Flight of the King (5 page)

“Some first impression,” he mumbled, as he roused the sleepy iguana, and shook another patch of skin off his fingers.

By the time he arrived to class with Bert curled up in his knapsack, he was already late. Hal and Phi were there; Tori had been lucky enough to place out of second-level Latin, and was taking
Classics instead. Phi's falcon, Carin, stood calmly on the edge of Phi's desk. Bailey entered just as the teacher at the front of the class—the man he'd spotted in the
dining hall earlier—finished writing his name on the chalkboard with a flourish.

“And again, that's
Doctor
Graves, not
Mister
, thank you,” the man said in a clipped, businesslike tone.

Bailey took the opportunity of Dr. Graves's turned back to hurry from the door to an empty desk by his friends. But in his rush, he slammed his knee into the chair of a fellow classmate, a
curly-haired girl, who shouted in surprise.

Dr. Graves turned around and surveyed the room with a grimace, as though the students in front of him were covered in slug slime. When he saw Bailey, still standing in the aisle, his small eyes
narrowed into slits.

“You're late!” Graves snapped.

Bailey felt his ears turning red for the second time that morning. Everyone was looking at him.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. He turned to the empty desk.

“Stop right there,” ordered Graves. The diminutive man stepped down from the raised teacher's platform before Bailey even got a chance to sit.

“Hardly the example one wants to set on the very first day of a new semester,” Graves said, looking Bailey up and down. “I suppose you think you can just wander in whenever you
like!”

“No, I don't. I said I'm sorry,” said Bailey.

“I heard what you
said
, boy, but I'm not interested in your apology. There are consequences to certain behaviors! Perhaps you'd like a few lines to copy, since you
don't feel the need to keep up with what the rest of the class is doing.” The gray cat Bailey had seen earlier rubbed against Graves's ankles, then hissed up at Bailey.

Graves's eyes became fixed on Bailey's knapsack. Bailey looked down, and saw Bert wriggling out of the closed flap. He stretched his claws toward the hem of Graves's tweed
jacket.

“What is
this
?” Graves asked. Bert clutched Graves's jacket, and before either Graves or Bailey could do anything to stop it, took a hearty bite out of the hem.

“Gah!”
Graves exclaimed, stepping back quickly and waving his hands to bat Bert away. A thumb-size scrap of brown tweed dangled out of the lizard's mouth as he
clutched Bailey's knapsack, chewing.

“Sorry!” said Bailey.

“I could see you were a troublemaker in the dining hall this morning,” Graves said. “And I'm never wrong about these things—look at my coat!”

The other students had begun to laugh. Bailey glanced at Hal, whose eyebrows were raised in a mixture of amusement and concern.

“I'll be keeping a very close eye on you,” said Graves, wagging a finger at Bailey. “And your revolting kin.”

“He's not revolting,” said Bailey, before he even knew what he was doing. “He just thinks you should back off.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bailey saw Hal cover his eyes with his hand.

Graves was the type of person whose face became red very easily, Bailey learned. The man was barely taller than him, but he drew himself up into a tweed tower of righteous, sputtering anger.

“You will
take. Your. Seat.
This instant. Insubordination! Cheek! I will have you know, young man, that—”

“Ahem.” A quiet but firm voice interjected itself between Graves and Bailey, and they both turned toward the door. Standing there, a wombat rolling at her feet and her glasses
slightly askew, was Ms. Shonfield, the dean of students. A young man stood behind her with a clipboard, staring at Bailey and Graves through a slim pair of brass spectacles.

“Good morning, Dr. Graves, Mr. Walker,” she said, nodding to each of them. “I see you're settling in.”

As she pushed past them, Graves nodded crisply, and Bailey suppressed a small laugh. The spectacled assistant smiled too, and as he crossed to the front of the classroom with Shonfield, he gave
Bailey a quick wink.

“I wanted to say a few words to you students about the passing of your dear teacher, Ms. Sucrette.” Ms. Shonfield sighed. “Please know that my door is always open for a chat if
you're in need of one. My assistant Jerri and I are happy to answer any questions.” She gestured to the young man with the clipboard, who nodded. “We're told her death came
at the hands of a group of roving bandits in the neighboring woods, and our policy remains firm that no students are allowed in the Dark Woods at any time. Still, I want to assure you that you have
nothing to fear. As of now, the school is taking measures to have the bandits cleared out, and our campus borders are as safe as they've ever been.”

Bailey felt a tingling at the back of his neck as Ms. Shonfield spoke. The story about Sucrette's death was completely false, but the Velyn were real—were they the bandits Shonfield
mentioned? And what did she mean, “cleared out”?

He glanced across the aisle at Hal, who stared straight forward, trying a little too hard to look completely uninterested in this news. Bailey attempted to do the same. Tremelo's advice
played in his mind like a song on the gramophone.
Be normal, act normal, don't draw attention.
But he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. The Velyn might be hurt or captured,
which meant his kin was in grave danger. Pretending to be normal, when an unread prophecy linked him to the fate of the entire kingdom, was already proving to be a difficult task.

I CAN'T GET OUT—
I can't get out!

A child's small hand fumbled with an ornate bronze doorknob, but it wouldn't turn. Across the room, flames licked their way up the sides of the window—the only other means of
escape was a gaping maw of fire, and a four-story drop to the gardens below.
Help me,
the child cried. Tears fell down his round cheeks.

Trent!
He heard a voice on the other side of the door.
Trent, I'm going to get you out!

Viv! Please help me!

The doorknob rattled as Trent pressed himself against the carved wood of his nursery door. He wanted to curl up as small he could, like a little mouse, so the fire wouldn't find him.

It's stuck—Trent! The door is stuck!
His sister's voice was heavy with fear.
I can't open it!

Don't leave me,
he cried.
Viv, don't go!

The fire crawled toward him like a beast to its prey. Smoke had begun curling against the ceiling and slipping through the edges of the doorframe in eager wisps.

Don't go away,
he sobbed again, but Viv's only reply was the sound of footsteps, growing fainter.

Tremelo awoke. His heart beat wildly. He sat up in bed and lit the oil lamp on his bedside table—so much more reliable than the second-rate electro-current that was allotted for the
teachers' quarters. Fennel the fox padded in from the sitting room, where she had been curled on the armchair, dreaming her own dreams.

Since Gwen and the Elder had come to Fairmount and revealed his true name—Trent Melore, the lost prince of Aldermere—Tremelo's dreams had become sharper in focus, and dark
memories emerged. Other memories he might have liked to see, happy ones of his childhood, he did not have. He couldn't remember his father, King Melore. If he did, he might feel better
prepared to lead an entire kingdom. No one had taught him how. At least, not that he could recall.

And now his sister, the one who had left him to die, was coming to Fairmount. Would he be able to hide his identity? Or would some imprint, something that lived in the dark of her memory as the
fire lived in his, force a glimmer of recognition between them? It was best to stay away, though by hiding, he felt more like that small child than a king.

Fennel, sitting on the floor by his bed, sniffed the air.

“I know, I know,” he said. The boy, Bailey, needed him. He was in unspeakable danger, and neither of them was safe until Tremelo sussed out Viviana's plans. Nothing else
mattered so much, not his longing to piece together childhood memories, not even deciphering the Loon's infuriatingly vague book of prophecies.
A true ruler sees a false one in the
mirror; a false ruler sees only themselves…the Child is both the reflection and the opposite of evil.

The prophecy spoke of Bailey—that much seemed clear—but the meaning escaped him. Puzzling over the book had to wait. He needed to concentrate on information now, not riddles. And
though he hated putting his kin in danger, Fennel was brave and smart enough to stay hidden. He'd have to rely on her.

As if to respond, Fennel yipped eagerly.

Tremelo groaned and rose from the bed to boil water for a pot of coffee.

On the wooden shelf above his stove were two mugs, a tin of coffee, and an old photograph. He hadn't looked at it for twelve years, not since he'd learned that the Velyn had been
wiped out. But since meeting Eneas Fourclaw and his band, he'd unearthed it from his trunk. He glanced at it now: a young woman gazed out at him with a stony, fierce expression. Her stern but
delicate face was framed by wild strawberry-blond hair. Elen.

He was certain she hadn't survived the Jackal's massacre. She would've found him otherwise, and Nature knows he'd looked for her relentlessly. When Eneas Fourclaw and the
Velyn had reappeared in the autumn, Tremelo had almost allowed himself to hope that they might have known Elen Whitehill or her father. But Tremelo had not mustered the courage to ask, and Eneas
and the rest were now gone.

His thoughts turned to the already swirling rumor about “bandits” in the woods. Of course, there were no bandits, but the Velyn, being blamed for Sucrette's death. In the weeks
since that rumor had begun circulating through the teachers' quarters, Tremelo had kept his mouth shut. To set the record straight would put not only the students in danger, but the Velyn
too.

“They're not ready for the world to know they're still alive,” he'd told Bailey after the first day of classes. “And if they were caught, they'd be
blamed for what happened to Sucrette. They had no choice but to leave.” At least, that's what he imagined their reasons were. The Velyn hadn't spoken to him. They'd just
disappeared. But that was just like them, the Velyn. They always seemed to vanish just when he wanted most to have them near. He wasn't one of them—not like Bailey was—but still,
he felt left behind. He could only imagine how lonely the news must have made Bailey.

The water boiled, and he poured it slowly over a paper filter heaped with strong, bitter coffee grounds.

He didn't want to go back to sleep for fear of dreaming again. So many of his friends, and those he considered his family, were dead and gone. But Viviana was real, and she would arrive at
the school—at his home—within the day. The little girl behind the door had become a woman blinded by power and greed. And somehow he was expected to stop her. He would need, he
suspected, much more than a stout cup of coffee.

THE MORNING AIR WAS
cold, and Viviana pulled the fox-fur collar of her winter coat closed. She waved to onlookers as she walked briskly along the
platform. The copper spires of Parliament loomed behind her, glinting with frost.

Next to the platform, usually reserved for first-class rigimotives, was the land train. Painted a bright cobalt blue and gilded with gold, it was impressively shiny, with a powerful front
engine. Viviana was quite proud; the land train was a special commission for her own engineers, and a symbol of progress for her reign. Meant to use the rigi tracks, it was faster and more powerful
than the rigimotive had ever been.

At the threshold of the train entrance, she bid farewell to the gathered crowd. “Thank you for seeing me off on my first tour of Aldermere! Like my father before me, I wish to see
innovation again, and—”