Lily clung to Eben's hand as they ran. The mist swallowed them when they entered the stairway, thick and clinging like cobwebs. His dagger had no effect.
The ground levelled off, and she didn't need to count steps to know they should have been well into the maze. The air was still too thick to see more than a few yards ahead, as if some remnant of sorcery seeped out of the undergarden. The sun whispered through the haze, but it couldn't find them.
Eben stopped, and she bumped into his shoulder. “This way.”
He backtracked, and then stopped to hack at the hedge. Or what should have been the hedge. The mist swirled around his arm. Another passageway.
“This fog is in the whole maze.” He crept through the opening cautiously.
Shouts echoed to their right. Tharius. Even weakened, he was still a sorcerer. “He's trying to confuse us.”
Eben pulled her behind him, and they crept a few more steps. Rustling and more shouting. One of the girls let loose an angry, agonized howl, and then it was cut off.
“Mel!” She lurched forward, but he held her back.
“Listen.”
Snapping branches and a grunt sounded from the other end of the passageway. Eben spun, keeping in front of her.
The mist struggled around a small form.
Ivy?
And Tharius. He'd pinned her arms with one of his own and had his other hand clamped over her mouth, half lifting, half pushing her in front of him. He panted. His jaw had purpled nicely.
“Get me out of this place.” His voice was low, gravelly. Dangerous.
“Let the girl go,” Eben said.
He sneered. “I'll trade.”
“You won't make it out of here by yourself.”
“I don't intend to.”
“There are guards outside each exit, and more on the way.”
“Do you think I am powerless?” Tharius shifted his weight, and Ivy whimpered. “Your little princess may have broken my curse, but I am not broken. I am free, and I will not be stopped!”
Ivy thrashed in his arms, and then her body went limp. Startled, Tharius loosened his grip just enough for her to get both feet firmly beneath her. She stomped hard on his foot. He grunted, and she whipped her head backwards into his chin. She wasn't strong enough to hurt him much, but he released her mouth, and she screamed.
Ivy had learned Riva's lessons better than any of them.
The guards shouted in response.
Tharius hurled Ivy to the ground so hard she slid beneath the firethorns. Lily rushed to her. Eben crouched, waiting for Tharius's attack.
Rather than pull Ivy from the hedge and risk hurting her further, Lily wedged herself under the branches, covering her sister with her body. Ivy had rolled onto her back and bore a nasty cut on her cheek, but she was breathing.
Eben staggered into the hedge. Tharius had no weapon, but he was a sorcerer. Eben defended himself against the unknown.
Just what he'd been trained for.
Tharius gathered mist into his hands like a child scooping snow and then pushed it hard at Eben like it had weight.
Eben ducked. The ball of mist slammed into the firethorns, breaking branches and tossing leaves into the air. He ran at Tharius.
Something dripped onto Lily’s hand. She needed to stop the bleeding on Ivy's cheek. She reached into Ivy's belt pouch. There. The handkerchief from Eben. She hated to bloody it, but Ivy was more important than a bit of artwork. She pressed the blue embroidery against the wound and watched it turn purple, satisfied when the blood stopped dripping into Ivy's hair.
Something heavy thudded against the ground behind her, and gravel sprayed onto her back.
“Kev!” Eben bellowed for his guardsman. He knelt beside Lily and spoke gently into her ear. “Give me your belt.”
She loosened the buckle, and Eben pulled it from around her waist, handing back Melantha's dagger.
“Is he . . . ?” She couldn't finish the thought.
“He won't be out long, but he needs his hands to use sorcery.”
Lily pressed the cloth to Ivy's face a moment longer. The bleeding had stopped, and it wasn't as deep as she'd thought. She heard the creak of leather and the scrape of gravel as Eben tied Tharius and helped him to his feet.
She tucked the handkerchief into her bodice and pushed out from under the hedge. Before she could reach for Ivy, someone yanked her braid, and the dagger dropped from her hand. Her head snapped back painfully as she was lifted to her feet. An elbow hooked around her throat, and her waist was crushed against her captor.
“Finally,” Runson crowed in her ear. “I've figured out what your game is. You're mine now, Lily, and not even the king can refuse me.”
“Let me go!” She clawed his arms, but he laughed.
Eben released Tharius and edged forward.
“Back up, cripple.” Runson tightened his hold on Lily’s neck, and she gasped for air.
Eben stopped. “Not a good idea, Runson.”
“How is this not a good idea? The sorcerer's been captured, and I'm left holding the prize.”
“The Crown Princess is not a prize.”
Drunk on his victory, Runson ignored the warning in Eben's voice. “Tell that to her mother.”
Tharius shifted. He glanced from Lily's chest, where the bloody handkerchief had soaked through her dress, to the dagger at Runson's foot. Anger filled his eyes. He thought the blood was hers.
Two guards emerged from the mist, and Eben extended his arm to warn them back.
“Let her go,” he said. A hand signal, and the guards stationed themselves on either side of Tharius, gripping his arms firmly.
Tharius didn't seem to notice. He focused on Lily, as Eben did on Runson. Sweat broke out above his lip, and his breathing became shallow, labored. He glanced down at Runson's foot and back at Lily so quickly that she almost missed it.
She lowered her eyes and would have gasped if Runson hadn't been cutting off most of her air. The dagger hung suspended near Runson's knee, dangling from a thin root snaking out of the ground.
Tharius shook with the effort, near the end of his strength, silently imploring her to understand. She did, but no matter how she stretched her fingers, she couldn't reach the dagger.
Runson sneered. “Tell me one good reason—”
Lily let her body drop, like Ivy had done. Runson didn't let go, but he bent under her weight enough for her to grab the dagger's hilt and plunge the blade into his thigh.
He roared and fell, pinning her legs. Eben dragged her free and then knelt and wrapped her in his arms. Guards who'd been hanging back in the fog rushed forward to take care of Runson.
Tharius slumped to the ground.
“Ivy!” She crawled to the hedge. Eben helped pull Ivy free and lifted her gently.
“Can I arrest him now?” Eben muttered as they wove their way out of the maze.
A warm breeze blew away the last wisps of mist, and the sun shone softly through pale clouds. The girls waited beyond the willows with two dozen guards. Orin cradled an unconscious Melantha in his lap. Eben laid Ivy nearby.
Lily walked a few yards away and retched into the bushes. Gwen pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand, and pulled her braid behind her back.
“Want to talk about it?”
She could talk now, if she wanted, but she shook her head. She straightened her shoulders and marched to the entrance of the maze to see for herself that every last person made it out.
Every one.
A couple of guards came first, supporting Runson, who blubbered nonsense but limped upright. He would suffer with his wound, but she hadn't killed him. More guards, and then Tharius, still bound and under escort. Tears streamed from eyes almost completely shut against the brightness. His shoulders heaved as he sobbed, overwhelmed by the colors and sights he'd longed for his whole life. When he saw Lily, he sank to his knees.
“If this world is to be my prison,” he whispered, “I will be content.” He collapsed into the grass.
The guards lifted him, and Lily led the odd procession back to the palace, with Eben by her side. Her parents needed an explanation.
Eben sent Lily and the girls to the tower to clean up, while he got her parents out of lock-down and secured the prisoners. Runson had become slimy over the past few years, but she never thought him capable of attacking her. She'd been equally surprised when Tharius came to her aid.
Junia and Gwen lingered with her in the bathing room, scrubbing blood and grit from her hair and dabbing ointment on the scratches left by the firethorns. Melantha burned with embarrassment from waking in Orin's arms halfway through the gardens, and she'd run off with Azure to find Father.
The girls were at the end of explanations when Lily walked into the king's study, a sister at each shoulder. The boys were there. And Yarrow. Bay stood by the fireplace with Holic's arm around her, Hazel at his elbow.
Ruby bounced on her toes. “. . . and then Eben punched him right in his pretty face.” She smacked a fist into her palm.
Mother raised her eyebrows, and Father tightened his lips against a grin.
Ruby clamped her mouth shut so quickly her teeth clacked, and she exchanged a glance with Wren.
Before the pair could respond, Father burst out laughing. “You two are becoming more and more like Melantha and Azure.”
“Thank you, Father,” they said in unison.
“That was not a compliment,” Father said sternly, laughter still in his voice.
He turned to Eben. “Well, son, it looks like you've got a difficult choice to make.” His lips tightened again, and his eyes narrowed in silent laughter.
Eben stood at attention, chin raised, eyes on the floor. He turned red. “Actually, Your Majesty, it was Princess Lily and the girls who figured things out.”
She stepped up to Eben's side, copying his stance, but she looked her father in the eyes. “In that case, it seems the choice is mine.”
“Indeed.” Father let loose his smile. “As it always has been.”
He meant it. The choice was hers, and she had his approval. Her own fear had been the only true barrier. Eben looked at her sideways, head low, lips pursed in a miserable attempt to hide a grin.
“Will you make your choice now, or shall we let things settle a bit?” Father's eyes sparkled.
She returned his smile and said in a steady voice, “I choose Eben.” They hadn't actually discussed this, but when he slipped his hand into hers, she knew she'd made the right choice.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Father exaggerated a sigh. “For a moment, I thought you might pick Prince Orin. No offence, young man, but you're entirely too nomadic to be suitable.”
“None taken, Your Majesty.” Orin rocked on his feet, hands behind his back. “And no offence to you, sir, but I've no desire to be king. Besides, you have other available daughters.” Over by the bookshelf, Melantha reddened under her freckles. He winked at her, and she glared back.
Lily bit her lip to keep from laughing.
Surprisingly, Father had no such compulsion and chuckled loudly. Even Mother's lips turned upward at the corners. Ears flaming, Melantha pulled a random book off the shelf, pretending not to notice the amusement at her expense.
“I like you, goose boy. We'll have to talk soon about . . . geese. And the tending of them. My flock is very precious to me, and I'll not have them in the keep of just anyone.”
Had Father just compared them to geese? Orin said something in reply, but she didn't hear. She hadn't seen Father so lighthearted in months. Perhaps the relief of having all his girls talking again had gone to his head.
More explanations followed, including Bay's rescue by Yarrow and Holic. The men had been lurking near the secret passage when the entrance appeared. Not caring how or why, they rushed down into the cavern, heedless of the dark forest and twisted garden, until they came to the glass castle, where they found Bay locked in the library. Tharius tried to stop them—even weakened, he was stronger than Yarrow—but Yarrow knew a few tricks that Tharius had never seen. It distracted Tharius enough for Holic to lay him out the old-fashioned way.
Lily didn't add much to the rest of the conversation, aware mostly of Eben's hand in hers tracing patterns on her palm. His fingernail snagged a few times on the wire ring. She hid her other hand in her skirts, intending to return Tharius's ring soon.
A dozen guards stood outside the door to Tharius's tower cell. Father had agreed to a short visit on her way to the ball. She asked Eben to stay out of sight.
Tharius lay stretched out on his cot, arms under his head, watery eyes locked on the small window in the opposite wall. Starlight shone through, brighter than anything in his underground kingdom, but she suspected the tears were a mixture of joy and despair.
The sorcerer's tattoo blazed black and red on his pale cheek.
“I never knew one person could be so many colors.” He didn't take his eyes off the window. “Your hair. It's brown, with amber and mahogany, and so many other colors I don't have names for.”
He'd only seen her hair in the sunlight for a moment before collapsing outside the maze.
“It should be me in your arms tonight.”
“Tharius—”
“Don't.” He sat up and looked at her, every inch of her from the braids on her head to the slippers peeking out from under her white gown. “I don't want to hear my name come from your lips ever again.”
It shouldn't hurt to hear him say that. “You won't have to. Father's sending you away.”
“Away? I will not be kept in a cage.”
“You'll have all the sun you can wish for.”
“I will have my freedom. Let me go now before I do something you'll regret.”
“It's too late for that.”
“It's only too late when I give up.” He turned his gaze back to the window. “And I will never give up.”
She shook off a chill. She had no reason to doubt him. Knowing nothing of Father's plan, she had to trust Yarrow's assurance that Tharius would not bother her or her sisters again. She wished things could have gone differently for him.
“Goodbye.” She placed his ring on the cot.
His hand covered hers, lightning fast. “Thank you,” he said, and he let her go.
Father wanted to postpone the announcement of her betrothal, wait until news of Runson's betrayal and the discovery of a sorcerer in Ituria had settled, but Mother overruled him. Or, rather, her decree had. They needed to put a stop to other throne-seekers like Runson and his family, and the announcement would give the people someplace positive to turn their minds.
Lily and Eben stood hand-in-hand on a small dais in the ballroom, wearing crowns of real firethorns and looking out at a sea of white-gowned ladies and black-clad gentlemen. Across the room, Mother's portrait hung in a place of honor, framed in black and gold. Flowers and ribbons of ivory, cream, silver, and every shade of moonlight bedecked the room, a reminder of the bright future ahead.
As a guard, Eben hadn't planned to attend The Starlight Ball, and so his newly appointed valet had scrambled to find suitable clothes. Eben already swore the man deserved more pay.
“I think we've gone about this a bit backwards.” She spoke as loudly as she dared, barely able to hear herself over the cheering crowd.
“How so?” Eben appeared calm, but his sweaty hands gave away his nerves. He would make a good king someday, but Father would train him personally for at least a year before they would be allowed to marry.
“You didn't propose.”
“Neither did you.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “I wasn't supposed to.”
“You're the crown princess. How is a guard supposed to bring that up? You had the power to send me away, and I wouldn't risk that.”
Oh.
“Are you sorry?” Even with the noise, she heard his uncertainty.
“Of course not.” She rubbed her thumb along the ring on her finger. “Are you?”
“I'd have said yes ten years ago.”
“Scandalous. Crown princesses don't marry at eleven. I'm glad we waited.”
“Agreed.” He leaned down as if to kiss her, but then straightened. He cleared his throat, and his gaze darted around the room.
“You can if you want, you know.”
So, he did.