Tournament of Ruses

by Kate Stradling

  Obediently she crossed the threshold. Sunshine spilled through the windows and flooded the place with brightness. Flora blinked and allowed her eyes to focus on the figure at the center of the room, a man who sat hunched at the edge of a chair as though he had just been poring over the book on the table in front of him. Her heart froze and her feet arrested in sheer astonishment as she met his familiar gaze.

  A wondrous smile leapt to his face. “Why, it’s Flora Dalton!” he cried in what sounded like childish delight. “So you’ve finally come at last!”

  As he bounded from his chair, Flora thought she felt the floor drop out from underneath her. The Eternal Prince of Lenore, the venerable figure who had ruled for centuries, whom she had held in complete awe her entire life, was none other than laughing Will Aureus, whom she had casually met at least half a dozen times already.

  Chapter Eighteen: Making Allies

  There are no words. None. And even if there were, I couldn’t write them here, for I’ve been sworn to secrecy.

  It’s incredible to me how many confusing things suddenly make sense, though. And how many sensible things are suddenly confusing.

  The world is upside down.

  “She’s not here on a social visit, Will,” said Prime Minister Moreland impatiently. “Miss Dalton, could you please pass along your little friends?”

  Flora quickly slid the bag from her shoulder and offered it to the Prince. He received it from her with a perplexed frown and immediately (somewhat to her horror, if she was completely honest) parted the top and peered inside.

  “Oh, hello,” he said.

  A pair of voices returned the greeting.

  Will looked to Flora in amusement. “Where’d you get these?”

  “They congregated in my room last night,” she replied, her voice faint.

  “What were you doing in Flora’s room?” he asked the contents of the bag accusingly.

  “We’ve been trapped in that house for weeks,” one of the brownies—Oggie, she thought—replied indignantly. “What were we supposed to do? And do you really plan on interrogating us in front of a pack of humans? It’s demeaning!”

  Will glanced apologetically toward the Prime Minister. “I’ll just take this into the office,” he said, and he tipped his head toward a nearby door. “Gregor’s lounging up on the balcony, so I’d hate for him to sniff them out. Besides, brownies can be touchy little mites.”

  “Who’re you calling ‘mites,’ you big galumphing nifara?” cried Kipper from the bag.

  He ignored the provocation. “I’ll get things sorted quickly,” he assured Prime Minister Moreland. “You are going to keep her here until I’ve finished, aren’t you?” he added with a significant glance in Flora’s direction.

  “We’ll be waiting out here,” said Nicholas Moreland.

  Will disappeared behind the door. Almost immediately afterward, muffled voices sounded through the hard wood.

  “Charles,” said Nicholas to his son, who immediately stood at attention. “Go downstairs and tell Viola to stay there. I don’t want her anywhere near here until those creatures are gone. No, not that direction. Take the back stairs.”

  Charlie looked from him to Flora and back again.

  “At this point it hardly matters whether she knows we have a secret entrance to these quarters, does it?” his father asked. “The important thing is for you to tell Viola, and quickly.”

  Charlie spared another glance in Flora’s direction before he obeyed. She watched in wonder as he disappeared behind a false panel in the far corner of the room.

  “Have a seat, Miss Dalton,” said the Prime Minister, and he motioned to the couches at the center of the room. “There’s no telling how long he’ll be in conference with them. I’ll probably have to leave you here, for I have appointments on my schedule that I can’t miss. Will that be a problem?”

  “I don’t know. Will it?” she inquired intently.

  He actually shrugged. “Who can say? You must understand that we keep the true identity of the Eternal Prince a closely guarded secret for good reason. The mystery that surrounds him adds to his ability as a protector of Lenore. Our enemies fear that element of the unknown as much as they fear the magic he guards, and they ever seek to unmask him. Why, in this tournament for consort we’ve already identified five spies from Melanthos among the applicants. Doubtless there are others lurking, wanting to sell whatever information they can uncover to the highest bidder. Half the lords in Parliament would give their fortunes away to know who he is, for they could make the money back easily with that knowledge. Your own father might benefit from it if he were of that mindset.”

  “I’m sorry,” Flora murmured miserably.

  “Are you? What for?”

  “I’ve caused you trouble again. I keep… stumbling across things I’m not supposed to. I didn’t realize that the brownies wished to meet with the Prince himself. They only said they wanted to speak with a nifara about the well. What is a nifara, anyway?” she asked, for she supposed he could at least answer that question.

  “A human who has once died and then been revived by magic,” said the Prime Minister. “The nifaran have magic running through their veins along with their blood, sort of like a living, breathing well. That typically puts them in grave danger unless they’re powerful enough in magic to protect themselves.”

  “Like Will,” Flora finished.

  “Like Will,” he allowed. “Strong as he is, though, his position as the Eternal Prince must still be guarded carefully.”

  “But the brownies said there were a pair of nifaran here,” Flora said. “Who else—?”

  “Obviously I have no intention of telling you that,” the Prime Minister interrupted.

  Flora thought she probably merited the rebuke. She also thought she could guess the answer to her own question. Hadn’t she decided the very first time she met them that Will and Viola were two of a kind? It only made sense for Prime Minister Moreland to protect his own daughter from danger by concealing her identity, even to the point of ordering her to keep away when a mere pair of brownies had come to the palace.

  Speaking of that order, its messenger reappeared from behind the sliding panel. “She’s promised to stay downstairs until told otherwise,” he informed his father.

  “Good,” said Prime Minister Moreland. “Where are you supposed to be right now?”

  “I was making the morning rounds. After that I have my break until sentry duty at ten. Why?”

  “Because I’ll need you to stay here with Miss Dalton if this interview runs too long. I can’t imagine how long it takes to discuss the eviction of a pack of brownies from a warded house, but you know how he can be.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes.

  “They didn’t want to be evicted,” said Flora. Both men frowned at her. She squirmed and clarified. “One of them said something about escaping the house, but it’s the middle of winter. The others said they would have nowhere else to nest, but they didn’t like being trapped. Actually, they spoke about helping with the well—that’s why they wanted to speak to the nifara at the palace. I suppose it makes sense, since he’s the other guardian. Oh!” she added in sudden realization. “That makes sense too!”

  “Of course it does,” said Prime Minister Moreland. “Who better fitting to be guardian of a well than the Eternal Prince?”

  Charlie glanced quizzically at his father, but he kept whatever had caused that reaction to himself. “We can’t have brownies helping at the well,” he said instead.

  “That depends entirely on how they intend to help,” his father replied. “Unlike those shadow-shifters, they probably aren’t seeking to take over the spot. They’re supposed to be industrious in nature, not power-hungry. If they haven’t made their case in the next five minutes, though, I really must be going.”

  As if on cue, the door to the study opened and Will delicately stepped through, empty-handed. He shut the door behind him before he spoke. “I feel sort of sorry for the little
guys. They really didn’t mean any harm getting caught in the house like that.”

  “They just happened to nest in the same spot where a new well was coming up?” asked Prime Minister Moreland skeptically.

  “No,” said Will. “They chose to nest in Lord Conrad’s abandoned house on purpose. It seems that after last summer, quite a number of forest creatures felt free to go through the place. The brownies were at the tail end and thought it might make a good spot for hibernation—and it did, up until a horde of shadow-shifters attacked and woke them all up. They bunkered down in their little corners until all of the excitement blew over, as brownies are wont to do, but of course by then we were already putting up wards. You’ll be happy to know that we did a thorough job of that—they’ve combed every inch of that house and the garden to find a gap for their escape. The field is solid. They couldn’t find the well either, though they can feel the flow of magic toward and around it.”

  The Prime Minister grunted. “That’s some consolation. So what do they want?”

  “A couple of them want to escape—Toad and Squeak, I think their names were. They don’t like humans and only slept in the house because they thought it was abandoned. The others like the place and want to stay, at least until the spring thaw. They’ve offered to build a proper structure around the well, but I told them I’d have to counsel with the guardian about that. Actually I knew I’d need your approval first,” he added with a wry grin, “which is why I’m out here. How do you feel about brownies, Prime Minister?”

  “The ones my wife bakes are delicious,” he replied blandly. “As for these creatures, I’ve never interacted with their kind. Are they trustworthy?”

  Will nodded. “They’re loyal once they’re tied to a specific place. It would certainly solve the trouble of getting a structure around the well if we just allowed them to build it for us.”

  “Would they misuse the magic there, though?”

  “They don’t need it. They’re small enough and magical enough in their own right that they don’t need to drink from the well at all. They will if you offer it to them, but they’re already creatures of the earth, so there’s no need.”

  “So you trust them?” asked the Prime Minister.

  “Sure,” said Will with a shrug.

  “But you trust everyone.”

  He scowled. “Now, you know that’s categorically untrue.”

  Nicholas Moreland actually cracked a smile. “If you want to let them into the well, I’ll trust your judgment on the matter. Now I really must be going. Keep Miss Dalton here until you’ve resolved the matter entirely, if you please. We’ll probably need to brand her with a cat’s eye too, at this point.”

  Flora opened her mouth to protest, but she hardly knew what to say. She simply stared in dismay as the Prime Minister left the library. When she shifted her gaze to Will, she discovered him watching her with amusement twinkling in his golden eyes.

  “Do you mind if a pack of brownies tie themselves to your house and garden, Flora?” he asked her outright.

  “I suppose… not,” she said, but then she added, “as long as they behave.”

  “And what about the well? Shall we let them build a proper stone structure around it and tend to the upkeep of that area as well?”

  She glanced self-consciously to Charlie, who watched this interchange with a scowl. “What do you think?” she asked.

  He started. “Me? Why should you care what I think?”

  She didn’t know why she wanted his opinion, except that he was right there. “I can’t very well make such a decision on my own,” she retorted. “You really trust them?” she inquired of the Prince, then.

  “They’re not malicious,” he answered evasively. “They’re good little workers, too, and I don’t particularly have any desire to build up the well myself.”

  “Then let them,” said Flora with a half-hearted shrug. “As long as they don’t wake me up in the middle of the night anymore, I don’t care what they do.”

  He hummed in amusement and disappeared back into the office. Flora, left alone with Charlie, pettishly turned her attention to the nearest bookshelf. It was obvious to her that they were ignoring one another, but he didn’t seem uncomfortable in the least. Meanwhile, her nerves practically stood on end, overly aware as she was of his presence.

  In the midst of this heavy silence, a huge, spotted shape suddenly dropped from above, right in front of her. Flora stifled a shriek and retreated as far as she could into her chair.

  “Gregor, no prowling!” Charlie rebuked, and he bounded forward to catch the jaguar’s collar.

  Gregor fixed his golden eyes upon Flora as he was forcibly led away. Charlie shoved him through a door in an alcove beneath the balcony and shut it tight. The big cat clawed at the other side and protested his exile with a rumbling growl.

  “Go to sleep!” Charlie called through the door. “You’re supposed to be nocturnal!”

  The clawing ceased. Silence returned to the library.

  Charlie glanced at Flora, but he said not a word to her. Instead, he crossed to a circular staircase and disappeared to the upper level of the library, from whence the jaguar had just come. She could hear his footsteps above.

  Her nerves were officially shot. She wished for Will to return, but much to her increasing dismay, he didn’t. The door between her and Gregor—and the silence that now governed it—only heightened her anxiety. There was no telling whether the creature knew of other ways to get back into the library, or if he would even try. Edmund and Viola had promised he wouldn’t hurt her, but it was a promise she didn’t want to test.

  She was disgusted with herself, truth be told. Yet again her weakness was on full display, and in front of Charlie of all people—Charlie, who already despised her! If not for the brownies, if not for the threat of shadow-shifters, if not for the puddle of magic in her back yard and this ridiculous sham of a tournament! Flora mutely tallied her twisted fortunes and wished, not for the first time, that she could rewrite every last one. If she had never come to the city, she would never have suffered any of this. If her father had kept quiet at his swearing in, there might not even be a consorts’ tournament!

  And Charlie would still be wooing Georgiana Winthrop.

  That thought sprang to her mind from seemingly nowhere. Flora scowled and tried to bat it away, pretending that she didn’t care. If Georgiana was the type of girl Charlie liked, then he deserved her. It had nothing to do with Flora.

  Only, she didn’t like that match any more than she did Georgiana and the Prince.

  While she struggled with these mental throes, Charlie returned down the spiral stairs. Wordlessly he thrust a book into Flora’s line of sight, thereby summoning her from the depths of her inner turmoil.

  The book was old and worn, and the title was too faded for her to read in a glance.

  “What’s this?” she asked self-consciously.

  “A catalogue of magical creatures. If you’re going to keep brownies at your house, you should probably know how to manage them.”

  Flora gingerly received the book. “Thank you,” she murmured as she flipped open the cover.

  “Don’t mention it.” He crossed to a chair in the corner, where he flopped down with a book of his own.

  She didn’t know what to make of him. He vacillated between helpful and hostile in an almost arbitrary manner. Either she had committed some unknown faux pas, or he was moodier than any female she’d ever encountered.

  The awkward silence mushroomed, and Flora decided that she had had enough of it. With what little bravado she could muster, she asked, “Did I do something to offend you?” Her voice was timorous at best, and the question sounded pitiful upon her ears. She half-expected a sarcastic sneer in return.

  Charlie was certainly on edge. “Aside from shoving me into the snow?”

  Embarrassment flooded through her. “Yes, aside from that. You were friendly enough when we first met, and then, abruptly, I became a nuisance to you. Did
I do something to cause that, or…?” Her words trailed off.

  Charlie’s brows arched. “Or?” he prompted.

  Flora was exhausted from a long, harrowing night and had no desire to engage him in an argument. “Never mind,” she said with a sigh, and she shifted her attention to the book he had given her.

  “Or what?” Charlie pressed.

  “Forget I said anything,” she replied. Then she muttered, “I’ve pretty much got my answer.” He really was impossible.

  “Or am I just an irritable brute who picks on helpless young women?” he suggested. “Is that what you were going to ask?”

  Flora stared at him wordlessly, which only riled him further. He opened his mouth to say something more, but the Prince chose this exact moment to exit his office.

  Will easily read the atmosphere. “You haven’t been picking fights again, have you?” he asked Charlie accusingly. “I told you that won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Mind your own business,” Charlie retorted.

  “Flora is my business,” said Will succinctly. He turned his back on him then to face her alone. “We have to go back to your house. I’ll bring Oggie and Kipper with me, but I can’t go out the front way without causing a lot of to-do. If you want to head down, I’ll join you just outside the palace gates. This is for you,” he added, and he extended one hand.

  Flora curiously took from his long fingers a brooch with a polished gem inset. Its color was pale green-gold, and a line of fire within its depths caught the light at just the right angle. Her heart quickened. “What’s this?”

  Viola wore a similar stone, as did the Prime Minister, Charlie, and Edmund. Will himself had just such a jewel at his throat even now.

  “The Prince’s cat’s eye. You’re to wear it from now on. It’ll allow you entry to these apartments whenever you please. It also brands you as one whom the Prince has taken into confidence.”

  The way he spoke roused her suspicions. Flora scrutinized him. “You really are the Eternal Prince of Lenore?” she inquired.