Palace of Mirrors (15 page)

I want to act graciously toward Desmia. I have the words of my old playacted ceremony from the cow pasture running through my head:
I, Princess Cecilia Aurora Serindia Marie, do hereby proclaim my gratitude to the commoner Desmia. . . . It is a fortunate ruler who has such loyal subjects. . . .
Dealing with Desmia will be my first deed as the newly revealed true princess; I want everything to go exactly right. But I can’t help but feel annoyed that she’s being so inconsiderate, keeping the light so far ahead, not even acting like she cares that we’re falling behind.

Fine, be that way,
I think.
I can run fast too.

I speed up, paying less attention to the slapping of my bare feet against the stone steps. If I’m too loud, it’s not my fault—it’s hers. But then Desmia speeds up as well. By the time we finally reach a door that’s dozens and dozens of steps above the ground floor, all three of us are panting. Desmia opens the door a crack and peeks cautiously out.
Harper and I both try surreptitiously to cram our felt shoes back on our feet, but I’ve got the second one only halfway on when Desmia shoves the door all the way open, revealing a spacious, airy room, with an entire wall covered in a colorful tapestry, and imposing gilded furniture scattered at tasteful intervals. There’s not a soul in sight, so I risk whispering, “Can we talk yet?”

Desmia shakes her head.

“Not until we’re somewhere we’re sure no one will hear us,” she says.

She turns her back on us once more, her hair bouncing gracefully on her shoulders, and she leads us through a labyrinth of rooms. I see a huge, veiled bed just around one corner—off to the left, as we’re turning to the right—and it occurs to me that these must be her bedchambers.

No,
my
bedchambers,
I remind myself. My head feels woozy; my stomach’s gone twitchy with nerves. Everything I’ve been reading about and dreaming about—it’s real!
Take slow, regal breaths,
I think. Just off the top of my head I can remember six times in my country’s history when a princess or even a queen toppled delicately into a swoon. But I don’t think fainting would be the wisest course of action for me right now.

It would help if I could take slow, regal steps along with my slow, regal breaths, but Desmia is hurrying even faster now.

“Come,” she calls back to us, and Harper, at least, races ahead.

We’ve reached another stone staircase now. This one isn’t hidden, but it loops back upon itself so I can’t see where it leads. No, wait, now I do—it spirals up into a tower.

“We can talk at the top,” Desmia murmurs, from her position on a higher step.

I want a few moments to gawk. I’ve just come to the first window in the tower wall. Down below I can see the courtyard where Harper and I stood yesterday, watching Desmia. It’s so early that only a few people scurry across the stones; from this distance they seem as remote as ants. Beyond the courtyard I can peer down on the roofs of the city and the graceful city walls, and then far out to the rolling hills of the countryside.

“Move along!” a harsh voice cries out. “Bawk!”

I jump so high in my astonishment that I’m lucky I don’t fall out the window. I gaze around frantically for the source of the voice. It was so loud, right in my ear, but Harper and Desmia are now far above me, and anyhow neither of them has a voice like that—no one I’ve ever met has a voice like that. . . . Ah.

Right beside the window, in a little alcove I didn’t notice before because I was too amazed by the scenery, there’s a wire contraption. If I didn’t know any better, I would say it was a sculpture, or maybe some odd, heretofore unknown
plant: From a slim metal pole it rises from the floor and bursts, at eye level, into twists and turns of wire that flare out like petals and then all meet again at the top, high above my head.

It’s a birdcage.

I know, because I’ve seen pictures in books.
Which king was it who was known as the Bird King because of his vast aviaries? Somebody the Fifth. Alphonse? No, maybe Aldons, the same one who—

“Bawk! Move along!”

This time I don’t jump, because I see the bird, finally. I don’t know how I missed it before. It’s bright green and bright yellow and bright red, and swinging on a little stick on chains in the middle of the cage. Even though I’ve read about talking parrots, even though I saw the bird’s beak move when I heard the words, this still seems too incredible to believe.

“Cecilia?” It’s Harper, calling out to me from above. Worried.

“Coming,” I call back softly. Then I dare to add, “Did you see the talking bird?”

“Three of them, so far,” Harper says, and I can hear the grin in his voice.

I rush on up the stairs—twisting, turning—and he’s right. There’s one alcove after another, each one with a more elaborate birdcage containing a more brilliantly colored bird.

“Bawk! Watch it!” one cries.

“Bawk! Be careful!” calls another.

Every few steps there’s a new bird. We’ve set them off—or their brothers and sisters’ calls have set them off—because they’re all squawking now. I can’t make out individual words anymore; it’s just one huge cacophony of screeching and shrieking and squealing.

Was
this
why Desmia thought nobody could hear us up here? Did she think to wonder about whether we’d be able to hear each other?

She’s looking back at us, Harper and me. She’s still a few steps ahead, almost around the bend in the spiral stairs.

“Hurry,” she says.

At least that’s what I think she says. I’m mostly just reading her lips.

We rush up around another few turns, and the squawks and screeches die down behind us. The stairway is narrowing; there’s no more room for birdcages.

And then I turn a corner, and the floor is flat ahead of me—we’ve reached the end of the stairs. Through a wooden door I see a row of windows letting in glorious sunlight after the dimness of the past stretch of stairs.

“Desmia?” I say, because she seems to have disappeared.

“After you,” she says. She’s standing over by the edge of the door—an area that seems shadowed in contrast to
the sunlit room beyond. She lifts her hand, gracefully indicating that Harper and I should step into the room first.

I think about this. Everything I’ve learned from Sir Stephen suddenly seems jumbled in my mind. What’s the rule—does royalty always enter a room first? Or last? Is Desmia honoring me, acknowledging my true identity? Or has she forgotten that now she won’t have to pretend anymore, claiming royal privileges she doesn’t deserve?

Harper, not one to be plagued with etiquette questions, simply steps into the room. I glance at Desmia to see if she approves or disapproves—if, maybe, she would be annoyed that Harper’s gone ahead of me, breaking the rules. But Desmia’s face, in the shadows, is a mask I can’t interpret.

I step into the room too. I want to race over to the window and peer out, to see how much farther away the ground seems, how much smaller the people look, now that we’re at the top of the tower. But I remind myself of my royal role. I have duties and obligations now. This is what I was born to, what I was raised for, what I walked so far to do. I turn back toward Desmia, my old playacting words on my tongue, ready to be spoken for real:
I hereby proclaim my gratitude . . .

Perhaps I should save those words until Desmia is kneeling before me?

Desmia is not kneeling. Desmia is not getting ready to kneel. Desmia is slamming the door behind us, turning a key in a lock, sliding a bar across the door.

Desmia is on the other side of the door.

I freeze. My mind can’t seem to grasp what’s just happened.

Desmia puts her face against a tiny window—a tiny window crisscrossed by smaller bars.

“You are
not
the true princess,” she snarls through the bars. “I am.”

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No!”

I fling myself at the door, shoving against it. The bar and the lock hold firm. I wrap my hands around the window bars and jerk on them, uselessly.

“Desmia, you don’t understand,” I say. “I came to
save
you! Didn’t anybody ever tell you the truth?”

She’s backing away from the door, toward the stairs. She lifts her head, regally, looking down her nose at me.

“They told me to beware of pretenders to the throne,” she says. “They told me that I have enemies, that I must always be on guard—”

“No, no, that’s not the truth,” I say, shoving against the door again. It doesn’t budge. “I mean, there are enemies, yes, but you and me, we’re on the same side. They’re enemies to us both.
You
are the pretender, but you’re doing it to help me, the true princess, and—”

“Who’s wearing silk?” she asks, her words practically a hiss. “Who’s wearing rags?”

“Desmia, this is ridiculous,” I say. I try to think if Sir Stephen taught me anything about how to handle subordinates who are insubordinate, but all my royal textbooks were sketchy when it came to talking about sedition. I don’t think “Off with their heads!” would go over very well right now.

I try a more diplomatic approach.

“Go ask your royal adviser, or the leader of the knights, or someone who would remember my parents, the king and queen,” I say. “Surely someone can tell you the truth. Someone can tell you that your life is in danger as long as you’re pretending to be the princess, that it’s in your best interest to—”

“Are you threatening me?” Desmia gasps.

“No, no, it’s not like that. You’re not in danger from
me
. I’m here to rescue you, to relieve you of—”

But Desmia is gone. She’s already whirled around, dashed down the stairs. I can hear the birds again, far below: “Watch it! Be careful! Bawk!”

“Desmia, wait!” I scream. “Come back! I am the true princess! I’m not lying to you! I
am
the princess!”

I go a little crazy, I think, because suddenly I’m battering my shoulder against the door and shaking the bars and clawing my fingernails at the crack between the wooden door and the stone wall. And the whole time I’m
screaming out, “I am the true princess! I am. Listen to me! I’m the princess!”

Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. Harper’s. I’ve forgotten that he’s here with me, that he’s locked in too.

“I’m the princess!” I sob to him. Somehow my shoulder is down near the bottom of the door now, my face only inches from the floor. I’ve sagged down to the hard stones, practically rock bottom. “I am!” I whimper.

“Eelsy,” Harper says, leaning over me. “What if you’re not?”

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