Broken Crowns (20 page)

Pen rolls her eyes as she looks from him to me. “He's been rehearsing that line for the entire flight.”

“How'd I do?” the prince asks. He descends the steps as though they were flanked by adoring fans. He's looking at Basil and me. “Did our arrival interrupt a wedding?”

I ignore him. “Is King Ingram really dead?” I ask Pen.

“He is. It's a bloody mess down there.” Her shoulders drop. “I tried to go back for your brother and Alice, but there wasn't time.”

“They'll be all right,” Nim assures us. “They're with my siblings someplace safe.”

It's doubtful that Lex would have come along anyway, he's so insistent on never returning. Maybe it's just that he couldn't face what this city has become since we first left it. I couldn't blame him for that.

“I had hoped my father would be here to greet us,” Prince Azure says, and I'm not sure whether he's serious.

“He is probably trying to quell the hysterical crowd,” I say.

“Yes, well,” Prince Azure says, and steps over the tracks and begins walking. “Shall we?”

The prince of Internment taking a casual stroll through the city is a rare sight, but if people are watching, they are doing so from the other side of windows, terrified of what fresh horrors this jet will bring with it.

“It was poison,” Pen whispers to me as we all cross the tracks.

“Who did it?” Basil asks.

“I'm not sure,” Pen says. “One of his own men, I suspect. So many have cause to hate him. All I know is that Nim saw it coming, and he woke us from our beds in the middle of the night and packed us into the jet. There wasn't time to get everyone.” She gives me a reassuring smile. “Lex and Alice truly will be safe. Nim had to leave his siblings behind, too. This was less safe for them. And I did check on him every day since you left.”

“How is he?”

“As stubborn as ever. Disgruntled—you know.”

“I do.”

“But he misses you. Truly.”

I walk between Basil and Pen, and I'm so relieved to see her, I could almost forget the wars happening far below our feet and here on this floating city.

“We didn't really interrupt your wedding, did we?” she asks.

“You did, actually. But that's all right. I'd rather you were in attendance anyway.” I catch her glancing at my ring. “We never had a chance to make it official.”

“Good,” she says, trying to sound as though she's taking this lightly. “Plenty of time for proper weddings after the dust has settled.”

Being married is the least of my concerns, and I know Pen shares this sentiment, but the distraction takes us from the fear of what's to come. King Ingram is dead. That must mean that Jack Piper has assumed leadership. He isn't a better candidate. He's a man with horrors of his own to unleash.

The prince looks back at Basil and me. “Where is my sister?”

“In the clock tower, last I saw her,” I say. “The king wouldn't let her outside.”

“But you did see her? Talk to her? She's well?”

Nim also glances at me, and beneath his cool exterior I see someone who is tired and fearful himself. I hold his gaze for a moment before I look back to the prince. “Yes.”

Thomas is trying to keep up with Pen, who won't look at him.

There's no smell of tonic, and she is alert and sober, which is all I need to know for now. “There's much to talk about,” she whispers.

Prince Azure leads us back to the clock tower. Our wedding guests have either fled or are hiding in the offices behind closed doors. They have been trained to fear an ambush from King Ingram.

“Papa?” the prince calls. “Celeste?”

Silence. He opens the door to the stairwell and we follow him up.

“What has happened to this city?” Thomas breathes, horrified.

Pen shushes him, but the pain is all over her face. She loves this city more than our king ever could.

Azure calls out for his father and sister, and when we reach the door to the royal family's apartment, it swings open and Celeste is the only one there to greet us. “Az!” Her voice is a mix of fright and relief. She pulls him into her arms, trembling. “When the jet came, I thought it meant you might have been killed and King Ingram was coming to finish us all off.”

“King Ingram is dead,” he tells her, and in his gratitude to be reunited with her, he shows himself to still be human under all that pomp and conceit. “Where are Papa and Mother?”

“Mother is—she's been asleep through all this. She's gotten so much worse, Az. And Papa is off with his patrolmen trying to make sure everyone stays indoors.”

She at last breaks their embrace and draws back to look at him. “I'm just so happy you're alive.”

When she at last looks away from her brother and sees Nimble on the staircase behind him, it sends her into tears.

He is so weary and drained by whatever it is he's seen, and at last he has made it back to the girl he loves. “Leste,” he says, and gratefully catches her when she crashes into him.

As they murmur quietly to each other, I hear her say, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Pen jabs her elbow into my ribs. “When did that happen?”

I shush her.

“Oh.” Celeste sniffles, wipes her wrists over her eyes. “I'm being rude. Where's my head? You are the first citizens to see the royal apartment. Ever, I think, isn't that right, Az?”

“It's never been allowed before.”

“But we may as well allow it now.”

“Clinging to the rules is pointless, given the state of things.”

I forgot their bizarre ability to continue the other's sentences. What a set the pair of them are, with such similar mannerisms, the same blond hair and bright eyes.

Azure takes a deep breath, bracing himself before he says, “Mother?”

“In her room. She's refusing to let the nurse in anymore. She'll eat only if I beg her myself. Az, it's . . .” She fights off another sob and then she takes his hand and leads him down a dark and narrow corridor, calling back for us to have a seat and apologizing for having to step away.

I expected the royal family's apartment to possess some sort of luxury, but now I see that it's rather ordinary. Perhaps even smaller than my own was. Though the sofa looks newly upholstered, its wooden frame is antiquated, probably handed down through the generations of royals.

Now that Nimble has had time to find his bearings, he's fascinated. He sits up straight in a wing chair upholstered the same blue as the sky, and he cranes his neck to see out the window.

“It's so . . . bright up here,” he says. “The air tastes better. I didn't know air had a taste at all.”

Pen sighs and falls back against the couch. “Yes, well, enjoy it while it lasts. It'll all be ashes and a bit of folklore for your city soon enough.”

“King Ingram—my grandfather—is dead,” Nim reminds her. “I promised you I wouldn't let your city be destroyed, and I won't let anyone else in Havalais be harmed over this either.”

“I don't see how you can promise that,” Pen fires back. “There is still the small matter of your father to deal with. As I recall he's just as merciless, and next in line to the throne.”

Nim has nothing to say to this. He only stares down the corridor where the prince and princess have disappeared. After a while he says, “I did speak with the oncology specialist at the hospital. For your queen. But if what she has truly is a cancer, it progresses in stages and by now I don't know that there's anything we can do. Celeste tells me she's been ill for more than a year, with no treatments whatsoever.”

Even Pen, who holds no sympathy for the prince and princess, looks sorry for this. She knows what it's like to be powerless to help her own mother.

Just before the corridor, there's an old clock, and in our collective silence, each ticking is a small explosion. I try to drown it out, the sound of moments passing as we wait for King Furlow, and wait to learn what's to become of us.

When Celeste returns, she's alone and all traces of tears are gone from her eyes. She clears her throat and makes room for herself on the wing chair beside Nim. She doesn't explain her brother's absence, but presumably he's visiting with his mother. There is a faint medicinal smell to the air, which is stagnant and warm. Beads of sweat are glistening on Celeste's face, but somehow on her they look like cosmetics.

Nimble is watching her with fascination and caution, as though she may turn out to be a figment of his imagination.

She looks at him with resolution. “All right,” she says. “Tell us what's happened.”

“King Ingram was found dead in his drawing room. The troops weren't seeing results with the phosane, and after burying their loved ones following the harbor explosion, they were restless for revenge. I knew it was coming. I just didn't know when.”

“So what Pen said is right, then,” Basil says. “Your father is king.”

“Not exactly,” Nim says. “My father is dead.”

Celeste lays her hand over his. “Oh, Nim,” she says.

“It had to be done.”

Pen leans forward. “You
planned
it?”

“It had to be done,” he repeats, though there's a quaver to the words this time. “What you said was correct. My father was merciless. He served as the king's adviser. The bombings at the harbor were as much his fault as they were the king's.” He looks at the floor, but then thinks better of it and raises his chin, meeting none of our eyes. “Birdie and I talked it through. We took no pleasure in it, but we agreed it had to be done.”

“You're . . .” Celeste is watching him. “That makes you the king of Havalais.”

“If you'd like.”

“It's not ‘if I'd like.' It's a fact. Your grandfather was the king, whether or not he cared to claim your father as his son. Your father was first in line; you were second.”

“I don't know that patricide makes me worthy of the throne.”

“Worthy?” Celeste asks. “The people of your kingdom will probably hoist you onto their shoulders and have a party in your honor.” At his dead expression, she drops her shoulders. “Sorry, Nim.”

“Whether or not I'm king, I'm the one who needs to speak with your father now about the state of things.”

“Az and I will go with you,” Celeste says. “We know how to talk to him. He can be unreasonable.”

“Kings always are.”

The city is silent beneath us. The window is open, letting in only the sound of air moving through trees.

It feels like ages pass before there's the sound of movement in the stairwell. Voices. Celeste straightens in her seat and listens. “Papa is back. He'll be going to his office. I'll get Az, and the three of us will go together.”

She struggles to her feet, and Nim rises to help her. They steal a moment to look at each other. Only a moment. That's all they can afford right now.

My heart breaks for the pair of them. Beside me, Basil is frowning, and I know he's also wondering how this can possibly end well for us all.

An hour passes, and we sit in absolute silence, as though the walls themselves might reprimand us for daring to disrupt the royal air. The queen is bedridden down the hall, and I wonder if she knows we're here, or if she is too far gone to care either way.

Finally, Pen turns to me and says, “How long before it stops being inappropriate for me to ask what has happened to the princess?”

“It seems fairly obvious,” Thomas says.

“It's her latest great idea,” I say, too tired and anxious to be cynical. “She can't take all the credit, though. Nim went along with it—obviously. They wanted an alliance between their two worlds, and what's more solid than a new heir to two thrones?”

“It isn't all that stupid,” Pen concedes. “They're both royalty. Still, with all the forced terminations in the city, there's bound to be some outrage.”

“The king has kept her hidden away for months,” I say. “The kingdom thinks she's ill. I fear what would happen if they knew the truth.”

“I'm sure this will all go horribly wrong,” Pen says, with forced cheer. “But it's a valiant effort, I'll give them that.”

I put my hand over hers. I truly believed I might never see her again. There is much I want to say to her, but for now, Basil and I tell Pen and Thomas about the wedding they interrupted, and the time we've spent trapped in this tower, and the forced pleasantries in a city that knows something big is about to happen, and that Basil and I cannot possibly be the thing that saves it.