“Az, what is this place?” Bramble looked up, gaping. The tallest of the silver trees disappeared into a mist.
“I think it’s the palace,” Azalea managed to say.
Bramble arched a thin red eyebrow, grinning. “Not our boot-blackened palace! No wonder we were never told about this passage—we’d never come back up!”
Bramble was right. Azalea touched a swath of ribbon and pearls, feeling the knobbly string between her fingers. She hadn’t expected to find so much magic, and all beneath their room!
The girls slowly walked down the path; everything was quiet, muffled, as though in a snowfall. Every so often, Azalea reached out to touch a silver-white branch or a teardrop ornament, just to remind herself she wasn’t dreaming.
Ahead, the silver branches of a large willow tree curtained the end of the path. Nearing it, they heard the tinkling of a music box playing faintly in the air. Quiet as it was, all the girls looked about them, eyebrows raised. When they drew closer, the timbre of the music changed. It became fuller, fleshing to a soft three-quarter-time orchestral melody. Azalea’s feet itched to twirl.
“It’s coming from beyond the willow,” Delphinium whispered.
Azalea stepped to the glistening silver leaves. She slipped her hand between the branches and parted them.
The girls gasped.
The path did not end. It rose into a dainty arched bridge, leading to the center of a silver-lilac pond. The water cast dancing white reflections all about the bridge.
And, at the end of the bridge, silver vines curling over white latticework and reaching to the top of its domed roof, stood a pavilion. Filled with dancers!
Ladies, dressed in bright silks and chiffons billowing with each step. They spun and twirled, their colorfully dressed partners taking their hands and sweeping them into the dance.
Azalea pulled away from the willow branches, and they fell back into place. Suddenly she was frightened. This was too much magic, magic Mother surely hadn’t known about.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Azalea. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“What?” cried the girls.
“I beg your pardon,” said Bramble. “We shouldn’t be here? What about them? Cutting about in our palace? Why weren’t we jolly well invited?”
“Who are they?” Clover stammered.
“I don’t know,” said Azalea. “But it doesn’t feel right.” She suddenly wished they hadn’t come.
“I want to get a closer look!” said Delphinium, and she pushed past Azalea, through the willow leaves before Azalea could even start to grab her back.
“Me, too!” cried Hollyhock.
Azalea grasped her arm, but Hollyhock writhed free and ran after Delphinium. In a rush, all the girls ran past Azalea, disappearing through the willow leaves. Panicked, Azalea dove through the silver after them, over the arched bridge.
To her relief, however, the girls didn’t leap up the pure white stairs to the dance floor, but instead scampered into the bushes about the outside, making them rustle with a faint clinking sound. Azalea only had a moment of shock before Bramble burst from the silver leaves, grabbed Azalea about the waist, and yanked her in. In a whirl of silver Azalea found herself on her back in a patch of silver-spun rose bushes. A branch dug into her spine. The girls grinned down at her.
“Just like old times,” said Bramble, grinning and pulling Azalea partly up. “We’ll call this one the Great Leftover D’Eathe Magic Scandal.”
“How about the Great We’re Going To Get Caught Scandal?” Azalea whispered crossly.
“Oh, do stop whining,” said Delphinium as they nudged her to the edge of the pavilion among the foliage, abloom with silver roses and pearls. “Have you ever seen such dancing in all your life?”
Kneeling up and peeking through the lattice, Azalea’s temper dissolved. She inhaled the scene like a sugar dessert. The ladies wore dresses she only dreamed of, brocade and gold trim, with towering white plumed wigs. The gentlemen wore frilled cravats about their necks and brightly colored waistcoats. Nothing like the conservative, boring black suits of Eathesburian gentlemen.
“Are they real?” Eve whispered. “It feels almost…hollow.”
The girls ducked as a couple swished near the ledge. The lady’s massive skirts should have caused a breeze, but Azalea felt nothing.
“Magic,” she whispered.
“Magic or not,” Delphinium whispered, “we really should have been invited to this. It’s our palace, after all.”
Azalea felt a tug on her nightgown sleeve and found Ivy pointing with insistence to the dessert table at the far side of the pavilion. It had been set with iced buns, treacle tarts, candied plums, chocolate-dipped strawberries, linen napkins with lace at the edges. A dark-gloved hand plucked one of the napkins from the pile, and Azalea’s heart stopped.
A gentleman stood there, by the table. He was dressed all in black. Not boring black, but dashing black. One so smooth that stars would have gotten lost in it. He wore a costume of a long waistcoat and a sweeping cloak that brushed the edge of the marble.
It complemented his face, a specter of high cheekbones with hints of long dimples. His midnight hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and his eyes—even across the distance—blazed pure black. Azalea had never seen anyone so…beautiful.
While Azalea stared, the gentleman took the lacy napkin in his long fingers and ripped it in half. With ease, as though it was made of paper. He doubled up the pieces, halved them again, then again, until they were just tiny bits. Then he raised his hands to his lips, and blew.
The pieces fluttered, transforming into sparkling bits of snow, swirling over the dancers. The girls sighed in awe.
“Who is he?” whispered Flora and Goldenrod at the same time.
“No idea,” Azalea whispered. “But he’s real.”
The gentleman’s eyes swept over the scene and, in a fleeting moment, stopped on the lattice the girls peeked through. On Azalea.
Azalea’s heart jumped in her throat, and she ducked into the bushes, pressing up against the side of the pavilion. She waited for her heartbeat to slow down enough that she could distinguish the beats from one another, then dared another peek through the lattice.
This time, her eyes met black boots. She bit back a gasp and craned her neck.
The gentleman was leaning on the railing, looking into the distance. He hadn’t seen them! Azalea covered Lily’s tiny mouth as they all stared up at him, frozen.
The gentleman released a sigh. A long, sad sigh, as though torn from the depths of his soul. Then, abruptly, he walked away. The girls exhaled.
“That,” whispered Bramble, “was close.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
This time no one argued. They crawled to the bridge and were nearly to the steps, when Azalea glanced up at the dancers one last time—
And saw Ivy among them.
She stood just next to the dessert table and had helped herself to a plate, a napkin, and every goody she could reach. She beamed as she piled cream bun after chocolate roll on her already-stacked plate. No one had noticed her, either, not even the gentleman, who stood at the other side of the pavilion, taking a dancer’s hand. Her small white-nightgowned form blended in with the tablecloth.
“Oh, no,” whispered Delphinium. “No no no!”
“Blast it, Ivy, do you always have to eat?” seethed Bramble.
Azalea stood as high as she dared and tried to catch Ivy’s eye. It seemed to take hours. Ivy hummed and licked her lips and picked up a dough ball that had rolled off her plate.
When Ivy did finally look over at the entrance, Azalea motioned desperately. Ivy blinked, nodded at Azalea, set her plate on the floor, took the hem of her nightgown, and brought it up so it made a basket. Her chubby little legs skipped to the table, where she proceeded to gather enough food in her nightgown to share with all of them.
“No, Ivy, no,” Azalea moaned. “That was a come here motion!”
And t
hen Ivy, her skirt heavy and swinging with foodstuffs, walked straight across the dance floor.
“They might not see her,” whispered Delphinium. “They might not. She’s small enough—”
The dancers screamed.
Skirts rustled, heels clattered against the marble, masking the entrance. The music-box orchestra clicked and ground to a stop, as though something had caught in the gears. In all the frenzy and billow of skirts, Azalea heard Ivy’s tiny five-year-old voice cry:
“Lea!”
Azalea sprung.
“Over the bridge!” she yelled. The girls untangled themselves from the bushes, tripping over one another as they fled. Azalea leaped up the pavilion stairs and shoved her way through the dancers, who screamed again. Ivy stood in the middle of the floor, clutching her nightgown hem to her chest, her chin quivering.
Azalea skidded to Ivy and grabbed her around the middle, scattering tarts everywhere. Ivy let out a cry. Azalea ran. Her soot-streaked nightgown flapped against her legs and her hair streamed out behind her as she dashed to the entrance. The dancers backed away—
—and disappeared.
“My lady! Wait!”
Azalea rushed down the stairs and stumbled to the bridge.
“Please, my lady!”
She careened into the girls at the arch of the bridge, and they scrambled to find their footing.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll make you stop.”
Azalea dared a glance back at the gentleman. Kneeling on the stairs, he dipped a gloved hand into the water.
A rushing, gushing pouring rumbled through the mist.
The girls shrieked as water streamed and frothed over the lower ends of the bridge. They fled back to the middle arc, water surging past the willow branches and lapping at their heels. In just seconds, the lake rose to the top of the pavilion stair, enveloping the silver rosebushes and locking the girls on the bridge’s arched center.
The water settled. The willow branches floated. The girls huddled to Azalea.
“I said please.” The gentleman stood. He was breathless, pale, as though he had exerted himself to sickness. He leaned against the doorway lattice, panting. “Aren’t you supposed to do what I say, when I say please?” He removed his wet glove, finger by finger, then wrung it out. Drops plinked into the lake.
“This is my only pair,” he said. “I do hope you’re happy.”
Azalea opened her mouth to stammer out an apology, or a cry, or anything, but the words caught in her throat. The younger girls clung to her nightgown skirt. The gentleman, still breathless, eased into a smile, and then into the most graceful bow Azalea had ever seen. His arm swooped behind him.
He laughed as he straightened.
“My ladies,” he said. “Do forgive me. Did I frighten you? Oh, dear, I must have. Look at you, all huddled together like that.”
The girls kept their mouths clamped shut.
“You’re pale as pearls,” said the gentleman. His voice was smooth as chocolate. “You must forgive me. Only it is the first time I have seen real people since the High King D’Eathe.”
CHAPTER 8
The reflections of the rippling water danced over them, casting highlights onto the lavender mist.
“D’Eathe,” Clover stammered.
“You’re old!” said Hollyhock.
“No one can live for over two hundred years,” said Eve, tugging on the ends of her dark hair. “It’s impossible.”
The gentleman laughed, though it had an edge to it.
“I am old,” he said. “The inside of me is cracked and faded with dust. But I am not dead. And—I am not living, either. I am…undead.”
The girls cast one another confused glances. Azalea remembered the stories she’d heard about the High King. He could capture the deads’ souls….
“It is difficult to explain,” said the gentleman. “But I owe you this much. Please.”
In a sleek, silky movement, the gentleman produced dainty teacups on saucers by cupping his hands together and unfolding them. Each teacup filled to the brim with tea; he slipped them into the water and blew, sending them drifting and bobbing to the girls like candles on tiny boats.
The girls scooped up the saucers from the water, all exclamations, and Ivy had slurped the last drop from her teacup before Azalea could stop her, smacking her lips with delight. Sighing, Azalea cautiously took a sip of tea. The flavor of butter and berries melted over her tongue, leaving nothing to swallow. Magic tea.
“I am a highborn gentleman,” he said as they pressed the teacups between their hands. “A lord. When the High King D’Eathe reigned, I was a member of his court.”
The girls inhaled a tight, hard breath, all at the same time. The gentleman smiled, tight-lipped.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I was his friend, even. Ah, do take heart. I am not so villainous. I was only a boy.”
And then he spun a story with his smooth chocolate voice, so enthralling the girls forgot the teacups clasped in their hands and hung on every word.
Azalea imagined their small country when the gentleman had been young, with the city’s streets dirt and not paved, with the wood wild and the palace new.
“I was young,” he said quietly. “And a fool. The High King had made an apprentice of me, teaching me charms and bits of magic. But he went mad, surely you know of this. When I heard of what he did to souls—” The gentleman touched a finger to a vine at the arched doorframe, tracing it, thoughtful. “Well—I joined the rebellion, naturally.”
The pieces congealed in Azalea’s mind. The same rebellion headed by her ninth great-grandfather, Harold the First. Azalea listened, rapt.
“It was a betrayal the High King refused to suffer.” The gentleman’s long fingers closed over a silver leaf and snapped it from the vine. “I was found, naturally. I was no contest for his magic. And it wasn’t good enough for him to simply kill me. Instead, within his fine magic palace, he magicked me here. I was made the keeper of this pavilion. Because, more than anything, the High King loved to dance.”
Eve choked on her tea.
Bramble said, “You’re making that up!”
Flora said, “Was dancing even invented back then?”
The gentleman laughed.
“You like dancing, do you?” he said. “You would have been impressed with the High King. Every night he brought his court to dance in this pavilion. And I, a part of it, tending to it, the servant and fool of the High King. Humiliating.
“And then, after countless nights of dancing, the High King and his court vanished. In some trick of magic, I, too, faded into the walls and foundations of this building, a helpless piece of thought among the bricks and granite. Only recently have I been released enough to become keeper again, though still nothing more than a piece of magic, like this pavilion, and still unable to go beyond these steps. So it is.”
The gentleman finished, smiling sadly. Azalea grasped her teacup in her hand, feeling the porcelain beneath her fingers. Trapped…the gentleman had been confined to the palace—just like them.
“You poor thing,” said Flora.
“Are—are you hungry?” said Clover. “Do you need food—or—anything?”
The gentleman laughed. “Why, you charming little thing,” he said. “No. I am quite all right.”
Azalea said, “What is your name?”
The gentleman’s black eyes turned to Azalea. They took in her shabby, soot-streaked nightgown and her auburn hair, unpinned to her waist. A hint of a smile graced his lips as Azalea, flushing pink, pulled Lily closer to hide herself.
“Keeper,” he said. “That is what I was called by the High King. I have no other name anymore.”
Keeper. An unusual name, for a most unusual story, and a most mysterious gentleman.
“Pray forgive me,” said Mr. Keeper. His long dimples appeared as he smiled. “I will lower the water presently and let you free. But please, may I have the honor of asking who you all are?”
Azalea flushed, rememberi
ng her manners. She curtsied and introduced them all, from herself—“Azalea Kathryn Wentworth, Princess Royale”—to Bramble, Clover, Delphinium, Evening Primrose, Flora, Goldenrod, Hollyhock, Ivy, Jessamine, Kale, and tiny Lily, now asleep on Clover’s shoulder. Each girl bobbed a curtsy at her name, and Eve gave the “But I’m just Eve, really, not the Primrose part,” which she said at every introduction. The gentleman gave them each a bow, so graceful he rippled.
“Wentworth,” he said. He smiled.
The pavilion shimmered in the silver mist, and the magic lulled them. Jessamine yawned and leaned against Clover’s leg, and Kale curled up in a little ball at Azalea’s feet. Azalea knew they had to leave but wished they didn’t. Her eyes met the Keeper’s, across the lilac-silver pond, and he still kept the smile on his lips.
“Princess Azalea Kathryn Wentworth,” he said. “Look in your pocket.”
Azalea touched her nightgown pocket, feeling a flat, stiff piece of paper. Puzzled, she pulled out an envelope embossed with silver swirls. The girls leaned in and gave oohs as she broke the seal and unfolded it.
The Princesses of Eathesbury
are
formally invited to attend
a ball
tomorrow night
courtesy of
the Pavilion Keeper
“Was it a dream?” said Flora, the next morning, snuggling into her pillow. All the girls had slept late and awakened with excitement shining in their eyes.
“No dream,” said Bramble, grinning a sleepy, wry grin. She scuffed the floor near the fireplace. “Dreams don’t leave sooty footprints.”
A fizz of delight sparked in the air. A great tingle of excitement they hadn’t felt since the Yuletide. Azalea felt for the invitation in her nightgown pocket—and found nothing. Magic, again.
The girls chattered sleepily over a breakfast in the nook, stirring their porridge but too thrilled to eat it. Azalea insisted they at least try to eat, before lessons began.
“It’s so…unusual,” said Clover, turning her spoon in her mush, her pretty face almost aglow. “That gentleman…”
“Mmm!” said Delphinium. “That gentleman!”
Warmth rushed to Azalea’s ears as she thought about the gentleman; the way he glided across the floor, the way he blew on the bits of napkin in his hand and how they had swirled into snowflakes, how his dark eyes had taken her in.