Broken Crowns (8 page)

He throws open the heavy wooden doors, and Prince Azure rises up from the wing chair. He is dressed in the fashions of this world: a plaid sport jacket with a silk handkerchief in his pocket, and gray pants with sharp creases. But even in the foreign fashion, something about his posture makes me think of home.

“May I present to you Prince Azure of Internment,” King Ingram says.

Basil and I feign surprise. He nods into a bow, I into a curtsy.

“Your Highness,” Nim says. “Welcome to Havalais.”

“Such formality!” King Ingram says. “It's nice to see young people with a regard for custom. Refreshing. But please sit. Sit!”

I sit on the same couch cushion as I did the very first time I met the king, Basil at one side and Nimble at the other.

It has been mere hours since I saw Prince Azure, but he looks the worse for wear. Or perhaps it's only that the lantern light concealed his true condition. He is pale, with light purple bags under his eyes that have been dabbed over with cosmetics. He seems smaller in the daylight, regal but still frail. His hair has grown a bit longer, and a lock of it is doing little to conceal a series of pink scars at his right temple.

He meets my eyes but offers neither a smile nor a frown. A politician's neutral gaze, so much like his father. “I've heard quite a bit about this world, and I'm glad for the opportunity to see it myself,” he says.

“Yes, yes, we have quite the itinerary planned,” King Ingram says. “Tomorrow afternoon, we'll be presenting our Prince Azure to the rest of the kingdom. My staff is already at work organizing the festivities. There will be radio announcements broadcast today at the top of every hour.”

“Plans?” Nimble says.

The king looks to Basil and me. “Well, yes, of course. Our Havalais has fallen on some dark times, I think you'd agree. Warfare, bombings, deaths, and devastation. Of course the phosane mining will fix that, and soon enough peace will be restored. That's all well and good, isn't it? But all of that is a lot to take in, and the people will need a bit of a morale boost, yes? Someone to cheer for.”

“Morgan and Basil have expressed a willingness to help, of course,” Nim says. “Father said he spoke with you about that.”

“Yes, yes, of course, and I'm so glad. And I know just how they can help.” King Ingram reaches out and grabs Basil and me each by the left hand, and holds up our ring fingers like a pair of identical trophies. “Love,” he whispers excitedly. “It's the biggest thing our two worlds have in common. You two are the perfect representatives for your world. You are young, vibrant, hopeful, in love. You're a prime example of what life on your floating city is all about.”

My mouth and throat have gone dry, and I can see my hand paling in the king's grasp. On the surface, he's correct. Basil and I have always been what we were expected to be. Basil still is. I'm the one who has strayed. I'm the one who daydreamed about the edge and admired the sharp angles of another boy's face and throat in the moonlight. I'm the one who has left the pair of us in limbo, wondering what we are and what we will be.

The king releases our hands, and we withdraw.

Nimble senses our trepidation and does the asking for us. “What is it they're expected to do?”

“Well, obviously the pair of you will not be involved in anything dangerous. No. You'll only be asked to appear before a crowd, read a few prepared speeches, and smile.”

“We'd be honored,” Basil says, without any resentment at all. I'm proud of him for that. I know how much he hates the king; I saw it in his eyes after the bombing at the harbor. It is the same hatred he has for our own king, who has taken the same liberties with the lives of his own citizens. This whole ordeal has made us all quite wary of kings.

But if Basil can fake it, so can I. If wearing a pretty dress and speaking some pretty words will keep us all safe, I will happily oblige. We're getting off quite easily, I think.

And then King Ingram says, “And after the festivities here, the pair of you will return home.”

I open my mouth to speak, but words don't form. I can only try to subdue the alarm that is surely washing over my face. Only the two of us?

Basil is once again the steady one. “We're going back to Internment?”

“You'll meet with my father,” Prince Azure says. “You'll oversee the phosane mining and speak to the workers.”

I look at Prince Azure and just for a moment I see it—a glimmer of fear in his eyes. Worry. Dread. He, too, is a captive of King Ingram.

But it is not safe to ask my questions, and I may never have all my answers anyway. What I do know is that Basil and I are in for something much bigger than festivities. And home will not be as we left it.

King Ingram's staff works quickly. By the time we make the drive back to the hotel, the capital city of Havalais is already hanging banners welcoming the Sky Prince. A stage is being set up before the library.

I look away, down at my betrothal band. It is made of glass and a bit of the phosane this world so desires. It is identical to all the other betrothal bands on Internment. I wonder at the factory worker who crafted this exact ring. That person would never have dreamed what trouble a little ring could cause.

Tears threaten in my eyes and I force them away. Now is not the time to show weakness. I make myself feel nothing.

The driver brings us to the front door, and I do not want to get out of this car. I do not want to face Alice and my brother, and especially Pen, to tell them that I will be returning home without them, and I do not know for how long, and I do not know if I will be back.

Nimble exits the car first, and then he opens the door for me, and reluctantly I step out into the calm, tepid air.

He pats my shoulder in some small gesture of reassurance. “I'm going to walk into the city and visit with Birdie,” he says. “I'll tell her you said hello?”

I smile. That does lift my spirits a little. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Attagirl,” he says. “See you later.”

“We don't have to go inside,” Basil says once we're alone. “We could stay out here for a little longer.”

I look at him. “We got what we wanted, didn't we? I should be happy.”

“It's still rather a shock to hear it. And I know that you were expecting Pen to come along.” He glances at the sky and then back to me. “I've spent all these months trying to decide if I'd go back, given the chance. It was foolish of me to think I'd have a choice. That any of us would.”

“You'll get to see your parents and brother again,” I offer, trying to be optimistic. But I worry the words sound bitter. My own mother is gone, and I have no way of knowing whether my father is still alive, or if he's being tortured by the king for his treason.

“Whatever we face, we'll get through it,” is all Basil says.

“I'm not scared to go home,” I say. It's the truth. Whatever dread I might harbor for that jet ride back home is less than the anticipation and the not knowing. “It's Pen I'm worried about. I've got to go in there and tell her I'm going to leave her behind.”

Basil has nothing to say to this. He has always had words of comfort for me in the past, no matter how bad things were, and no matter how undeserving I may have been of his patience at the time. But for this one thing there are no words of comfort.

Tears threaten again. I ball my hands into fists and I refuse to let them free. I take a deep breath. “Best to get this over with, then,” I say, and climb the steps and push open the door.

Everyone is in the lobby
with questions for us. Everyone but my brother, who never leaves his room, and Pen.

Basil offers to tell everyone what's happened, freeing me to look for Pen so that I might speak to her alone.

I find her upstairs on her bed, staring at one of Birdie's old catalogs.

“These drawings are magnificent,” Pen says without looking up. She traces the outline of a plumed hat. “They could almost be images. I'm envious of the realism.”

“I much prefer your drawings,” I say. “Pen?”

She turns the page.

“Pen, there's something I need to speak to you about.”

“I will say I don't understand all the plaids,” she says. “It's all the men wear. It gets boring. Do they not see that? Back home I always thought Thomas looked more handsome in pinstripes. Well, not handsome, but, you know—acceptable.”

I sit on the edge of her bed, and she winces. “Pen.”

She closes the catalog and places her hands down on the cover, as though she is trying to keep something trapped within the pages. With difficulty, she says, “What is it?”

Now it's my turn to look at the cover of the catalog in her lap. The drawing of the woman is lifelike. She has dark lips and white teeth, and she's wearing a coat that looks three sizes too big, with pockets big enough to smuggle melons. But in her own way she's glamorous, without a care, much like the Piper children's mother hiding behind the cemetery trees at Riles's funeral. “Do you think Birdie would mind if I kept that?” I ask.

In answer, Pen tosses it into my lap.

“Thank you,” I say. I trace my index finger from corner to corner. “Pen, King Ingram is sending Basil and me back to Internment alone.”

She is very still, the way she gets some nights when Thomas looks in on her and she pretends to be sleeping. After a moment she reminds herself to breathe, as though waking from a trance, and it's a sharp painful sound.

“I knew it was going to be that,” she says.

“He means to use Basil and me as war symbols. He thinks people in Havalais and Internment will be more trusting of two young people in love. He thinks it will give everyone something to hope for.”

“Are you in love now?” Pen says. “That's news to me.”

“I don't know. That isn't the point.”

“Isn't it?” she says coolly. “If two kingdoms are going to rest their hopes on two young people in love, shouldn't they be in love?”

“I love Basil, you know that I do.”

“But that's not quite the same thing as being in love, is it?”

I press my lips together, hard. I don't want to fight with her.

I don't think Pen wants to fight either, and in the silence that falls between us, I feel her anger melting away. “When will you leave?”

“The king is planning festivities this week for Prince Azure's arrival. I suspect it will be after that.”

“When will you be back?”

“He didn't say.”

“Will you be back?”

I don't want to say the words, but I have to, not just for Pen, but for myself, so I can accept what is happening. “I don't know.”

There is no color left in Pen's cheeks, no life in her eyes. There was a single day back on Internment when I disappeared and she was told I was dead. She was broken when I found her again, but this is worse than that. She betrays no signs of life now, save for a bottom lip that has begun quivering.

“You know that all of this young-lovers nonsense is a lie King Ingram is telling you and the rest of the two kingdoms,” she says.

“Yes,” I say.

“You know that he's probably done something horrible to the princess. Maybe she's even dead.”

Sickness in my stomach. “Yes. I know.”

Her voice cracks. “You know that whatever he's done to the princess to make her disappear, he's going to do the same to you and Basil.”

“We're not going to play this game,” I say. “We're just going to see what happens.”

“No, you'll see what happens. I'll be down here wondering. I'll always wonder and I'll never know if you're hurt, or—or dead, or—”

“Or perfectly fine. Stop it.”

There are tears glittering in her eyelashes, and she draws one quick breath after another. I grab her hands, clammy, ice cold. It takes all my strength not to fall apart too, not because of what horrors may or may not await me in the sky, but because I don't want to leave her on the ground in this state.