Tea. Because of course that made sense.
Nineteen
WAR AVERTED: CRUMPETS IMPLICATED
This was how war ended and marriages were made, Dennis decided — over tea and crumpets and sardine sandwiches at midnight with the representatives of royal families and their advisors, chewing over a problem until it quietly wentaway.
Prince Chase had turned up, grumbling, after his brother Cyrus insisted that he join the makeshift party. He was sober, and mocked the situation between his brother and the midnight princess so expertly that there would be no puns left for the newspaper to use in its headlines for aweek.
Princess Ziyi lost her own embarrassment sometime around Prince Chase’s third inappropriate joke, when she threw a sardine at him, and his brother and sister laughed so hard that they almost choked on their own cups oftea.
Royals, Dennis thought, had a different code of what was appropriate and what was not, and they were bloody well making it up as they went along.
Sarge, despite his soaked clothes, was obviously a trusted voice among the Charming siblings. He won several brownie points with Princess Ziyi when he agreed without question that her family emergency was just as important as their homegrown King Iolchus Is About To Screw Up Years of Diplomacy With His Hissy Fit situation.
Corporal Jack stood near the fireplace, wearing her generic facial expression of ‘I’m not even listening to any of you’ which Dennis longed to master for himself. He and Kai stood near each other, almost certainly because it put them in the best position for the plate of sandwiches, and not for any other reason.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much are you longing to take notes right now?” he whispered.
Kai gave him a sardonic look. “I’m just waiting for them to remember what I do for a living and chuck me out,” he replied, just as quietly. “I’m pretty sure they shoot quills for sport aroundhere.”
“Assuming the two of you don’t actually want to get married,” Camilla was saying thoughtfully.
“NO,” said Ziyi and Cyrus in unison, and then looked apologetically at each other.
“No point to it,” drawled Chase. “It would solve our gunpowder princess’s problem, but not our own diplomatic crisis. What we need — what both parties need — is for the midnight princess to disappear without trace.”
Sarge gave the prince a dirty look. “We don’t do that in this kingdom, your highness.”
“Certainly not!” snapped Camilla.
“Um,” said Ziyi, looking alarmed.
“Oh, how adorable, you thought I meant to assassinate her,” said Chase. “No, we don’t have the skill-set to clean blood out of furnishings, and besides, too many witnesses.” He gave Dennis an arch look over his shoulder.
“Good,” growled Sarge. “I’ve hidden enough bodies for this family.”
All of the Royals looked startled at that, and only Camilla laughed.
“He was joking,” noted Corporal Jack, making Dennis jump. For a woman made out of stone, she was pretty sneaky.
“I got that,” he replied.
“Making sure that your friend did,” said Jack, giving Kai a dirtylook.
“I’m surrounded by aristos and their guard dogs,” Kai sighed. “I’m just going to assume that 90% of what everyone says tonight is sarcasm, metaphor, or a personal threat.”
“Chase has a plan,” announced Camilla. “I knew it was a good idea to bring him in on this. Cyrus, pass Chase acake.”
“Whose idea was it to bring him?” teased her brother. “Chase doesn’t need more cake, he won’t fit into his favourite waistcoat.”
“The midnight princess needs to disappear,” Chase said loudly. He gave Ziyi a very undiplomatic once-over. “How attached are you to the label of princess?”
“I’d have ripped it off at birth if I could,” she said instantly.
“Have you any useful skills, as an ordinary citizen? We all know you can runfast.”
She frowned. “The usual princess things. Porcelain painting. Religious dance. Poetry recital. Twelve different forms of martial art. Tinkling conversation…”
“Oh,” said Sarge softly, and shook his head. “Got it. You’ll have to marry me,” he added toZiyi.
She took that in stride, smiling. “I think that will do nicely.”
“What?” Jack demanded. “I mean, what?”
“Calm your knees, corporal, I’m not actually going to marryher.”
“Good, because she’s half your age, Sarge, I was either going to have to punch you or arrestyou…”
“The good Sergeant is suggesting that I should write home and let them know I have eloped with someone most unsuitable to my station in life,” said Ziyi softly. “He is offering his name, which means his protection, which is kind but unnecessary. It would be better, I think, if they believed I had left the kingdom of Charming altogether before my unfortunate marriage.”
“But where will you go?” Dennis blurted. He had sisters, and the thought of one of them disappearing into another kingdom with nothing but a letter full of falsehoods made him sick to his stomach.
“One of our newbies quit after the Autumnal Fling,” said Sarge. “No stomach for it. There’s always one. Slip this lass into a tabard and a helm, cut her hair, no one will spot her as a princess in hiding. Not if she can throw an opponent as well as the Xixese warriors I’ve met before.”
“I believe I can be adequate to the task,” said Ziyi. She was glowing all over, as if the very thought of freedom had set her onfire.
Corporal Jack looked angrier at this idea than she had been about the fake marriage, but she said nothing.
Dennis felt Kai shift beside him. “It’s not enough,” said the serious young quill, finally calling attention to his presence. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. The Midnight Princess is the story of the season. The Herald is never going to stop hunting for her, and as long as their - our headlines are screaming that story, I don’t imagine the King will calm down, either.”
Chase and Cyrus turned their faces towards him, so similar that it made Dennis shiver.
“So we need a better story,” said one of the princes as if it was obvious.
“A bigger story,” agreed his brother, “To swallow the midnight princess whole, and push her back to page 6, then page 12, then page24.”
They stared expectantly atKai.
Kai gulped.
“That’s easy,” said Camilla, and she might be darker than her brothers in hair and skin tone, but she looked like their reflection as she leaned in to share her idea. “I think it’s time, don’tyou?”
Everyone in the room went very still. Chase and Cyrus both got an odd look on their identical faces, a softness despite their sharp features.
“Really, darling?” said Cyrus.
Camilla smiled brilliantly, and motioned Kai to come and sit beside her. “I’ve left all this wretched palace work to the two of you for years. Time I shared the load. The hidden princess is coming out into the sunshine. How does that sound?”
“Story of the century,” Kai breathed.
Dennis stood there with Jack, two watchful Hounds, as tomorrow’s history was planned out with meticulous precision. Sarge drew Ziyi aside, almost looking cheerful as he dared her to show him a few of her defensive moves.
Kai sat with Princess Camilla and both of the Princes, talking animatedly -- and finally allowed to take notes! The four of them plotted out what should be said, and written, practically finishing each other’s sentences as they worked. Dennis could not take his eyes off Kai, how alive he seemed in this moment, crafting the story that would surely make his career.
For a moment, a brief moment, he allowed himself to want, fiercely.
Beside him, Jack drew in a breath. “Do you see that?” she whispered. “Am I imaginingthat?”
Dennis could not see anything but Kai in his element. “What do youmean?”
“Oh, I -” she shrugged, and rolled back against the wall, her defenses drawn up like a
drawbridge. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
Dennis didn’t realise what she had seen until later, much later.
Sarge dragged Ziyi off to reinvent her as a new recruit for the Hounds. He insisted Jack join them ‘for a girl’s opinion,’ a sentence for which Sarge would pay dearly, for the rest of hislife.
Camilla and her brothers disappeared back up into the tower, planning her grand coming out at the next ball two days hence — she would wear the midnight princess gown and mask, dance with both of her brothers, and finally her father, if he hadn’t called the Hounds to arrest her already.
She would allow herself to be revealed, the hidden princess coming home to her family and her kingdom and her castle.
Kai’s story, Dennis imagined, would be written and filed already, guaranteeing he would be the first quill to capture the story of the century.
The Midnight Princess Revealed.
Now it was just the two of them left, sitting on the steps outside the tower as dawn came, sending fingers of light across the beautiful gardens of Castle Charming.
“I just,” said Kai, and laughed with a hint of hysteria in his voice. “I’m coming to terms with it, I suppose. These are just the sorts of things that happen when you move to a fairy tale kingdom.”
“You’ll get used to it,” said Dennis, leaning back on his elbows.
“Pumpkins and godmothers and princesses and — really? Those are things you just get usedto?”
Dennis had lived in Charming his whole life. “Talking cats, too,” he remarked.
“I almost believeyou.”
The early morning sunlight hit the tower, and when Dennis next looked across at Kai, the other boy was lit up all over, haloed in sunlight. For one giddy moment, he thought about breaking his promise to himself and kissing, touching, letting this unspoken thing between them unravel.
Except.
There, in a halo of sunlight, sprawled comfortably on the steps of a tower that contained a cursed queen and two fairy tale princes and their beautiful, strange, inked-up sister of a princess, Dennis realised how very familiar Kai looked.
He swallowed. Jack must have seen this in the kitchen, the odd similarity. In the sunlight, his dark hair all glossy and reflective, Kai looked for the first time like the Princes Charming. He had the cheekbones, the nose — the colouring was wrong, but not when you had spent the evening around Princess Camilla, with her spill of black hair, her olive skin tone closer to that of their father than the pale silver-blonde cursed queen…
The age was right. Kai had spent his childhood travelling, away from Charming… he couldn’t have guessed who he was. If Dennis’ horrible guess was correct.
Because yes. This was the kind of shit that happened to you all the time when you lived in a fairy tale kingdom: the boy you wanted desperately to kiss started to look a lot like a long-lost prince.
Dennis had no words for this. He didn’t know what tosay.
Perhaps, he thought desperately, he didn’t have to say anything at all. It wasn’t his place. Let someone else break the next story of the century, the one that left the midnight princess forgotten in thedust.
He wasn’t a quill. This wasn’t hisjob.
Kai winced into the brightness of the sun, and looked like himself again, beautiful and serious and ordinary. Not the least bit royal. “Hey,” he said, letting his hand brush against Dennis’ knee. “Do you want to grab breakfast?”
“Sure,” said Dennis, when breathing became possible again. “I couldeat.”
He was a Royal Hound, charged with protecting and serving the royal family. Keeping them safe. And keeping his mouthshut.
Fornow.
Twenty
MIDNIGHT PRINCESS REVEALSALL
Camilla of Charming’s Years of Silence, Her Family Tragedy, And The Glass Slipper That Ended Her Exile
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Byline: Kai Foster and Amira Chaudry
Only in the Charming Herald
6 Copper toads Supplement on Saturdays
Bringing TheNews
To Every Doorstep in the Kingdom and Beyond
Buy Next: Dance, Princes, Dance
Castle Charming #2
Winter has fallen over Castle Charming: a season of frosty sports, mistletoe kisses and desperate attempts at matchmaking. Chase and Cyrus, the castle’s resident Princes Gone Wild, are behaving suspiciously well. But who is dancing their way through a stash of expensive satin slippers every night? And who is the mysterious soldier from Sarge’spast?
All Kai wants to do is solve the mystery and write stories for his newspaper, with maybe a little lovelorn pining on the side. But his friendships in the castle collide with his job, and he’s on the verge of losing everything he has ever wanted. Dennis bottles up a secret he never meant to keep, Ziyi comes to terms with not being a princess any more, and they all have to figure out which Prince Charming is most in need of being saved.
When you hit rock bottom, only truth and fairy cocktails will set youfree…
* * *
Will Kai & Dennis get together? Will Ziyi’s secret identity be revealed? What is the Sarge’s tragic backstory? And what’s with ALL THE FAIRIES?
* * *
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Chapter1!
Chapter 1 - Armour Up
They called her Ziggy or Zig, close enough to her original name in their flat accents that it didn’t even feel like she had become a different person… though of course, she had. The sharp, sarcastic princess from the exotic island of Xix had disappeared, to be replaced by a quiet, diligent Royal Hound cadet.
She had aching muscles from the hard work and training that was expected of a royal bodyguard. She had friends, she had work she enjoyed: the martial arts disciplines she had inhaled as a child were finally useful. No one was ever going to insist that she married a prince. Life wasgood.
Only.
No one had warned her aboutthis.
“I don’t think there’s enough armour,” Ziyi gasped as Dennis and Corporal Jack rallied around, wrapping her in thick leather and shoving a helm with a mesh face-guard over herhead.
“You’ll be fine, Zig,” said Dennis, smacking her helpfully between the shoulder blades. That boy kept forgetting how strong he was. Normally she liked it, that he never treated her like some hothouse flower, but right now she was panicking. “Just get out there, try not to get hit, and make us proud.”
“I’m not ready!” Ziyi insisted. “There must be someone else whocan…”
“It’s tradition,” Jack and Dennis chorused, and what was with that, anyway? Dennis had been a Royal Hound for maybe a week before “Cadet Ziggy” joined up. How was he suddenly an expert on what was and was not castle tradition?
“Does this helm have horns on it?” Ziyi demanded.
“You can do it, kid,” Jack told her. She was also wearing the thick leather padding, the helm and the horns. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. Head up, eyes bright, grip your stick… and don’t drop theball.”
“Why would I be anywhere near the ball?” Ziyi yelped, but it was too late. Dennis had one of her arms, Jack had the other, and the ground whooshed past her feet until they set her down on the grass, in the midst of thegame.
Somewhere, a whistle blew. Ziyi failed to see how that was constructive.
Rookery was a sport invented by bored princes three generations ago, which should have been the first red flag. Castle Charming had a particular sympathy with bored princes, enabling their more destructive tendencies and protecting them from the worst consequences of their actions.
The relationship between castle and princes was less than healthy; this should be a surprise to noone.
Prince Cyrus spent more time on recreational athletics than he had ever spent on his studies, or royal duties. Prince Chase preferred to get his athletic training via sneaking out to clubs in the city or in neighbouring kingdoms, dancing for hours, and hooking up with strangers.
One prince rose early
to train before breakfast; the other slept until noon or, on many occasions, nightfall. They lived hard, played harder, and defied their father at every turn. At nineteen, barely a couple of months away from coming of age as heirs to the kingdom, they were both set in theirways.
But every year, as autumn gave way to the chill winds of winter at Castle Charming, the two princes came together with their friends to play a weekly rookery championship against a team of their own bodyguards: Royals vs. Hounds. It was the social and sporting event of the winter, for those who played as well as those who watched.
The winter middle of “the Season” was more relaxed than the frantic autumn whirl of dances and receptions and matchmaking had been. Many attractive young people had already found their future spouses and settled back on their smug laurels to plan a wedding. Those who were still searching usually embraced the more intimate potential of house parties in the country until after New Year — Castle Charming was particularly chill in winter, and less than hospitable for guests. The only outsiders who remained were those hardy young women still set upon bagging a prince, who had managed to get their families to send them chests of furs and woollen layers so they could participate in the traditional winter sports of ice skating, flirting on frosted balconies, and cheering on their chosen rookery champions.
Kai Foster had learned all of this from Amira, his mentor and closest friend at the Charming Herald since he signed on as a junior reporter or “quill” a few months ago. She was also a useful source for explaining the rules of rookery, though he hadn’t absorbed much beyond ‘five player teams’ and ‘they wear a lot of leather’ and ‘chances are high you will see one of the princes thrown in a pit today.’
Glass Slipper Scandal Page 5