Palace of Mirrors (31 page)

“We wouldn’t just have to look at fishing ponds,” I say. “We could go around inspecting the countryside, gathering information about everything. And maybe we could travel to Fridesia, too, for the peace negotiations. And . . .”
I feel a little shy, mentioning this. “And to go to Ella and Jed’s wedding.”

Harper kicks at the stone wall nearest his feet.

“We’re almost fifteen,” he says. “We get too much older, it’ll be scandalous, you and me traveling together. . . .”

“Why?”

“You know,” Harper says. Once again he won’t meet my eyes. “A man and a woman, not married . . .”

“Well, then,” I say, “I guess we’d have to get married.”

My heart pounds like I’ve just done something incredibly brave—walked all the way from our village to Cortona, say, or run through an alley full of rats—rather than just speaking seven words.

“You’re a princess,” Harper says harshly. “I’m nothing. You couldn’t marry me.”

“Oh, yeah?” I say. I reach out and grab Harper’s shoulders. I begin shaking him back and forth. “You make me so mad with all that ‘I’m nothing’ talk! I’m a princess only because some maid plucked me out of a rickety bed in an orphanage—”

“And the queen said you were a princess, and Sir Stephen taught you, and you walked all the way to Cortona—”

“And you walked all the way to Cortona too!” I protest, shaking his shoulders harder. “And you’re good and strong and smart and true, and the best fast harpist in the land—”

“Which means nothing—”

“Harper, you grinning fool!” I say, giving him the hardest shake yet, almost a shove. “If we can make up the rules as we go along to get thirteen princesses instead of one, don’t you think we could bend the rules a little to let you and me get married?”

I’ve stopped shaking his shoulders, but I’m still holding onto him. I’m not quite sure how it happens, but somehow my arms slide down, around his back, and his arms come up hesitantly to circle my waist.

“I didn’t think this could ever happen,” Harper says in a husky voice. “Because of your fate, and mine—”

“Harper, we have choices, too!” I say, leaning back to look up at his face. “I could push you away, or you could push me away, or I could give up the crown, or you could get a crown, or we could just kiss each other, or, I don’t know, there are a million other things that could happen, a million different choices we could make right now. . . .”

Harper is standing very still.

“So what’s it going to be?” he asks quietly.

In answer, I rise up on my tiptoes. He’s already bending his head down, moving his lips toward mine. And then, well, I haven’t exactly studied this, but I’m pretty sure that ours is not the most expert kiss in Sualan history. It’s a little hard to figure out how we should tilt our heads so our noses don’t bump. But the kiss is a promise, a vow.

Come to think of it, it doesn’t really matter that ours is not the most expert kiss in Sualan history. It’s still the best.

Harper takes a step back, and he is grinning, but not foolishly.

“Is
this
our fate?” he asks.

“It is now,” I say, grinning back.

Far below us, down in the courtyard, the band has shifted into another song. The cheerful music floats up to us, each note full of hope, promising only good things for the future.

Harper sweeps into a courtly bow so smooth and perfect that I’m sure he’s been practicing.

“Your Majesty,” he says. “May I have this dance?”

I nod and then giggle, ruining my regal air.

“Up here or down there?” I ask, pointing down toward the courtyard.

“Whichever you prefer,” he says solemnly, holding out his hand.

I take his hand and wrap my arm around his waist, and we begin to waltz in our former prison—because really, it’d take so long to walk down all those stairs that we’d miss the whole song if we tried to go to the courtyard. As we spin and twirl to the music, I think about how I used to be so certain about who I was and what my future would hold. And now I’m sort of promised to be married and sort of in charge of the entire kingdom—with twelve other girls—and so much of it has been a complete surprise. The queen couldn’t possibly have understood what she was starting when she sent her maid to the orphanage. Sir
Stephen couldn’t possibly have understood what he was starting when he gave Harper’s mam my royal harp. And Harper and I didn’t know what we were starting when we began walking toward Cortona.

Who can know their own fate? Who can do anything except make the best choices they can and hope it all works out?

“Best choice,” I whisper in Harper’s ear. “This was the best choice.”

“Dancing here instead of in the courtyard, you mean?” he asks. “Or . . .” He looks a little dizzy, and I know he’s thinking about how many choices the two of us have made, leading us here, to this moment. Leading us to our fate.

I smile up at him.

“All of them,” I say. “Every single one.”

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   1   

The fire had gone out, and I didn’t know what to do.

I was covered with a king’s ransom of silk-sewn comforters and surrounded by six warming pans, so I was still mostly warm. But my nose was exposed and freezing, and I heard no friendly crackling from the direction of the hearth. For some reason the chambermaid in charge of keeping my fire going had overslept or forgotten me. Or perhaps I had awakened too early, before it was time for her to come on duty. I hadn’t figured out the palace work schedule yet.

The last time I awoke to freezing air and a dead fire, I simply got up and restarted it myself. “Ella,” I lectured myself, “you’re no stranger to tending fireplaces. Just because they put a crown on your head doesn’t mean
your hands forgot how to work.” Still, I had to force myself to leave the bed’s warmth, tiptoe across the icy flagstones, and search for a tinderbox and poker. For a while I feared none of that was in my room—did they think princesses or almost-princesses were too delicate even to see the instruments that kept them warm? But then I found a compartment in the wall by the great fireplace and dragged out equipment bigger and grander than I’d ever used before. Reviving the fire was a struggle, for my hands were clumsy after two weeks of idleness. (I hardly count needlepoint as work.)

At the end, when I was finally able to warm my numb fingers over ever-growing flames, I felt a strange surge of pride. I wanted to brag to someone about accomplishing a chore I’d done hundreds of times in my old life without thinking. But there was no one to tell. Charm wouldn’t be interested, even if I saw him, in between his endless hunts and contests. The king was even more remote, and I’d endured enough blank stares from the queen to know I shouldn’t confide anything in her. Then there were all my ladies-in-waiting and maidservants and my instructors (one for decorum, one for dancing, one for palace protocol, one for needlepoint, one for painting, and two or three whose purposes I had yet to figure out). But all of
them looked at me with such horror whenever I let something slip about my former life. (“What? You had no one to do your laundry?” one of the silliest of my waiting girls, Simprianna, had asked when I’d carelessly mentioned rinsing out my stockings after the ball.) Even after just two weeks, I knew better than to brag to anyone in the castle about doing something that dirtied my hands.

And so I thought I’d keep my fire-building secret. Then I overheard two of my maidservants gossiping later that day about my chambermaid. “She was found still in her bed, and it was already past five o’clock,” the one said to the other, fluffing my pillows with a dainty thump. (In the castle, even the maids pretend to be dainty.)

“No,” the other gasped. “So she was—”

“Beaten within an inch of her life and dismissed,” the first said, sounding as self-satisfied as rabble cheering an execution. “Thrown out the palace gate by six.”

“Lazy slugabed got exactly what she deserved, then,” the second said, even as she gently placed a single rose on my pillow. “But the fire—”

They both fell silent and glanced my way. I lowered my eyes and pretended to be intent on the watercolor I was copying over in the afternoon light struggling
through the western window. I don’t know why I cared what maids thought, or why I acted as though restarting a fire to heat my own room was something to be ashamed of. After a moment, one said, “Humph,” and the other echoed her, and they left. I sighed, glad to be alone, but then Madame Bisset, my decorum instructor, arrived in a flurry.

If it had been someone else, I would have said she was disheveled and flustered, but, of course, Madame Bisset never allowed herself to be anything but absolutely perfect in bearing and dress. Every gleaming silver hair was in place, every one of the fifty-two tiny mother-of-pearl buttons that marched up her dress was precisely fastened in its loop. But she looked as though she’d given thought to appearing disheveled, as though circumstances might warrant it from anyone else.

“Princess Cynthiana Eleanora,” she said sternly as she sat down, discreetly arranging the yards and yards of fabric in her skirt so she would be comfortable on the sofa. “I have heard a rumor.”

The unfamiliar name and title jarred, as always. I had only recently managed to stop myself from looking around when people addressed me like that. A princess? Where? Oh, that’s right. Me. Sort of.

“Madame? A rumor?” I murmured, trying to get the pronunciation of “Madame” exactly right. The day before, Madame Bisset had chided me for how—she lowered her voice to whisper the horrifying phrase—“common” my French sounded. This “Madame” evidently passed muster, because Madame Bisset’s frown didn’t deepen immediately. So I worried instead that I was breaking some rule against echoing another speaker’s words. But no, it was my father who had opposed that. I could hear his dry voice: “I’d prefer to hear an original thought, if you have one.” I couldn’t imagine Madame Bisset caring about my thoughts, original or otherwise.

“A rumor,” she said firmly. “Now, normally, a cultured woman does not listen to rumors or gossip. Au contraire, one must hold oneself above such—such crudity. But this rumor is so appalling, it must be dealt with. And since I am the person responsible for instilling you with a sense of etiquette, I must not shirk.”