The Child Prince (The Artifactor) (36 page)

Ah, he must have walked in on one of Aren’s and Bel’s frequent arguments. “If Aren could be consistent in giving his advice, he’d make better headway.” She snorted, leaning back in her chair so that she could put both hands comfortably on her stomach. “But as it stands, he always reacts
after
Bel’s back from doing whatever ‘dangerous thing’ he’d done, which doesn’t work. Most of the time, Bel hasn’t really done anything dangerous. Dates in the village with Hana, or hunting around the edge of Noppers Woods, or excursions with Kip. I think the only truly dangerous things he did were before his father even arrived. Has the man always been this way?”

Pierpoint winced, rubbing at one temple as if feeling a headache coming on. “I’m afraid so. The reason why the Magnifying Curse worked so well is because of this flaw in the king’s nature. He’s quite distractible. When focused, the man can be a force of nature. But he often gets absorbed in little tasks and misses what’s going on around him.”

She’d observed the same thing. Aren focused on spying on the council and gathering information and almost ignored his son for days on end. She’d initially found it odd that Bel accepted this behavior from his father (after ten years of separation, she’d expected the prince to be hurt by his father’s neglect) but instead he’d accepted it. In fact, he’d taken advantage of it. He’d gone along on his own plans without notifying the king of what he was doing, steadily working and only infrequently updating his father as he needed to.

Sevana had never been the type to meddle in other people’s family affairs and didn’t intend to start now. Pierpoint, being a busybody, would be the better person to deal with the situation. Especially since he knew Aren better than anyone here (aside from Axelrad). “You’d best straighten Aren out, then.”

The wizard pointed a finger at his face in an incredulous manner. “Me?” he objected, voice rising. “Straighten out a king?”

“No, straighten out a father,” she corrected acerbically. “Those two don’t know how to work together at all. I’ve seen several dust-ups because of it. We can’t afford to have them either ignoring each other or fighting with each other. You know Aren best. Go fix it.”

Pierpoint gave her the most exasperated look she’d ever seen from a person. “In case you don’t realize,
Artifactor
, there is no magic wand I can wave or potion that can be brewed that would automatically fix the relationship between father and son!”

The idea made her pause for a moment. If she could invent something that would…oh, the money she could make. She probably wouldn’t need to invent anything more afterwards. That one thing would set her for life. Shaking off the fantasy, she told him mock-sweetly. “This is a matter of supply and demand, Wizard. I demand. You supply.”

He didn’t take that well at all. “Just what do you expect me to do, anyway?”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m terrible with people, everyone knows that.”

“A fact you revel in!” he accused, shaking a finger at her. “If you paid half as much attention to people as you do magic, you’d be amazing with them.”

She scoffed and waved a dismissive hand. “Too much trouble. Now, shoo. I have something I want done before we go tonight.”

Apparently realizing that he wouldn’t get any sympathy from her, he let out a long sigh, shoulder slumping. “Go where?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Or hadn’t he heard enough while Bel and Aren argued to get the idea? “We’re going to break into the palace tonight.”

Pierpoint’s eyes crossed. “W-what?” he demanded, voice cracking. “WHY?”

“Well, Bel and I need a lot of gold.” She found it too tiresome to explain why, so let that explanation be enough on their end. “The others want something too…information of some sort…I didn’t pay much attention,” she admitted frankly.

Giving her a long, long look, the man heaved a resigned sigh. “Apparently, I need to go ask someone else for a proper explanation.”

“I’d try Axelrad,” she suggested mock-sweetly.

“Some help you are.” Grumbling, the wizard hoisted himself back to his feet and retreated back into the hallway.

Happy to have scooted him along his way, she picked the wand back up and continued polishing it to a high shine.

~ ~ ~

The bells of the village rang out the tenth hour, and everyone judged it the right time to depart. Sevana led them all to her clock room, activated the right one, and stepped aside. As the men slumped and finagled their way in through the narrow confines of the clock, she watched carefully and issued a warning, “Don’t mess with the pendulum. If the clock stops running, it’ll leave you in a very strange place that exists only between time.”

Sarsen paused with one foot inside the clock. “Is that really all it takes to activate the portal?”

“Yes. I trust you can activate it when you want.” He would need to, as she would be gone with Bel for a good two weeks at least on their little jaunt southward.

With a shrug, he stepped all the way inside. “Willya.”

She didn’t think he would have a problem with it. They both were trained under the same master, after all.

Aren stepped up next, hand rubbing at his nose. Sevana smacked his hand back down with considerable force. “Stop that! You’ll ruin the makeup.”

He flinched and stared at her with jaw-dropped astonishment. “I can’t believe you actually dare to hit your king!”

“I’ll do it again if you don’t stop touching your face,” she threatened, not kidding.

Far from being insulted by this, Aren broke out into a wide smile. “You truly remind me of Pierpoint. He was the only other magician I’ve ever met that dared to correct me. After all of this is over, won’t you consider coming to work for me?”

“And have to deal every day with court politics?” she snorted. “I’ll pass. Now, you’re holding up the line. Move.”

Still smiling, although in a more bemused way, he stepped all the way through. Being taller than the rest of the men, he had more trouble getting through without banging his head on the roof or his shoulders on the pendulum, but he managed. Bel stepped up last, moving through the narrow confines like a veteran, which he rather was by this point. Sevana went in after him, closing the door behind her to keep a certain curious cat from following.

The palace felt vacant and eerily still. At this time of the night, even the servants would be abed, leaving only the night patrol and politicians with nefarious purposes still awake. The men, once through, didn’t wait for her and Bel but instantly climbed the stairs on the far end of the hallway and went straight to work. Bel paused long enough for her to close the front of the clock and then waved her toward the opposite end of the hallway, going down instead of up.

Sevana followed him without a word, partially because she only vaguely knew where they were going. She’d mapped out quite a bit of the palace, over the years, but certain sections still remained a mystery. The lower quarters of the palace were rumored to hold the document rooms, armories, and other storerooms. She’d skipped it from sheer lack of interest. As she followed, she studied him from behind, truly looking at him for the first time in a while. He’d grown out of that odd gangly stage all young teenagers go through, now looking comfortable in his own skin. Kip had taken him shopping at some point this week because his wrists and ankles were no longer exposed and his clothes fit him properly. She needed to get him to sit still long enough for a haircut, though. The bed didn’t grow select parts of the body, but
all
of it. His hair looked shaggy enough to belong to a sheepdog right now.

Bel took several turns, exchanging hallways with such certainty that she didn’t doubt he knew where to go. But
how
he knew remained a mystery. After all, he’d been locked in a single room for ten years. “Bel, how are you so certain where the treasury is?”

“Hmm?” He paused at the corner long enough to glance back at her before turning toward the right. “I played down here a lot when I was younger. In fact, I drove my parents to distraction because I kept disappearing down here. It’s been a long time, I grant you, but I know this place better than the back of my hand.”

He played down
here
?
In this eerie place
? The only light came from scones on the wall, and those were at random intervals. This far down, no one had bothered to lay down any carpeting on the stone floors, or put up tapestries to soften the austerity of the walls, so it resembled a dungeon. Even the air felt colder, damper, and less welcoming. Actually, the smell alone would rebuff a sane person. If someone told her that a dragon had climbed down here and died years ago, she’d believe them. What child would choose to venture down here on their own?

“I always pretended I was on an adventure, down here to slay some horrible ogre,” Bel explained, no doubt interpreting the look on her face. “The other part that scared my parents was I always came down here armed with the sharpest dagger I could find.”

A five year old running amok with a weapon—yes, that would surely scare anyone.

Bel stopped at a random wooden door that looked like every other plain door and announced, “Here it is.” With no hesitation, he simply pushed it open.

What? No one even bothered to
lock
the place? Although it was such a labyrinth down here, maybe only a select few even knew how to get here.

Sevana followed in on his heels, taking the place in. Far from the depiction of a child’s storybook, the treasure room of Lockbright Palace didn’t have gold and jewels flowing out in every direction. In fact, the room had been well organized. Large chests were arranged in neat rows, leaving narrow walkways through the length and width of the room. Two tall armoires flanked the door on either side, no doubt holding more precious jewels belonging to the family.

Bel knelt and started flinging open the lids to chests. “You said pure gold would be best, right?”

“Right.” She slung the three empty bags off her shoulder and handed him one.

He started scooping out gold nuggets from the depths of the chest into the mouth of the bag. “Why are these ‘never-ending’ bags, anyway? They actually do have a limit on how much they can hold, don’t they?”

“Not really, no.” She knelt next to him, and started in on the neighboring chest. Of course, she didn’t scoop with her hand. Pointing a wand at the gold, she spelled it so that it would leap obediently into the bag. “If you can fit it through the neck of the bag, then it will go inside. But my weight-cancellation spell can only do so much. After a certain point, it just becomes too heavy for anyone to carry.”

“Ahhh.” Bel intoned in understanding. “Hence why you divided it in between three bags. I now understand.”

They worked in silence for several minutes, loading the bags with enough gold to fill a cart to almost overflowing. Sevana, with her faster method, filled two bags while Bel did one. He still had a bit of gold left over in the chest, so she stood and went to one of the armoires. As she’d guessed, it contained all sorts of very elaborate jewelry, carefully hanging on velvet cushions. Opening a smaller pouch at her waist, she started choosing pieces at random, going with anything with a solid gold design to it and looked particularly sparkly. When she judged she’d taken enough to drape Bel, she closed the doors and turned around.

Bel had finished loading his sack, true, but… “Bel, what
are
you doing?” Sevana demanded in exasperation. They had enough gold and jewelry—more than enough, actually—so why he was rooting through a chest of rolled scrolls, she couldn’t imagine.

“Wait,” he said to her, not even looking up as he frantically dug through the pile, discarding one after the other. “I’ve got to destroy this now, or I’ll never get another chance.”

Fingers drumming against the bag’s strap, she demanded, “Destroy what now?”

“The betrothal agreement.”

Sevana blinked several times. “Betrothal agreement?” Since when had he been betrothed?

“To Princess Winifred of Belen.” Swearing, he shoved all of the rolls he’d taken out of the trunk back in, not caring how haphazard it looked, and then quickly dove into the trunk next to it. “We’ve been betrothed since I was three and she one. We’ve more or less hated each other since first sight. She’s not exactly a pleasant person to get along with.”

That said something, coming from Bel’s mouth. He possessed more patience than even Kip when it came to people. “Do you mean to tell me that even though you were cursed and not going to grow at all,
for ten years
, that you were still betrothed to her?”

“If a betrothal is not finalized by the time she is twenty-one, it would have become null and void with no hard feelings on either side. But it would take the consent of both kings to break the betrothal agreement. The Council didn’t have the power to do it.”

Oh-
ho.
So this was the topic that he and his father were so carefully skirting around earlier? No wonder he didn’t want to speak of it in front of Hana. But Sevana could see the problem. Bel hadn’t been worried about it before, but with him being so close to having his curse broken, not to mention the fact that he looked like a sixteen year old now, there would be more pressure on him to marry the girl before she turned twenty-one. If he wanted to marry someone else—like a certain blonde librarian—then he needed to do something about it
now
.

“Aha!” he crowed victoriously and jerked quickly to his feet. “Sevana, burn this for me.”

She looked at the rolled scroll in his hand, which was obviously the written agreement, and frowned. “But how is burning the agreement going to help?”

“We kept the only copy of the agreement,” he explained quickly, impatiently. “Without it, no one can enforce the agreement and I can stall for time long enough for her to turn twenty-one. I think it’s only about eight months away. Better, I can send her a message saying it’s burned and she can marry someone of
her
choosing with impunity. See? Now, burn it!”

It sounded dodgy to her, but she hadn’t read and researched every law in Windamere like Bel had. So she shrugged, pulled out her wand and waved it at the parchment
. “Fole!”