by M. A. Larson
Maggie faced her, puzzled. “No, I don’t think so. Demetra, have you heard of Saudade?”
“I haven’t, but that doesn’t account for much. My knowledge of the world beyond the Blackmarsh is woeful.”
Maggie and Demetra started chatting about all the places they hoped to see some day. It quickly became a discussion of where the Academy might place them should they complete the three years and earn their titles. Eleven didn’t join in. She pretended to listen, but her thoughts were far away in another part of the land where the cliffs were as high as the moon and the trees were bigger than dragons. Her homeland. She thought about her father. When she had left him, he was recovering from injury. She hadn’t said goodbye, and she very much regretted that now. It had only been a superficial wound, but a fluttering in her stomach was telling her that something was wrong. Minutes passed, one by one, and that feeling of dread slowly began to build into panic. I must get off this coach. I need to go home, but . . . no . . . I can’t do that. I can’t do that to them.
Suddenly, sunlight flooded through the windows as they emerged from the gloom of the forest into a vast clearing. Eleven heard gasps all around her. She blinked away the light, and once her eyes had adjusted, she gasped, too.
A rippling plain of yellow and green wildgrass stretched on for hundreds of yards, then the cliffs and valleys of the Dortchen Wild began anew. In the distance, the diamond-white glint of the Glass Mountains cut a jagged ridge in the sky. The coach veered right, tracking through worn mud ruts around a low stone wall, crumbled and ancient, that ringed the clearing like a piecrust. But what had captured everyone’s attention, what brought the excitement boiling back for the first time since they’d left Marburg all those hours ago, was in the center of the meadow.
Pennyroyal Academy sat atop a grassy plateau, a kingdom unto itself. Its towers, keeps, and battlemented walls gave it the look of a jeweled crown. Every cadet on the coach leaned to Eleven’s side to get a better look.
“Right, here we are, ladies,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant, floating back in through the window. The cadets reluctantly returned to their seats, desperate to see their new home but unwilling to risk her ire. “Now, before we reach my beloved Academy, I’d like you all to note the wall. It is bewitched. Princess Pennyroyal herself tricked a witch into enchanting it many, many years ago, and it is utterly impenetrable. Anyone may pass freely out, but the only way back in is through a fairy’s wand.” She lifted hers, the size of a small splinter. “Nothing gains entry to the Academy unless a fairy lets it, and that includes runaways and sneakabouts. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Fairy Drillsergeant,” they replied.
“Good. I don’t want any trifling with that wall. There are wolves and witches and even the odd giant out there.”
The coach rumbled up to a break in the wall. Two tiny fairies, visible mainly by the shimmering sparkles falling from their wings, waved their wands. A transparent, rippling sheet of magic lifted off the stone wall, and the horses pulled the coach underneath.
Demetra looked out her window, then those on the other side of the coach. “Is that it?” she said. “Where’s the curtain wall? Where are the soldiers?” But the other cadets were too enchanted by the Academy to worry about security. The closer they got, the more its incredible scale came into focus. It loomed above, ancient and bursting with history, yet new to them all, waiting to be explored.
“I can’t believe I’m actually here,” said Maggie, her voice quiet with reverence. “Can you imagine it, Evie? The princesses of legend . . . the most storied romances . . . all the tales we’ve been told since we were little girls were formed right here.”
“Evie?”
“It’s better than Eleven, don’t you think?” said Maggie with a smile.
“Oh, absolutely,” said Demetra. “It quite suits you, actually.”
While everyone else focused on the Academy, Evie settled into her new name. Funny, she thought, I’ve never had a name before, but this one just feels . . . right. Evie. It was as though some part of her she hadn’t even known was missing had somehow been found again. For the first time in days, she smiled.
“There’s the Queen’s Tower!” said Maggie, pointing to a colossal crystal spear rising high above campus. It dwarfed the other towers sprinkled across the grounds, giants of cut limestone and granite and sandstone and flint. The reflected sunlight made the Queen’s Tower glow from within like an icicle in spring thaw.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Evie.
“The Queen commands the whole of the Academy.”
“What about Princess Beatrice?”
“Beatrice reports to the Queen. They say no one’s ever seen her before, but some believe she’s actually Rapunzel.”
“Blimey! Rapunzel?” said Demetra. “That’s brilliant.”
Evie smiled politely. She wasn’t familiar with the name, though she could tell by Demetra’s reaction that she should be. There was another round of gasps as the coach finally crested the plateau and the campus stretched out before them. A vast marsh sat beneath the Queen’s Tower surrounded by networks of roads that snaked between timber-framed buildings and giant stone structures. The Academy looked to be two or three times the size of Marburg.
“Right, ladies, listen carefully,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant. “This next bit is very important. Those buildings there . . .” She pointed out Evie’s side of the coach to a series of long, low structures with arched roofs. Each flew a different-colored banner. “Those are the knights’ barracks. Yours are on the other side of campus. Should you choose to tour the knights’ barracks, I suggest you enjoy yourself so you’ll have something to think about on the ride home. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Fairy Drillsergeant.”
Evie regarded the knights’ barracks with a frown. Although it was true she wouldn’t have made it this far without Remington, and in fact, would probably be dead, she would much rather there weren’t knights at the Academy at all. Would she ever truly feel comfortable knowing they were just there across the marsh? And why did no one else seem bothered by them?
“Before us is the Grennilieu Bog. It is named for the troll who brought water back to the Academy after the Seven-Years Summer. And if you go in there without permission, you will also be dismissed.”
The Fairy Drillsergeant continued to point out the larger features of the Academy, but it all sounded like gibberish to Evie. So she gave up trying to understand and focused instead on what she could see. The campus was a maze of moss-covered castles; giant fortified keeps with exposed walkways and staircases; circular towers and square towers and octagonal towers and bartizans that started halfway up the wall, blooming into towers above; arrow slits and murder holes and words from long-dead languages etched in stone, nearly worn smooth by age and weather. She could feel the weight of the Academy’s history in every brick of cut stone. It looked immense, exciting, and above all else, fun.
The coach rattled across a wooden bridge and into a courtyard. A huge stone fountain sat in the center, creating a circular reception area. Two twenty-foot statues, a knight and a princess, rose from the sparkling pool.
As the Ironbone coach rolled past the fountain and joined the others, Evie’s eyes remained fixed on the statue of the princess. The heroic pose. The expression of quiet fortitude. This was the girl on her parchment. Evie had found the thing she’d been searching for since she’d left home on that terrible night.
“I want you to look round this coach,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant, spreading her minuscule arms. “These are your company-mates. These are the people with whom you will train. On whom you will rely. These are the princesses you will follow into battle.” Evie’s eyes shot forward. Battle? What did she mean by that? She glanced at Maggie, who didn’t seem bothered. “Ironbone Company has been around since giants roamed those woods. Some of the greatest princesses ever to li
ve were Ironbone girls. Do them proud, or get out.”
The coach sagged to a stop behind the others. Outside, fairies barked orders at their scampering cadets. Huge, bearded woodsmen chased after the boys, shouting commands. It was the chaos of intensely structured order.
The girls bubbled with anticipation, but the Fairy Drillsergeant didn’t release them just yet. Evie clutched her dragon scale necklace. She was nervous, excited, scared.
“Ladies, I don’t know where you’ve come from or who your parents are, and quite frankly I don’t care. Except your mother,” she said, scowling at Basil. “I wouldn’t mind a word with her. The rest of you, I don’t know if you’ve always dreamt of being a princess or if this is just a good laugh, but there is one thing of which I am absolutely certain.”
Evie, heart racing, glanced at Maggie, who couldn’t contain her smile.
“Your life as you know it is now over. Welcome to Pennyroyal.”
The cadets filed off the coach and into chaos. Demetra dragged Evie along by the arm, but she couldn’t run very fast on the cobbled stone, her ankles threatening to buckle with each stride. She caught a brief glimpse of Remington before he disappeared among the other knight cadets; the staff was funneling the girls in a different direction, toward Pennyroyal Castle, a massive structure of glazed red brick with great circular towers topped by crenellated walls. This was where the process of becoming a princess cadet, third class, would officially begin.
“Excuse me,” came a gentle voice from behind. “You dropped this on the coach.”
It was a small girl in a patchwork dress, lowborn, judging by her gnarled hair. She was holding the dragon scale necklace. Evie’s hands shot to her own throat and found it bare. As panic coursed through her body, she took the necklace and immediately began tying a more secure knot.
“Thank you.”
“It’s Amaryllis,” she said with a smile. “And you’re welcome.”
Evie’s panic began to recede as she slipped the scale over her head and tugged on the knot to test its strength. Then she continued on to the castle with the rest of her company. That must never happen again, she promised herself.
The next few hours were a blur of queuing up, answering questions, being poked and prodded and inspected, then racing through narrow, torchlit halls into different chambers to do it all over again. Finally, exhausted and thin of nerve, Ironbone Company emerged through a stone archway into a dank, windowless room where a fire crackled in a hearth. Beyond that, more arched doorways led to other hidden parts of the castle. The cadets stood shoulder to shoulder. Evie took her place next to Sage, Malora’s friend from the coach, who glanced at her spiderwebs with a sneer.
“So,” came a strange voice, wet and raw. “You’d like to be princesses, would you?”
Heads turned to search for the voice, and a troll with tight, leathery skin and bulbous warts arrayed across his face emerged from the shadows. His right leg was considerably shorter than the left, giving him an ambling stride and a hump in his back, and his cane, a lumpy piece of black wood, looked as if it might disintegrate with each step. His eyebrows were thick and white, and his beard was a bundle of taut, brittle strands. He wore a luxuriant velvet suit in burgundy, shoes of polished leather, and a crème silk ascot with matching pocket square. Though he looked like he had come out of a rotting stump, his dress was undeniably fashionable.
“I am Rumpledshirtsleeves, the tailor troll, and I shall instruct you in the dernier cri. I am the finest tailor in all the land, a fact that lies hill and dale beyond any rational dispute.”
Malora let out a skeptical cluck. Evie noticed that once again she was exceptionally casual, one arm crossed over her chest, the other running strands of silken black hair through her fingers. She seemed to have no fear of running afoul of the staff.
“Many is the girl I’ve encountered in my travels convinced I have nothing to offer by way of fashion. I invite you to look in their closets now and see whom they are wearing.” He clapped his hands and a team of trolls half his size waddled out from an archway. They wore voguish suits that seemed out of place with their stray ear and nose hairs and protruding facial growths. The assistants moved in unison, expertly using tapes and chalks to measure the cadets.
They disappeared again, then returned to distribute knapsacks to each of the girls. Inside each knapsack was an official Ironbone Company uniform. One by one, Rumpledshirtsleeves dismissed the girls through another archway to don their new dresses. As Evie awaited her turn, one of the miniature trolls approached and held out a bulbous hand.
“Necklace.”
“Sorry?”
“Necklace,” he said, pointing at the dragon scale.
“But this is . . . very important to me—”
“Leave her, Rabeneau,” said Rumpledshirtsleeves. He hobbled over and slid his stumpy fingers under the scale, inspecting the slash of black blood across its surface. “Kindly return the favor by tucking it into your uniform, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Taking pride in your appearance is not the same as vanity,” he announced, sending more girls through. “It is vitally important that you understand the difference.”
Evie followed Sage through the archway and found a hall lined with small alcoves. One of the assistants pointed her toward an open one. She drew the curtain shut and took a deep breath, alone at last. She saw herself in the wall mirror and felt a surge of embarrassment. This is what she had looked like climbing down from Remington’s horse, filthy and bedraggled. This is what all those girls had seen. It was a wonder Maggie and Demetra would even speak to her. She opened the knapsack and found herself strangely nervous. What if I put it on and still don’t look right?
She pulled the linen uniform from the knapsack and held it in front of her. It was a tunic dress, the same brilliant blue of evening sky in winter, with white sleeves and trim. She peeled off her spiderwebs, then slipped the cool fabric over her head and ran her arms through the sleeves. The moment it washed down her body, something inside of her changed. She felt silly even thinking it, but the dress somehow seemed to make her more human. She slid a tiara as delicate as spun sugar into her chestnut hair, plucking out a stray twig, then tied the trimmed white belt loosely around her waist. She studied herself in the mirror. The girl staring back was a complete stranger.
Who am I?
She could happily have stared into that mirror the rest of the night, but Rumpledshirtsleeves’s assistants kept the girls moving along. As she emerged from her alcove, she balled up the spiderwebs and chucked the sticky mass into a rubbish bin.
The newly outfitted Ironbone Company had finally finished processing. They were led down a circular stair, through one of the castle’s rear gates, and into a small bailey where the Fairy Drillsergeant waited. She had them fall in line, then began reciting a dry list of rules and regulations. Evie’s mind wandered back to that mirror. Moments ago, there had been a very real shift in the way she viewed herself. It was further confirmation that she had done well to listen to the Fates by coming here. Yet standing with the sisters of Ironbone Company—and one brother—two things cast a pall over her budding confidence.
Beyond the bailey’s far wall, a punch of ominous dark clouds rolled out from behind the Glass Mountains. They may well have been thunderheads sweeping the land with much-needed rain, but something about them troubled her.
To distract herself from the clouds, she removed a small silver compact from the knapsack and rolled it in her hand. It was standard issue for all cadets. It contained a mirror and pressed powder, nothing more. But what gave Evie pause was the engraving on the lid.
There, etched into the silver, was the official Pennyroyal Academy coat of arms. Its four quadrants depicted a princess, a knight, a dragon, and a witch.
THE CADETS OF Ironbone Company followed the Fairy Drillsergeant through the serpentine, packed d
irt streets of campus as she pointed out the major structures. Evie glanced up at a series of carved granite rain heads, strange beasts leering down with wide eyes and flaring jaws. Somehow the Academy’s man-made buildings had the ability to make her feel small and insignificant in a way hundred-foot trees never did. After a few minutes’ walk, the soaring towers and thick walls all began to look the same. This was meant to be their orientation, but it only disoriented her further.
The Fairy Drillsergeant offered up tidbits about historic princesses who had passed through these very streets—Blackstone, Dorothea, Snow White—as well as the more famous princesses of the modern age—Mariana, Middlemiss, Torgesson. Each name made her company-mates’ eyes go wide, and the mention of Dorothea nearly brought Maggie to tears, but Evie was just as oblivious to these women as she had been to Rapunzel. Perhaps there was something to this memory curse business after all . . .
“Here we have Hansel’s Green,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant as they emerged from a claustrophobic alley into a wide expanse of rippling emerald grass. “And across the way are your barracks. Now, what I’ve showed you today is only a fraction of our campus. But I want you to understand that the names you know aren’t just characters in fairy stories. They’re real people. And each and every one of them trained right here at Pennyroyal Academy. If you work hard and the Fates agree, a fairy may someday tell your story as well.”
Evie pondered this as the Fairy Drillsergeant led them across Hansel’s Green to their barracks. She looked at Malora, who seemed so different from the others, taller and more confident, and it was easy to imagine parents telling children her story. Or Demetra, who so clearly belonged at the Academy. She would be an excellent person to spin tales about. But her, Evie . . . what would there be to tell?
“Isn’t this exciting?” said Maggie, snaking her hand through the crook of Evie’s elbow. “All the great ones here, and now us?”
Evie smiled and kept moving across the soft turf.