by M. A. Larson
Hardcastle grunted from the floor next to Evie. She was trying to push herself into position to try her own magic. Evie looked over at her. “It was you who painted the portrait, wasn’t it? I saw all the artwork while I was at Callahan Manor; it was you. You took my mother away from me.”
“Your father cheated me! She was supposed to be mine! So I found him and cheated him right back. I made him fall in love with me. Then I took his daughter by stealing her name and giving it to my own. Of course Calivigne wanted to exploit the situation to have a witch graduate from Pennyroyal Academy, but all I wanted was what that man promised to me. And I got it after all, didn’t I? He tried to cheat me, but I won in the end!”
Evie felt an overwhelming flood of emotion come over her, then in a brilliant flash of white, Countess Hardcastle was no more.
• • •
Evie staggered out of the mill. She walked through campus like she was asleep, numb to the battles happening all around her. A giant stepped over her at one point, only just missing crushing her, but she barely noticed. At the main road, the one that looped around the front of Pennyroyal Castle and ran down the hill to the forest, she paused and did a slow turn, drinking in everything around her. Dragons swooped out of the night sky and into the plumes of smoke streaming up from all around campus. Giants battled with troops of knights. Witches and princesses did battle in every tower. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the forest at the bottom of the hill.
A figure emerged from the trees. It was a woman riding on horseback. She wore a beautiful dress of silver and black with a jeweled tiara in her hair. It was Princess Cinderella, and she had a whole band of others with her. More princesses poured out of the trees, all riding hard toward the hill.
Evie stared at them, mesmerized, as they charged into battle. Halfway up the hill, Cinderella saw her. She smiled. Then she turned in her saddle and shouted to the others, “Come on! Let’s take back what’s ours!”
The princesses reached the top and thundered around Evie, pouring into campus to join the fight.
For the first time in a long time, she smiled. Then she gave a shout and ran off after them.
THOUGH MUCH OF Pennyroyal Academy had been reduced to a smoldering ruin, even more of it still stood. The sun rose that morning as bright as the dawn of summer, and many of the ancient towers were still there to throw off shadows. The Queen’s Tower had been spared after the initial blow. The top half lay splayed across the ground, while the rest still rose high above campus. The barracks and most of the outbuildings had survived, as had the Dining Hall and Rumpledshirtsleeves’s cottage. But much of the interior had either been heavily damaged or destroyed entirely. The Piper of Hamelin Ballroom, the place where Maggie had won the Grand Ball during their first year, had been flattened. Schummel Tower, where Evie and her friends had competed in Witches’ Night only a few months earlier, was nothing more than a pile of stone.
Not everything was a subtraction, however. There was one huge new addition to campus. As the dawn first started to break, Evie had been coming down the road to deliver the fairies a new fairyweed bush that one of Cinderella’s princesses had brought. She turned a corner and found a foot twice as tall as she was made entirely of stone. Blunderbull lay flat on his back, the largest statue the world had ever known. Evie could only imagine what must have happened for the witches to turn him to stone.
Now, in the full, bright light of the morning, with the battle over, Evie looked around and saw help already happening everywhere. Knights heaved stones to free trapped princesses. Princesses rescued knights from damaged towers. Dragons helped move large sections of crumbled wall.
She smiled, feeling as warm inside as her skin did beneath the hard rays of the early-morning sun. There was not a witch left to be found on campus. Not a giant, either, save for the statue. They had won.
She walked toward the knights’ side of campus. Though everyone was exhausted, they were all still outside helping to search or take inventory or gather weapons and gear. She saw Remington and another knight pulling hunks of limestone off a collapsed stable. As she approached, they managed to roll a boulder aside. It curled to a stop. Moments later, a donkey came trotting out. Then a horse carefully stepped through. Then another.
“Well done, mate,” said Remington to the other boy. He was huffing and puffing, sweating from the exertion. “Ah, Evie. How’s everything up there?” He nodded to the main bit of campus up the hill from the field.
They’d found each other again in the night, hours after they’d parted. Remington and the knights had finally managed to drive Galligantusohn back out into the forest. As he ran off, crashing through the trees, Remington said he had shouted, “I’ll never take money off witches again!”
Now, with the fighting over, she’d come to find him again. And she had something very specific on her mind.
“What is it?” he said, still catching his breath. “Are you all right?”
“I need you to come with me.”
“Of course. Where are we going?”
“Show me where King Hossenbuhr was staying.”
He gave a slow nod as her motives became clear. “You want to see the portrait.”
“I do,” she said, “but I’m absolutely petrified.”
“Right.” He brushed his hands on his breeches. “This way.” He led her through the war-torn training field toward Copperhagen Keep, the fortress the King had been using during the siege. The doors were torn off and the walls marred by black smoke stains. Mostly, though, it seemed intact. Evie studied the structure. Her heart began to race. Now that she knew exactly what the portrait was, it scared her even more than when she thought it might curse her to look at it.
She felt something and looked down. Remington had taken her hand. He gave her a compassionate smile. “Take your time. Whenever you’re ready.”
She breathed in deeply. “I’m ready.”
They walked to the entrance of the castle. Some knights were sitting in small groups inside, drinking tea and recovering from the fight. Evie and Remington walked right past them, hand in hand. They entered the main keep. It was dark inside. Sunlight filtered in at an angle. The air was thick with dust.
“I think he took a chamber in the back,” said Remington.
They crossed through the hall and found the door to another room. It was flanked by piles of armor and weaponry. Remington looked at her and she looked back. Then they stepped through the door and entered Hossenbuhr’s room. There were footlockers and more weaponry, a small table and a bunk of his own, all plundered from the barracks. And there, shoved into the corner, stood a wooden crate, wide and thin, with a chain locked around it.
“That’s it,” said Evie. She stepped over and lifted the lock. “Great.”
“Found the key,” said Remington, walking over with a battle-ax. Evie moved back, and he swung down. There was a metallic clang. Then another. With the third blow, the lock clattered to the floor. Evie raced over and pulled off the chain.
“Give it to me,” she said. Remington handed her the ax, and she used the blade to wedge open the crate. She dropped the weapon and pulled the wood apart with her bare hands. When the lid fell, she took a step back and gasped.
There, nestled into a bed of straw, was the portrait Evie had been longing to see since her first day on campus. It was just as it had been described, but also so much more. The detail, the color, the vibrancy in the face . . . The portrait was so stunningly beautiful, it appeared to live and breathe.
“My word . . .” said Remington. “Evie . . . it is you.”
The girl in the portrait had the same wide green eyes as Evie. The same flowing brown hair. The same face. The same cheeks. The same lips. The same spirit.
“No,” she said. Then she leaned forward to get an even closer look at the detail. There was immeasurable kindness in the girl’s eyes, vibrant and alive to the point that it see
med to radiate from the canvas. Evie reached out a finger and touched the girl’s face. She ran it gently down her cheek. It felt like touching a mirror, so exactly did the two of them match. Then she let her finger slowly fall until it was pointing at the girl’s stomach. “That’s me. Me and my sister.”
After several more minutes, she closed up the crate and lifted the portrait out of Hossenbuhr’s things. Remington ran off to find the donkey he’d just freed, then led it back to the keep. The donkey carried the portrait of Evie’s mother across campus, back to the Leatherwolf barracks. There, she propped it at the head of her bed, sat down on the mattress and crossed her legs, and stared at it for hours.
Girls came and went as they moved through their first day after the siege. Parents, too. Some stopped to talk to her, commenting on the beautiful portrait someone had done of her. Others just gave her a smile and left her to it.
At some point, she knew there was more work to be done, though she would have liked to have stared at the portrait straight through the rest of the day. Her mother—her real mother, Princess Vorabend—had been trapped inside that image. Her body had continued on through life as a witch fighter with no recollection of ever having given birth to Evie or Malora. She studied the painting of her mother’s eyes, which seemed to twinkle beneath the oils. Even if Evie somehow managed to find her, would her story be dismissed? Would her mother turn her away as a crazy person saying crazy things? Would she ever know the feeling of being held by her mother, or would that most human of experiences be forever out of reach? With her head spinning and her heart in knots, she closed the crate and slipped it under her bunk, then went out to help with the efforts.
Later that day, after a meager lunch in the Dining Hall that tasted better than any she’d ever had, Evie and her friends returned to the barracks, and she showed them the portrait. Each of them was sufficiently awed by the work.
“I can’t see one single difference,” said Basil, his head swiveling from the portrait to Evie.
Demetra was so close her nose was almost touching the canvas. “It’s extraordinary. It almost looks like she’s alive.”
“I’m so happy for you, Evie,” said Maggie, giving her a hug.
“Thanks.” Evie couldn’t help but smile as she stared into her mother’s eyes. Of all the people she’d lost, and all the people who had, impossibly, come back to her that day, here was someone she’d only known for a matter of minutes. Someone who had been snatched from her in the very moments after she was born. And now it was as if she were back, too. Evie’s heart threatened to burst.
“Right. You. Over there.” It was the familiar, snarling voice of Corporal Liverwort. They all turned to look at her, and she was pointing straight at Maggie.
“Me?”
“Come with me. Queen wants to see you.”
Maggie stared at her, mouth hanging open. She didn’t say a word. Liverwort snarled and stormed toward them.
“Well? Come on, then! This is the Queen we’re talking about!”
“The Queen? Wants to see . . . me?”
“That’s what she said.” Then she called out to everyone inside the barracks. “All of you, get washed up and be behind the main castle in thirty minutes!”
The rest of the people in the barracks began cleaning up from the long day’s work. Maggie, meanwhile, was having a hard time following the order.
“What will I need? Surely a new uniform. I couldn’t possibly—”
“You’ll wear what you’re wearing,” said Liverwort with a sigh. “Queen wants you straightaway.”
“Of course,” said Maggie. “Let me just put a few things in my knapsack. There must be time for that, right?” She buzzed around her bunk, exploding with nervous energy and talking to herself.
“Corporal Liverwort,” said Evie.
“What,” she said. She turned to face Evie, her face a mask of lumps and scowls and angry lines.
“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Princess Beatrice. I know what she meant to you.”
Liverwort’s face began to go slack as the lines that had been etched into it from years of frowning relaxed. Evie hugged her. She felt as stiff and uncomfortable as a log in Evie’s arms, but within moments, her body began to shake. She was crying, Evie knew, and that made her hold on even tighter.
After a moment, Liverwort pushed Evie away and wiped her eyes, trying to put her sour face back on.
“Come on, Cadet, Queen’s waiting.”
“Ready!” said Maggie.
“Hang on,” said Evie. “I’m coming, too.”
Now Liverwort truly did get angry. “She didn’t ask for you. Just this one.”
“She can discharge me if she likes, but she might be the only person alive who can tell me about my mother. I’m coming along.”
Liverwort sneered at Basil and Demetra. “Fine. Let’s go.”
She led them through campus. Now that several hours had passed since the final witch was defeated, a celebratory atmosphere was beginning to take hold. It had come at great cost, but they had won. And that was the part that was now beginning to sink in.
They reached the Queen’s Tower, or what was left of it. Liverwort showed them into a thin, curving staircase. It curled around the outside of the Queen’s Tower in a gentle contour, passing a beautifully carved doorway at each floor. Finally, she reached the one she wanted and stepped through. Evie and Maggie followed. They walked down a short corridor made of stone and reached another wooden door. Liverwort knocked, then opened it. She stepped inside. “Here she is, Majesty.” She turned and nodded to Maggie, then froze Evie with her eyes. The door shut, leaving Evie alone in the hallway.
She waited and waited, pacing along the smooth stones of the floor, wondering what the Queen could possibly be talking to Maggie about. She was there long enough to start questioning whether she really should have come at all. What if the Queen was even colder and meaner than Beatrice?
Before long, the door opened. Slowly, in a daze, Maggie stepped out. Liverwort appeared behind her and pointed a crooked finger at Evie.
“Wait there while I tell her what you want.” Then she slammed the door.
“Maggie? Are you all right?”
Maggie stepped toward her, lost in her thoughts. “It’s her, Evie.” She met Evie’s eyes. “What they said was true. The Queen is Rapunzel.”
“What?”
Maggie nodded, a smile blooming wide across her face. “It’s really her!”
“What did she want?”
Maggie shook her head, still unable to comprehend what had just happened to her. “She wants me to apprentice with her. To learn how everything works. She said she’s been watching me, Evie, and that she thinks I’ve got a place on the staff!”
“Maggie, that’s incredible!”
“There’s a lot of work to be done before that, of course, but she said that if I train as hard as I have been, she’ll keep an eye on me for Headmistress!”
Evie gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. She grabbed Maggie’s arms, and Maggie grabbed hers right back. Both of them jumped up and down and screamed.
“Mum used to read me stories about this place when I was a girl! And now I’ll be working here! I get to train the next generation of princesses, Evie! Can you believe it?”
They jumped up and down and screamed again. The door flew open, and Liverwort glowered at them. “Get in here!” she spat.
“I’m so happy for you, Maggie,” said Evie.
“Thanks.”
She hugged her friend once more, then walked toward the door. She stepped past Corporal Liverwort into a dark stone room with a low ceiling. There were windows all along the curved walls looking out over campus. A spinning wheel and a stool sat near the wall. A wooden desk, a bench, and a neatly organized bookcase were the only other objects in the room. An ancient woman in a golden dr
ess sat in a wooden chair with large wheels near one of the windows. Waves of sleek silver hair cascaded from a waterfall braid around the back of her head. A thick, jeweled crown sat above that. She had kind eyes and a sweet smile, and she was ushering Evie closer.
“I hear you’d like to speak with me about your mother,” she said in a small voice. “It’s all right, Corporal, you may leave us. Thank you very much indeed for your help today.”
Liverwort bowed her head, then left the room. Evie stepped forward, her fingers fiddling in front of her. “Before she died, Princess Beatrice said that you and she were the only ones who knew the whole truth about my mother. I was hoping I might become the third.”
Queen Rapunzel closed her eyes and sighed. “Poor Beatrice. She not only broke a vow by revealing Academy secrets, but also broke my heart. She allowed herself to be overwhelmed by her stepmother. But, as difficult as it all is, I forgive her. Who amongst us hasn’t made mistakes when it comes to our families? Come. Sit.” She motioned toward the bench. Her fingers were curled and twisted into a permanent fist.
Evie sat. The old woman’s eyes were so tender, so full of love, that it put Evie immediately at ease. “The Headmistress told me about my father coming here and about the bargain with the witch and my birth. But all she said about my mother was that she was taken away before the witch came for her and given a new life somewhere else.”
“Indeed,” said Rapunzel. “And it was no small feat, mind you. Here was a girl trained as a Princess of the Shield but who had lost herself to a curse. Imagine the bottom falling out of a glass. That was what the witch left us. To protect her from the Seven Sisters, we needed to erase her from the world. But we also needed to explain a fully trained Princess of the Shield. So,” she said with a soft chuckle, “I altered history. You’ve had Lieutenant Volf, correct?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. In my first year.”
“Then you know what a stickler he is with Princess History. Somehow I managed to persuade him to change the truth. That might have been the most difficult part of the entire affair.” She laughed softly again. “With the Lieutenant’s help, the Headmistress and I set about erasing every trace of Princess Vorabend from our records.” A wave of dizziness shot through Evie’s head as she remembered looking at the Registry of Peerage in the Archives and finding her mother blacked out from its pages, leaving King Callahan alone. “Of course, there was still the matter of her old company-mates. I summoned each of those girls back to the Academy and told them we were changing Vora’s identity to save her life. Without hesitation, without any further questioning, each of them accepted it. They took solemn vows to protect her secret to their dying days, which, unfortunately for most, came far too quickly. But a Princess of the Shield always protects Academy secrets. We knew those girls could be trusted.