Burning Kingdoms (13 page)

Those things all feel small and as faraway as a star. I couldn’t have known about what was soon to happen.

“All I want to do is fix it,” I say.

“The princess thinks aerial technology is advancing,” he says. “Maybe one day.”

“We might all be worse off for that,” I say. “I’ve sort of begun to hope it doesn’t happen.” The weight of my sorrow and guilt is threatening to crush me, and I stand, as though that can rid me of it. “I’ll go find some lunch for you,” I say.

I’m happy to see Alice in the kitchen, helping the cook arrange a tray of pastries. She has been fastened to Lex’s side since we arrived, but she can stay idle for only so long. She was out of their room for a bit yesterday, too, telling stories to the younger children and playing games with them.

“How’s Basil feeling?” she asks me.

“Hungry. I came in to find something.”

“I thought he might be,” she says. “I’ve set aside some soup in the cold box. Give me a few minutes to heat it up.”

“It’s okay. I can do it,” I say, even though I’ve no idea how to use this unfamiliar stove and was never much use even with the one I was familiar with back home.

And it is a peculiar stove, mint green with cabinets and six burners.

“Love, let me help you,” Alice says.

“I’m his betrothed,” I say, more snappily than I intended. “I should be able to at least boil soup if he’s hungry.” I have to believe these little gestures mean something, that this ring I wear still means we are to care for each other, whether or not there’s a law down here that says we should.

I manage to heat the soup without burning down the hotel, and whether or not it’s any good, Basil downs it without complaint while I sit on the window ledge, the portrait of a sullen girl against a world that is slowly prevailing beneath the snow.

“Something is on your mind,” Basil says.

“Lots of things are on my mind,” I say.

“Besides the obvious things, I mean. Is it something to do with last night?”

He’s finished the soup now, and I set the bowl on the night table and climb onto the bed beside him. He wraps his arm around me and I close my eyes. There is still comfort in his touch. It gives me hope that we will find some normalcy in this world.

I tell him all about the telescope, and the planets, and the grand dream these people have of walking on the moon. I tell him all of this. But I don’t betray the confidence of Internment’s princess, or my best friend, who are at each other’s throats, with me in the middle. I don’t tell him how powerless I feel, and how very much to blame.

All I say at the end is, “I don’t know what to do.” It’s become my mantra. My head is aching from that gin, and my mouth is dry. And what a mess I am. Not at all the one who can carry on my parents’ legacy.

Basil can sense that there’s more than I’m letting on. But he doesn’t press, and I’m grateful for that. He’s the only one on this planet who doesn’t see me as a place to keep secrets, it seems. And he is always so patient with me.

“Rest,” he says.

“Shouldn’t I be telling you that?” I say.

He kisses the crown of my head. “You need to hear it more than I do.”

It’s the last thing that’s spoken between us before we drift off. I’m able to pretend that the comfort of his arms is the only thing, and that when we both fall asleep, we’re in a world of our own.

It’s dark when I awaken, and I’m feeling worse for the sleep. My headache has doubled, and all I want is a hot bath and to go to bed, preferably without another spat between my roommates.

Basil’s sleep is a heavy one, and it doesn’t seem fitful anymore. His fever has gone down, but I bring a cold cloth for his forehead before I go upstairs. I want him to know that I am still here to care for him.

Celeste opens the bathroom door just as I was reaching for the handle. “Oh, Morgan, good,” she says. “Just the one I wanted to talk to.”

“Me?” I say.

She looks over my shoulder at the hallway of closed doors, any one of which can be filled with listening ears. She leads me into the bathroom, closes the door behind us.

“Tomorrow, I’m to see King Ingram,” she says. “I wanted to invite you along. He’s determined that the metal bird poses a risk. He doesn’t want King Erasmus to realize we’re here, so he’s going to move it, whether or not the professor comes out.”

“That should be a sight to see,” I say.

“I suppose, if you’re interested in that sort of thing,” Celeste says. “That’s not what I’m going for, really. I was hoping to speak with the king, is all.”

I should go, if only to be aware of the king’s plans. But I hate this role I’ve fallen into, in which I must watch the princess’s futile attempts to save her mother while I’m to quietly try to sabotage it for the sake of keeping the entire city of Internment safe. “What are you speaking with him about?” I say.

“The truth is, I don’t think he sees Internment as a substantial ally in this war. Nimble has spoken with him since our last visit, and it seems it would drain too many resources trying to focus all their attention into their aircrafts. Their technology is already ahead of King Erasmus’s on that front.”

“What about all that business of you being the heiress presumptive and him being a fool not to help?”

“All of that still stands,” she says. “But it’s taking a backseat to the war. He’s spoken to his advisers since our meeting and now feels that his responsibility is solely to his own kingdom while it needs him the most.”

I can’t seem to look away from the tiles. “I don’t see how I could change his mind,” I say. “You hold more status than I do.”

“I could use your support, as a fellow citizen of Internment,” she says. The hope in her voice is too much. “And—well. As someone who understands what it’s like to have lost someone.”

That gets my attention. Suddenly I’m finding it hard to breathe.

She goes on, “My father is very stubborn. He’s afraid of the ground and afraid of advancement. And when my mother became ill with the sun disease, he implored every sort of treatment our doctors have to offer. But of course the treatments all did nothing. She grows weaker by the day.”

“She has sun disease, then,” I say. It’s the same as a death sentence. It begins as a small boil and it multiplies until it has drawn all the color and all the life from a person.

Celeste grabs my hands, startling me. She holds them between our chests and I could swear I feel her pulse throbbing in her fingertips. “What Pen said isn’t true. I had nothing to do with your parents. My brother and I have never had any say in my father’s decisions, and while I’d like to deny that my father is to blame, I believe it.”

I focus on the shiny gray flowers printed on the wall. Tears are threatening their way up.

“That’s another part of it,” Celeste says, her voice softening, the desperation becoming less prominent. “My father has made panicked, corrupt decisions to keep his kingdom from interacting with the ground. But if he could only see that there’s an alliance to be made, all of that could stop.”

I swallow something painful. “How can you be sure the alliance would turn out well?”

“How sure can one ever be of anything?” she asks. “But we have no other choice.”

“You said you hoped we could be friends,” I say. “As your friend, then, I think you should be prepared for your plan to fail. Have you given that a moment’s consideration? You might be stuck in this world for the rest of your life. We all might.” I say the words gently, but it doesn’t take the edge from them.

She squeezes my hands. “That sort of thinking doesn’t serve me,” she says. “If I’m to accomplish something this big, I have to be certain I’ll succeed, every second of every day.”

She kidnapped me against my will, I remind myself. She threatened to kill me. I have no business pitying her. I have no business wanting to help her.

“I’ve invited you to come along tomorrow,” she says. “The decision is yours, but I do hope you’ll say yes.”

She lets go of my hands and opens the door. “If you’re going to have a bath, be sure to let the water run for a few seconds. It comes out cold.”

With that, she’s gone.

Before I go to bed, I check in on Lex and Alice, whose life in this world is parallel to their life on Internment. Lex mutters fiction to his transcriber while Alice patiently holds their marriage in place like a taut length of twine around a stack of old love letters.

“Good night,” she says, and kisses my cheek and whispers, “He’s grieving, and this is a strange place. He’ll come around soon.”

“Good night, Lex,” I say. “You remember me, don’t you? Your only sister?”

He raises his voice to the transcriber, drowning me out.

I used to worry when he behaved this way, but now it just makes me angry.

I am the only one in the hotel incapable of sleep tonight. Even Pen succumbed rather early, complaining of a headache. She blamed the princess for her headache and dragged the changing screen between their beds. Birdie, still hungover from the night before, spent the entire day feigning a stomach virus to ward off her father’s suspicions. She doesn’t come to our room and it’s clear there will be no adventures tonight.

I listen to the clock ticking on the nightstand. Time is the same on the ground. Months and days, too. I had expected more differences between us and them, but all the differences are cultural. They have two eyes like us. They have a beating heart like us. And Birdie’s friendship has been as easy and natural as it would have been had we met on Internment.

But when I look to the future, I’m not certain I see myself here. Nor am I certain I could see myself returning home. I feel very much that I am floating in a sky full of stars, with nothing to cling to.

And sleep will surely never come. When I can take it no longer, I climb out of bed and make sure the bedroom window isn’t locked, in case I’ll need it later. I quietly make my way to the kitchen and fold some apples and slices of bread into a cloth napkin, and I head for the metal bird.

I’ve taken these streets enough times now that I remember where the bird landed. It’s far from the city proper, so there are no streetlamps to light the way. But that’s no matter. The stars remember me; I was born and have lived my entire life beneath them, and they will always light the way.

The snow is beginning to melt, and it’s as though Havalais has endured a flood. I see the night sky reflected in puddles, and I think I could get used to being here. Learn the history books and cast trinkets into the sea to make friends with the mermaids. Lex will come out of hiding and he and Alice will find an apartment, and they’ll invite me for dinner sometimes. And there are no dispatch dates; Basil and I could live to be a hundred years old. We could travel all the way around the planet and never feel that we’re standing upside down, and it will be a marvel for us.

Perhaps it’s the silence of this night or the clarity of the stars. Perhaps I am disillusioned. But I am feeling brave enough to take on this world. And the moon as well, should there ever be a way for me to reach it.

When I reach the metal bird, it feels like a piece of some distant time.

I climb the ladder, knock on the metal door. “Professor Leander? It’s me. Morgan Stockhour.”