Crisanta Knight: The Liar, The Witch, & The Wormhole

I knocked hesitantly on my brother’s bedroom door. He did not answer, but it creaked open regardless. He must’ve forgotten to lock it on his way out.

After my discovery of the glass Pegasus, I’d raced all the way back to the castle. I had come to an abrupt halt, however, when I realized I did not know where I was running to.

No one apart from my friends and Lady Agnue knew the truth about Mauvrey. And I didn’t exactly have the most concrete proof that she’d been here. The glass Pegasus figurine would’ve been my only evidence, but I didn’t even have that anymore. A minute after putting itself back together, the thing had flown off—still committed to its original mission of finding Mauvrey’s final destination so it could show me the way to her.

Even without proof though, I knew I had to tell someone what I’d learned—especially since Mauvrey’s parents were going to be here in a few days. I felt certain that this couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t be.

Given how helpful it had been to let Alex in on my magic hunter issues, I figured he was the best person to trust with this too. He did say I could count on him for anything.

Alas, it seemed I’d missed him this morning. He’d told us over dinner that he would be attending the annual War Games Convention being held in our palace ballroom today and would be gone for the whole of the afternoon.

The War Games Convention was an annual gathering of players in the military industry. There were fighting demonstrations, weapons vendors, seminars, duel demonstrations, and Q&A panels with military leaders and famed tacticians. If it had to do with war and battle strategy, it was featured at the convention.

Alex and Pietro loved that sort of thing and had gone every year since they’d graduated from Lord Channing’s. I’d never been. When I was little I was not allowed; you had to be at least fourteen years old to attend. After I’d passed the age requirement I’d always been at school when it was held. I would finally have a chance to check it out this year. Hopefully I would run into Alex while I was there.

I should’ve closed Alex’s door and gone on my way, but I found myself compelled to step inside my brother’s room. For a couple of minutes, I wandered around perusing his sword collection, his various medals of honor and accolades, and the suit of polished armor in the corner by the royal blue velvet drapes.

I paused by his fireplace. Lying abandoned in a rusty, curved dish atop the mantle were my brother’s formerly precious wristbands. Seeing the golden bracelet we’d shared for so many years gathering dust made me both sad and angry. I plucked it from the dish and wiped off the dust on my skirt.

I held the bracelet in my hand. The engraved words had faded over time, and the gold was slightly tarnished.

Feeling bitter, I clasped the thing around my left wrist—resolving to hang onto it until my brother came to his senses. Alex may have been acting bizarre recently, but I had to believe he would get over it. Our talk by the swimming pool yesterday had confirmed that the brother I loved was still in there.

I left the room and headed downstairs to the War Games Convention. Our palace ballroom—the center of the event—was packed with visitors. There were booths set up everywhere like a mini marketplace. Specialists in everything from troop training maneuvers to shield forging were presenting their wares and striking deals. A stage had been erected at the front where a convincing swordfighting demonstration was underway. People mingled everywhere, many of them in some type of uniform. I marveled at the sight and wandered into the hullaballoo.

I was admiring a booth specializing in knives and daggers that Blue would have loved when two palace staff members caught my attention. Aggie Black and Blaine Weldhouse (a parliament scribe who was also on Lenore’s list) were standing at a booth at the end of the row.

I began to make my way over to them, pushing through the crowds. I saw Aggie slip some money to Blaine. Blaine shook the hand of a bearded vendor and subtly passed him the currency. He leaned in to whisper something in the vendor’s ear.

“Excuse me.” I bobbed and weaved around a group of bespectacled men who were blocking my path. “Excuse me.”

I finally maneuvered my way over to the booth where I’d seen Aggie and Blaine, but they’d vanished into the crowd by then. The banner hanging above the tent read “Crossbows Etc.” The booth’s bearded proprietor was standing underneath it behind a table.

“Hey, those two people you were just talking to,” I said directly, “what did they want?”

“I’m sorry, young lady,” the bearded man responded. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like heck you don’t,” I countered. “I saw that guy hand you money. What was it for?”

“Dear girl, here at Crossbows Etc., we offer a variety of services including custom-made weaponry, private or group classes, and tours of our facility and museum featuring the history of crossbowmanship. We also offer our sincerest client-vendor confidentiality. It’s in our mission statement.” He pointed to a lacquered, fancy sign mounted in the corner of the tent.

“We at Crossbows Etc. promise you the best in weapons, weapons training, and weapons history alongside our oath to protect your confidentiality at every turn and shot,” I read aloud.

I guess I had to go with Plan B. I hated playing the princess card, but I had to know what Aggie and Blaine were up to.

“Look, buddy,” I said. “I respect your oath; I do. I’ve got a thing for privacy myself. But are you aware of who you’re talking to? I’m Crisanta Knight—princess around these parts. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and tell me what I wanna know before I go get my dad. I don’t think the king of Midveil would be particularly pleased to find out some random guy at a convention is impeding a royal investigation.”

The bearded man pointed down at the very table I had my hands firmly planted on. I looked at the stacks of pamphlets and business cards there. On the front page of the pamphlets—below the mission statement and above the copyright symbol—was a small blurb accompanied by my family’s royal seal.

“Personally endorsed by the King & Queen of Midveil as the leaders in the industry for more than ten years,” I read.

“Listen, Beardy,” I said, “Endorsement or not, this is important. Tell me what I want to know, or so help me I—”

I turned around to find Pietro and a few of his friends from the King’s Guard in casual dress. All of them but Pietro were holding to-go cups in their hands.

“What’s going on?” my brother asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked from me to the bearded vendor.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I was just telling this jerk-wad that he needs to get the stick out of his—”

“Crisa.” Pietro held up his hand and stepped past me. “I’m sorry, General Savoy,” he said as he shook hands with the bearded man. “My sister can get a bit . . . overzealous. But she means well.”

“Not a problem,” Savoy responded with a chuckle. “I find her expressiveness adorable. Princesses with strong opinions are endearing and amusing, like cats wearing sweaters.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I started to lunge toward the table, but Pietro grabbed my shoulder and held me back.

“Dude, what the heck?” I asked. “I was in the middle of something. How could you just jump in and side with that guy?”

“Crisa, General Savoy was one of dad’s most trusted advisors and generals for over two decades. They are still good friends and more importantly he is a chief supplier for the King’s Guard and the Midveil military. Offending him is not an option, even if it means swallowing your pride.”

I cut myself off. Since the other day, I’d caught a few more glimpses of Pietro talking with Aggie. Their interactions never lasted for more than thirty seconds, and they were always too far off for me to eavesdrop. Even so, it was becoming harder for me to stand by my assertion to Sooz that he was not involved with the commons rebellion.

Pietro nodded. “All right. I have to talk business with a few guys at the Invasive Troop Strategy booth, so I have to go. Just do me a favor and don’t go picking any more fights with the guests. I know it’s a War Games Convention, Crisa, but that doesn’t mean you have to take the theme so literally.”

He patted me on the head and marched off with his friends. I glanced back toward the Crossbows Etc. booth, tempted to reengage my target despite Pietro’s wishes. But my bearded foe was no longer present and the curtains had been drawn shut across the booth. A sign hung over them that read:

Undeterred, I shimmied up to the side of the booth. I pulled a corner of the curtain back and stole a quick peek within.

When I was sure no one was looking, I slipped inside. Hurriedly I began to poke around. There were unopened stacks of business cards, finely polished weapons on display pedestals, and flipbooks of glowing customer testimony. To my left, I found a travelling trunk of personal items, which had to be General Savoy’s luggage.

I managed to pick the lock in under a minute and swiftly began going through the contents.

An extra suit with bronze, military-grade cufflinks lay on the top. Below that were some peppermint sticks and a few books (A Bridge Not Far Enough by General Thomas A. Malloy, Appear; Attack; Destroy! by Commander Joe Gregorious Foghorn, and An Affair to Never Forget by Lady Nora Ephnaron).

The third book in the stack made me raise an eyebrow. Unlike the other novels, this one was old and weathered. More peculiar still was the difference in the covers. While the Malloy and Foghorn books featured great explosions, Miss Ephnaron’s displayed a romantic image of a man and woman holding hands in front of a lopsided, yellow-and-black cottage. The cottage, which had a twisted gray chimney and matching shutters, was near the woods and had flowers floating around it. The illustration seemed familiar somehow. I couldn’t place it, but I felt certain I’d seen it before. Maybe in a book or on a postcard? Intrigued, I picked it up for closer inspection. There was an inscription on the inside flap:

“Past summer’s end and winter’s fire,

In the rains of spring and autumn tire,

Keep my heart and always recall,

Where Gravity froze, and we did fall.”

– With Love, L.

I kept digging and discovered two things of interest on the bottom layer. There was an oak cigar box with the message “With Love, L.” engraved on the top, and a case of medals of honor that my father had likely bestowed upon Savoy throughout his career.

I was about to close the trunk when I noticed the lining of the lid had an unnatural bulge. I ran my hand along the edge until I felt the seam curve over a concealed zipper.

I opened it and found a collection of folders. Flipping through them, I saw weapon designs, group lesson schedules, and inventory logs—none of which were of particular interest. But there was still something left in the compartment. I pulled out a booklet, which contained a list of orders. Bingo.

Unlike the other documents, the entries in this logbook were written in code. Random letters filled each row like gibberish except for the two columns on the right—one that listed dates and times of purchases and another that detailed amounts paid.

I flipped to the last recorded purchase. It had today’s date and the time noted was ten minutes ago. This must be the transaction that Aggie and Blaine had made.

The monetary figure caused my eyes to widen. That was a lot of money. Sadly, I couldn’t read the coded writing on the page, which would’ve told me what the transaction was for.

A rustling noise outside the booth caught my attention. There was no time to waste. Still, I had to know what Aggie and Blaine paid for.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed a quill and copied the gibberish from their transaction onto the palm of my hand. Then I skipped back to a page in the order log from the previous year. This page was encoded like all the others and had no telling information relevant to today’s events, but it was all I needed nonetheless. I gently tore it out—careful not leave a crease or shred of the page behind.

Every cipher had a solution; I only needed to solve it. And to do that, I simply required time and a sample of the code. I’d certainly had my fair share of deciphering and translating text recently with my Shadow Guardians book, and Jason had taught me about decoding last year. How hard could this be?

The general would certainly notice if today’s purchase log disappeared. But I didn’t think he’d miss a page from last year. I folded the page, shoved it in my pocket, and slipped out of the booth. Merging into the traffic of the convention again, I calmly made my way out of the ballroom. Our library had plenty of books on cryptography. One of them had to illustrate a way to break the kind of cipher Savoy was employing.

As I made my way through the castle—further and further from the convention—the crowds began to thin. By the time I made it to the Hall of Transparency, I was completely alone. Or so I thought. When I was about to open the door to the library, I heard a familiar creaking coming from inside. I entered just in time to see the fireplace sliding back into place.

He extinguished a candelabra and turned around hastily. “Crisa! What’re you doing here?”

“In the library? Um, I was planning on reading. What about you? I thought you were at the convention for the day.”

“So you snuck out through here? There’s access to the main lawn through the ballroom, you know.”

“Obviously,” Alex said. “But I needed some space too. Don’t you use this tunnel to get to your secret practice spot every day instead of one of the normal castle exits?”

“Well, yeah, but I’m trying not to get caught. With Mom, Dad, and even Pietro on my case, I have to take extra precaution when it comes to hiding my magic-related activities. You’re you, though. Why do you need to hide?”

“I’m not hiding, Crisa. I have a lot of important things to deal with right now and I’m trying to handle them on my own.”

I softened, knowing exactly how he felt. “I get it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Hey, Alex,” I said, putting my hand on his arm right before he passed me. “I was actually hoping I could talk to you for a sec. I discovered something by the mausoleum and I—”

“Sorry, Crisa,” he interrupted. “I don’t have time to talk. I have my own things to worry about today.”

I swallowed my disappointment. He’d really helped me the other day by listening to my worries. Maybe I could show him that this could be a two-way street.

“Maybe I could help with whatever’s bothering you. I know letting people in isn’t really either of our styles. But I’ve come to realize that bottling stuff up may not always be the wisest course of action. Opening up to you the other day really made a difference to me. So if you ever wanted to talk—”

“Crisa,” he interrupted again, this time more sharply. “You’re right.”

“Letting people in isn’t either of our styles. So what’s say we keep our business to ourselves. You needed to vent the other day and that’s fine. But I don’t have time to make that a regular thing. I have a world of pressure on me with training to be the future king and dealing with Pietro and handling stuff with the commons rebellion, which—I don’t know if you’ve heard since you spend all day magic training—is actually growing pretty serious outside these walls. Asking me to take on your problems too is selfish. I expect more from you.”

Alex left the library before I could muster a reply. It was just as well. At the moment I was speechless.

I thought I could trust my brother. I’d made the difficult choice to let him in, but in the end he didn’t want my trust or the closeness that came with it. It was a burden to him just as it had been a burden to Daniel.

I felt the hurt and sadness inside of me harden—solidifying around my heart like toffee around a candied apple.

I’d spent last semester pushing people away but eventually learned that letting them in made me stronger. Now the universe was denying me that gift. Every person I put my faith in shoved it right back in my face.

Which meant that I was alone. Whatever was happening with Mauvrey, Pietro, General Savoy, and the commons on Lenore’s list—I had to tackle these issues by myself and hope that it was enough.