Pennyroyal Academy (17 page)

I must be mad,
she thought.
I could swear that frog wants me to follow it.

She glanced around the barracks, though it was difficult to see anything in the darkness. All sounded quiet. She eased onto the stone ledge and climbed through. As she dropped to the ground, she held her breath and pressed her back against the barracks.

Someone's awake. And they've seen me.

It had been the flutter of a sheet, perhaps, or some other movement across the room. Or maybe it was only the shadows playing tricks. The frog let loose another rumbling croak, then turned and flopped away past the other barracks.

She took a deep breath, then hurried after it.
What am I doing?
Though the moon was only a muted dot in the sky illuminating the blue edges of the clouds, she tried to stay low. If any member of staff saw her, she would almost certainly find herself in the Headmistress's office, and then on the first coach out.

She tracked the frog by streaks in the snow and its chirping song. After several minutes, she realized exactly where it was going: the Grennilieu Bog, a restricted area of campus used only for specific training exercises.

“This is madness,” she whispered.
Especially if someone really has seen me leaving.
“Is there something you want?”

The frog took a final, lazy hop, then flopped around to face her. The membrane beneath its throat distended with a low chirrup. She studied the creature with rising panic.
What am I doing out here with a bloody frog?

It called again, more loudly this time. And then the croaks kept coming, each more insistent than the last, the frog's vocal sac swelling bigger and bigger. Evie's eyes went wide with horror as its head bent back at an unusual angle, forced that way by a dangerously inflated throat, which looked like a swamp bubble ready to pop.

“Please!” she said. “Stop doing that!”

The grating rasp went on, and the frog's throat continued to expand. Evie was certain the whole campus could hear. She eased away, ready to scramble back to her barracks, but her foot tangled in the knobby root of a fig tree. She fell to the ground, and that was when the membrane swept up from the frog's stomach and washed over the head of . . .

“Remington!”

He stood, pulling the cloak that had been a frog's throat back from his shoulders. “Not bad, eh? My great-grandfather was the original Frog King. Taught me all the cheeky family secrets.”

“You're . . . a frog?”

“At times. But no one knows that other than my great-grandfather and my brother. And now you. So,” he said, extending his hand, “come with me before we add to that list.”

He pulled her to her feet and led her into the bog. They passed decayed trees, fallen and eaten away, turbid waters gurgling with mud, and dangling moss so long and thick it looked like the branches were melting. She stopped, suddenly, and looked back.

“What is it?”

She listened for another moment, but thought it must have been her imagination. “We really shouldn't be out here.”

“I don't care,” he said. “It's so bloody difficult to have a proper chat in this place. I stand face-to-face with you in the ballroom and can't even ask about the weather.” A chill ran through her, less from the biting air and more because she'd been on his mind. “I never got to tell you how sorry I was for what happened in the castle.”

She frowned, trying to understand what he was referring to, and when she did, her hand slid free. “You mean with Malora.”

“I tried to find you afterward, but you didn't even have the decency to leave a trail of crumbs. Then I saw you with that dragon, and—”

“Could we talk about something else?”

“Better yet, let's do something else. Come on.”

He swung over a deadfall and disappeared into the darkness. She did the same and found him standing at the edge of a great, glassy pool of water, dotted with dozens of lily pads, each as big as a carriage wheel. He raised his eyebrows, then started to step into the water.

“What are you doing?” she said, putting her hands against his chest. He took her wrists and pulled her out with him. Her breath caught and she cringed for the splash of icy water, but it didn't come. They were standing on one of the lily pads. It gave a bit beneath her feet, but supported both of them without buckling.

“Stoneflower lily pads. They can hold a horse if need be. It's how Sir Isaac escaped the dragon in the Battle of Innisglen. Learned that at Pennyroyal Academy.” He folded his fingers between hers and pulled her to the next one. “Come on, trust me—”

“
Wait!
” she hissed, jerking his arm back. He nearly fell in, but regained his balance in time.

“Are you mad?”

“
Shh!
” She peered into the darkness. A distant shadowy figure bounded away through the undergrowth. “There—did you see it?”

“You're awfully paranoid for a girl who follows strange frogs into the night.”

She stared into the dark corners of the bog, but nothing else moved. “Perhaps it was a deer or something.”

“Good. Let's not let some rogue woodland creature ruin our evening.”

He guided her from lily pad to lily pad, and with each step the calm of night returned. It was one of the strangest sensations she had ever experienced, as though she were walking on water without breaking the surface. Each lily pad absorbed her weight with barely a ripple. But the even stranger sensation was the one in her stomach. It fluttered and twirled like a cage of butterflies, and all because her fingers were enmeshed with his.

“I'm glad for it, you know.”

“What?”

“That you're the sort of girl to follow strange frogs.”

She laughed, quite possibly for the first time since leaving home. It was a lovely feeling, and sorely missed, like a forgotten childhood toy rediscovered.

“Could I ask you something?” she said. Her heart pounded like it had when she had attempted to flirt with him in the courtyard what felt like a million years ago. “There are dozens of girls back there who would give anything to be standing here. And from what I've heard, thousands more across the land. So . . . why am I?”

“Ah,” he said. “Why have I reached down from my golden tower to pluck you from the muck?”

She laughed again, but not because he was wrong.

“I don't know, really,” he said. “You're a bit dangerous, I suppose.”

“
I'm
dangerous?”

“How can I explain? Everywhere I go, people know more about me than I do. My mother has my life planned out to the hymns they'll sing at my funeral. This, right here, is a choice I get to make for myself. And that is, unfortunately, a rarity.”

The soft music of rippling water accompanied them as they stepped from one lily pad to the next.

“Choices aren't always so good,” she said. “It's far too easy to make a bad one.”

“The first bad choice I ever made was that shortcut through the enchanted forest. But even though I nearly died and got turned to candy, I still got to rescue you.”

She swatted his arm playfully.
This,
she thought,
this is a moment I'd like my memory to keep.
Though the night was still black and her bunk far away, she already knew this would be one of her most revisited memories, one she'd want to examine from all angles and one whose afterglow she'd want to enjoy for a long time to come.

They circled back to the shoreline, but Remington stopped her from stepping to dry land. He unwrapped his hand from hers and slid both arms around her waist. Her heart stopped. She looked into his eyes, and something else happened on this night of new things.

“Oh . . .” she said lazily as something passed between them. Without another word spoken, the flirtatious lightness of the moment matured into something more. She saw beyond the self-assured smirks and the family name and the charmed life that would take him anywhere in the world he wanted to go. Her eyes fell closed and her lips fell open. He pulled her body to his own . . .

A low, furious snarl, the sound of flesh about to be torn and blood about to be spilled, rumbled up from the trees behind Evie. She opened her eyes and saw Remington looking past her. There was no panic in him, but there was the unmistakable urgency of adrenaline.

“Evie . . .”

She slowly turned around—

And the fairy tale evening ripped apart in a terrifying flash of white daggers. Two hulking, shaggy wolves leapt from the depths of the bog with soul-chilling roars.

She reacted instinctively, throwing Remington to the shore as one of the wolves knocked her into the bog. She glided through the icy water like a snake, another latent skill she had learned from the dragons. She could swim faster and more fluidly than any human—or wolf—alive. Within moments, she pulled herself to shore.

“Evie!”

The muscular beasts splashed after her, snarling and roaring and snapping their jaws. She grabbed Remington's hand and they ran into the trees. Behind them, teeth crunched with sprays of froth.

No roots no rabbit holes no rocks oh please oh please oh please!

She scanned the bog for any sort of cover. In her mind, she could see the elegant forms of the wolves behind her, graceful creatures of death bounding through the darkness, waiting for the slightest misstep.

As they tore through a sheet of hanging moss, she noticed something and reacted. She swung her body, throwing Remington off his feet. One wolf dove at him, catching the back of his knee with a claw just as he tumbled into a small cave between boulders. A fraction of a second later and he would have been dragged into the night and his bones stripped clean.

Evie broke left, and the other wolf pursued. She glanced back to see if one had stayed behind, but both were there, snarling and chomping, hot spit flying from their razor teeth.

“Evie!” she heard Remington call in the distance. “
Evie!
”

She slammed into a branch, caroming through the sedges until she fell. The first wolf was on her immediately, and the second bore down with furious intent. She rolled onto her back, pinned beneath the wolf's massive paw. Its great jaw opened, teeth flashing forth that promised death before pain could even arrive.

But something had started to gurgle deep in Evie's stomach. It rumbled up through her throat and came flooding from her mouth before she even knew what she was doing. It was her voice, only savage, and inhumanly louder. She was roaring. From the dragon parts of her heart.

The wolves recoiled, pinning their ears back as the roar poured from her throat. Then, with frustrated yelps, they scampered over a stone and vanished into the bog.

Evie lay on her back, choking for breath, astonished by what had just happened. She had survived, somehow. The bestial roar echoed in her head. How could that possibly have come from her? She didn't know, but the power of it still coursed through her veins.

“Remington!” She scrambled to her feet. As she raced back to where she had left him, a cold panic washed over her. Had he heard the roar? Of course he had, but how could she ever explain it?

“Evie!” he called again, and she ran toward his voice. He sat on the ground, a torn piece of black tunic wrapped around his leg. It was soaked through with blood.

“Are you all right?” She dropped to a knee and tried to examine his wound.

“What was that?”

“I think I scared them off, but we'd better go. Someone had to have heard that.” She put his arm around her neck and helped him to his feet.

“Blimey, was that you?”

Don't say it. Don't say it.
“My parents were dragons.”

“
What?
”

She gave him a look, at once helpless and exasperated. There was no taking the words back now.

“Well,” he said, “looks like we're both reptiles, then.”

“No. You're an amphibian. Come on . . .”

And they hobbled into the night, aglow in the crackling rush of life that came from cheating death.

E
VIE SCANNED
the crowd for Remington, but didn't see him anywhere. The whole of Pennyroyal Academy had gathered in the Royal Hall to hear news of what had happened in the night. Second- and first-class cadets and members of staff lined the walls surrounding benches filled with third-class cadets. Rumors circulated about the wolf attack, but the bits Evie overheard were almost all wrong. One girl, a top cadet in Schlauraffen Company, said with great authority that it had been giants.

As she continued her search, she found Malora staring back at her from across the room. Her eyes were raw and ringed with red.

Princess Beatrice's heels clicked across the stone, and the buzz of the crowd quieted. She was trailed by the most senior staff, including several white-bearded knights Evie had not seen before. These were big men, strong and comfortable with death, and she shuddered to think how many dragons they had bloodied between them.

Beatrice approached the lectern and unfolded a parchment. She seemed somehow smaller than she had before. Perhaps it was the short night's sleep or the frantic conversations that had surely been held at the highest levels of the administration. Evie's musings were quickly answered.

“From the Queen,” said Beatrice, and then she began to read. “Approximately three hours before morning reveille, two wolves from the Dortchen Wild were found inside Pennyroyal's walls.”

There was a flurry of voices as people realized they were more vulnerable than they had thought.

“Commander Muldenhammer and his team have dispatched them, and the grounds are now secure.” She nodded to the man behind her. He must have been closer to seven feet than six, and his hands were the size of melons. She turned back to the crowd, pausing to acknowledge someone approaching the dais. It was Countess Hardcastle. She mounted the stairs and joined the House Princesses, who didn't seem at all surprised to see her.

Evie glanced at Maggie, sitting at the end of the row with Demetra, and gave her a look that said,
What's she doing here?

“The Queen does not take this breach lightly. She is therefore suspending all Academy business until an investigation is completed and she can ensure the safety of every cadet under her command.” More mumbles of concern rippled through the room. “Return to your barracks. We are clearing the campus, and the coaches for Castle Waldeck leave shortly. Marburg is . . . no longer a viable option.”

The staff began shouting orders above the confused and frightened mutterings of the cadets. Beatrice and her advisers huddled on the dais as, slowly, the crowd emptied into the rotunda. While Evie waited for her row to clear, she looked at Hardcastle, standing at the fringes of Beatrice's group. Her eyes were filled with a mother's compassion, and when Evie followed them across the hall, she found Malora.

Back in the barracks, she finally had a chance to tell Maggie, Demetra, and Basil what had happened in the bog. But her story was cut short when Hardcastle arrived, escorted by Hazelbranch. She had come to collect both of her daughters. And so, with immense apprehension, Evie said goodbye to her friends and followed Hardcastle and Malora across Hansel's Green. Malora stomped off well ahead of them, then darted into her mother's carriage. It was round and black, with delicate silver ornamentations. Three windows shimmered on each side, flanked by massive wheels, nearly as big as Evie herself. Above the horse team sat a detached dickey box for the coachman, who was introduced as Hardcastle's valet, Wormwood. He stowed Evie's knapsack, then took her hand and helped her inside. Twin benches lined with goose-down cushions faced each other. Malora already sat on the rear-facing side, staring coldly out the window.

“There, Nicolina, sit with your sister.”

Evie sat next to Malora, who pulled her dress in tight, as though she didn't want even her clothing to touch her sister. Hardcastle took the opposite bench. She folded her hands primly in her lap with a look of supreme contentment.

“Lovely,” she said. “Our little family, reunited at last.”

The coach lurched away, wheeling around the fountain and down the hill toward the Dortchen Wild. No one spoke. Only the dull thud of hooves in the mud spoiled the silence. And before long, Evie was back in the woods once again.

She pretended to fall asleep as they began the long, lurching ride through the climbs and drops of the Dortchen Wild. Beneath the twin blankets of cloud and canopy, and inside the tiny warm shell of the carriage as it traveled through wintry forest, sleep seemed a plausible excuse to avoid conversation. The carriage bounced along on its undergear as hours passed in near silence. Hardcastle occasionally asked a question of Malora, whose grunted responses stopped the talk cold.

Evie tried to relive the previous night in her mind, specifically the part before the wolves attacked. What had happened between her and Remington? She couldn't say, really. He was clearly going to kiss her, which was thrilling in itself, but something more had passed between them. She knew almost nothing about him, yet found herself passing that long ride trying to imagine what his home must be like. Who was he when he was there? Was he different amidst the formalities of court? Would the sparkle in his eye and that half smile fade away under the scrutiny of an adoring people? Or was he always just Remington, confident and charming and sharp as a rose's thorn?

Hours passed in minutes with these thoughts, and before long the carriage began a long ascent into a range shrouded with powder-coated pines. She looked out across the valley, deep green at the bottom where it was not yet cold enough for snow. At the higher elevations, the emerald forests turned smoky white, and she was surprised to see the faint outline of the sun already dropping to the top of the far mountains. She had been drifting between dreams and daydreams for most of a day.

Finally, after climbing so high that the air became thin and sharp, the carriage swung onto a gravel path. There, perched at the end, was the manor house Evie had seen in her memory. But time had clawed away at it. It looked tired, the plaster cracked and some of the fir beams rotted. The once-beautiful gardens, draped in snow, were overgrown with weeds and dead things. The majesty of the estate was buried beneath rust and decay.

The carriage swung around and stopped. Malora shoved past Evie and raced up the walk to the entrance. She looked quite ashen, as though the long, jostling carriage ride had made her queasy.

“Here it is, Nicolina,” said Hardcastle. “Callahan Manor.”

Evie stepped out of the carriage, Hardcastle following behind, and took in the magnificent sweep of the horizon. The world fell away in nearly every direction, giving the manor impressive views over primeval forest valleys.

“It's Evie . . . please.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Evie. I'd forgotten. Come, let me show you your home.”

Wormwood busied himself with the baggage and horses. Hardcastle took Evie's hand in the crook of her elbow and walked her up the path. This was her ancestral home. The place she had been born.
This is where I lived with Countess Hardcastle and King Callahan and Malora,
she told herself, but it felt more like a story in a book than reality. Until—

A memory flashed into her consciousness. The manor was pristine, shimmering and polished and chirping with life. The King, bearded and jolly, sat atop his palfrey with Evie behind him. He fastened the picnic basket to one of his weatherworn saddlebags, then looked to Hardcastle, who stood in a vestibule off the side of the house. She blew a kiss and waved as the horse trotted toward a thin trail that disappeared into the woods . . .

The memory jarred Evie. Somehow she felt certain that as she rode away that day, it was the last time she would see Callahan Manor. Until now.

Hardcastle excused herself to light fires and warm the bones of the old house, so Wormwood guided Evie to her bedchamber. The Manor was dark and drab and filled with dusty relics and ornate furniture. He led her upstairs to her room at the end of the hall, bowed, and closed the door behind him with a soft click. At last, she was alone. She took a deep breath, hoping it might clear away some of the melancholy that had settled over her. It did not.

Her bed was massive, at least three times as big across as her bunk at the Academy. The walls were covered in faded brown oils of men in military uniforms and women with serious faces wearing tight, corseted dresses. An elegant armoire and matching dresser lined the walls. A mirror sat atop the dresser, dusty bottles of long-evaporated perfumes scattered beneath. She would have been perfectly happy to climb into that bed and sleep until morning, or perhaps even try to perch on the footboard, but Hardcastle had made it clear she expected to see more of her daughter after she had settled in. And so, she opened the door and went back down the staircase. She walked gently, as though she were sneaking somewhere she wasn't meant to be. No one seemed to be around, so she thought she might get some air. Through a tarnished glass door, she found a terrace of polished marble. She walked to the edge and peered over the balustrade, where a valley of trees fell away so sharply it took her breath away, and even more so when the setting sun peeked through the clouds and painted everything purple.

“It's magic, isn't it?” said Countess Hardcastle. She stepped to the balustrade next to Evie and looked out at the mountains. “This is where we were meant to live, all of us, happily to the end of our days.”

Evie said nothing. A hawk cried in the distance, its echo filling the valley with sorrow.

“It's quite cold out here, isn't it?” she continued. Evie smiled, but didn't respond. “Princess Beatrice says I'm to let you ease into life at your own pace, but I . . .” She paused to compose herself. “I want you to know I never stopped looking for you.”

Evie could feel Hardcastle studying her, but kept her eyes on the bloodred orb settling onto the horizon. It was the first time she had seen the sun since her return to the cave. Before the lance had pierced her sister's flesh.

“Is there anything you'd like to know? Anything at all? As I said, this must happen at
your
pace—”

“What became of my real father?”

“Ah . . . a rapid pace, then.”

“I'm sorry,” said Evie. She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but it was hard to know how to act.

“I assume you're referring to your father of the blood?”

“Yes. You said the King was my stepfather.”

“Indeed, that is so. As for your blood father, well, it was an arranged marriage, you see. I'm afraid I didn't really know him. He was killed by a giant before you ever entered this world.”

So she would never know her blood father. Truth be told, it didn't bother her, particularly since the dragon would always be her one true father, and, judging by her memories, she had loved and been loved by King Callahan as well. Her blood father felt so abstract in her heart as to be nothing more than a character in a story. True, the story was hers, but he simply wasn't a major player.

“It was only you and me until I met King Callahan. I'd received an invitation to a ball at his palace. We fell desperately in love. He, too, had lost a spouse, and when we married, he became your stepfather and I Malora's stepmother. He may not have been your blood, but that is how he loved you.

“When he . . .
died,
I went from Queen Hardcastle to Queen Dowager Hardcastle. As if it weren't painful enough to have lost him, I lost my name as well.
Dowager,
” she spat, shaking her head ruefully. “My new title became such a painful reminder of that awful day that I decided to go back to Countess.”

Evie stole a glance at her mother, who looked off at the sun, eyes glistening. She felt a wellspring of tenderness for this woman, for all the hardships she had endured in only a few years' time.
What would my life be like now had her vision of a happy future come to fruition?

“And now might I ask a question of you?”

“Of course,” said Evie.

Hardcastle smiled, as though ashamed of what was to come. “I don't quite know how to say it.” She turned to face Evie. “Might you consider . . . staying? Here with me, I mean. Princess Beatrice has agreed to let you reenlist next year—”

“
What?
”

“It's just that . . . I've only just got you back. The Academy might reopen tomorrow, the next day, the day after that . . . and I'll lose you all over again.”

Evie turned away, lines of worry etched across her forehead. Clouds had begun to encroach on the sun, like spider's silk around prey. “You won't lose me,” was all she could think to say.

Hardcastle paused, then joined her daughter in watching the sun's last light. “It's yours, you know. All of this.” She swept her arm across the wintry paradise below. “I'm just an old Queen Dowager, and I might not be around much longer.”

“You're not old.”