Broken Crowns (22 page)

The clock tower, like the night itself, is silent and still. I could almost believe that there was no life beyond Basil and me moving in the darkness. There isn't even the distant thrum of the train speeding by; there hasn't been for hours.

We reach the door that will lead us to the basement and I stop and take a steadying breath.

Basil is watching me. In the faint glow of a candle sconce that accents the wall, his eyes are round and dark. I don't need to ask the question that's plaguing me, because he already knows it, and I know his answer.

What if we don't find him?

We look elsewhere. We keep looking. That's all we can do.

I turn the knob; there's a staircase leading down. I swear this building is nothing but stairs and echoing walls. I can hear voices farther down, murmuring. Metal rustling—shackles? The prince and princess held Pen and me hostage using string, but it would surely take more than that to restrain a hundred men from Havalais.

I'm so fixated on the dim light at the bottom of the stairs, I don't notice the body coming up behind me until it's too late, and he's grabbed my arm. “Stop right there.”

I don't struggle. Too easy to fall down these steps. He's got Basil, who also obliges but shoots him a venomous glare. The man prods us down the steps and I struggle to keep up. I should have foreseen this; of course I should have. I'm not frightened at all, only disheartened. My heart sinks like a stone in my chest.

Did I really believe I could walk down here and find my father among the prisoners? I was raised to believe that things could be so easy, so attainable. Everyone I ever loved lived within the confines of a train track. My world was laid out so neatly before me. How could I have wanted more? I didn't know the consequences of more.

“Your Highness! I've caught two break-ins trying to get downstairs. Where should I put them?”

We've reached the bottom of the stairs, and my shoulders drop with relief when I see Prince Azure standing before us. “Let them go, you bloody idiot. They're not break-ins. They're
guests
. Haven't you heard about the wedding that was interrupted by the jet?”

The man unhands us, and my arm throbs from the ghost of his grip.

“I'm sorry, Your Highness. I couldn't see them in the darkness.”

“Don't apologize to me. Apologize to them.”

He nods to me, then Basil, muttering his apologies, and it's strangely gratifying. After he's left, Prince Azure regards us. There are candle sconces lining the corridor of closed doors, and the light traces the sharp angles of his face. “What brings you down to my humble hovel?”

I hesitate, and Basil answers for me. “We were looking for a specific prisoner.”

“Ah, yes,” the prince says. “Let me guess. Your father, is that right? My sister told me all about that when she first returned, and for her sake I investigated. She feels truly indebted to you, Morgan. But, sadly, nothing came of the search. Your father isn't here, and if he's still alive and has any brains, he won't let himself be found.”

If he's still alive.

I bury the enormity of those words. I cannot afford to open that pain anew.

“Best to focus on those we can help, yes?” Prince Azure says, and I do believe he is trying to console me, in his way. He claps a hand on Basil's shoulder and mine and steers us down the hallway. “You aren't allowed down here normally, but since you've found your way, there's something you should see.”

All of the doors are guarded by patrolmen. There's talking going on behind some, and eerie silence behind others. “Internment has been in a state of madness for months, hasn't it? My father is quite overwhelmed. My mother doesn't have much time, let's be honest. And my sister is madder than usual.”

“Hard to tell what's usual with her,” I say.

The prince laughs. “Yes, I suppose. She was always a crazy thing. Maybe we both were. But then, that's the price of growing up in this place, with only each other and the spiders in the cracks to keep us company. And don't mistake my candor; she's a fool, but I will take her side always, even when she goes off and gets herself into predicaments like the one she's in.”

I can't help feeling jealous. My brother and I care a great deal about each other, but he's never seemed to agree with a thing I've done, and I don't understand his decisions either.

“I don't know what to make of this boy she's dragged into our lives,” the prince goes on. “Nimble Piper. I know only that he's important to her, which means I've been tasked with protecting him.”

“Protecting him?” I say. “From the people of Internment?”

“The people of Internment don't know he exists, and besides they're no threat to anyone,” the prince says. We've been walking down a long hallway that's been narrowing with each step. The stone floor has given way to raw earth, and the patrolmen stand guard in the glow of candles, several paces away from the only door in this primitive hall. Prince Azure raises a key to the lock and pushes the door open. “The thing I must protect him from is my father.”

A candle flickers on the wall, nearly dead. Below that, slumped and beaten, is Nim.

My breath catches
in my throat, and as I struggle for words, Basil says, “You can't treat him like this. He hasn't done anything!”

“My father is the king. He can do whatever he likes,” the prince says. “It was stupid for this boy to come back here after what he and my sister did. Papa has spent these past months wanting to murder him. If I hadn't intervened, he might have.”

I rush across the dirt floor and kneel at Nim's side. He's lying on his back with his wrists bound before him, his eyes bruised and swollen. When I touch his cheek, he sucks in a pained breath. It takes a moment for me to realize that the word he's trying to get out is “Celeste.”

“No,” I say. “It's Morgan. Can you hear me?”

He swallows hard. “Leste.”

“She's all right. She's just upstairs.” Though from where he lays, upstairs might as well be a world away.

“I doubt he can hear you,” Prince Azure says. “He's been muttering for hours.” He closes the door behind us, entombing us all in this room with stale air rife with mold.

I look up at the prince standing over Nim's lifeless body. “We have to get him out of here.”

“Believe me when I say that will make it worse. There's nowhere to go. The jet is under heavy guard, and where could we possibly hide him that he won't be found when my father realizes he's gone?”

“Then what's your plan?” Basil asks, venom in his tone. “Even if you can stop your father from laying a hand on him again, he'll die if he isn't cared for.”

“I am—” The prince lowers his voice, kneels beside me. “I am caring for him. I've put salve on his wounds, and earlier I brought him some water, as much as I could sneak in.”

I lift the hair from Nim's face and find a bloody gash that's been coated with a thin line of cream.

“Does Celeste know?”

“No,” the prince says, “and she can't. In her condition, something like this would kill her.”

“She isn't as fragile as all that,” I say.

The prince laughs. “Fragile? No, she isn't fragile. But as I said before, she's a fool. She would hatch some half-baked rescue mission, be caught,
of course
, and be lynched by all those citizens with bleeding hearts about the queue. Even the king himself couldn't save her then.” At my startled expression he says, “Oh yes, I'm well aware how much the people hate the termination procedures and the queue. There's much my father should change but is too stubborn to. He's the one they should lynch, but that won't matter. They'll trample my sister to death in a riot, and that's if they don't cut the bloody thing out of her first.” He says this so simply, as though it's a science. “No, you and your husband-to-be are to go back up to your room, and when you see my sister, tell her that all is well and that Nimble Piper and our father are discussing strategies, or whatever it is she expected to happen.”

“I can't just leave him,” I say.

“If you want what's best for him, you will,” the prince says. He and his sister both fancy themselves expert politicians, and from what I've seen they both make poor decisions with amazing ease, but still, just this once I believe he's right.

I lean close to Nim and say into his ear, “Hang on.”

The prince escorts us back to the main level, and before he turns back into that awful basement, he says, “Look after my sister. She needs someone who will do that for her.”

“I will,” I say, and frown as he closes the door behind him. I turn to Basil, helpless.

“For what it's worth, I think he's right,” Basil says. “We're in dire straits when one of the royal children is the voice of reason, aren't we?”

When we return to the darkness of our room, I climb under the covers and face the window. The moon is an eye that's suspended midblink. I cannot face Basil. I cannot face anyone. I keep seeing Nimble's wounded face, his bleeding mouth. Another Piper broken.

Birdie survived her wounds, I tell myself. Nimble will too.

After a long silence, I whisper, “Are you still awake?”

“Yes,” Basil says.

“King Furlow has to die.”

Celeste is in high spirits. Basil and Thomas have been whisked away by a patrolman to help motivate those assigned to clean the mess made by the jet so that the trains can resume soon. Celeste, Pen, and I spend the morning in the living room of Celeste's apartment, sharing bowls of strawberries and grapes. It isn't the arrival of the jet that has reinforced her optimism. It isn't the broadcast or the death of King Ingram. It's Nimble's presence.

“How did he seem when you talked to him? Was he worried? I bet he was worried. He's always so concerned about me; it's sweet, really.” Mercifully, she doesn't wait for me to answer. “Hold that thought; I've got to use the water room.”

After she's gone, Pen leans toward me and says in a low voice, “All right. Tell me what's really going on. I can read your face like a book. Is he dead?”

I glance down the hallway after Celeste. “Not yet,” I whisper. “But it's bad. He's in one of the cells. If I didn't know better, I'd think an animal had attacked him.”

Pen winces. “What's the plan to get him out of there?”

“The prince is going to keep him alive while his father figures out what to do next.”

Pen sits back against the couch, fretting. “Do you think the prince will truly keep him alive? I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit.”

“I wouldn't either,” I say, “but I believe he will, for Celeste.”

Celeste returns and drops unceremoniously beside me. She looks as though she's just been ill.

“Are you all right?” I say.

“Oh, yes, fine, just getting toward the end is all,” she says. “Truthfully I'm glad the baby is going to be born here. Medicine on the ground is more advanced for sure, but if there's one thing our doctors do well up here, it's this.” She gives a weak laugh. “But then, our population is such an issue, I suppose they have to regulate it the way they do.”

Despite her upbeat tone, she doesn't look well. I put my hand on hers. “Maybe you should rest.”

“How can I?” she says. She shivers excitedly. “Knowing King Ingram is dead and that an alliance between the two kingdoms is coming, I hardly slept a wink last night.”

“Yes, and it shows,” Pen says, without malice. I dare to say she sounds sympathetic; perhaps the knowledge of Nim's state has made her take pity. “You'll be no good to either kingdom if you drop from exhaustion. Take a nap.”

Celeste blinks, surprised by the concern. “I suppose there isn't much else to do until my brother comes back with an update.”

Hesitantly, she retires to her bedroom, leaving Pen and me alone.