by Kit Alloway
It’s none of my business, Will told himself, but he was already rising from the couch. I’ll just make sure nothing’s wrong.…
He followed Whim down the hall and stopped outside the door to Ben’s office.
“I have fifteen people waiting on me,” Whim was saying inside, “so this had better be pressing.… Maybe.… Is that what you think of me?… Charming.… Maybe.… If you want to see me, just come out and say it.… See, was that so hard?… Maybe.”
The conversation went on in the same vein for several minutes. Whim seemed to be setting up a meeting, but he did a lot of arguing—the sort of arguing that’s flirting at the same time—in the process. By the time he finally hung up, Will had a pretty good idea who had been on the other end of the line.
He was waiting in the hall when Whim emerged.
“Jesus,” Whim said, stopping just short of walking into Will. “Where did you come from?”
“Was that Bayla?” Will demanded.
Whim continued to act startled. “Were you standing here eavesdropping?”
“Yes, I was,” Will said. “And it’s a good thing, because you seem to have lost your mind.”
Whim stepped carefully around him, looking less amused. “She just wants to catch up.”
“I thought that’s what you two did at the Grey Circle meeting.”
“I have a girlfriend. Bayla has a boyfriend. Remember any of this?”
“I remember that your girlfriend is more than capable of kicking your ass.”
Whim waved the idea away. “Del couldn’t kick my ass.”
“You live on salami and Chex Mix,” Will told him. “You’re a paper doll.”
Whim laughed and started back down the hall. “Well, this paper doll can dress himself. Worry about your own outfit, Will.”
There was nowhere else for the conversation to go, Will realized. Whim was going to do what he was going to do, and there was nothing Will could do to stop him short of telling Deloise, and he really didn’t want to do that.
So he went back outside and sat next to Josh, who held his hand. He watched Deloise and Haley teach Mirren how to make s’mores; Deloise’s technique was refined, while Haley preferred to just immolate his marshmallows. He took Kerstel’s side in the Kerstel-versus-Lauren baby-name debate.
He hadn’t felt so alone since he’d left the county home.
Twelve
Davita called Mirren the morning of her presentation to the junta. She’d called the day before as well, twice in the afternoon, once after brunch and once before, and several times the day before that. So when the clock in Mirren’s hotel suite in the Dashiel Winters Building struck 12:30—the presentation began at one o’clock—and Davita had not yet appeared, Mirren’s concern became grave.
“She’s probably dead,” Josh said.
“Josh!” Will, Deloise, and Haley all cried.
Josh, pacing the floor-to-ceiling windows, said, “It’s a logical conclusion.”
“Even I wouldn’t go that far,” Whim said. He was sprawled out on the ultramodern couch, eating peanuts from the minibar.
“She’s not dead,” Haley told Mirren.
“She hasn’t called,” Josh reasoned. “If Davita can’t operate her cell phone, she’s either unconscious or dead.”
“Or she’s stuck on the side of the highway with a flat tire and no bars,” Will said. “There’s no reason to assume she’s dead.”
“Peregrine knows he’ll be blamed if anything happened to Mirren, so he’s taking out a key element of her support.”
“I can’t listen to this,” Mirren muttered, fleeing to the adjoining bedroom. She dropped onto the end of the giant bed and flattened her palms against the skirt of her blue taffeta gown to keep herself from tearing the fabric to shreds.
She loathed the gown, but Davita had insisted that she dress both traditionally and conservatively, and for dream-walker ladies, that meant floor-length dresses with long sleeves. Worse still, Deloise had fluffed and pinned Mirren’s hair into a style that made her look like Anne of Green Gables.
Haley appeared in the doorway and leaned against it.
“What do I do if she doesn’t show up?” Mirren asked.
Haley didn’t hesitate. “Go anyway. You’ll do great.”
Mirren didn’t know if she wanted to hug him or slug him.
A hard knock on the suite door made them both turn their heads. As Mirren rushed, skirts rustling, into the living room, Josh opened the door and said, “Oh. I guess you aren’t dead.”
“Where have you been?” Mirren demanded, and she heard in her voice that she wasn’t just anxious but angry.
Davita ignored them both. “I need everyone to leave except Mirren.”
“Why?” Josh asked.
“Leave,” Davita repeated.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Whim complained, but he followed Deloise into the hallway. The hotel suite was located on one of the upper levels of the Dashiel Winters skyscraper in downtown Braxton. A dozen floors below was the junta’s amphitheater.
Haley hung back, and Mirren told Davita, “It’s fine, he can stay,” but Davita was firm.
“Everyone leaves.”
When they were alone in the suite, Davita threw the dead bolt and fastened the chain on the door. “What’s going on?” Mirren asked. “Where have you been?”
Davita sat down on the couch and motioned Mirren to sit beside her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call this morning to tell you I’d be late. I couldn’t, because I went to see your aunt and uncle.”
Mirren straightened with surprise, then leaned close again. “You went into the Hidden Kingdom?”
“Yes. I received a package from your aunt with a summons and instructions for getting there. As you anticipated, your aunt and uncle are vehemently opposed to your plan. They gave me this, to give to you, in the hope that it will convince you to abandon your ambitions.”
From inside the jacket of her suit, Davita withdrew a bulky linen envelope. She handed it to Mirren, who couldn’t prevent a heartbeat of homesickness when she saw the royal seal stamped in orange wax on the back.
“They told me what it is, but not what it says,” Davita explained. “They said there’s also something inside to prove that it came from them.”
Mirren began to open the envelope, but Davita grabbed her hands to still them. “No! Wait until I’m gone. If you still want to go through with this after you read the—what’s inside, call my cell phone. If not…” Davita paused, and she squeezed Mirren’s hands again, not in a forceful way, but as if out of sympathy or even pity. “I’ll understand.”
Then she flew out of the room.
Careless of the linen paper, Mirren tore open the envelope. Her family’s seal cracked, ruining the imprint of a star tetrahedron.
A flashing piece of sparkle and a torn piece of parchment, folded once in half, fell into her lap.
The sparkle came from a brooch the size of a silver dollar, with a platinum star tetrahedron set against a gold field. The edges were encrusted with her family’s gem, the fire opal, deep blood-orange stones outlining the circle. Except near the bottom, where one opal had fallen out.
Someone could have faked the piece, but they couldn’t have known that—over the course of years of being treated as a plaything by two little girls—one of the stones had fallen out. Mirren knew for certain now that this envelope had come from her family.
She clutched the pin in one hand, glad for this small relic of home, and used the other hand to unfold the parchment.
If a queen she would become,
one of two things have begun:
a martyr’s death to seal her ruse,
or lead to Death Dream Walker True.
Mirren read the parchment three times before balling it up in her fist and hurling it across the room. Then she stormed into the bathroom and yanked the pins out of her hair.
If a queen she would become …
“Absurd,” she muttered.
The pins fell into the sink. Plink, plink, plink.
… one of two things have begun …
“An absurd, appalling scare tactic dreamed up by pathetic control freaks.”
The last of the pins fell into the sink, and she briefly tried to brush her snarled hair before slamming down the brush so hard that the handle snapped off.
… a martyr’s death to seal her ruse …
“Who has ever heard of a clause in a scroll?” she shouted, stomping into the bedroom and kicking off her shoes. “If I try to become queen, then I’ll either die a martyr—”
She grabbed at the zipper of her dress, catching it on the second try and yanking it to her shoulder blades, where it stuck.
… or lead to Death Dream Walker True.
“Or what? Magically summon the True Dream Walker, and then kill him? It’s absurd! It’s a forgery! It’s Aunt Collena trying to ensnare me again. If she can’t control me physically, she’ll control me mentally!”
Mirren jumped up and down, grabbing at the dress’s zipper, which had stuck in the most awkward, unreachable spot. After cursing aloud at it, she gave up, ran back into the living room, and retrieved the ball of parchment from under the desk.
She knew it wasn’t a forgery. She recognized the handwriting of the seer who had written it; his name was Freigh Vescomballetti, and she had studied a number of other scrolls he’d composed. Her aunt might have torn it from a scroll other than hers, but how many other people had tried to become queen and had scrolls written by Freigh? The odds were too high to seriously consider.
At the sound of a knock on the door, Mirren folded the parchment and hid it in her sleeve. Through the peephole, she saw Haley standing alone in the hallway.
“Something feels wrong,” he said when she opened the door. “I got worried.”
Mirren stepped back to let him inside.
“Will you unzip this?” she asked, turning her back to Haley.
“Um…” he said, and only then did she realize she was asking him to undress her.
“Please. I would rather be immodest than spend another minute in this taffeta tar pit.” She gained a small measure of relief when she felt the dress come loose around her. “I’m going to change.”
She went into the bedroom and closed the door partially. After removing the dress, she changed into the outfit she’d wanted to wear to the presentation: straight gray slacks and a white silk blouse with sheer sleeves. Feeling calmer, she fished the scrap of parchment out of the dress and stuck it in her pocket.
When she returned to the living room, Haley was examining the brooch. “The Anna Karenina jewels,” he said.
“Yes.” Mirren smiled faintly as she took the brooch from him. It was one of the jewelry pieces she and Katia had worn while acting out scenes from Anna Karenina.
She ran her thumb over the brooch’s face. How many times had she pinned this brooch to a nightgown and had “afternoon tea” with Katia, both of them sticking their pinkies out as they raised their cups, discussing princes who didn’t exist and—inexplicably—speaking in English accents? They had pretended to be princesses then. How cruel that the same brooch that had inspired so many royal fantasies was now being used to crush Mirren’s royal ambitions.
Mirren held out her arms and Haley wrapped her up in his. She closed her eyes and just felt how alive and real he was—his body warm and moving, a field like energy rising off him to surround her. None of those tea party princes had ever been so real.
If she died, he would hurt. Maybe his heart wouldn’t break to pieces, but it would at least ache. Mirren wondered if she had the right to risk his emotions that way. And Davita—Davita would be devastated. Mirren knew she didn’t have the right to take chances with someone’s feelings like that. And her cousin Katia—her heart’s sister—would lose her only friend.
“What do you want to do?” Haley asked.
Truthfully, she wanted to spend the afternoon letting him hold her. But that wasn’t the direction her life was pushing her.
“I want to tell the junta I’m here,” she said.
“Do you need to change?” Haley asked.
“No.” Mirren picked up the brooch from the coffee table and affixed it to her blouse. “This is what I’m wearing.”
* * *
Realizing that her bid for queen was likely a kamikaze mission filled Mirren with a strange fearlessness. She had to slow her stride as she entered the amphitheater in order to keep from barreling into Josh, who was walking in front of her. Will and Haley flanked her sides, with Whim and Deloise behind them, and Davita brought up the rear, all of them wearing hastily donned robes in various colors.
Sound rose in a flutter of whispers and then stopped short, silent as Mirren passed by. Whim’s blog had posted the news of her return the day before, but even he hadn’t expected it to be taken seriously. Mirren allowed herself to meet people’s eyes as she passed, giving them a serene smile no matter how hostile their looks. Most of them, though, appeared curious rather than angry.
Except for one man who spit on the floor near Mirren’s feet, causing those nearby to admonish him and Will to unsheathe his machete. Mirren just laughed as she sidestepped the wet spot and continued toward the stage.
I’m going to get killed doing this, she told the man silently. Your spittle does not frighten me.
The amphitheater stretched endlessly upward like a dovecote, with rows upon rows of balconies and mezzanines. At the bottom, the ocean of audience broke around a raised circular platform. Josh stepped to the side of the stairs leading to the platform, allowing Mirren to ascend alone.
The platform’s polished wooden boards shimmered like gold. Mirren kept her chin up as she took a seat on a single ottoman placed before the junta’s seven thrones, and she folded her hands loosely in her lap.
She recognized all seven members of the junta from her studies. Of course, identifying Peregrine Borgenicht was easy, even before he leapt out of his throne in a sparkling green robe. Mirren had looked at hundreds of photos of him, starting the day her uncle pointed Peregrine out as the man who had set fire to her parents’ palace. She had memorized the jumble of oversize features that made up his face: the giant, rheumy eyes; the red ears with lobes like hanging fruit; the thick, perpetually wet lips—all of them mounted on an undersized, bald head.
He looks like he’s going to do magic, Mirren thought, taking in his sequined robe, and she had to stop herself from laughing. He was, after all, a dangerous man.
“Before we begin,” Peregrine said, giddy with excitement, “I want to clarify what you want us to call you. Should I call you Lady, or Princess, or Your Royal Highness?”
Mirren didn’t flinch. “Miss will be fine.”
“Miss? That’s odd. It is the understanding of this court,” Peregrine said, striding toward her, “that you are claiming to be Amyrischka Rousellario.”
“The court is misinformed.” Mirren locked her eyes on Peregrine’s and ignored the surprised murmurs of the onlookers.
“Is it?” Peregrine asked.
“Yes. To say that I am claiming to be Amyrischka Rousellario implies that I am asserting something that may or may not be true. Since I am, in fact, Amyrischka Rousellario, and have already proven such with DNA, my claim has already been verified. Furthermore, since I am not a princess of any existing monarchy, the most appropriate form of address is miss.”
Be calm. Be polite. Be brief.
Davita’s advice rang in Mirren’s ears, but she couldn’t follow it—not with the rage and the carelessness that were running through her veins.
“Well then, Miss Amyrischka, would you like to tell us why you’re here?”
“To submit a proposal for a constitutional monarchy to the Accordance Conclave.”
Shocked rumbling came from the crowd. Even Peregrine’s eyebrows darted up—for an instant.
“A noble intention. But why would you think the dream walkers would elect someone who has been convicted of a
bdication of duties, betrayal of moral duty, and treason?”
Peregrine moved continuously. Mirren would have thought he was pacing except his expression was one of exhilaration and not anxiety. He looked more like he was an actor making use of every inch of the stage.
“Because I was convicted,” Mirren said as amiably as she could, “in absentia, of crimes I supposedly committed as an infant.”
“You’re still a criminal,” Peregrine replied curtly. “As of this moment, I am taking you back into custody in order to fulfill your original sentence.”
The crowd filled with voices, but Mirren—who had anticipated something similar—said, “Beheading, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Peregrine’s mouth twitched, and then he shuddered as if with repressed pleasure.
“Wait a moment,” one of the other junta ministers interjected. Mirren was pleased, but not surprised, to see that the speaker was a middle-aged, dark-skinned man with glasses. His name was Ithay Innay, and he was one of Mirren’s favorite ministers of all time. Although his deep thoughtfulness sometimes led to indecision, the stands he took were well reasoned and rooted in compassion.
Minister Innay stood up from his throne and motioned the audience to quiet down. “We aren’t going to impose a death sentence on someone whose convictions were clearly symbolic. At the very least, she should be retried.”
Peregrine smiled smugly. “I have no issue with that,” he said. “Let’s put it on the books.”
Dammit, Mirren thought.
He’d danced her right into a corner.
Having pending criminal charges would make Mirren ineligible to submit a proposal to the Accordance Conclave.
“No,” said Minister Speggra, a giant bearded man who looked like a cross between a biker and a Viking. Mirren held her breath despite her desire to appear calm; Speggra was one of the ministers Davita had anticipated would be against Mirren.
“We aren’t going to waste time retrying her,” Minister Speggra declared. “She was an infant, for God’s sake! If she weren’t a Rousellario, we’d laugh at the idea of charging a baby with treason.”
As little as Mirren had been expecting Speggra to come to her aid, she got the feeling Peregrine had anticipated it even less. “But,” he began with an actual sputter, “we brought those charges to ensure that no one could reestablish the monarchy—”