“Ye can see the real me?” Ebba asked. At least something about her was the same.
The soothsayer grinned in response, exposing all of her teeth. “No.”
“Well,” Plank said, blowing out a breath. “Will she pass inspection?” he asked Marigold and Barrels.
The two Exosians surveyed her in silence, glancing at each other before Marigold answered. “Yes, she’ll pass inspection. And set the courtesans aflutter.”
“There’ll be no aflutterin’ o’ any kind,” Stubby glowered. “She goes in, finds our stuff, and comes straight back out afore ten o’clock tonight.”
“Aye,” Locks joined in. “And no dancin’ closer than two feet.”
Plank watched her. “If ye drink anythin’ stronger than grog, we’ll be knowin’.”
Ebba scanned them, and looked at the women in the room. But Verity and Marigold seemed to be having trouble keeping a straight face.
Verity gave mercy first and strode forward to unclasp the necklace from Ebba’s neck. “This will only last eight hours at the most while on. We must conserve the charm for tonight.”
“When will I be leavin’?” Ebba slumped, resigning herself to the ball.
Marigold inspected a grand pendulum clock against the far wall. “The prince’s horses will come for you in two hours.” Her expression hardened. “Just enough time for me to run you through the layout of the castle.”
* * *
“Blimey, I stick out like a sore thumb,” Ebba said, nearly falling out of the carriage in her stupid heeled shoes.
One of Caspian’s slaves had jumped off the back and bowed before her. “Someone of your grace and charm could never be anything but welcome.”
Ebba thought he might have been having a laugh but then remembered the ruby necklace about her neck. “Aye, cheers, matey.” The slave melted like ice in a hot pot after she spoke. What the heck had the charm translated her ‘Aye, cheers, matey’ to?
The carriage had stopped within the castle gates in the huge rectangular courtyard where she’d knelt beside her fathers two days prior. Determined to get this over and done with, Ebba stormed up the steps where the king had first appeared, using both hands to hold up the stupid white dress with silver embroidery Marigold had forced her into. At the top, she clunked through the wide castle entrance in the pinching white shoes with the silver buckle. The clothes she wore were of fine quality, definitely not for rags. The women at the Maltu brothel would sell their hair to wear such luxury against their skin, but Ebba just saw the dress as a way to limit her stride. The material would get tangled in her knees if she had to run. And the shoes were just a painful nuisance that would give her blisters and a sprained ankle if she had to run. She was about to steal from the king of Exosia. Running seemed likely.
But Marigold’s statement about the dress being a weapon had stuck with her. As Ebba pushed past the rows of gaping people in the entranceway, she wondered if Barrels’ sister might actually know something about survival. Ebba might not be above using a female thing or two for that purpose—surviving was the pirate thing to do, after all. She just objected to it otherwise. Like right now when Verity’s charm was doing the majority of the work and being in a dress was pointless. Ebba wasn’t planning to still be in the castle when the ruby necklace ran out of juju.
“Oi, where be Prince Caspian?” she asked a slave decked out in purple and gold livery.
The slave bowed low. “The prince is in the ballroom, madam. Might I escort you there?”
“Yeah, I s’pose.” Ebba wiped her nose on her bare forearm and then grimaced, wiping her arm on the hoop skirt that could probably host a circus underneath. The neckline of her dress was wide across her shoulders and didn’t possess sleeves. Ebba missed the nose-wiping capabilities of her stained tunics. And slops, she missed her slops.
“Not to worry, madam. You shan’t get lost while you’re with me,” the slave said.
Ebba stared at him. “I be thinkin’ yer grog has fallen out o’ yer skull.”
The man laughed and bowed again before leading her through the thickening throng of fancy people. Ebba trailed behind in silence, taking in her surroundings.
The inside of the castle was much prettier than the outside. The ceilings were high, the walls draped with purple and gold curtains. Torches sat atop ornate stands at intervals, lodged in intricately welded settings. The flooring was the same stone as the outside, but in here, the hard gray was polished to a shine with rugs bearing golden tassels covering the majority of the floor space. Chandeliers with hundreds of white candles hung above their heads, casting a romantic light through the hall. The soft light bounced off the gathered people beneath, showing Ebba just how much Marigold had held back while dressing her.
Grand feathers jutted from headdresses, skirts ballooned, and cravats were tied so flawlessly Ebba knew they had to have taken hours. Even in the governor’s house, Ebba had never seen such lavish luxury or flaunted wealth. Caspian’s world was utterly foreign to her. How was he so normal when he’d grown up around this? Ebba snorted, recalling him in stained slops washing the deck.
The slave she was following glanced back and smiled at her as they exited the grand hall into something even larger.
Ebba’s mouth hung ajar as the ceilings pushed higher, the chandeliers gained a hundred more candles, and the thicket of people crowded more densely. Was this endless? Did each room beat the last?
“The ballroom, ma’am.” The slave bowed. “You will find refreshments to the left and the balconies to the right.”
He disappeared through the crowd, and Ebba continued to gape. Bay windows covered the wall to her right. The balconies, the slave had said. The large glass doors were flung wide, yet a drip of sweat still trickled down the back of her neck from the cloying throng of landlubbers.
To the left were the ‘refreshments’—if you could call a fountain of pink liquid falling into narrow glass chutes refreshments. The crowd was thickest there, and Ebba had no urge to join them. Instead, she ran her eyes along the wall directly in front. Two rows of soldiers with hats so oddly shaped Ebba had to wonder if their heads were that shape, too, stood guard by a roped-off area. Inside the cordoned space were three fancy seats, high-backed, with clawed armrests. In the middle and largest seat sat King Montcroix. Sour brute. To his left sat a beautiful young woman who appeared a few years younger than Ebba but who, even in the way she sat, possessed a grace Ebba only felt while swinging on the rigging of a ship. Her resemblance to Caspian couldn’t be missed, so she had to assume the young woman was the elder of his two sisters.
Ebba shifted her eyes to the right where Caspian sat, straight backed, his gloved right hand on the armrest of his seat. Outwardly calm, the only sign that he might not be was the tapping of his forefinger against the chair, and the trawling of his amber eyes across the crowd.
She navigated the crowd toward him, ignoring the few fancy people who tried to talk to her. Nearing the two rows of guards, Ebba couldn’t help reaching up to ensure the ruby necklace was in place.
“I need to talk to Prince Caspian,” she told the nearest guard. “Sooner rather than later.”
The soldier bowed. “Evening, ma’am. If you wish to speak to the royal family, you must get in the line.” He pointed behind her, and Ebba surveyed the queue with no small measure of disbelief.
People lined up to see Caspian. Laughter bubbled up inside her. “Shite, that’s right hilarious. No wonder he be soft.” She wasn’t about to wait in line to see him. “Oi, Caspian!” Ebba lifted a hand high and waved.
The soldier cast her a look that was equal parts amused and admonishing. The onlookers, even those she’d shoved in front of, glanced at her affectionately, as though she was a toddler playing in a field of wildflowers. Flaming eejits.
“Oi!” she called at the royals again.
Caspian’s eyes landed on her, and Ebba placed her hands on her hips, giving him an expectant look. The prince frowned, but when she stayed where she was, he hesitantly got to
his feet and drew closer. He wore a tight tunic and breeches like he’d worn yesterday, except the brown and green had been replaced with green and gold. His boots had tassels, and a classically tied cravat occupied the open V of his tunic. He looked . . . handsome.
Ebba’s stomach flipped.
“How can I help you, Mistress. . . ?” Caspian asked.
“It’s Ebba, ye dolt.” She rolled her eyes.
His eyes widened infinitesimally as they swept up and down her frame. His face smoothed, and he swept a low bow. “Lady Fairisles. How could I forget such a face? I hope you fare well tonight.”
“Yeah, all right. Let’s get on with it then.” Ebba jerked her head over her shoulder. She wanted to be back in the open air where pirate tribe people were supposed to be.
Whatever Caspian was, he’d never been slow. “One moment,” he said. Striding back to his father, the prince whispered in Montcroix’s ear. The king’s eyes settled heavy on her before he nodded to his son.
Caspian held out his arm as he neared her side once more. Ebba frowned at him. A small smile graced his face before he held out his arm and looked at her expectantly. “Place your arm through mine.”
She did as bid, and he led her through the throes.
The staring crowds parted for them, and Ebba was suddenly glad for the ruby necklace around her throat. Hopefully, the charm would conceal her fidgeting as they looked between her and Caspian. Talk about uncomfortable. Like bloody seagulls.
“You look nothing like yourself,” he murmured to her.
“Thanks,” she said drily.
“I don’t like it,” Caspian said, scanning her again through the corner of his eye. “I can’t tell what you’re really saying. I wager that it wasn’t ‘you flatter me, Prince Caspian.’”
He led her out onto the balcony, and Ebba sighed as the sea air hit her face, even if it was warm sea air and not accompanied by sea spray.
He didn’t stop, leading her down wide curved stairs into a garden that overlooked the cobalt ocean.
Ebba stared at the turquoise blue, and her surroundings faded away. If everything went to plan, she’d be back out there, the water rolling underneath her, the waves breaking on Felicity’s figurehead.
“That look in your eyes right now is real,” Caspian whispered, breaking the ocean’s spell.
With a cursory glance around, he tugged her behind a tree. Ebba pulled the ruby necklace off, and he blinked.
Caspian stared at her face, then his gaze dropped to the dress Marigold had forced her into. “Ebba,” he breathed.
“What?” she asked, oddly nervous to hear his reaction.
“You look breathtaking.” His amber eyes raised to hers.
That was the third time he’d complimented her.
. . . Why was she keeping count? And did he mean something by the compliments, or was that just an Exosian thing?
Ebba broke off their stare, pretending to check for company. “Aye, Marigold put it on me in case the charm wore off. Not that it’s solvin’ anythin’ else about me on the list o’ issues she mentioned.”
“I don’t like the charm,” he said after a beat.
“Aye, ye should be under here, talkin’ like normal but havin’ all the fancy people simperin’ and smilin’. Right weird, it is.”
“Strangely, I can relate to that. But I wish to hear what happened to your dreads. Why have some turned white?” he asked, searching her face.
Ebba sucked in a breath. Right. That. She’d promised to tell him. How would Caspian react? Would it bring up painful memories for him? “Right after I left ye at Kentro, I was captured by Malice.”
He stumbled back a step, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Aye,” she said in a low voice. “They wanted to know where the objects were, obvi’usly, and when I wouldn’t tell them, they shoved me down in a dark room with Verity. They’d captured her from Febribus after we left her.”
“I didn’t see them take you,” Caspian said frantically. “I purposely didn’t look back because I was worried I’d lose the courage to return here. Fool,” he said to himself, lifting his chin. “I’m so very sorry, Mistress Fairisles.”
She shook her head. “There were too many o’ them anyway. They hurt me pretty bad, I’ll admit. But worst was the room they put me in. Ye know the six pillars that the Earth Mother spoke of?” The prince knew everything that had transpired in the Pleo cavern. When he nodded, she continued. “The six pillars are the taint. It be their evil. The taint is how they feed on us. They were the blackness that was in yer arm. And the pillars were on Malice this whole time, inside the ship, feeding on the crew.”
Caspian appeared dazed, but he was anything but slow with connecting the dots. “That’s where the evil has been hiding and gaining its strength after escaping the wall?”
“When I was shoved in that room, the taint took me,” she told him. “And it nearly won. Ye . . . ye don’t want to know the things I thought.”
The blood drained from his face. “You were tainted?”
“I was there for ten days, and I swear one more day, and I would’ve been theirs. I was in a sorry, dark state.”
Caspian’s chest rose and fell in quick succession. He lifted his gloved hand to rub his forehead. “This is a lot to take in.” He dropped his hand. “Are you okay?” The prince frowned. “How are you okay?” His confusion cleared. “The purgium. It took some of the color from your hair as sacrifice.”
He stepped closer and picked up one of her white dreads. “I wish you hadn’t gone through that. Ever. You may be healed, but I know how haunting those memories are. You aren’t telling me everything.”
“I wish ye hadn’t gone through what ye went through, too,” she said, simply. “But we both have, and now we have to make sure as few people as po’sible go through the same.”
His brows arched. “Your other fathers have changed their vote then? You’ll find the root of magic that the Earth Mother spoke of?”
“Aye, they weren’t impressed with how I was treated on Malice, that’s for sure. None o’ my fathers will stop at just finding the root after what Pockmark did to me. And I surely won’t. We’ll fight Malice and the pillars to the end.”
The prince whistled. “When your crew decides to do something, they go the whole way.”
His voice had an edge to it, and Ebba shrugged. “I know ye’ve found it hard to understand why my crew voted against trackin’ down the answer afore. But to us, a promise be a promise. I get the sense that people on Exosia might give their word willy-nilly; forgive me if I’m gettin’ that wrong. My crew don’t make an oath we don’t intend to keep. And by votin’ to go after answers, we would’ve been promisin’ to see this through to the end. Maybe we didn’t see how serious it was for a while, but after a fashion, Plank was ready to vote aye, Grubby second, and me third. The others have joined, too, because now, they’ve got a reason to be makin’ such a vow. This be personal to my fathers and to me after what happened to them on Eternal, and me on Malice. But more than that. . . .” She shivered, recalling the six shadows touching Pockmark. “The evil I felt and saw on that ship, the taint ye’ve felt and seen, can’t be allowed to rule this realm. When Jagger saved me from Malice, I looked back an’ saw the pillars take up their shadow forms. I felt their emptiness. I felt that the realm would be empty if they were allowed to take over. That evil has no place here, Caspian, and I’ll do whatever I can to be rid o’ it.” The taint had to be extinguished. No matter the cost. Ebba wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. Not even Pockmark himself.
Caspian’s face had paled, but his jaw was clenched. “Jagger saved you?”
That was about the least important part of what she’d said. Ebba stared at him. Was he serious?
He sighed. “I just wish I could figure out how the Earth Mother intended your crew to locate this root she spoke of. Success seems centered on that.”
“Aye, same here. I’m guessin’ I’ll have to return to Pleo and ask more questions o’
her.”
Ebba turned to the prince in the quiet that followed her comment, squeezing his hand. “Caspian, I just wanted to say that I understand why ye returned home to win yer father over to fight Malice. I wasn’t totally understandin’ afore, but I do now.”
He sighed heavily and smiled at her. “Thank you, Mistress Fairisles. That means a great deal. You have no idea how I doubt my every move.”
“Ye’re too smart for yer own good,” Ebba said, and grinned. “Can’t say I be havin’ that problem. But there ain’t nothin’ wrong with lookin’ at sumpin’ for holes and whatnot. That’s what I have my crew for. Maybe ye just have our entire crew in yer head all the time.” She frowned. “No wonder it gets noisy.”
Caspian chuckled softly. “I’ve missed your logic. And I’d hoped to hear more of it before the night is over. However, my father will greet the guests shortly. I suggest you excuse yourself to the ladies’ room and promptly get yourself lost. If anyone asks, you couldn’t find the right room.”
The castle had a poop room just for ladies? “Aye, okay.” She frowned at the crown on Caspian’s head. “I know ye be a prince and all, but it’s odd to see ye being a prince, if ye know what I mean. I’ll always see ye as Cosmo.”
His amber eyes regarded her, and Ebba blinked into their burning depths.
“And I would have it no other way,” he said seriously. “I shall always see you as Ebba the pirate.”
“Tribal pirate,” she corrected him.
“Tribal pirate,” he repeated with an arching smile. “You’ll always keep me on the straight and narrow.”
“Ye be speakin’ soft again already.” Ebba glared at the prince. All her hard work, undone.
He made a face. “It’s easy to fall back into old habits, I fear.”
Voices called out, and she and Caspian shared a look as Ebba lowered the ruby necklace back in place. Caspian presented his arm, and Ebba wound her arm through his and strolled by his side. They passed by a gaggle of feathered and tasseled women who erupted into whispers upon sighting them.
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