frowned. That’s not how she’d heard the story. She gently took Sara’s hand so Sara would fall into step next to her, just behind Galric. That way Flissa could speak and Galric would still think the voice was Sara’s.

  “Anyone with dark magic,” Flissa clarified. “And it wasn’t exactly ‘torture.’ After the Dark Magic Uprising, Kaloon’s safety depended on Grosselor finding everyone magical and getting them to the Twists. So he did a lot of questioning. Some of it got intense, yes, but it was all for the good of Kaloon.”

  Galric spun around, and Flissa shut her mouth. He looked at Sara, a little perplexed, and suddenly Flissa thought about Primka, and what she’d said about the two of them not being identical at all.

  Galric frowned at Sara, then started walking again. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what they say. All for the good of Kaloon.”

  Flissa didn’t like Galric’s tone. She wanted to say more, but then the group turned a corner and emerged in a large cavern. Craggy rocks with rust-colored tips stood up in spikes from the floor.

  “These are so pretty,” Sara said, running her hand over one. “I like that the tops are different colors than the rest of the rock.”

  “It’s blood,” Galric said. “They say Grosselor and his original Keepers used their magic to get inside their prisoners’ heads. If they didn’t like the answers they got to their ‘intense’ questions, they’d make the prisoners jump on the spikes and impale themselves.”

  He turned and looked pointedly at Sara, whose jaw hung agape.

  “But, you know…all for the good of Kaloon.”

  Flissa didn’t know how Sara responded, because for a moment she wasn’t there. She was eight years old again, watching that dark mage girl with the sickle mark on her hand hurl her friend Anna into the air as the girl kicked and flailed and screamed.

  But that wasn’t Grosselor’s way. The Keepers protected Kaloon from mages like that. It was their whole purpose, the whole reason it was worth following the Magic Eradication Act to the letter, flaws and all.

  Flissa took a deep breath and pulled herself tall.

  Galric was spouting rumors. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t spend his childhood studying history like Flissa. He spent it running around the royal kitchens, living off whatever scraps of food and bits of news the palace staff could spare. Had he scurried around enough to know hidden spots in the castle that Flissa never knew existed? Sure. Did that mean all of his so-called knowledge was valid? Not in the least. Most rocks varied in color. The red on these spikes was doubtless natural, and the blood story just a myth passed down to give gullible children nightmares.

  Flissa didn’t realize she’d been lost in her own thoughts until she looked around and saw they’d moved beyond the floor spikes and were walking across a long cavern. Flissa thought they had to still be under the castle somewhere, but she couldn’t imagine how far under—the rocky ceilings towered above her, twice as high as the ones in the banquet hall.

  “What is that?” Sara asked.

  Flissa followed her sister’s gaze. She was pointing most of the way across the chamber, where a chasm as wide as a dueling field split the floor. Tendrils of purple smoke wafted up from inside it.

  Flissa knew exactly what it was, and she squirmed inside because she’d read about pits like this, and they were indeed tools of the Keepers of the Light. The purple smoke came from a magical fire inside the pit: Forever Flames. They offered all the pain of being burned alive with none of the actual burning. In the Keepers’ earliest days, when things were dire and they needed to use extreme measures to free Kaloon from dark magic, they could force suspected dark mages into the flames and leave them inside as long as they wanted, to torture them until they broke and admitted their villainy.

  “Not sure what it is,” Galric said, and since he was looking at them, there was no way Flissa could explain. “But I know it’s bad news. Only way out of this place is over it, though, so…”

  He walked to the wall next to the chasm’s edge, and Flissa saw a series of thick ropes there, pulled back against a rocky outcropping like half a curtain. Galric took one in his hands, then looked at Sara. “We swing. I put in the ropes myself when I was ten, the year before they moved me to the manure pits. I dared myself to do it. It was pretty crazy, but…they’re sturdy.”

  He tugged on the
m to prove it, and Flissa followed the ropes to their origin—a spot on the ceiling, high above the center of the pit. Galric had tied the ropes off to a thick, strong, ring-shaped rock. Flissa could see how he must have done it—she could trace the perfect climbing path along the walls and craggy ceiling—but he wasn’t lying when he said it was crazy. Flissa honestly didn’t know whether to be impressed by his bravery or concerned by his lack of common sense.

  Sara eyed the chasm dubiously. “Do we really have to swing over this? You’re sure there’s not some other way around?”

  Galric laughed. “I might not get out much, but even I saw you joust the Duke of Ellsbrough. When you jumped off Blusters and swung from that branch to kick his lance out of his hand? This is nothing compared to that. As for your friend, though,” Galric continued, glancing at Flissa, “I don’t know. Do you think this’ll be too hard for her? ’Cause if it is, I mean, it’s a pretty straight shot back to the staircase. She could get there easy, and it’s still late enough no one would see her come out of the column.”

  Flissa seethed. If she could speak without risking their secret, she’d tell Galric he was incredibly rude for speaking about a “servant” like she wasn’t in the room; that he was wildly mistaken and it was she, not Sara, who had performed in that duel; and that if he ever called Balustrade “Blusters” again, she was going to swing off a tree branch and kick him in the stomach.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t say all that. But she’d be tempted, for certain.

  “She isn’t going anywhere,” Sara said. “We stick together. She can handle this.” Sara stepped a little closer to the pit and peered in, then looked at the ropes. She moved closer to them and gave one a little tug. Then she smiled proudly at Galric. “And so can I.”

  In one motion, Flissa moved across the floor, hooked Sara’s arm, and swept her far enough away from Galric that she could whisper without him overhearing. “In no universe are you swinging over that pit.”

  “What?!” Sara whispered. “Flissa, we flipped the coin. We’re doing this.”

  “This isn’t about the coin, this is about your life. You won’t make it across. It’s too far. You’ll fall.”

  “I won’t! I’ll be fine,” Sara insisted.

  “You can’t know that,” Flissa said. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t do things like this. I do things like this.”

  “But that’s the thing—we’re both here. We don’t have to split things up now. We both get to do everything.” Impossibly, Sara grinned. Like this was a game. “It’s kind of exciting, right?”

  “No!” Flissa shot back. “There has to be another way out.”

  “He already told us there’s not,” Sara said, “and we’re running out of time. Dad’s not going to find Gilward. We know that. Getting to the Twists is our only hope to save Mom, so if we have to swing over this pit to do it, that’s what I’ll do. Mom’s life depends on it.”

  “Your life depends on not doing it!” Flissa heard her voice get louder, but she couldn’t stop herself. If anything happened to her sister…

  Sara took Flissa’s hands and peered under the hood to look her in the eye. “I can do this. I’ll be fine.”

  Flissa looked into Sara’s confident eyes and knew she wouldn’t win this fight. She couldn’t bring herself to say yes, but she finally nodded. “Be careful,” she whispered. “More careful than you’ve been about anything you’ve ever done.”

  “Deal.” Then she spun and started walking toward Galric. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “Great,” Galric said. “Meet you on the other side.”

  He grabbed one of the ropes, took several steps back, then raced top speed to the edge of the chasm, where he leaped up and swung all the way across. “Your turn, Princess!” Galric called from the other side. “Then your friend.”

  “Okay!”

  Sara grabbed the rope, and Flissa’s head spun. She ran to Sara and clutched her arm again. “I changed my mind,” she blurted desperately. “You don’t understand what’s in that pit. You can’t do this. I can’t let you. There has to be another way.”

  Sara gently pulled her arm away. “There’s not,” she said. “And I’m good. I’ll be careful. Trust me. I can do it.”

  Flissa reluctantly backed away. With her heart in her throat, she watched Sara run to the ropes. In Flissa’s head, Sara missed and tumbled into the magical flames again and again, but in real life she gripped the rope and leaped with all her might—

  —straight up. She leaped straight up instead of out, so the rope had no momentum. It swung her to the exact middle of the chasm, then hung there, limp. Sara dangled helplessly, high above the pit of magical flame, bathed in purple glow.

  “I was wrong!” she yelled. “I can’t do it! I can’t!”

  She screamed as her sweaty hands slipped and she slid two inches down the rope.

  Instantly, everything else faded away and the only thing in Flissa’s mind was saving her sister. “I’m coming!” she cried. She raced to the wall of ropes, grabbed one, and didn’t even bother to race back for a head start. She just leaped, then swung her body to gain speed. When she reached Sara, Flissa wrapped her legs around her sister so her momentum would carry them both to the other side.

  “Let go!” Flissa screamed when they reached the far edge.

  Sara obeyed; then Flissa hurled herself off her own rope and wrapped her arms around Sara, becoming a protective turtle shell. When they thumped to the ground, Flissa rolled them over and over, dissipating the impact so they wouldn’t get hurt. The second they stopped, Flissa crawled up to search her sister’s face. It was streaked with dirt, but Flissa didn’t see any cuts or scrapes. Sara smiled.

  “I’m good. It was kinda fun.”

  “But your bones? Your muscles? Nothing’s pulled or strained?” Flissa asked. “The fire didn’t burn you at all?”

  Sara smiled wider and shook her head.

  Flissa still had a million questions, but then Galric’s voice quavered next to them.

  “Y-y-y-you,” he stammered, and Flissa turned to see he’d gone ashen white. “T-t-t-two of you!”

  Uh-oh.

  Flissa reached up and checked. Sure enough, her hood had fallen off.

  Their secret was out.

  The look on Galric’s face hurt Sara way more than the fall. He was pale to begin with, but now he was pure paste.

  “Twins?” he asked.

  Sara jumped to her feet and moved toward him, but he backed away.

  “Yes, we’re twins,” she said urgently. “I’m Sara, and this is Flissa, but you can’t tell anyone.”

  Galric’s mouth gawped open. “Two?” he squeaked.

  “I think we broke him,” Flissa said.

  Sara tried again. “Galric—”

  “You’re magic!” he cried. “And you wanted me to get you to the Twists?”

  Sara looked at Flissa. They’d both caught him using the past tense.

  “You’re still getting us to the Twists,” Sara said. “You have to.”

  “Or what? You’ll put a curse on me?”

  The whole curse thing hit a little too close to home for Sara, and she didn’t know how to respond. Flissa didn’t have the same problem.

  “Yes, Galric, we’re twins. But we’re not magic. One does not always mean the other.”

  Galric’s eyes flitted from one twin to the other, and he cowered a little, as if that curse might come flying his way after all. “It does to the Keepers.”

  “Agreed,” Flissa said. “That’s why we hide. And we’re fine with that, because even if it means the Keepers are too cautious, it’s better than living in a world with so much secret dark magic that the Keepers have to expose people to the horrors of Forever Flames to find out where it all is!”

  “‘Forever Flames’?” Sara asked. She peered back to the pit and the purple smoke still wafting out of it. “Hold on—what did I just swing over?”

  Flissa ignored her and kept talking. “And be honest, Galr
ic. You hide too. You knowingly house a black cat. If the Keepers knew, they’d think you were a mage. In the time of King Lamar, you’d end up right there beside us experiencing the torment of eternal fire. And even today you and your cat would be sent immediately to the Twists.”

  “Seriously,” Sara interjected, “‘the torment of eternal fire’? We should not have been swinging over that thing.”

  “So tell me,” Flissa continued, keeping her eyes on Galric, “are you magic? Is Nitpick?”

  Hearing his name, Nitpick poked his little head out from the neckline of Galric’s shirt. He meowed and leaped toward Sara, who fumbled him around before finally hugging him close. He used his sharp claws to climb onto Sara’s shoulder and curl into a tiny purring ball.

  “Awwww,” Sara cooed. “See, Galric? Nitpick still likes us.”

  She leaned her head to feel the kitten’s soft fur on her cheek. When she looked back at Galric, his eyes had softened.

  “Yeah, he does,” Galric said. “And he’s good at judging people. Even magic people.”

  “We’re not magic,” Sara said quickly. But then she reconsidered what he’d said. “Wait—you know magic people?”

  “Well, yeah. I told you I know people…er…I told…one of you I know people…um…” Then suddenly his eyes opened wide. “Ohhhhh. Flissa…Sara…Flissara!”

  Flissa raised an eyebrow. “That just came together for you?”

  “Kinda, yeah,” Galric said. He smiled sheepishly, and there was something so sweet about it that Sara couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Seriously, though, you get it, right?” Sara asked after a moment. “You’ll keep our secret? You’ll help us get out and to the Underground, just like we planned?”

  Galric ran his hands through his hair. He looked slightly defeated, and Sara was worried he’d say no.