The treasures in the room whispered for her to stay.
“You go ahead,” Avery said. “I’ll be right there.”
“Don’t be long,” Kate said as she left. “I’m sure we’re not supposed to be in here.”
Avery nodded, never taking her eyes off the painting, the blanket now bunched beneath the woman’s chin. As soon as Kate was out of sight, Avery yanked the blanket entirely away. And when she did, what she saw made her blood go cold.
The queen was wearing a necklace with a large ruby flower.
Chapter 18
King versus Queen
At her first cabinet meeting, Avery found Tuck deep in conversation, appointing kids one at a time to important castle duties.
“You are now Junior Keeper of the Great Seal,” he said to a boy who beamed.
Is there truly such a thing?
The line of kids waiting to talk to Tuck was at least twenty deep; and of course, he was speaking kindly to each one of them, making every person feel valued and needed.
“We’ll be here all day,” Avery said, flopping into a chair at the table beside Kendrick.
Kendrick didn’t look up from signing his way through a mountain of paperwork. He had perfected the signatures of several castle dignitaries and was able to sign important deeds without hesitation.
“It’s what we agreed to do,” he said.
Avery’s hand went to the ruby necklace that now seemed to weigh a thousand pounds around her neck. After seeing it in the painting of Queen Elizabeth, she kept it hidden beneath her dress or buried in her pillow. Being caught with royal jewels was punishable by death. She wondered, though, how her mother had come to own the necklace and why she had given it away. Her mother was growing as mysterious to her as the castle had become.
“Hello,” Tuck said finally, when the line had cleared. “We have a lot to do. Let’s get started.” His voice was gentle and his eyes were kind.
As he spoke about the kids and the responsibilities of the council to meet their needs, Avery tried not to notice that his eyes twinkled or that he seemed to genuinely like the people he served. He assigned Kendrick to intercept the daily mail coming to and going from the castle so they could become more familiar with the goings-on of the king. And he charged Avery with designing “a crest, a unifying emblem—something we can rally around.”
Avery nodded, smiling.
Maybe she had finally found a place where her gifts would be useful.
He then talked for the next hour or so about the complexities of parliamentary process and the details of domestic and foreign policy, but Avery didn’t hear a word he said.
And that was just fine with her.
Late that night, Tuck introduced a new activity. The kids met in the large hall on their side of the stairwell for chess tournaments. Winners would receive passes from chores like dishwashing and mopping, while losers would be assigned the most mundane tasks.
The tension was intense from the moment the pairings were announced and the players began arranging their pieces.
Winners were treated like heroes.
Losers sulked until bedtime.
Brawls often broke out, especially among the boys, until someone—usually Tuck—broke them up and sent the rivals in opposite directions to cool off.
Two boys lost teeth, their bloody gums less of a concern than their ruined brackets.
When the kids weren’t playing chess, they were discussing strategies and making plans.
Breakfast gossip generally revolved around the previous evening’s results.
Friendships were forged or frayed over a single tournament.
The best moments of the day were when the kids were deep into their matches, tensions high and moods volatile. A single move across the checkered board could result in half a dozen bloody lips or swollen eyes by lights-out. More than one board was swept clean by the forearm of an angry opponent.
Avery enjoyed the matches so much that when she was watching she actually liked living in the castle—felt like she belonged.
Late one night, several weeks since she’d arrived at the castle, Avery stood watching a pair of players arrange their pieces in preparation for a game.
“Do you play?” a voice behind her asked.
She turned to see Tuck and shook her head.
“I find it interesting,” he said, his voice low, “that the king is the most prized and protected piece, yet also one of the weakest.”
Avery smiled, remembering the king giving in to Angelina’s demands for a marriage proposal. But Kate had been adamant that they not mention it to anyone, so she didn’t share this thought with Tuck.
A signal was given and the children began poring over their boards, chess pieces clanking as pawns were collected.
“Rumor has it,” Tuck said quietly, “the king is dying.”
Avery looked at Tuck in confusion.
“Everything he is doing right now—including his plan to marry—is because he needs an heir. Time is of the essence. If he dies with no legitimate heir, his name will die with him.”
“There are worse things,” Avery whispered.
“Not for a king.”
A question burned on the edges of Avery’s mind, and she wasn’t sure she had the courage to voice it. She had already made a fool of herself so many times in Tuck’s presence.
“Tuck, what if the king’s first son didn’t die?”
“Then he’d be next in line to the throne.”
“No,” Avery pressed. “What I meant is—what if the king’s son is alive?”
Tuck didn’t respond, but it was clear he was thinking about it as they moved from game to game, following the tournament well into the night. When Avery finally excused herself to go to her room, Tuck asked, “Did you notice the queen is the most powerful piece on the board?”
She smiled but did not turn around.
In chess, at least, it’s because the queen never rules with her heart. She, however, did not have that luxury.
She knew it was time to find the courage to talk to Tuck alone.
Chapter 19
Pinned
Avery sat in the bunk room with her slender reeds of charcoal and blocks of colored chalk, staring at blank sheets of sketch paper. They were the nicest tools she had ever been given. Yet for days, she had been unable to draw.
Once she had no supplies with an endless source of inspiration.
Now she had the very best supplies with no vision.
It had been too long since she had breathed fresh air, heard leaves crunch, or smelled the smoke of a crackling bonfire. She wanted so badly to hear the snap of clean laundry on a clothesline or to see the face of her silly, dumb dog.
She was beginning to forget her mother’s voice.
She wondered how much older Henry looked. Little boys could grow up overnight.
Give her the perfect spot under one of her trees and she could create a dozen sketches by evening. But on a borrowed mattress in an empty room in a cold castle—
She threw her sketch paper into the air.
I want to go home.
Her small house had a wide cobblestone walk in front and an unreliable garden in back where her father spent his evenings tending his vegetables obsessively and training his carrier pigeons for who knew what purpose. Wherever her father and brother were, she prayed they were safe. She prayed, too, that God would help her complete the crest. For whatever reason, Tuck believed in her, and she didn’t want to fail him.
She picked up a piece of sketch paper and tried again.
“There is a shield in every family crest,” her father had told her.
Avery had been bored by his random history lessons back then, but now she wished she had asked more questions.
She drew the shield with small, careful strokes.
“Every crest represents what the family loves,” he had said.
So she drew green and yellow butternut tree leaves—dozens of them—sprouting from the shield. In the
center she outlined the perfect dark cherry tree, the kind her father used to build clocks or shelves or furniture in his shop.
Next, she drew swirling ribbons through the leaves that extended from the shield, representing her mother’s love of sewing. She could still hear the whisper of the fabrics she brought home, could see her mother in the corner late into the evening hand-stitching a work shirt for her father or a dress for one of her father’s customers.
“Every crest has a motto.”
At the base of the shield, Avery drew a thick, swirling sash on which she wrote, Viam inveniam aut faciam. “I will either find a way or make one.”
She added a few more swirls of color, protected the drawing between two blank pages of parchment, and made her way up to the sewing room where she would ask Kate to sew it for her.
Late that night, after observing another adrenaline-charged chess tournament, Avery changed into her nightgown. She tore twelve eight-inch strips from cloth Kate had given her and tied sections of her hair against her head as tightly as she could.
As she worked, Kate chirped enthusiastically about Angelina’s wedding gown and how perfectly it had all come together. “We will transport it down to her chambers early tomorrow morning with the help of the old woman. I think the king will be pleased with it.”
“But will Angelina?”
“Does it matter?” Kate asked with a grin. “She’ll be so happy with everyone’s hugs and kisses, she won’t care what she’s wearing.”
And suddenly an idea struck Avery.
Once Kate excused herself to take a bath, Avery moved quickly. On a leftover piece of sketch paper, she wrote a simple message with a piece of chalk, folded it, and slipped back upstairs to the empty sewing room. Moving quickly, she pulled the top of the wedding dress bodice down to where it would hit Angelina’s collarbone. Carefully, she fastened the note into the dress, sliding a straight pin through the inside of the material, allowing the point to protrude just enough that Angelina wouldn’t notice until it was pressed hard against her.
It was a long shot, but if Angelina didn’t discover the message until she was in the Great Hall on the afternoon of her wedding day, Avery might be able to assess her role in the kids’ captivity.
How the new queen would respond to the message could reveal everything.
How Avery would ever sleep with such an important day ahead, she had no idea.
Chapter 20
The Moment
Avery awoke to excited voices. Today the king would marry Angelina.
The kids’ quarters pulsed with anticipation.
Every girl donned her best dress and—for the first time since Avery had arrived at the castle—slippers. Circles of girls stood admiring their feet. The room came alive with the lending of lace and beads, jewelry and ribbons. In the shiniest satin and the softest velvet, it was hard to remember that these were orphans who had been torn from everything they’d known.
Girls took turns helping each other tie sashes or fix hair, and nobody argued about anything. Even Ilsa seemed content at the breakfast table, her posse of ladies giggling all around her.
Everyone chose to dress in his or her finest, even knowing no one else would see them. The boys even washed their hair, leaving trails of water trickling down their temples.
The closest any of them would come to the wedding would be the metal grates the scouts used to track the king. Kids had already staked their claims, announcing which grates they intended to use, bartering for the best during chess tournaments.
A mousy boy with tousled hair and a face full of freckles had claimed the best grate in the castle after winning an intense round of chess the night before, and he made a huge show of presenting it to Kate one night at supper.
“Would you be so kind as to accept the grate, my lady?” the boy had asked, bowing low as the kids chortled all around him.
Kate was gracious—of course she was—though Avery was confident she had never noticed the boy before and likely would never notice him again. Kate had given no indication of interest in any of the boys. Late at night when girls whispered about their affections for various ones—shifting almost as frequently as they changed their hairstyles—Kate stayed out of it.
Generally speaking, the kids were thrilled about the marriage of the king because they were convinced Angelina would be the answer to their problems.
“She’ll help the king see that he’s wrong to discard us,” Avery heard one of the girls say.
Another said, “When she becomes a mother, she’ll understand how important kids are for the kingdom—even kids who don’t have families.”
One of the wiser girls said, “There are no throwaways in God’s kingdom.”
They have no idea what they’re talking about. Angelina isn’t anyone’s solution.
Avery thought back to the conversation she had heard her second day in the castle.
“Marry me and make it permanent,” Angelina had said.
“Or what?” the king responded.
“Or I will kill… All. Of. Them.”
Avery knew with certainty things were about to get much worse with Angelina on the throne.
“Sit,” Kate said, smiling, and Avery flopped onto the mattress.
Carefully, Kate went to work untying the pieces of cloth in Avery’s hair until each section fell to her shoulders in a picture-perfect coil. Kate tugged and poked and sighed in what sounded to Avery like mock frustration. She was used to it. Her mother had done the same.
When Kate finally released her to the mirror, Avery was pleased. Once again, Kate had worked her magic. Avery’s hair was pulled up in an elegant twist, supported by at least a dozen hairpins. Her mother would have been thrilled.
And then there was the dress.
Kate had described it as “green silk taffeta,” but that hardly did the gown justice. It caught rays of light from the candles and shimmered like the ruby now hidden in Avery’s pillow. It made Avery’s dark hair look glossy and elegant, and she almost felt it was her day and not Angelina’s.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Avery asked.
Kate shrugged, coming to stand beside her. “We each have our secrets.”
“I wish you would tell me yours.”
“Someday,” Kate said with a smile. “I promise.”
Avery turned to Kate and held out a slim red ribbon she had cut from a bolt she had taken from storage and been saving for the right moment. “For your wrist.”
When Kate hesitated, looking puzzled, Avery pulled her own sleeve up so Kate could see a matching red ribbon on her wrist.
Kate smiled and didn’t just tie the ribbon in place, but also knotted it.
And it was then that Avery noticed.
The star on Kate’s wrist is gone.
Avery grabbed Kate’s arm and pointed to the bare spot. “Where did it go?”
Kate looked confused.
“Your star. It’s missing. Mine won’t come off no matter how hard I scrub.”
“Silly Avery,” Kate said, easing her arm out of Avery’s grip. “You are so dramatic.” She patted Avery’s cheek. “It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
But she didn’t answer the question.
By the time they made it to the grate Kate’s secret admirer had bestowed on her (and was too shy to ask to share), Avery was nearly floating. The slats overlooked the very spot where the wedding vows would be exchanged and the angle allowed a perfect panoramic view.
The throne room in the Great Hall swelled with prewedding activity.
The walnut floors had been buffed to a shine. Enormous flower arrangements stood sentinel in elaborate pots throughout a sea of candles that could burn a city in seconds. The fragrance of sweet vanilla wafted up through the vents. The thirteen chandeliers cast a beautiful glow over a makeshift platform, and a ruby-red carpet cut a path from the door where the guests entered to the stage where the ceremony would take place.
According to Kate, the king commissio
ned the platform so every guest would have an unobstructed view. Avery suspected it was Angelina—and not the king—who insisted on the platform. Angelina needed to be seen.
Supposedly the king—but more likely the queen-to-be—had appointed the castle staff to sew hundreds of festive silk flags and hang them for everyone to see. But naturally this task had eventually found its way to the hidden kids, and Tuck had assigned it to Avery, who reassigned it to Kate.
Now the kingdom was buzzing about the “talented seamstress from the castle.”
Avery was proud of her mysterious friend.
Shoulder to shoulder over the grate in their festive dresses, Avery and Kate watched the throne room fill—elaborately dressed adults carrying expensive gifts and talking excitedly as they gathered around long wooden tables bearing platters of fruit and tall silver cups of drink.
Clusters of unmarried girls with intricate braids did their best to draw attention to themselves, as bachelors, in formal attire and carefully polished boots with gleaming buckles, passed seemingly unaware.
The older attendees wore hats bearing large, bright feathers.
Kate and Avery pointed and laughed at the dozen or so plotlines unfolding in the Great Hall beneath them. Every guest had a story.
“I’ve never seen so many happy people in one place,” Avery said. “It’s like heaven on earth.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Kate responded. “The Great Hall is always filled with threats.”
Even knowing it made no sense, Avery found herself searching carefully for any sign of someone she might recognize. Her father never would have been invited to an occasion like this, but maybe one of his friends or customers might come. Seeing anyone from her village would be an enormous comfort.
She searched each face in vain.
The only person she recognized was the old woman, who looked unusually nice today in a pale dress and matching hat. She stood closer to the stage than Avery would have suspected, and she smiled on occasion.
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