“Once upon a time…”
“Wait, I thought this was a true story, Roary.”
“Of course it’s true, Evie. A story doesn’t feel right if it doesn’t start with ‘once upon a time.’ So, once upon a time, there was a troublemaking prince.”
“Did you ever get to help? Make trouble, I mean.”
“I hardly knew him. The queen kept her sons pretty close when we were younger. Keep up, Gisa! If you drag your feet any more I’ll be carrying you to the market!”
“I’m not dragging my feet, Miss Roary.”
“Anyway, the prince had gotten into bits of trouble—a bowl of spiders added to the high table mutton, a throne back soaked in tar…”
“He sounds much less boring than most princes.”
“Not really. Everything around here is dreary. You don’t get a say in what you wear, what you eat, who you speak to. Nothing is ever any fun.”
“Did your mother choose for you to wear that pretty dress today, Miss Roary?”
“You don’t need to snap at me, Gisa. All I’m saying is, it makes sense that eventually the prince would break. He locked the queen’s prize stallion in the stable.”
“And?”
“And, my dear Evie, he lit the stables on fire. It was the last straw for the queen, I guess. She didn’t need the younger prince what with the crown prince being healthy and so well-behaved (he’s the worst, by the way. Mum keeps inviting him over for tea and all he ever does is read books and sneeze into the salmon salad), so they sent him south. He’s reformed now, I guess, so he’s probably just as boring as his brother.
“Pity. I mean, I wouldn’t have wanted the horse to burn up—”
“It wouldn’t have.”
“How do you know, Gisa?”
“There would be too many people watching the young prince, Evie. A child with a Fel in the house is asking for trouble.”
“What does the Fel King have to do with burning up stallions?”
“Don’t interrupt, this is my story! The prince was gone. Now he’s coming back. No horses were even singed, and now we have to deal with him again. One more person I have to talk to who is so boring I might die.”
Evie couldn’t help but skip a little as they walked up the hill toward the castle’s spun-sugar walls. Breathing in great gulps of crisp fall air and the sunlight on her face made Evie feel as if she’d been an old apple, withering away and forgotten at the back of the cellar. Roary wasn’t much of a storyteller, and she’d wanted to giggle a little when the noble actually stamped her little green slipper over being interrupted, but had managed to hold it back. Most people didn’t care for being laughed at, and Roary was Evie’s way into the castle.
But the way Gisa kept dropping her arm linked with Roary’s made Evie’s mind begin to turn. The maid seemed to think if she pulled hard enough, either Roary would let go of her or her arm would detach, and she didn’t care which came first so long as she got free.
It was curious.
The roads were steep near the castle, all the houses with grand windows that overlooked the streets below. They’d been walking a few minutes when Roary turned sharply downhill toward a Fel door peering up at them from the bottom. She dragged Evie and Gisa along so their ankles bobbed into her huge hoop skirts.
“I thought we were going up there.” Evie stopped, looking back toward the castle’s tallest tower peeking up over the buildings behind them. A little vibrating buzz rippled down her spine as she looked up at the single window in the tower, sun on the glass. It almost felt like a hum deep in her bones, as the Fel’s voice had in the forest.
Roary gave her an excited smile. “I said the Trouvani troupe was performing, didn’t I? At high noon. We only have a few minutes before it starts, right, Gisa?”
“What?” Gisa’s head swung around to stare at Roary.
Evie took an involuntary step toward the Fel door, a skip of excitement in her belly. She’d only ever gotten to see Trouvani performances from far away where Pop wouldn’t notice her watching and drag her away.
“It’ll take us right there.” Roary Hollow wrinkled her nose, a touch of impatience making Evie wonder if Roary would begin stamping her foot again. “Surely we could just pop down there for a moment—” A flash of open square showed beyond the door as someone bustled through.
“You don’t want to watch—” Gisa’s scowl was suddenly back in full force, her voice prickled over in needles and thistles. “Roary, I told you—”
“I do so want to watch, and Evie does too. Don’t know why you’re so anxious to stay away. They’re your family.” Roary pulled on Gisa’s and Evie’s arms, making Gisa stumble. Bustling past the line of people waiting for the door, Roary reached for the handle. For the first time, it occurred to Evie that Gisa might be hiding away in the Hollows’ dungeon for a reason. Trouvani hardly ever left their families, but maybe Gisa wanted to be away.
“I only came because we were going to the castle—” Evie started, still sort of wanting to go through the door. It had been a long time since she’d been able to do anything fun. It would only be for a moment. But Roary’s expression and Gisa’s pale face made her grip the knife in her pocket. It warmed, humming with the door’s magic.
She could make them go somewhere else. Maybe. Evie didn’t know if the knife would take other people with her. Maybe she could take them all the way to Cece’s awful aunt Cecily’s. It would stop whatever Gisa was so worried about and Evie would get to make sure Cece was all right. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it until now.
But then Evie would be in Southport with no way to get back to the castle to tell the Fel King her story. So, Evie tried to dig in her heels instead. “Roary, if she doesn’t want to go—”
But Roary flung open the door and latched back on to Evie, hauling both her and Gisa through. The three girls stumbled onto the cobblestones. Old brick and stucco houses crowded around the open space as if they were elbowing one another to get a good look at the market. It wasn’t anything like home—there were tents ringing the edge two deep, a fountain at the center, and a sort of platform thing just next to it. And there were people, so many people, as if every day were Saint Hart’s Festival in Reinstadt. On the far side of the square, people gathered around a few wagons and tents clustered like stalks of celery, a shock of white hair flashing between the canvas.
Evie tried to catch Gisa’s eye, wondering when she’d find her fists and give Roary a good sock in the nose as she’d threatened Evie that first day. It seemed Gisa had found her fists, but she held them tight at her sides, wrestling her arm free of Roary’s. Her shoulders hunched as if she were stuck in a coat that didn’t quite fit, and she looked as if she’d swallowed a tablespoon of vinegar. Evie had never fought Helena Blackwell with her fists or anything, but if it came down to it, she was fairly certain Gisa could get away from one little noble in a hoop skirt, so why wasn’t she answering back?
“It’s fine, Evie.” Gisa’s voice hissed toward her when Roary finally dropped her death grip on Evie’s arm to flounce toward the square’s center. “Stop gaping at me like a fish who’s lost her teeth.”
“Which kinds of fish have teeth?” Evie whispered back, but Gisa had already pushed sideways into the crowd, away from her and Roary.
“This way!” Roary gestured for Evie to follow her. Her eyes flashed when she saw the empty space where Gisa had been, but she recovered quick enough, pulling Evie into the clusters of servants that wound through the maze of white and blue tents, each with a table out front stacked high with seashell necklaces and earrings, dried fruits and spices, knives with Fel beaks carved into the hilts, and dresses with so many ruffles it seemed they’d swallow the wearer in one velvety gulp. One table was sagging under a tower of cinnamon buns, though they looked a little stale to Evie.
As they walked, Evie’s attention caught on the platform erected near the fountain. A long beam stuck straight out of the center like the mast of a ship. Around the structure, there was an odd sort of open space, as if the people in the crowd would rather brave elbow jabs and crushed toes than touch it.
“What is that?” Evie asked.
“The guard up to some mischief.” Roary looked around again, her perfectly shaped eyebrows scrunching down before she turned again to the far side of the square. Looking for Gisa, Evie thought. She followed in the wake of Roary’s wide paisley skirts, Miss Hollow standing out from the crowd like a Tershan parasol in a stack of umbrellas. One table of firearms laid out in neat lines almost made Evie stop, but Roary tugged her away before she could get a good look. “Come on! We’ll miss it.”
They waded into the densest part of the crowd, all the people facing a pocket of open space on the far side of the square. Evie wondered if she had somehow gotten turned around and they were approaching the mysterious platform, but when she looked, it was still behind her, stock-still in the late summer wind like a masted ship floating in the sea of people.
Roary pulled her to the front of the crowd, not seeming to notice the people forced to shift behind her so they could still see. At the center of the empty space, there was a young Trouvani man flanked by two young Trouvani women, each with their arms theatrically held over their white, white hair. Evie bobbed up on her toes as if somehow that would let her see whatever magic they were going to do. Everyone knew Trouvani magicked everyone within sight to give them money.
The man was wearing only a vest over his chest, so much sun-browned skin showing underneath that Evie blushed and almost looked away. Almost, because just as she made to cover her eyes, the man flipped over backward. The two girls began to clap and stomp in time, each fall of the beat colored by a rattle from the beaded fringe edging their layered skirts. The folk around Evie began to clap along, and when the crowd had got the beat, the girls spun around the circle, leaping and twirling and pounding the ground with their feet in unison.
Evie found herself clapping too, her heart beating hard as if Pop were behind her in the crowd, ready to tow her away by the ear. Only he wasn’t. She could watch, and no one cared. The sweet purr of the crowd buzzed in her ears and brought the pink out in her cheeks, almost enough to make her forget the hum of the castle tower behind her.
The Trouvani man raised his arms again, winking brashly at the crowd before placing his hands on the ground, then kicking his feet up so he was standing only on his two hands. One of the girls stopped her twirling, and climbed up his body until she was standing on top of his raised feet.
Evie clapped a hand over her mouth. The man didn’t even seem strained as he held the girl up, unfazed when she shifted to only one foot, raising her leg high behind her in a beautiful curve, then arching her back and grabbing her raised foot with one hand.
The girl on the ground whistled rudely, theatrically putting her hands on her hips, playacting at being mad. She had a foxy look to her, nose sharp, and cheekbones high, her skin a striking bronze against her white hair and eyebrows. The girl balanced on top of the young man’s feet untwisted herself and stood up straight, raising an eyebrow and cocking her head as if she didn’t believe the girl could climb up.
The girl on the ground almost growled, climbing the man like a cat going up a tree, holding on to the other girl in mock fear when she arrived at the top, as if she didn’t realize how high it would be.
The crowd around Evie erupted in laughter, one voice calling out over the top, “Don’t fall now, honey!”
The frightened performer scanned the assembly, one hand shading her eyes as if she’d be able to find the owner of the voice, still comically attached to the other girl’s arm for balance. But then they joined both hands, pulling against each other and arching backward until their hair fell almost to the man’s knees and they were looking at the watchers upside down.
When they’d righted themselves, the foxy-looking girl took careful steps climbing up to the other girl’s shoulders. The performer in the middle extended her arms straight over her head, and the one who had pretended to be afraid stepped onto them, one foot in each hand, making a terrifying statue three people high. She smiled, spreading her hands out in triumph.
Every moment, Evie was terrified the girl would fall, at once wanting to cover her eyes and refusing to tear them away from the human tower. The girl on top drew her feet together, then lifted one high above her head, the girl in the middle holding her single standing foot with both hands.
Then, all of a sudden, Evie felt a shift in their weight, the girl on top listing farther and farther backward until her raised foot was bobbing up and down by her side, her arms dancing back and forth as she tried to regain balance.
It was impossible. The tower had leaned too far over and the girl on top, terror flicking across her features, was going to fall. At the last second before she lost her footing, the girl pushed off and did a flip in the air before she fell straight into the crowd. The people pulled away. All except for two.
Two Trouvani men, who expertly snagged the girl from her fall before she could hit the ground. They set her gently on her feet, and the three of them gave a smart bow.
Evie laughed and clapped, delighted for the whole thing to be part of the performance. Her heart was still pounding for the girl, even as she watched her walk to the front of the crowd. The middle girl had jumped down, the man on his hands flipped upright, and the three gave deep bows as the two men who had caught the falling girl walked through the crowd, shaking bags that rattled with coin in hopes that onlookers would toss in a few more. No magic that Evie had seen, though maybe that’s what was most important about magic. That no one realized it had been done.
How could Gisa have given this up to be Lady Hollow’s maid? Now all Evie could see was herself on the top of that human tower with Cece beside her. She felt her pocket, one sad little brass coin all she had to put in as a bag passed, but she did, wishing she had more. Wishing she could go with them wherever they went and learn to scare an entire crowd halfway to their graves too. Roary crossed her arms, giving nothing. Once the bag had passed, she turned abruptly and her hand caught Evie’s arm, pulling her away from the Trouvani troupe. “Where did that girl go?”
“Gisa? I don’t think she wanted to see her family.”
“Of course she wanted to see her family. She just didn’t want me to see them.”