Pennyroyal Academy (19 page)

“Is something the matter?” she said, finally breaking a heavy silence.

“How do you mean?” He leaned down to rub his knee.

“You just seem a bit distracted, is all.”

“No. I'm perfectly fine.”

She frowned in frustration.
Why can't humans just say what they mean?

“Aside from the fact that I've dedicated my life to killing your family, of course.”

She looked up at him, stunned.

“Do you understand that I'm going to be a knight, Evie? My sword will kill your kind or they'll kill me. Those are the only two outcomes.”

“But they're not my kind.” She felt like she was sliding down a muddy hill, desperately grasping at the weeds. “They're not.”

“And you'll still say that when I've lopped off their heads?” He pulled his leg back and let out a deep exhale. “I have something to tell you. I should have been honest from the beginning, but, well, I wasn't.”

“What is it?” she said warily.

“I have killed a dragon before.”

The corners of her mouth quivered. Blood pulsed inside her head. “You lied.”

“I did.”

She looked away, to the white cobblestones beneath the steps to the ballroom.

“I was a boy of eleven. We'd gone to my uncle's palace at Fiddlehead Downs for some business of my father's. My brother and I went off toward the seaside to explore with a pair of old swords my uncle's captain of the guard had given us. We ended up on a little trail through the forest and followed it along for quite some time, half a day or so. He wanted to turn back, but I . . . I don't know, really, I suppose I was asserting my status as elder brother and I made him continue on. Not long after that we found a strange black substance on the ground. It looked like tar or something, the kind you find bubbling up from the ground in Devil's Garden. I had to know more, naturally, so we followed its trail and found . . .” He took another deep breath and slowly let it out. “. . . a dragon. She'd been wounded somehow, and gone into the forest for protection. That's my theory, anyway. Regardless . . . she never heard us coming.”

From the corner of Evie's eye, she saw his head drop. He paused, picking at a fingernail. “She nearly tore my brother in half. I'm sure it upsets you to hear that, but those are the facts.”

She found herself at a complete loss. She didn't want to hear another word of the story, but couldn't find the words to stop him.

“To be honest, I don't really remember much beyond that. I drew my sword, and . . .” He raised his hands and let them fall as words failed him, too. “It's a bloody business, killing dragons. Bloody and awful.”

Evie's stomach churned, and she thought she might be sick. She leaned forward, elbows on her thighs, and cupped her forehead in her hands.

“I
hate
that people see glory in what I did.” His voice had taken on a hard edge. “There's no glory in it at all. I only wanted to keep her from killing my brother.” An owl's call echoed from somewhere beyond the ballroom, one long hoot and two short. “I was born where I was born to the family I was born to. I was always going to be a knight. But it's never been something I relish. I thought I'd come here, put my head down, and do my duty, but . . . but now I know you, and nothing's what I thought it was.”

The owl sang again. After a long silence, made heavy by the undeniable, unchangeable fact that he had not killed his last dragon, she finally spoke.

“Nothing is what I thought it was, either.”

She roamed alone outside the barracks long after leaving him. Images of her dragon father after the crash, bloodied and injured, swirled through her head. Despite everything she had learned about her family, she didn't want to see her father in pain. Yet there he was and there was Remington, sword in hand, ready to slash the life out of him.

When the light from the barracks had dimmed to almost nothing, she finally ventured inside. She had gone numb. The only thing she wanted was a dreamless night. She passed Demetra, then Maggie, both sleeping peacefully, both handling their familial complications far better than she ever could. She slipped off her left shoe, then her right, and then she stopped dead.

Her Grand Ball gown, the piece she had built from whole cloth and had been honing and refining for months, was in tatters. It hung haphazardly, with seams torn out and panels ripped away. Colored dye had been splashed down the front.

Her nostrils flared as that old, buried dragon anger began to ignite. She looked across the barracks, and in the dim light of the few remaining torches, she found Malora staring back.

“Just because your mother married a king doesn't mean you're not trash.”

Evie's anger pulsed through her lungs, then her jaw, and finally her eyes. She glared across the room with such force that Malora leapt from her bunk and sprinted for the exit. Evie bolted after her, and they burst into the night, their bare feet sending up cold sprays of mud and dewy grass as they streaked across Hansel's Green.

“Get away from me!”

Evie dove. Her fingertips slapped Malora's calf just enough to trip her up. She leapt onto her back and they writhed through the sodden grass, each fighting for leverage.

“Get off!” shrieked Malora, clawing at the turf to pull herself free. But Evie's anger had taken control. She grabbed a fistful of raven-black hair and drove Malora's face into the mud. Months of frustration and helplessness poured from her hands into the body struggling beneath her. The relief was overwhelming.

Finally, though, she heard Malora's choked gasps, and her anger evaporated. She threw the hair aside and let her stepsister up. As she sat there in the wet grass, her tears finally came out in sobs. “Why are you so horrible to me? I never did anything to you!”

Malora pushed herself onto her elbows. Between gasps, she spit out mud, then flipped onto her back and tried to catch her breath.

“We're meant to be sisters,” said Evie, her fury turning to heartbreak. “Why would you ever do that to your sister?”

“I don't know, all right? I didn't mean to, I just—”

“Of course you meant to! That doesn't make any sense!”

“I didn't.” She sat up and wiped the grass from her face. Her voice was soft, thoughtful in a way Evie hadn't heard before. “I don't know why I do half the things I do. It just . . .
happens
and I can't control it. I'm sorry.”

Evie wiped away the last remaining tears. In the darkness, after a flurry of emotion, the numbness had started to settle in again.

“I know I'm meant to be a princess,” continued Malora. “I've known it since the day I was born. But sometimes I just feel so
rotten
inside. And then I do rotten things.”

Evie leapt to her feet and charged back to the barracks.

“I didn't mean to!” called Malora, but Evie was through listening.

The next day she sat on a hard wooden stool in Rumpledshirtsleeves's cottage, missing every word he said.

“A shallower curve in your sleeve pattern will generally provide you greater range of motion for hand-to-hand combat. Far more importantly, it will maintain the sleek, fitted look we all seek—”

The cottage door creaked open. The cadets, who sat at dress forms in a half circle around their instructor, turned to see who it was. Two people stepped inside, a man and a woman, wearing the muddied wool and leather of the peasantry. Their faces were haunted, their eyes ringed with purple exhaustion. Malora coughed, eyeing them with barely disguised contempt.

“Mother? Father?”

It was a girl called Cadet Amaryllis, the same girl who had returned the dragon scale necklace on the first day of term. Evie knew her only slightly, but had always felt gratitude toward her since that encounter. She could only imagine what might have happened had someone less kind found the scale that day.

“You'll pardon our interruption, sir,” said the father, taking his hat in his hands. “Amaryllis . . .”

She hurried across the room to embrace him. Something about these people, the echo of death in their eyes, sent a chill through every cadet in the cottage.

“Our kingdom, Goldharbor, she was taken three nights ago by witches.”

“Oh,” said Demetra softly, her hands going to her mouth. Amaryllis collapsed into her mother's arms in despair.

“It's all gone.” He didn't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular, just staring off at some unseen horror that existed only in his memory. “They took dozens of our people off into the forest . . . burned the rest to the ground . . .”

Amaryllis's mother shepherded her to the door. The father turned to follow.

“Where will you go?” asked Rumpledshirtsleeves.

“To the north. They say that's where Princess Middlemiss is, protecting the refugees.”

And with that, he led his daughter into a world smothered beneath furious black clouds.

Amaryllis's wails echoed in the cottage as the cadets looked back to Rumpledshirtsleeves, but even he seemed a bit wobbly after what had just happened. Evie was the only one who hadn't yet turned away from the door. Someone she knew, someone who came here just as she had, an anonymous person of common birth, someone she had bled with on the training field, would now be wandering a witch-ravaged countryside looking for comfort and protection. It brought Princess Middlemiss right off the page. This was not a story. It was real. It was the thing she was working to become, and it had never felt so impossibly far away.

“Why don't we leave it there, shall we?”

The cadets gathered their things, and the whispers began.

“A word, please,” said Rumpledshirtsleeves, his droopy eye fixed on Evie. Demetra gave her a grim smile and a squeeze on the shoulder as she and Maggie left. Once the door fell closed, Rumpledshirtsleeves put his hands on his hips and hung his head. “At times I feel such unbearable sadness . . . For a world with so much beauty, there is just
so much cruelty.
”

She said nothing. Her supplies of sadness had run low. She felt mostly anger now.

“I heard about your gown.”

Her eyes flicked up, but he waved away her concern.

“Keeping up with idle gossip is one of my more enjoyable pursuits. It used to be the hunt, but I've slowed and the deer haven't.” He smiled. She didn't. “It is a pity about your gown. Your design showed sophistication and taste. Have you any idea what happened?”

Evie looked back to the floor.

“Yes. Such a pity we'll never know who was responsible, isn't it?”

She scoffed, but didn't look up.

“I've spoken to the Headmistress about
her
on more than one occasion. I inquired as to how a cadet with such a basic lack of our four founding principles could still be among us. She told me to keep my warty nose out of Academy business.”

“What?”

“Do you think people stop being cruel as they age?” He shook his head sadly. “I have great admiration for Princess Beatrice and all she's done for the Academy, but she has always disliked trolls. It is only my astonishing skill that has kept me in her employ for so long.”

Evie had never felt any great affection toward the Headmistress, but it seemed unnecessarily cruel to treat such a wise, skilled member of staff so harshly.

“I've trained the best princesses ever to wear the crown,” he continued, tottering toward her. “And all of them, to a woman, had horrible things happen in their lives. Truly awful things that made them doubt themselves.” He rested a scratchy palm against her cheek. The gesture was so tender and paternal that she had to fight back tears. “You know, the staff talks here at the Academy. And many of them gamble, the degenerates. You were everyone's choice for first dismissal. Including me. I lost a week's pay on you.” He patted her cheek and smiled down at her. “But you have fought and you have scraped and you have committed in a way that very few can. No one in any company has come as far as you have this year. No one. There's a princess in you, Evie, and a cracking good one. You've simply got to allow yourself the chance to be great.”

He began to pack away sewing supplies into wooden tubs. “Surviving the Academy only becomes more difficult next year. If you're planning to be here through the end, there is one thing you must absolutely understand. No victim has ever graduated from this Academy.”

She studied his bulbous back as he shuffled to the storeroom, letting his words linger.

“You are not a victim in this world unless you choose to be. And if that's your choice, then you'll never be more than a frightened girl lost in the woods.”

He paused in the doorway, rubbing his back with the heel of his hand.

“But the nature of choices is that there is always another.” And a great, mischievous smile crawled across his face.

E
VIE SHIFTED
from one foot to the other. The glimpses she caught inside the Piper of Hamelin Ballroom showed warm firelight and flashes of lustrous gowns. Music and happy chatter poured into the antechamber where she now waited. Only one couple stood before her, but the knight's shoulders were so broad, the princess's gown so billowing, she couldn't see much.

“Please,” she said to the footman standing tall and stiff in the doorway. “I really don't need an introduction—”

“Never been to a proper ball, have you? Everyone gets introduced.” He peered inside as a song ended to polite applause. With a nod to the couple in front of her, he lifted a silver trumpet and blasted a fanfare. “The daughter to King Pinzberg and Queen Fennels of the Kingdom of Stonearch Common, Her Royal Highness the Princess Elisabeth, escorted by the son to King Roland and Queen Schnoor of the Kingdom of Horn o' the Ram, the Most Honorable Sir Alten!”

What a bloody waste of time. No one's even listening. Why can't I just . . .

Her thoughts faded away when the couple stepped forward and she got her first real glimpse of the ballroom. It was magic. Showers of candlelit chandeliers hung from the ceiling, bathing everything in a warm glow. The song of strings wafted down from the minstrels' gallery. Girls in a stunning array of gowns swept across the floor, led by boys in full military regalia. As she watched the tapestry of elegance before her, she thought back to a day from her childhood. It hadn't been a particularly memorable day, but for some reason it was the one that came to mind. Her father and mother had flown away across the mountains to search for new hunting grounds. She and her sister were left alone for several weeks, and before long their stores of smoked fish and deer meat began to dwindle. One day, driven by intense hunger, Evie spent hours crouched in the mud, lifting rocks and looking for scupperworms or bits of lichen to eat. Now, as she waited to be presented to a room full of her peers and teachers, she finally understood what Rumpledshirtsleeves had meant. Perhaps she had come farther than she thought.

“Well, I don't know where your escort is, but it's a shame to him he ain't here,” said the footman. “Between you and me, you're the prettiest one to come through yet.”

It was dark in the antechamber, but she was sure he could still see her blush. “I think he's inside already. I'm a bit late.”

“He ought to have waited,” he said with a fatherly wink. “Give that lad a good cuffing when you see him, will you?”

The song seemed endless. All she wanted was to run inside and find Maggie and Remington and be a part of it all. But she had to remind herself that there were bigger things at play.
The goal is to win,
she reminded herself.
Win here tonight, and there will be no Helpless Maiden.
The thought helped to calm her nerves, but not her excitement.

“It's Cadet Nicolina, is it?” He checked a small piece of parchment from his pocket.

“No,” she said with pride. “It's Evie. Cadet Evie.”

He blew a harmonic on his horn, and Evie's heart began to thump anew. “The daughter to the late King Callahan and the Queen Dowager Hardcastle of the Kingdom of Väterlich, Her Royal Highness the Princess Evie!”

She breathed in and held it, as though she were diving into the sea, then stepped inside. And now, all the people she had been watching and waiting to join turned to look at her.

She stood beneath the candles in Rumpledshirtsleeves's moonsilk gown, a shimmering star come down from the sky to make all the others look ordinary. It glimmered the blue-white glow of the moon, not bright like a torch, but softly, like a reflection in a still pond. She took a few more steps inside, and even the musicians stopped playing. The fluid fabric slid across her skin like heavy water. Her hair, courtesy of Rumpledshirtsleeves's assistants, rolled across her shoulders in soft waves, baby's breath flowers swirled throughout like a miniature galaxy. When she first put the gown on, she thought back to one of Rumpledshirtsleeves's earliest lessons, when he told the cadets that the design of a gown should highlight the girl inside. She couldn't be sure, but as the fabric fell over her shoulders and swept down her body, the fibers seemed to glow just a bit more brightly than they had on the dress form.

“Evie, you look bloody gorgeous!” said Maggie, dragging Stanischild behind.

“Thanks.” She was smiling so much it started to make her self-conscious, but she couldn't stop. “So do you!”

Maggie's gown was dark emerald green, nearing black. Her auburn hair draped loosely over her ears, where it was pinned up in back. “I made Stanischild wait while I adjusted the hem. But it was worth it, wasn't it?”

Stanischild gave a slight nod, barely disguising his discomfort. The music began again, and the ball slowly resumed.

“You should have heard the ridiculous introduction they gave me. For him,” said Maggie, jerking her head toward Stanischild, “it was titles and land and this and that, but for me they didn't even mention Mum or Dad.” She glared at the footman, who didn't notice. “Bloody cretin.”

“But that's absurd. Surely we're all the same in here.”

“The curse of the common,” she said with a shrug. “The musicians are brilliant, though, aren't they, Stanischild?”

He gave a prim smile, and nothing more.

“Is Remington here?”

“I think I saw him this way. Come on.”

Maggie took her hand and led her through the ballroom, with Stanischild trailing behind. Hushed comments passed between the other competitors, but they weren't the vicious, needling remarks from the start of term; they were admiration and surprise.

“You'd better get started straightaway,” said Maggie. “I think the judging has already begun.”

Evie glanced up at the balcony that ringed the ballroom. Members of staff, princess and knight alike, sat at small tables observing the proceedings. She even saw Sir Osdorf shaking his head in disgust and making notes on a parchment.

“There he is,” said Maggie, dragging Evie up the tiered floor.

He was chatting with another knight cadet. She didn't recognize him at first. He wore a black leather doublet with intricate embroidery and heavy silver braids. A sword hung in a gleaming scabbard from his hip, with matching buttons glinting from navel to neck. He looked sophisticated and rugged, a youthful version of the king he would one day become. He turned and their eyes met.

“Come on, we've got work to do if we're going to beat her in that gown,” said Maggie as she led Stanischild onto the floor.

Evie stood alone, smiling, as Remington looked at her. He excused himself from the other knight and started toward her, but she couldn't judge his demeanor. Other than the initial surprise, he didn't seem to have much reaction at all.

“I'm sorry I took so long,” she said. “Rumpledshirtsleeves wouldn't let me leave without alterations.”

He smiled, then took her hand. “Let's get started, shall we?”

As he led her to the middle of the floor, she couldn't help noticing the deference the other dancers gave her. Complete strangers seemed to have more awareness of her than her own partner. She tried to shuffle the thought away, but there was no denying that his coolness stung.

He turned to face her with a curt smile. “Ready?”

“I suppose so.” She inhaled deeply and reminded herself what really mattered about the Grand Ball:
win.

He took her hand, then placed the other on her hip. As they moved across the floor, Evie's confidence began to slip. She heard the music, felt the pressure from his hand guiding her, but she couldn't concentrate on where she was stepping. His reaction had been so odd. She didn't know what she had expected him to do or say, but she had expected
something—

“You're fighting my lead,” he said. She glanced up at the evaluators, whose faces were as blank as his had been. “What are you doing?” He abruptly stopped just as they were about to bump another couple.

“I'm sorry.”
Focus, Evie. Forget about him and win.

They started off again, slipping into the rhythm of the music. She ignored the vacant look on his face and tried to focus only on the dance. Subtle pressure from his hands told her feet where to go. The music took over her thoughts, then trickled down through her body until it was the strings leading.

Evie and Remington glided across the floor, two bodies moving as one, swept along by music. She remembered back to the stories she had read in Volf's book about Cinderella.
This must be how she felt, dancing with her prince at the ball. She didn't belong there, either, yet she charmed him with her grace and elegance. She didn't belong there, either, yet she somehow made it through. She didn't belong there, either . . . She didn't belong there . . . She didn't belong—

“
Ah!
” grunted Remington. He doubled over, clutching his knee.

“I'm sorry!” She looked up at the evaluators, mortified. Other dancers paused to gape.

“If you're going to tread on my foot, at least try to make it the one that wasn't savaged by wolves, all right?”

“I'm sorry, Remington, really.”

“It's fine.” He straightened his uniform, grimacing through the pain. “Let's keep going. But follow my lead, will you?”

He took her hand and they started off again. Her mind raced. Was he angry? Did the evaluators notice? Would it cost them the Grand Ball? Across the room, the footman announced the arrival of another pair of latecomers—

Steel clashed as Remington's scabbard hit another cadet's. “What's the matter with you?” he hissed as he pushed Evie back.

“I'm sorry, I think I'm just a bit nervous.”

He offered an apologetic nod to the young man he had just bumped. “Any more mistakes like that and we've got no chance, do you understand?”

She nodded, though a small burst of anger flickered through her stomach. Every misstep so far had been hers, but she still didn't care for his condescending tone.
Perhaps he's just nervous, too.

He stepped into the music and she stepped another way. He tumbled across her leg and landed in a pile on the floor. The others cleared a circle around them.

“Right, I've not come here to be made a fool.” He scrambled to his feet and limped off through the sea of cadets, leaving her alone in the middle of the floor. Gradually, the other couples started to dance again. She wanted to turn back time, to try to correct a night that had started so right and then gone so horribly wrong. But through her humiliation, that glimmer of anger returned. He had left her. Without any consideration of how she felt, he had left her. She pushed through the crowd, lifting the moonsilk from the floor as she descended the tiers.

“All right, Evie?” said Maggie, but she had no intention of stopping. She charged past the footman and through the antechamber, across the crimson silk rug that ran out the door, and down the stairs outside. Huge, luminous orbs hung from the willow trees, with torches flanking the doors. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked from somewhere in the darkness. Remington hobbled across the courtyard, then stopped when he heard her heels on the stone.

“What is it, do you want to throw me into a tree or something?”

“What's the matter with you? Are you still obsessing about that dragon you killed, because I've told you it doesn't matter!”

“I don't appreciate being made a fool. I would've quite liked to have won this Grand Ball, but you saw to that, didn't you?”

“You may have liked to win the Grand Ball, but I
needed
to,” she said. “It doesn't matter to you, with your family influence and fame and all the rest, but this was my best chance to make it back next year.”

“Well, perhaps you shouldn't have slung your partner to the ground, then.”

She shook her head in disbelief.
How—when—did this all go so wrong?
Then, without another word, she turned away and started to walk toward the barracks.

“Did you kiss Forbes?”

She stopped at the edge of the courtyard, where the torchlight faded to night.

“Answer me.”

“Did I
what
?”

“That girl, Malora's friend, she saw you kiss him. In the Infirmary.”

“What, at the beginning of term?
He
kissed
me
! And just before that he had a snout and hooves!”

Remington opened his mouth to retort, but her response caught him completely off guard.

“He'd just gone from a pig to a human and he thought I had something to do with it, so he kissed me. And what bloody difference does it make if I did kiss him, and why in the world are you listening to Malora and her friends about anything?”

He took a step toward her, remorse in his eyes. “I . . . I didn't . . .”

“Is
that
what this is all about? Bloody hell, at least feeling guilty about killing a dragon made sense!” So Malora had failed to keep her from the ball by destroying her gown, but she had still kept her from winning with a stupid piece of gossip.