The Ruby Moon

by Trisha Priebe

  Finally the time arrived for the kids to file into their underground Great Room for midnight court. Four chairs had been arranged at the front—one for Tuck and three behind his for Kate, Kendrick, and Avery. A silk flag with the kids’ emblem hung on the wall between two sconces, ablaze with the room’s only light.

  To Avery it seemed a bit much for such a small crowd.

  Tuck stood. “We still don’t know what’s become of our friends,” he said, trembling, something he did only when speaking of the missing—which told Avery how heavily they weighed on him. “But I am grateful we have lost no one since moving down here, an idea we can credit to Avery.”

  He asked her to stand, and she was greeted with enthusiastic applause.

  “Let’s continue to be cautious, especially when we have to venture back upstairs. Look out for one another and report unusual behavior.”

  “Okay, enough of that!” a boy hollered. “Can I be lady-in-waiting?” And even Tuck had to chuckle.

  “I know that’s why we have perfect attendance tonight,” Tuck continued, “so about that … I had a lot of things to consider, and it wasn’t an easy decision.”

  Kate reached over and squeezed Avery’s hand. It seemed the whole room leaned forward.

  “I have chosen Ilsa,” Tuck said.

  Avery sucked in a breath. How was that possible?

  Kate whispered, “I don’t believe this,” but she joined the rest of the girls who clambered to hug and congratulate Ilsa, and Avery knew it would look bad if she didn’t. Tuck was talking over the cacophony and she heard him mention her name as well, but little else.

  Avery stood on wobbly legs, pasted on a fake smile, and went through the motions of trying to reach Ilsa and pat her on the shoulder. In the frenzy she slipped out of the hall and into the labyrinth to go quietly to her chamber and be alone. Almost as bad as Tuck passing her over was his choosing Ilsa. How could he? Did he not know the real Ilsa?

  “Avery,” he called from behind her.

  She wanted to pretend not to have heard him and just run. But she spun to face him.

  “I couldn’t choose you after what happened following the race,” he said. “What if Angelina were to recognize you in the Great Hall tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” Avery said flatly, turning away. “How thoughtful of you.”

  “I had to make the decision I believed was right,” he called after her. “One day you’ll understand how much you mean to me!”

  Avery stalked to her room, yanked the blanket aside, and was about to collapse and sulk in peace at least until Kate returned. But there on her bed sat a crate.

  The pigeon has returned!

  She pulled open the lid.

  Unnerved that the messenger knew where she slept and risked that Kate might find it first, Avery quickly opened the tube to find the message.

  Are you prepared to trade everything for your family? Once you leave the underworld, you can never look back.

  Of course she was prepared!

  But she needed proof her family was safe. She wasn’t about to give up the only things she had remaining just to hope she might reunite with her family.

  She hurried to where Kendrick kept his model and retrieved parchment and ink from his supplies. Prove access to my family, and we have a deal, she wrote.

  And as she had the first time, she released the bird from the tiny balcony.

  Later Avery ventured out to find something to distract her. The kids were reenacting Olympiad events in the Great Hall, and she needed to laugh.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about this arrangement,” Ilsa said, stepping up beside her.

  “Oh, please,” Avery said. “We both wanted it, and you won. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  Ilsa looked confused. “I’m not talking about lady-in-waiting, which I still have to be lucky enough to be chosen for by the queen herself. I’m talking about assigning you as one of my scouts if she does choose me.”

  For once, Avery stood speechless. This was the first she’d heard about that.

  Tuck had said nothing to her about becoming a scout.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ilsa said. “You were right there when he announced it.” Avery shook her head. Ilsa rolled her eyes. “For once, we’re on the same team, you assigned to keep me safe, and I’m sure you’d prefer my head rolls. What do I do to make you not want me dead?”

  Avery enjoyed making Ilsa squirm. She was about to say she wanted nothing, but then she remembered what she wanted. She held out an open palm.

  Ilsa scowled. “What?”

  “I want my necklace back.”

  “Your silly red necklace?”

  Avery swallowed an unkind reply. Now wasn’t the time.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “You must. You’re the one who laughed at it before it went missing.”

  “For the record, I’m not the only one who laughed at it, and I don’t have it.”

  Avery dropped her hand and walked away, more certain than ever she would never see that necklace again.

  “You still need to tell me what it’ll take!” Ilsa called after her, but Avery didn’t have the courage to say what she wanted: Leave Tuck alone.

  Chapter 22

  The Fishwife

  Avery awoke to someone whistling the song she had played for Angelina that had caused the queen to pass out at court. She shuddered to think how close she might have come to being sent to the tower prison over that unintentional choice.

  Avery jumped from her bed, threw on her clothes, and followed the sound to the dining area. And there sat Babs.

  “Good morning!” he said, mouth full. “You missed breakfast, so I’m eating yours. Hope you’re not offended.”

  He laughed heartily and motioned to a chair across from him, but Avery didn’t budge.

  “Not offended,” she mumbled. “No appetite.”

  “And I know why,” Babs said with a wave. “It was all anyone could talk about at breakfast. Tuck selected Ilsa over you, and you’re unhappy about it. C’mon, sit.” He shoveled an enormous bite of salt fish into his mouth, making her wonder how he could have been whistling.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, why do you care?”

  Babs set down his fork and looked wounded. “And here I thought we were friends.”

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  “I want you to sit and keep me company a few moments,” he said, his smile returning then fading. “You’re angry. What have I done?”

  “I don’t trust you,” she said quietly.

  His ice-blue eyes looked genuinely kind, but Avery knew better. She meant nothing but a rich bounty to him. She pulled from her pocket the bulletin she’d pilfered from him and tossed it on the table.

  “Found that in your pocket,” she said. Babs stopped chewing and folded his meaty hands in his lap. “Friends, are we?” she continued. “You’re just here to protect me, look out for me?”

  “I can explain,” he said weakly.

  “Don’t bother. I can see what I am to you.”

  “No, it’s not like that. I needed to know who you were. The fishwife described you, but she gave me the bulletin because of the drawing. She told me the eyes and nose weren’t quite right, and they aren’t, are they?”

  Now it was Avery who was taken aback. How could the fishwife know that unless she was real? “I don’t look anything like the drawing,” Avery said weakly.

  Babs shrugged. “Sure, I knew about the reward. But if I was going to snatch you up, don’t you think I’d have done it before now? You’ve got to believe me. I’m not out to hurt you.”

  This, at least, made sense. Had she been wrong to assume the worst?

  She moved around the table and sat across from him. “Start from the beginning. I have to know who this fishwife is. What can you tell me about her?”

  “I’ve told you all I know! I’d never met her before.”

  “You said that, but anything, anything at
all. A scary presence who intercepted my first visits to the tunnels here smelled like fish. Does she?”

  “Well, of course she does!” Babs said, his smile returning. “But all fishwives do! Everybody who works the harbor does. Hey, I probably do!”

  Avery nodded. “Anything else? Nothing is too insignificant. Her size, shape, an accent, anything?”

  Babs pressed his lips together and shoved his plate and utensils aside. “Well, she has strange eyes, I’ll say that.”

  “Strange how?”

  “I didn’t notice the first time we talked, because it was after sundown and she approached me when I came out of the tunnels. But when I talked to her in the fish market one morning, in fact the morning she gave me the gold coin, the sun caught her full in the face. Those eyes, I’ll tell you … One is blue and the other brown.”

  Babs reached for an unused knife and fork, placed them on his plate of half-eaten food, and nudged it across the table to Avery. “You really should eat,” he said.

  But eating was the last thing on her mind. She rose and solemnly strode back around the table, took the big man’s broad face in her palms, and planted a huge kiss on his leathery forehead.

  “Why, thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I think.”

  Avery hurried back to her bed where she stretched out and spread open the bulletin. She had looked at it a hundred times since Kendrick first gave her a copy, but now she saw it with new eyes.

  Avery had been certain the king and queen were on the hunt for her, but if the fishwife was Queen Elizabeth, and if she had given Babs one valuable gold coin, she, too, might have access to such a handsome reward. It had always niggled at her anyway, why the king or queen wanted her alive when they would probably execute her anyway.

  But Queen Elizabeth. Why would she fake her death? And why would she pay to see me alive?

  Avery stood in the shadows next to Kate as others prepared Ilsa for her big moment.

  Ilsa looked strangely beautiful in a high-necked gown of silver brocade. Her smile was too tight, and her eyes lacked the sparkle of sincere happiness, but that dress and the elegant upsweep of her hair gave the illusion of beauty and sophistication necessary to a serious contender for lady-in-waiting.

  Most of the ladies in Angelina’s court had come to their rank through title or wealth. Ilsa had neither, so the scouts had pickpocketed the wealthy so Ilsa would have enough to appear rich. Her clothes and jewelry completed the illusion, and Kendrick had invented an elaborate past he had drilled into her memory in the short time between Tuck’s decision and her appearance at court. Were Ilsa to forget a detail or find herself asked a question they hadn’t considered, she was to laugh, flutter her eyelashes, and pretend to be too modest to respond.

  The irony.

  “I still don’t understand why he chose her, Kate,” Avery said. “She doesn’t know the castle.”

  “She’ll learn. And despite the danger, she has agreed to the arrangement.”

  The arrangement was simple. If Ilsa was chosen, she would gather whatever inside information she could in exchange for the cabinet—Tuck and the council—guaranteeing her protection. Scouts would be stationed strategically to see to that. They established an elaborate code so Ilsa could communicate if she were in danger. Utter the right word and she would be rescued immediately.

  Though the role would allow Ilsa to live better than she ever had as an orphan, it came with huge risks.

  “She could die,” Kate said. “Queen Angelina is petty and impulsive. She accuses her staff of stealing anytime she feels like it. She sent her own cousin to the dungeon when an afternoon tea went poorly.”

  Creams covered the star on Ilsa’s wrist, and she was instructed in no uncertain terms never to roll up the sleeves of her dress for any reason. As they removed the black ribbon knotted at her wrist, her closest friends still hung on her arms and seemed to cling to her words as if this were her last day on earth—which it very well could be.

  “Don’t be jealous, Avery,” Kate said, before she went to stand beside Ilsa. She flipped open a satin-lined box to reveal a necklace of glittering black stones, and Ilsa’s friends responded with a chorus of praises.

  Kate fastened the necklace around Ilsa’s neck and stood back to appraise her. “Stand straight. Be confident. Do nothing risky.”

  Ilsa actually responded with a laugh, which made Avery turn away.

  Ilsa’s friends were crying—big, gulping sobs. Ilsa pulled them into a bone-crushing hug, and Avery could tell from the look on her face that she planned never to return. She clearly believed she belonged on the queen’s court for real and was destined to remain there for life.

  Avery started upstairs to rendezvous with Kate at the same grate from which she had observed the royal wedding. This was one spectacle she couldn’t wait to watch unfold.

  Chapter 23

  An Army of Guards

  Shoulder to shoulder with Kate, peering down through the grate to where the king and Angelina held court, Avery felt as if the Great Hall itself vibrated with anticipation. Clusters of single girls in glittering gowns and sporting intricate braids appeared to be doing their best to both look demure and draw attention to themselves.

  Meanwhile, wealthy dignitaries brought their international scandals and personal squabbles before the king, who arbitrated from his elevated throne. The queen, slouched on her matching crimson velvet perch next to him, seemed to fight to keep her eyes open, twirling a long lock of her red hair around her index finger.

  “She’s not happy unless she’s the center of attention,” Kate said. “But she will be soon enough. This has to be the first time a lady-in-waiting will be selected publicly. Ilsa had better get in there. No way she’ll be chosen if she’s late.”

  “There she is!” Avery whispered.

  Ilsa’s graceful entry turned heads, and to Avery’s surprise, she actually looked like she belonged. She appeared to introduce herself to some of the other girls and nodded politely to merchants, travelers, and adventurers as she glided into position. Occasionally she raised her chin and laughed, as Kendrick had instructed.

  Finally the king concluded his business and ceded the floor to his wife. Oddly, Angelina seemed no more engaged and, still slouched and twirling her hair, whispered instructions to an aide. He barked at the candidates to line up, and as he called their names they advanced before her throne one at a time, curtsied, and nervously answered her questions.

  One girl didn’t hear her name at first, and when the aide had to repeat it, the queen bellowed, “Never mind! Dismissed! Next!”

  Another advanced too quickly and had to catch herself to keep from stumbling. She said, “Forgive me, Highness.”

  Queen Angelina peered down upon her as if she were a smudge on one of the stained-glass windows. “I beg your pardon, young lady! Did someone ask you a question?”

  “No, Your Ladyship. I just—”

  “You spoke without being spoken to in the royal court, my dear. Next!”

  When the young woman burst into tears, the festivities had apparently, finally, captured the queen’s attention. She sat up and raised a hand. “Ladies, your responsibilities will largely consist of representing the throne during functions much like this one. How you comport yourself here reveals your abilities—and limitations. It should come as no surprise that I seek someone with the ability to pay attention, respond with dispatch but not carelessness, decorum, and certainly no displays of emotion. Carry on.”

  The queen asked several of the girls their family histories, their educational backgrounds, their interests and talents, and why they wanted to serve in her court. She dismissed some, midsentence, as too loud, two as too soft-spoken, one as too tall, and three as too fat.

  To another she was particularly cruel.

  The girl had curtsied and stood waiting as Queen Angelina merely stared down at her. Finally, as if surprised she was still there, she said, “Turn right. Now left. Now face me again.” Still the queen looked only curious
, cocking her head as the girl flushed. “Repeat your name.” When she did, Angelina said, “Do you have family at court today?”

  “My parents are, Your Highness, yes.”

  The queen instructed her aide to call on them to identify themselves. From near the back of the hall, a tradesman and his wife in drab clothing stood, the man quickly removing his cap and smoothing his hair. He attempted an awkward, sweeping bow, and the woman a self-conscious curtsy as the queen stood as if to get a better look.

  “I should have known,” she said, slumping back to the throne. “That answers any questions about pedigree, young lady. As for you folks, enjoy your day at court! First time here?” The man grinned and waved, and his wife grabbed his arm. “Well, you should have saved whatever you spent on this dress. If I were choosing dresses, she might have a chance, but she’s got a face for the farm. Next!”

  A murmur swept through the Great Hall.

  “Do you believe that?” Kate said. “Who would want to serve such a horrid witch?”

  “Ilsa will fit right in.”

  “Avery!”

  The girl’s father appeared to shudder with rage as his wife wrapped him in her arms and pleaded with him to sit.

  Though the girl herself had been dismissed, she appeared to be going nowhere. “Speak to me any way you wish, Highness,” she said, “but I will not have you humiliate people I—”

  “Careful, miss!” the queen’s aide said, and like a flash a young man raced from behind a pillar and escorted the girl out.

  “Yes!” the queen snapped. “Watch your tongue! I’ve had vixens executed for less.”

  “Kate!” Avery said. “Wasn’t he one of ours?”

  “He was! That was our mousy scout, assigned to Ilsa! What got into him? He’d better hurry back.”

  The next half dozen candidates approached the queen warily, and most she dismissed with a wave in the middle of their answers to innocuous questions.