Fred and Ariana ran to the fallen men, Fred slinging one over his shoulder and Ari picking up the arms of the other, leaving the legs for Kyra.
The two girls heaved the limp body up and followed Fred and Langley toward the hidden entrance to the tunnel.
“Now, that,” Kyra said, pointing her chin to the guy they were carrying, “is a real mustache.”
“What are you talking about?” Ariana looked down at the bushy facial hair of the guard. “It looks just like mine.”
They had just reached the Goddess of Compassion when the quarter-hour bell began to ring.
“Fred, come help me with this.” Kyra dropped the guard’s legs and went to the shrine. Extending out from either side of the goddess statue was what looked like a large moss-covered stone base. She moved her hands under the flat rectangle. “Right here.” Fred placed his hands next to hers. “On the count of three, heave up.”
Fred’s shoulder brushed against Kyra’s as he positioned himself to lift the stone.
And a waft of that spicy-forest Fred smell hit her.
She shook her head—she didn’t have time to moon over her best friend’s fiancé. Why, she wondered, did he have to smell so tasty?
“One, two, three.” She and Fred lifted the stone up and to the side, revealing a staircase that led into darkness.
“Wow.” Fred looked down into the black hole. “I never would have known this was here. The moss is a nice touch.”
Kyra couldn’t help smiling at him as he slung the guard he’d been carrying back over his shoulder and disappeared down the hole.
When his head popped back into view, the girls passed down the second guard. Langley sniffed the edge of the opening and attempted a tentative step on the stairs. He pulled back and gave Kyra a heartbreaking look.
“He’ll be back, pal. Fred’s not going to leave you here alone.”
Fred reappeared, and Langley’s tail started wagging.
Fred hugged his wolf dog to his chest, then turned and carried him down.
“Ari, you head in,” Kyra told her. “I can get the top back on by myself.”
Ariana squeezed Kyra’s shoulder as she went past and scrambled down the stairs.
Kyra followed, steadying herself on the narrow steps before reaching up. The slab had been counterweighted in such a way that it was easier to reposition the stone from below than to lift it from above. Kyra’s muscles strained, but at last it thudded into place.
And cut off the sound of the next set of chapel bells ringing.
AT THE FOOT OF THE NARROW STAIRS, Fred and Ariana were each lighting a lantern they’d taken from hooks along the tunnel walls.
“There should be two sets of guards in this part of the castle,” Kyra whispered, her voice echoing softly in the confined space. “One set roams this wing of the palace, and the other is stationed just down the way at the doors to the main hall. If we time it right, we should be able to take out both sets of guards at the same time.”
They crept along the cool dark passage, Langley’s claws clicking against the cobbled floor. Fred’s and Ariana’s lanterns cast quivering shadows as they walked.
At the end of the tunnel they came to a dead end. To the right was a large hook to hang a lantern on, looping up to a curling iron head, but Kyra knew better. She pointed to the iron ring, whispered, “Lever,” and the princess put a hand on the loop in immediate understanding.
Kyra positioned herself, a needle in each hand, and listened for movement.
When the sound of footsteps grew close, Kyra nodded to Ariana. The princess pulled the ring, and the wall at the end of the hall swung open—it was a hidden door made of the same stone as the palace walls.
On the other side were two startled guards. Kyra stepped out and stabbed her needles into their arms, and they slumped to the ground.
“Hey!” shouted one of the two men posted outside the doors to the main hall. Kyra pulled her arm back and threw hard, her needle flying true and striking him in the shoulder. She followed that one with another needle.
Both men fell.
Kyra and her friends waited, listening for responses to the shout. When none came, they quickly moved to hide the bodies of the sleeping guards in the tunnel and pulled shut the secret door. It blended seamlessly.
They crouched down outside the closed doors of the main hall.
Kyra could hear the buzz of talk and laughter from inside. The duke liked people to enjoy themselves at the ducal palace—no one went hungry or lacked for entertainment behind these walls.
Ariana peeked through the crack between the heavy, carved wooden doors, a look of fascinated horror on her face. “She’s here, at the duke’s table at the far end. She’s wearing a poufy, baby blue dress and looks absolutely horrid. Ugh, do I really look like that?”
Fred squinted, his head to the side of Ariana’s. “How you look isn’t about the face you were born with, it’s what you do with it. Don’t worry, you don’t look anything like her.”
“Oh, my—Kitty, see who’s sitting next to the duke?”
Kyra pushed between the two royals and peered through the crack. “The Duchess Genria. Of all the times for her to choose to be by her husband’s side. Fred, you better hope she doesn’t recognize you as the slow fellow she met outside that barn.”
“Not with my Prince Frederick act.”
“Ready?” Kyra asked. They arranged themselves, Kyra to the left and Ari to the right of Fred, with Langley taking the lead.
Fred winked at Kyra.
Kyra and Ari pushed open the doors, allowing Fred to enter the hall.
The smoky air smelled of roasted meat and candle wax. There was a roaring open fire to one side, a dozen dining tables with chandeliers over them, and long tapestries hanging above the duke’s long table at the end of the hall.
Conversations in the room carried on as the three of them proceeded down the center aisle, but Kyra felt curious eyes on her as people checked out the group. She had to keep herself from reaching up to make sure her hat was as far down on her forehead as it could go.
When they were a half-dozen feet away from the duke, they were halted by two uniformed men. The duke was a robust-looking man with rosy cheeks and a round belly that filled out his evening garments. There was a giant platter of roasted meat in front of him, with fat candles guttering on either side. The crowd in the hall hushed.
The guards barred their way with long spears. To their left a soldier with curly black hair said, “Why weren’t you accompanied by the door crew?”
“I have my own accompaniment, thank you,” Fred said regally.
“Please state your name and business,” the guard said.
Kyra swept her arm in Fred’s direction and lowered her voice. “His Royal Highness, Prince Frederick Lantana the Third, of Arcadia.”
Fred inclined his head toward the duke. The older gentleman looked pleased but didn’t respond. As though he were waiting for something.
Kyra saw a flash of panic on Fred’s face. He gestured downward with his hand.
They were so busy trying to look like men, Kyra and Ari had forgotten their courtly manners. Kyra put her hand up on the far side of her face as a shield, just as Fred had taught her, and, without moving any closer to Ari, she whispered, “He wants us to bow.”
Ari put her hand up on the far side of her face and whispered back, “What?”
“Bow, you nitwit,” Kyra whispered louder, remembering to add a manly insult.
Several people in the hall tittered.
“Oh,” Ari said.
They both bowed low at the waist. When they came back up, Kyra noted that the duke had taken the opportunity to sneak a swig from his oversized wine goblet. The duchess’s eyes narrowed, and Kyra felt her stomach clench in response.
“Your Graces,” Fred began, addressing the duke and duchess with his chest puffed out. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to make your acquaintance. And, Your Highness, to finally see your beauty in person is an hon
or. I apologize for the lateness of my arrival. I have traveled across the Kingdom of Mohr, hoping to do my part to ensure the princess’s safety by tracking down her would-be assassin, but alas, I found nothing on my travels. I can only present my humble self to you and hope that it is enough.”
Kyra watched the fake princess, but couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“The prince!” the duke said, chuckling. “Finally. You had us worried, young man.”
The guards lowered their spears, and Fred took a few casual steps forward with his dog, Kyra, and Ariana right behind him.
“I am deeply grieved to hear it,” Fred said. “And shamed to say that I’ve had the time of my life. I have made the most interesting of acquaintances. I’ll allow them to introduce themselves.”
The duchess’s gaze on them didn’t soften, but the duke looked intrigued at the idea of being introduced to the two commoners in front of him.
Ariana stepped forward and whipped off her mustache. “Ha-HA!” she said.
Kyra shook her head. Ari was having way too much fun with this.
“Uncle, it is I, your niece, the real Princess Ariana!”
Gasps sounded from the crowd.
This was the distraction Kyra had been waiting for. She pulled out her throwing needle, but the fake princess had already found her feet and taken off, running toward the side door of the hall.
A nobleman at the end of the table lunged for Kyra as she bounded forward in pursuit of the fake princess, but she threw a side kick to his chest that sent him flying, and kept going.
Kyra’s hat flew off as she sped after the girl, and she heard more gasps as pieces of her long dark hair tumbled out of her bun and down her back.
She darted out the side door and into a narrow service hall, the light from the wall lanterns illuminating her path.
A glimpse of the princess’s baby blue dress flitted into the dark off to the right.
Kyra followed, but there were no lanterns lit down this hall, so she fished out her necklace. Even with its glow, she could only see a foot or so ahead.
Tick, tick, tick. A lady’s high-heeled shoes clicked somewhere in front of her.
A door slammed.
Kyra reached the end of the dark hall and felt the heavy studded metal bands on the door.
The dungeon.
Kyra opened the door and raced down the stairs in the dark, almost running into the false princess at the bottom of the steps. Kyra grabbed her wrist and jabbed a needle dipped in sleeping draft into her forearm.
The false princess didn’t react at all, except to look down curiously at the needle sticking out of her arm. “Hmm,” she said. “Not nice.”
Kyra’s next thought flew through her head like an arrow: I didn’t miss. My needle had flown true when I threw it at the princess at her party.
These obeeka creatures were immune to Doze. Even at full-fatal strength.
The glowing necklace around Kyra’s neck suddenly grew heavy, until it felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds.
The dark eyes of the false princess watched, smiling, as Kyra fell to her knees on the dungeon floor. “I guess you don’t have the best magic after all, Master Potioner.” She laughed and turned away. Her shoes tapped up the stairs, and the door slammed shut, echoing through the dungeon.
Kyra was alone in the darkness.
She tried to reach up to take the necklace off, but whatever made it so heavy also affected her body—her hands weighed too much to raise them to her chest. Soon Kyra was spread flat on her back, her arms and legs immobile against the damp stone beneath her. Even her skin felt leaden, the weight of her face dragging down her lips and stopping her from being able to scream.
Her mind moved slowly, as though the heaviness of her body somehow slowed down the processes of her brain too.
The necklace had been charmed to stop her if she grabbed the fake princess.
Why would Hal have planned to give her something like that? He’d said it was intended to be a gift. A gift for the relationship they’d had before. That didn’t make any sense. But…
He’d bought it at a new stall at the Saturday market.
New stall.
For being one of the smartest and most talented potioners around, sometimes Hal was so stupid.
Kyra’s move back to Wexford had alarmed whoever was behind this. And in order to stop the princess’s best friend, a known poisonous weapons expert, from interfering with the false princess, they’d taken a chance that Hal might give a shiny necklace to his fiancée.
Something scurried across the floor near Kyra’s head.
Her mind filled with images of rats and spiders and creepy-crawly things that lived in the dark. They could walk right across her without her being able to stop them. Ugh.
The door at the top of the stairs opened with a click. Footsteps pounded down.
A dog’s tongue licked the side of Kyra’s face.
Fred appeared above her. “Stay back, Langley.” He pulled the big dog away. “There’s something wrong with her. Kyra? Can you move?”
Fred. Lovely, lovely Fred.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He checked her eyes and ran his hands along her heavy arms. “It doesn’t seem like anything’s broken.”
He must figure this out.
“There has to be something going on here that I can’t see.”
The necklace—come on, Fred, it isn’t that hard, see the nice glowy thing on my chest?
“I need more light.” Kyra could hear him rifling through his bag, then he appeared above her again, his hair rumpled like he’d been rubbing his hands over it. “I wonder if it’s safe to move you.”
His lips moved as he was thinking, just slightly. She’d never have noticed it if she wasn’t completely immobile watching him.
He wasn’t going to figure this out.
She was going to be here forever.
“If I could just see around you, check for some signs of what kind of spell is doing this.”
His hands touched her necklace.
Yes!
“I’m just borrowing this so I can see if there’s anything on you that’s causing this. Don’t be mad, okay?”
Gently, he lifted the necklace from Kyra’s chest. Sliding one hand beneath her leaden head, he strained to pull her head up and slide the chain under.
Kyra gasped.
The enormous weight had been lifted. She sat up. “Thank the gods. I thought you’d never figure it out!”
“You are always so gracious when rescued.”
“Please, get rid of that thing.” Kyra glared at the necklace. “I don’t ever want to see it again. How did you find me?”
“I left Ari to explain things to the duke, and followed you to keep back any pursuers. I almost lost track of you, it was so dark! But then I saw a tiny, almost unnoticeable glow, and there you were. What happened to the fake princess?”
“There was some kind of spell on the necklace to stop me from hurting her. Once I dropped, she took off.”
The tick, tick, tick of a lady’s shoes sounded again on the stairs, causing them both to jump.
“Did you leave the door open?” Kyra whispered.
“Yes?”
“Damn.”
A long line of cells was behind them, but there was no back exit. Kyra slid a needle from her holster and braced herself. Fred quietly raised his staff.
The light from a lantern threw shadows on the wall.
The beautiful face of the Duchess Genria appeared.
Kyra slumped down. “Hi, Mom.”
WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE been anyone other than her mother? Fighting any one of the highly skilled guards at the castle would be preferable to dealing with the Duchess Genria.
The one nice thing Kyra could say about her mom was that she had forced her to become friends with her cousin Ariana—even if it was for a silly reason like sharing cosmetics charms.
Before that, Kyra hadn’t been allowed to meet her cousin at all, eve
n though her room in the palace was only three halls away. And two staircases, and a dumbwaiter.
But the queen hadn’t wanted to take any chances with her daughter, so only her husband, her sister the duchess, medical professionals, and Ariana’s nurse were allowed to see the princess.
The young Kyra would sit hidden under a staircase just down the hall from the princess’s room and wait to catch a glimpse of her.
More often than not, she heard only screeching and tantrums.
But who could blame her cousin for throwing tantrums when she was all locked up like that? Kyra was sure that if they met they’d be best friends. They were cousins, the same age, and they both lived in the palace. It was perfect.
So Kyra was forever grateful to her mother for helping her and the princess become best friends. But gratitude wasn’t the same as trust; she knew better than most that the Duchess Genria did nothing that didn’t benefit herself in some way.
The duchess descended the stairs to the dungeon slowly, each of her steps regal.
Fred bumped his shoulder against Kyra’s. “Did you just call the duchess ‘Mom’?”
“Um, yeah.”
The duchess stepped off the last step and addressed Kyra. “Why do you insist on trying to kill your cousin?”
“I’m not trying to kill my cousin!”
The duchess raised one fine eyebrow. “Just now you chased the princess through the hall. Don’t tell me you weren’t trying to kill her.”
“Mother,” Kyra said, “if you ever listened to me at all, you would know that something strange was going on with Ariana. That person I was chasing isn’t my cousin. Didn’t you notice that there was another Ariana who was WITH me?”
“Can we back up a minute?” Fred asked. “The duchess is your mother? I thought you said you’d run away from home.”
“You told him you ran away from home?” the duchess said.
“I did!”
The duchess chuckled. “Well, you didn’t run very far, did you, dear? The Potions Academy is practically connected to the castle.”