Palace of Lies (27 page)

“I know what you're like,” Tog said. “
You'd
help.”

I blinked.
Would
I? If the situation were reversed, would I do anything to help missing Fridesian princesses?

I'd
want to,
anyway
, I thought.
I'd just need to see how it was possible. . . .

After all, back in Suala I had helped Cecilia and the other eleven sister-princesses when they showed up at the palace and I came to understand their plight. Even when it meant sharing my power and prestige.

“I'm . . . kind of not like most people in a palace,” I said. “I was lonelier, I guess, and that made me do things differently. Most people in a palace are selfish and obsessed with power. And to get them to do anything, you have to get them to think they're going to get something out of it.”

“Oh right, I'm just a stupid beggar boy, so I wouldn't understand any of that,” Tog said bitterly. “Outside of palaces there aren't ever any mean people who do things just for their own reasons. No one like Terrence, who runs away from an injured princess. No one like those villagers with torches driving beggars away. No one like that constable outside the palace, who yelled at us just because we looked poor.”

I gaped at Tog.

“Oh,” I whispered. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Royalty and courtiers and normal people aren't
that
different,” Tog argued. “There are bad people inside and outside of palaces. And . . . there are good people inside and out of palaces, too. Like Janelia, who was good in both places.”

I thought about how Janelia had watched over me inside the palace, and then all the way to Fridesia.

“I suppose I could try to make the Fridesians think it helps them to help us,” I said thoughtfully. Then I looked down at my plain cotton dress. I could see cobwebs hanging from the hem. “At least, I could if I had the right clothes. If I looked like a princess again.”

“Desmia, you
always
look like a princess,” Tog said. “You sound like a princess, you act like a princess—you'll convince them.”

I didn't say anything.

“Believe me, the most royal thing I've seen you do was throw that pot of boiled rags at the villagers to save me and Herk and Janelia,” Tog said. “And you were wearing rags and bandages then.”

Tog thought that was royal?
I marveled. But something shifted in my brain. I stood up and put my eye back against one of the peepholes out into the ballroom. Everyone was looking in the other direction, toward the fake princesses.

“You're right,” I whispered. “I have to stop this. I have to try, anyway.”

I owed it to my kingdom and to my sister-princesses, regardless of whether they were alive or dead. I owed it to Tog and Herk and Janelia, who had worked so hard to get me to Fridesia.

And I owed it to myself. Because I couldn't live with myself if I once again stood back and stayed silent and did nothing.

I walked over to the point in the wall where, back at the Palace of Mirrors in Suala, a hidden door had stood between the secret passageways and the ballroom.

The door I sent Cecilia and Harper through, trying to save them,
I thought.

I felt along the wall—yes, there was a release hidden in
one of the stones, just like in Suala. I turned back to Tog.

“If anything . . . bad . . . happens to me, take care of Janelia and Herk,” I said. “Make sure they get back to Suala safely.”

Then, quickly, before I could change my mind, I pressed the release, and the door in the wall swung open.

At first nobody saw me.

You could still change your mind. You could still go back into hiding . . .
I told myself.

But I pushed the door shut behind me. It made a soft click, causing a young pageboy holding a silver tray of something orange—salmon chunks speared between melon slices, perhaps?—glance my way. He blinked and looked puzzled, and started to open his mouth as if he was considering screaming. But then he closed it, putting on the bland servant's expression that seemed to say,
You know, I don't actually get paid to think or make decisions. So I'll pretend I didn't notice anything. I'll go on pretending to be just another piece of furniture.

I was not even dressed well enough to pretend to be a palace servant. But maybe I could take on that same blank expression. Maybe I could just blend in and go around unnoticed for a while eavesdropping and spying on people.

No,
I told myself.
You need the element of surprise. Or they won't listen to you at all.

I cleared my throat. For a moment I still felt paralyzed.

Look straight at what frightens you most,
I told myself, starting to scan the crowd for Madame Bisset's steadfast posture. But that technique had backfired for me out in the frightening empty-sky landscape.

Maybe it's better to think about who's rooting for you to succeed, who . . . loves you,
I corrected myself. I could feel Tog's concern for me radiating out from the wall behind me; I could feel Janelia and Herk waiting for us outside. I could even draw strength from remembering Cecilia and Ella and Harper and Jed. And all my real sister-princesses. Wherever they were.

This is for them,
I thought.
This is what I have to do.

I stepped forward, proclaiming in my loudest, most regal voice, “I should like to apologize to the royal family and courtiers of Fridesia.”

As I expected, every head in the ballroom turned my way. Every eye stared at me. The royal orchestra, which had been playing soft background music while Prince Charming looked over the lineup of fake princesses, screeched to an inelegant halt.

Silence.

I didn't let myself look for Madame Bisset even now. I turned toward the king and queen and prince. I lowered my head and raised it again, a quick royalty-to-royalty acknowledgment of high status. I considered a curtsy for
the queen—wasn't that the Fridesian custom? But I decided against it. The dress I was wearing wasn't made for curtsies. It was made for hours of standing beside a cooking pot, or tending to babies, or picking apples from a tree, or some other peasant work.

It would not do for me to begin by splitting my dress.

“I apologize,” I repeated, “because you have been lied to. We Sualans have faced unrest and instability because of secrets and lies dating back a generation. Perhaps more than a generation. I regret that some of the liars stirring up the trouble have spilled across your borders, threatening our fragile peace.”

The Fridesian king blanched at the words “unrest” and “instability,” two terms most monarchs didn't ever want to think about. The queen seemed to be studying my clothing and hairstyle, with a dyspeptic expression on her face that made it clear she didn't approve.

The prince merely looked confused. And—grief-stricken. He still looked grief-stricken.

Lord Twelling, who was standing at the prince's elbow, whispered something into the prince's ear.

“So . . . um, what are these lies you're talking about?” the prince asked.

“Those are not the princesses of Suala,” I said, pointing at the bevy of silk and braids and flounces on the thirteen impostors. I purposely did not look directly at them, because I still didn't want to see Madame Bisset's reaction behind
them. As long as she didn't rush toward me to push me out of sight, that was enough for me. “They are merely pawns in a game of chess. The liars are trying to trick you into becoming their pawn too.”

The prince still looked confused. Too late, I remembered Ella's low impression of his intellect. Perhaps the prince had never played chess? Perhaps he didn't know what pawns were?

Lord Twelling started to whisper in the prince's ear again, but the prince pushed him away.

This gave me hope.

“How do you know?” the prince asked. “Who
are
you, anyway?”

I drew myself up to my fullest height. The change in posture alone made me feel for a moment that it didn't matter that I was wearing cotton instead of silk, that my hair was adorned with twigs and cobwebs instead of gold and gems.

“I am the true Princess Desmia,” I said.

The prince looked back and forth between me and all the fake, beautiful, royally dressed women behind him.

“Prove it,” he said.

I held back a gasp. I should have planned for this. I should have brought evidence. I should have found my crown after the fire. I should have at least found other allies to bring to Fridesia besides a former servant girl and beggar boys. As it was, I had nothing but my own wits to guide me now.

And my memories,
I told myself.
I have memories, too.

All my guidelines about dismissing the past and focusing
on the present had not exactly been helpful. Right now I needed my past.

I thought about everything I knew and everything I'd guessed and suspected. I did not want to be the typical palace type spinning some grandiose story that was more fiction than truth, and constantly running the risk of getting caught in my own lies.

But I did actually have one bit of information that I was pretty sure would be news to the prince.

I held my regal pose and returned the prince's challenging gaze with a steady one of my own.

“Perhaps the prince would care to accompany me to the palace dungeon?” I asked.

I was gambling. If I
was lucky, we would find Ella or Jed or one or more of my sister-princesses down in the dungeon, where I'd heard the jailer taunting someone,
Of course the prince doesn't know you're down here.

If I wasn't quite so lucky, it'd be some other prisoner, maybe even somebody the prince didn't care about.

But I can still say, “Look, this is
almost
proof. This proves your advisers lied to you. My advisers lied to me, too. Can't you relate? Don't you want to listen to my whole story before your advisers talk you into an even bigger mistake?”

That is, I could say that if the jailer himself hadn't been lying about what the prince did or didn't know.

I saw that the prince, even behind his glaze of grief, had the slightest glimmer of curiosity on his face. That was a good sign.

But it was Lord Twelling who stepped forward first.

“As you wish,” he said. “The
two
of us shall accompany you to the dungeon.” He favored me with a thin smile. “Of course, it would not be appropriate for the young prince of Fridesia and a young—er—possible princess of Suala to go anywhere alone together, unchaperoned.”

“Fair enough,” I said, with a confident nod of my own, even though I was thinking,
Oh, no! What if Lord Twelling really is the reason there's someone in the dungeon the prince doesn't know about? What if Lord Twelling is just going along to find out what I know and sabotage my plan? What if he's even in on the fake-princess plan with Madame Bisset?

I reminded myself that the prince still had ultimate power. He was the only one I had to convince.

And regardless, I couldn't back out now.

I stepped toward the nearest ballroom door. It was all I could do not to cast a glance over my shoulder, to make sure Lord Twelling and the prince followed.

You have to act as though you're sure they will,
I told myself.

I heard the prince mumble, evidently to the royal orchestra, “No reason not to carry on with the music and the dancing while we're away.”

A violin bow scraped against strings; flutes and trumpets joined in. Then I could hear the stomp of dancing feet behind me.

That's the thing about courtiers,
I thought.
They know their roles. If any of them are curious, they'll have to wait. When the prince says they're supposed to dance, they don't ask questions.

I let myself turn around once I reached the antechamber of the ballroom. I acted as though I were just waiting for the other two to catch up.

“It appears our palaces are very similar,” I said to the prince, as if I were only making polite chitchat. Really, I was trying to figure out if I was leading them in the proper direction.

The prince squinted at me as if he didn't understand. It was left to Lord Twelling to cover for him.

“The same architect, Lord Anthony Thrassler, designed both palaces, more than four hundred years ago,” he said. “Of course, the Fridesian palace was built first, and Suala merely copied ours.”

He is being rude to me on purpose,
I thought.
He is seeing what he can get away with.

“Indeed,” I said. “I find that Sualans prefer not to follow every fad and trend. It was generous of Fridesia to build the experimental model so Suala could go with the tried and true, and know what would work and what wouldn't.”

Lord Twelling blinked, and I counted that as a victory.

Yes, I am going to be a formidable opponent,
I thought at him.
It will be to your advantage to side with me, rather than with the fake princesses and Madame Bisset. Or, at least to make sure the prince sides with me, and never suspects that you were ever part of the conspiracy, if you ever were. . . .

I was frightening myself, reminding myself of everything I didn't know.

I decided to go back to focusing on the prince. I gave him a sympathetic smile.

“The sad news about Princess Corimunde and your son had not reached Suala before my entourage and I left,” I said. “May I offer my condolences?”

I only meant to get him on my side, to use his sorrow to achieve my own goals. But somehow looking at the man made it impossible to keep up my act, as only an act. Some of my own anguish and worry over my sister-princesses—and now Ella and Jed as well—slipped into my voice.