Palace of Mirrors

Also by Margaret Peterson Haddix

THE MISSING SERIES

Book 1: Found

Book 2: Sent

Book 3: Sabotaged

THE SHADOW CHILDREN SERIES

Among the Hidden

Among the Impostors

Among the Betrayed

Among the Barons

Among the Brave

Among the Enemy

Among the Free

Dexter the Tough

Say What?

Because of Anya

The Girl with 500 Middle Names

Claim to Fame

Uprising

Escape From Memory

Takeoffs and Landings

Turnabout

Just Ella

Leaving Fishers

Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

Double Identity

The House on the Gulf

Running Out of Time

By
Margaret Peterson Haddix

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither
the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real
locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products
of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or
locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Margaret Peterson Haddix

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Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.

Book design by Chloë Foglia • The text for this book is set in Cremona.

Manufactured in the United States of America • OFF 0110

First Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers paperback edition February 2010

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Haddix, Margaret Peterson.

Palace of Mirrors / by Margaret Peterson Haddix.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Fourteen-year-old Cecilia has always known she is the true princess of
Suala, but when she and her best friend, Harper, decide to speed up her ascendancy
to the throne, they find danger and many imposters who challenge her claim.

ISBN 978-1-4169-3915-3 (hc)

[1. Princesses—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Best friends—Fiction.

4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Fantasy.] I. Title.

PZ7.H1164 Pal 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2007034090

ISBN 978-1-4424-0667-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-0250-8 (eBook)

For
Hannah, Jenna, and Megan

  1  

Somewhere in the world I have a tiara in a little box. It is not safe for me to wear it. It is not safe for me to know where it is. It is not safe for me even to tell anyone who I really am.

But I know—I have always known. Perhaps Nanny Gratine sang my secret to me in hushed lullabies when I was a tiny, squalling creature. Perhaps Sir Stephen began his weekly visits even in my first months, and whispered into my ear when it was no bigger than an acorn, “You are the true princess. We will protect you. We will keep you safe until the evil ones are vanquished and the truth can be revealed. . . .”

I can almost picture him kneeling before my cradle, his white beard gleaming in the candlelight, his noble face almost completely hidden by the folds of a peasant’s
rough, hooded cloak. This is how he always comes to visit us—in disguise.

I am in disguise too. I think if I had not known the truth about myself from the beginning, it would be hard to believe. To everyone else in the village I am just another barefoot girl who carries buckets of water from the village well, hangs her laundry on the bushes, hunts berries and mushrooms and greens in the woods. Nobody knows how I study at night, turning over the thin pages of Latin and Greek, examining the gilded pictures of kings and queens—my ancestors—as if staring could carry me into the pictures too. Sometimes, looking at the pictures, I can almost feel the silk gowns rustling around my ankles, the velvet cloaks wrapped around my shoulders, the gleaming crown perched upon my head. It is good that Nanny Gratine has no mirror in her cottage, because then I would be forced to see that none of that is real. I have patches on my dress, a holey shawl clutched over the dress, a threadbare kerchief tying back my hair. This is strange. This is wrong. What kind of princess wears rags? What kind of kingdom has to keep its own royalty hidden?

I don’t know why, but ever since I turned fourteen, questions like that have been multiplying in my mind, teeming like water bugs in the pond after a strong rain. Last night, as Sir Stephen was giving me my next reading assignment in
Duties and Obligations of Royal Personages
, a
thought occurred to me that was so stunning and bizarre I nearly fell off my stool.

I gasped, and the words were out of my mouth before I had time to remember Rule Three of the Royal Code. (“One must consider one’s utterances carefully, as great importance is attached to every syllable that rolls from a royal’s tongue.”) Even though I know that the Great Zedronian War was started by a king who said, “Dost thou take me for a fool? Art thou a fool thyself?” when he should have hemmed and hawed and waited to speak until he could find a wiser way of expressing himself, I still blurted out without thinking, “Great galleons and grindelsporks! Are you
her
teacher, too?”

Sir Stephen scratched thoughtfully at his chin, setting off tremors in the lustrous curls of his beard.

“Eh? What’s that?” he said, blinking his wise old eyes at me several times before finally adding, “Whose teacher?”

Sir Stephen is entirely too good at following Rule Three of the Royal Code, even though he’s only a knight, not royalty.

But then I hesitated myself, because I’m always loath to speak the name. I stared down at my hands folded in my lap and whispered, “Desmia’s.”

Desmia is the fake princess, the one who wears my royal gowns, the one who sits on my royal throne—the one who’s saving my royal life.

Sir Stephen did not reply until I gathered the nerve to
raise my head and peer back up at him again.

“And why would I be Desmia’s teacher?” he asked, raising one grizzled eyebrow. He wasn’t going to make this any easier for me than conjugating Latin verbs, solving geometry proofs, or memorizing the principle exports of Xeneton.

“Because you know how to train royalty, and—”

“She’s not royalty,” Sir Stephen said patiently.

“But she’s pretending to be, and if she has to keep up appearances, to throw off and confuse the enemy—then doesn’t she have a tutor too?”

I cannot remember when I found out about Desmia, any more than I can remember when I found out about myself. Perhaps, by my cradleside, Sir Stephen also crooned, “And don’t worry that your enemies will ever find you. They won’t even look because we’ve placed a decoy on the throne, a fake, a fraud, an impostor. If the evil ones ever try to harm Desmia, we will find them out; we will roust them. And then we can reveal your existence, and the kingdom will ring with gladness, to have its true princess back, safe and unscathed. . . .”

When I was younger I used to playact the ceremony I planned to have for the girl Desmia when the enemy was gone and the truth came to light. I’d play both roles, out in the cow pasture: kneeling and humble as Desmia, standing on the wooden fence to attain proper royal stature when I switched to playing myself.

“I, Princess Cecilia Aurora Serindia Marie, do hereby proclaim my gratitude to the commoner Desmia, for all the kingdom to see,” I’d intone solemnly, balanced on the fence rails.

Then I’d scramble down and bow low (though keeping a watch out so that neither my knees nor my forehead landed in a cowpat).

“Oh, Princess,” I’d squeak out, as Desmia. “It is I who ought to be thanking you, for allowing me the chance to serve my kingdom, to ensure your safety. I have wanted nothing more than your safe return to the throne.”

Back to the fence rail. Back to my royal proclamation voice.

“It is a fortunate ruler who has such loyal subjects. In honor of your service, I grant you a tenth of the royal treasury,” I’d say. Sometimes the reward was “land on the Calbrenian coast” or “my best knight’s hand in marriage” or “the services of your favorite dressmaker for a year.” But somehow it never sounded right. What was the proper reward for someone who had risked her life to save mine? What was the proper reward for someone who’d already gotten to wear silks and satins while I wore rags, who’d gotten to feast on every delicacy in the kingdom while I ate porridge and gruel, who’d slept in a castle while I slept on a mat on the floor? Wasn’t it reward enough that she’d gotten to live the life that was rightfully mine?