Palace of Lies (26 page)

“Light!” Tog whispered behind me.

I felt his arm extend past me, pointing toward the top of the stairs. It was almost like he was starting to put his arm around me.

Then he dropped it.

“I told you we'd eventually see some light,” I whispered back. “That means there are peepholes.”

We kept climbing, and the light transformed from a vague, distant glow to distinct pinpoints along the wall. Because I'd studied these things back at the Palace of Mirrors, I knew there were probably little eyeholes scraped out at intervals in the mortar between the stones in the ballroom we were approaching. But from this side, in the darkness, the glimmers of light looked as miraculous as
the starry sky Tog and I had seen out in the mountains.

We climbed higher, and I could hear dance music. A violin, perhaps, the brief blare of a horn . . . That song ended and another one started.

“Oh,” I gasped, stopping in my tracks.

“What's wrong? Are you hurt?” Tog asked.

“No, it's just . . . ,” I choked back the cry I wanted to give. “This is the galliard. The last dance the musicians played that night at the ball. Before the fire.”

I sniffed as if I expected to smell smoke.

“I'm sorry. But the music didn't
cause
the fire,” Tog said soothingly. “It's . . . just a song.”

I still felt my stomach churning. I still had to force myself to keep climbing toward the music and lights.

You were brave during the fire
, I told myself.
You can be brave now, too. You pushed Cecilia and Harper out of the ballroom. You went back for Fidelia and wanted to rescue her, too.

But my view of the night of the fire had shifted like a kaleidoscope. I had done my best to save Cecilia and Harper. But had I really been that brave, going back for Fidelia? Or had I just used her as an excuse—even to myself—because I was terrified of leaving the palace, terrified of stepping outside?

You weren't afraid to go outside to get away from Madame Bisset,
I told myself.

But wasn't that just because her news—that all my sister-princesses were dead—was even more terrifying than the
thought of escape? Had I been brave or just a coward running away?

How could I hope to figure out what was happening at the Fridesian palace when I couldn't even see myself true? When I'd gone years without letting myself think of Janelia, the one true thing from my childhood?

Think about now, not the past,
I told myself.
Don't get paralyzed again.

I reached the level of the first peephole and put my eye against it. I gazed out at the most highly decorated ballroom I could possibly imagine. Every wall, every cushion, every tapestry was covered with bows and frills.

“It looks like a dress shop exploded,” Tog whispered beside me, putting his eye up to another hole.

“This isn't how Ella described the Fridesian ballroom,” I whispered back. “I wonder what—”

I broke off because suddenly a man's face appeared just inches from my eye. It was a handsome man's face—maybe even the most handsome face I'd ever seen. This man had perfect blue eyes and perfect blond hair and a perfect angle to his jawline.

Prince Charming?
I wondered.

I wasn't sure. I knew the king and queen of Fridesia had one son; because the royal couple were old and decrepit and possibly even senile, Prince Charming was viewed as the true ruler of the land. Ella had always described him as unbelievably handsome but also too vacant and dim to
think or feel anything deeply. And this man looked . . . well, I wouldn't call his expression profound, but there was a certain fervency marring the beauty of his perfect face. Maybe even despair.

“It's too soon,” he murmured, so close to me that for a moment I feared he'd seen me and for some reason had decided to pour out his anguish to me.

“Your Highness.” The voice came from beyond the prince. “I know you are still mourning Princess Corimunde, but . . .”

Mourning?
I thought. I remembered the black bunting I'd seen at the front of the palace, and for the first time it made sense. Maybe that was a Fridesian custom at times of grief.
And the person who's dead, Corimunde, that was . . . his wife?

I remembered the crazy story Ella had told about how Prince Charming ended up marrying Ella's despised stepsister. So now Corimunde was dead?

And apparently Prince Charming had truly loved her?

“I am mourning my wife and my baby son,” Prince Charming snapped. He turned, and for the first time I could see the man standing behind the prince. It was an elderly gentleman with a neatly trimmed beard and a look of keen intelligence.

Lord Twelling,
I thought, remembering how Ella had described the prince's main adviser.

I knew exactly the look of advisers who thought they knew more than their royalty. Lord Twelling had been a bit of a villain in Ella's tale of her time in the Fridesian palace. Just not as bad a villain as Madame Bisset.

“I am aware that you have faced a loss,” Lord Twelling hissed to the prince. “But you are young, and you are the prince of the land, and you are currently unmarried.”

“Widowed,” the prince corrected. “I am widowed. There's a difference.”

I was at the wrong angle to see the glare Prince Charming directed at Lord Twelling. But I could tell from his voice that it was intense.

“Anyhow,” Lord Twelling continued, as if he hadn't noticed. “Sulking won't bring Corimunde—or the newborn infant Charming the twenty-fifth—back from the grave. The babe barely lived a few hours. It's not as if he were someone you
knew
.”

Now Prince Charming positively glowered at his adviser. Lord Twelling ignored this, too.

“But in the meantime,” Lord Twelling continued, “you have a fabulous opportunity. And for the sake of your kingdom, you must at least pretend that you are over your heartbreak.”

“Even when it seems as though it will never end?” the prince asked incredulously. “I wish Jed were here. He would understand.”

Jed!
I thought hopefully. But I wasn't sure if the prince meant that Jed wasn't in the ballroom, or wasn't in the palace, or wasn't in Charmeil at all.

Watch Lord Twelling's reaction carefully
, I told myself. Was it possible that Jed was the prisoner the prince didn't know
about down in the dungeon? Was Lord Twelling maybe the one keeping that secret from the prince?

But Lord Twelling didn't have a chance to reply. Trumpet blasts sounded from behind the two men, and both Lord Twelling and Prince Charming turned away from the wall. They both stepped toward the center of the ballroom. The dancers parted before the prince.

“Do you know what that was all about?” Tog whispered.

“I'm not sure,” I whispered back. “But—”

Out in the ballroom, the trumpet blasts sounded again, eerily reminiscent of the trumpet blasts that had always welcomed me into court occasions back at the Palace of Mirrors.

Are they trying to imitate the Sualan Royal Anthem, or is it just a coincidence?
I wondered.

“King Charming, Queen Gertrude, Prince Charming,” a herald announced from across the room. “Lords and ladies of the Fridesian court. Allow me to present our royal guests, the princesses of Suala!”

I thought my heart would stop. Tog clutched my arm.

“It's true!” he hissed. “They did come to Fridesia! You've found them after all. Look!”

A bevy of shimmering beauties came into the room, seeming that much more stunningly gorgeous after my weeks away from the palace and royal clothing and royal servants to make
me
beautiful. There was the lovely russet hair that glowed from the top of Princess Ganelia's head, the
statuesque height that made Princess Porfinia the envy of all the others, the same kind of creamy white skin that I had seen against an aquamarine gown when Princess Fidelia had fallen on the dance floor.

“You want to find a door so you can go be reunited with them right now?” Tog whispered. “So they know
you
survived the fire too? So they'll stop worrying about you?”

I stood frozen.

“Desmia?” Tog asked.

“It's all wrong,” I moaned. “Wrong!”

“What are you talking about?” Tog asked. “This is what we came for. Your sisters!”

I turned to him, my eyes burning.

“Those aren't my sister-princesses,” I hissed. “They're impostors, every single one!”

“Are you sure?” Tog asked,
squinting harder into the peephole.

“You think I don't remember what they look like?” I asked.

Out in the ballroom, the herald began to introduce each one individually.

“Princess Adoriana . . . Princess Cecilia . . .”

“That's not her?” Tog whispered. “The one you saved . . .”

The girl who stepped forward did look like Cecilia, with similar long dark hair and the same kind of silky lilac dress that Cecilia herself might have chosen. But this girl lacked the flash of the real Cecilia's eyes; she moved too smoothly, without Cecilia's usual awkward enthusiasm.

This Cecilia didn't look like the type of girl who would ever jostle my shoulder with hers.

“No,” I whispered back.

“Are you sure?” Tog asked. “They're kind of far away, over on the other side of the ballroom. Maybe you just can't see—”

“Princess Desmia,” the herald announced, and another girl stepped forward.

“Oh,” Tog whispered, as if the situation had finally sunk in. “They even have a fake version of you.”

The fake Desmia curtsied, first for the king and queen on their thrones, and then for Prince Charming, standing alone on the dance floor.

“At least they chose the prettiest girl to pretend to be you,” Tog whispered, as if that would be any consolation.

“Why?” I asked. “Why are they using fakes? What are they trying to accomplish? Who set this up?”

My voice rose with each question. Tog put his hand on my arm, a clear reminder that the nearest Fridesian out in the ballroom was barely three feet away.

I pinched my lips together and went back to watching the rest of the introductions.

Then Madame Bisset stepped out from behind the row of fake princesses. Even in the ballroom she wore a more severe dress than the other ladies. It was a silvery gray once again, and unadorned, without a single frill or flounce. She regarded the prince with a confident gaze.

“And which of the lovely princesses of Suala would the prince like to dance with first?” she asked. “It is so fortunate that none of them are yet betrothed. You have your choice!”

My stomach twisted.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. “Oh, no . . .”

“Did you figure something out?” Tog asked.

“The Fridesians like their beauty contests,” I said. For a moment, I was too horrified to go on. “Now that the war is over . . . if the Fridesian prince is truly widowed . . . if he chooses a Sualan princess for his second wife . . .”

“It'd be good, right?” Tog asked. “If the Fridesian prince had a Sualan princess for a wife, he wouldn't want to go back to war with Suala!”

What was wrong with Tog, that he saw only the happiest outcome?

He hadn't had the palace childhood that I had. He didn't see that everything in a palace was about power, not love; conquest, not conciliation.

“No,” I moaned. “No. It would mean Fridesia won the war. They'd take over Suala completely!”

“I don't know how that could happen,” Tog said. “Even if he marries one Sualan princess—fake or not—there'd still be twelve other princesses running Suala.”

I watched Lord Twelling nudge Prince Charming toward the nearest fake princess. I guessed it was supposed to be Lucia, with her light brown hair and a maroon dress.

“Don't you see?” I whispered back. “If they can just make up thirteen fake princesses, they can easily make twelve of them go away. Their carriage will be lost in a raging river, traveling back to Suala. Or they'll all sicken and die from some mysterious fever. Or . . .”

I slumped down to the floor. I couldn't go on watching the prince and the fake princesses play out their roles. I couldn't
go on listing ways princesses could die. For the first time since the fire at the Palace of Mirrors, I stopped wondering if my sister-princesses were alive or dead. What did it matter? Even if the other girls had survived the fire, Madame Bisset and whoever else was orchestrating this would make sure they were dead after Prince Charming chose a fake princess for his bride.

Even if the princesses were right now down in the Fridesian palace dungeon, I couldn't think of a single way to creep down through a different secret passageway, sneak past the jailer, and rescue them before they were killed.

So did I condemn my sister-princesses to death when I first acknowledged them as equals?
I wondered in despair.
Was Queen Charlotte Aurora actually signing death certificates when she wrote those letters designating orphan girls as her heirs? Were we all doomed from the very beginning?

“It's hopeless,” I whispered.

I was stunned when something hit me in the leg. No—it was Tog kicking me.

“Aren't you going to stop this?” he asked. “Or did we come all this way for you to just give up?”

“What am I supposed to
do?” I asked.

Tog pointed out toward the ballroom.

“Get out there and tell those Fridesians the truth!” he said. “Get them to help you find the real princesses!”

This never would have occurred to me. Truth? In a palace?

“Why would they care about helping me?” I asked. “You don't know what royalty and courtiers are like.”