Ordinary Magic (21 page)

“I told them that you would sic King Steve on them,” I gasped, pushing the words out through something more desperate than laughter. “But I thought … I was just making it up to scare them.”

“You should know me better than that.” Her voice was thick, but I could hear the smile. I started laughing so hard I was crying, until everything was mixed up and I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I could feel the tiredness of the whole long night racing through me, threatening to pull me down like iron slippers. I wrapped my arms around Alexa’s waist and buried my face against her.

Alexa flew me to the castle so I could make a report and get looked over by a doctor. On the flight there, I felt all the tiredness and the hunger and the hurting that I hadn’t had time for until then. But I forgot all about that when I saw the rest of my family waiting in the castle lobby for us. I hadn’t thought I could run anymore, but I did. There was an awkward, silly, wonderful moment
when everybody tried to hug everybody else all at the same time, and I remember I just kept thinking
this, this, this.
This made everything better.

Of course, then Mom and Dad started yelling at me. But it was the nice kind of yelling where you know it’s just because they were worried. There was more hugging and all that lovey-dovey family stuff, which Jeremy usually complains about until Gil demands to know what’s wrong with gooey stuff, but neither of them did that this time.

Finally Alexa butted in. “Doctor time.”

She took us to what had to be the Official Royal Medical Wing, and a small, fully stocked medical room that felt even smaller once my whole family had piled inside. Dad lifted me up and set me on the high medical table, but I had trouble letting go until Mom hopped up beside me and put her arm around me.

The doctor was really nice, especially about having to work around a bunch of worried grown-ups, and Jeremy, who was actually the worst with his constant questions of
what does that mean?
and
how do you treat that?
and
what are the side effects?

“
Somebody
has to be interested in Abby’s treatment,” Jeremy informed him. “How else are we going to track her recovery?”

“We’re going to ask her.” Gil grinned at me. “You recovered yet, blondie?”

And I nodded.

Actually, other than being kidnapped and running for my life, I made out pretty well. A couple of scrapes, a lot of bruises, wrists rubbed raw, and one cut that didn’t even hurt until the
doctor pointed it out. But he said it wasn’t too bad, considering. Just had to get them cleaned up and bandaged.

The doctor had barely finished when King Steve walked through the door.

Everybody scrambled to their feet, except for Mom, who just sat there, holding on to me. The king stopped them mid-bow/curtsey. “For heaven’s sake, none of that. How is our patient doing?”

“Not too badly, under the circumstances,” the doctor answered with a deep bow. “The wrists are the worst of it, but even without magic they should heal quickly. All in all, I think what the girl most needs is some rest. I’m going to prescribe a hot bath, a good meal, and a good night’s sleep. If she’s still feeling shaky in the morning, I’ll write her a note for a few days off on classes.”

“Thank you, doctor, I’ll take it from here.”

The doctor hesitated. “I still need to attend to her wrists, Your Majesty.”

“That won’t be necessary. Thank you,” King Steve repeated, and the doctor bowed and ducked out of the room.

Then the king came over and looked at me, and sighed deeply. He looked so worn down that I felt like I needed to say something, so I said, “Sorry I missed your party, Your Majesty.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” he said, and then smiled. “And not as sorry as
they
will be.”

King Steve cast up a tray on the table next to me with a bowl of steaming water, towels, a small jar of salve, and bandages. I reached for the towels, but he gently swatted my hands away,
and picked one up and dipped it in the water. Then he began to clean my hands. My wrists had gone numb at some point, but the warm water woke them up, and a tight, scratchy burn flared along the surface. King Steve dabbed my wrists, wet the towel, and dabbed again; slow, methodical, and careful. All around us, the room was very quiet. Everyone was staring at the king (except for Olivia, who was staring at Alexa, and Alexa, who was staring at the floor). And it was a little weird, having a king tend to me. But then, King Steve didn’t really seem like a king—he was nice. Like a normal person. With a crown.

The king set the water to the side and dried my hands with a small towel. “There we go. That’s none too bad.” His long, knobby-knuckled fingers were more gentle than I expected, as he took a salve and started dabbing it on my skin. The salve smelled strong, like mint and rubbing alcohol. Already the itching around my wrists was fading.

“Thanks.”

He smiled at me and started wrapping the soft white bandages around my hands. “You’re welcome. I’m happy to see you’re all right,” he said, and he looked up at Alexa, who was still standing quietly in a corner with her eyes on the floor. “Alexa was very worried when we got the call.” The smile went away. “I wanted to be the one to tell you. Barbarian Mike is safely in our custody. He has confessed. He says … that kidnapping you was his idea. He says that his partner was against it, and that she tried to stop him, and when he wouldn’t be stopped she came along to make sure you were taken care of properly. He says that he believes you were able to escape today with her help.” King
Steve looked at me, and his eyes were like flint. “If this is true, I might be willing to consider calling off the search for her.”

“It’s not true, it’s a
lie
—” And then my brain caught up with my mouth. “Trixie’s still out there?”

King Steve looked me over and then nodded. “We are having some difficulty in locating her. In the meantime,” he continued, “you will be escorted back to the school, and until we have the pleasure of Trixie’s company, you will promise me not to leave the premises.”

“Okay. She was hurt, her knee was hurt. It looked bad.”

“And this city has a thousand rat holes. Don’t worry. I am certain we will find her quite soon.”

We were at the palace for two days. King Steve took the doctor’s recommendation that I rest as an order, and wouldn’t let me leave until I got back on my feet.

Staying at the palace was a mixed blessing. I mean, I know it
sounds
cool, but I didn’t actually see all that much. I spent a lot of the first day just sleeping, usually until Mom or Dad woke me up for a meal, and once when the doctor came to check on me again. And then I’d go back to sleep. I have never been so tired, ever, and it didn’t even seem to matter that I was in a strange room and a strange bed.

We didn’t do anything the second day, either, except to sit around the guest parlor King Steve had given us, curled up on couches, and watch bad action movies on the crystal. Which is an interactive sport for our family, since Gil likes to groan over the writing and point out the plot twists ahead of time, and Jeremy tears his hair out over the historical inaccuracies, and Dad makes corny jokes, till Mom reminds us, loudly, that
some people
are trying to watch the movie. Then we’ll all quiet down for about five minutes, until Olivia remarks that the costume designer should have dressed the star in kitten heels instead, because it’s a lot harder to run in stilettos.

That night we crowded around Alexa as she blew out the candles on her birthday cake. We left the parlor for the first time when Mom insisted we go hunt down King Steve so he could have a slice of cake. We made it exactly one hallway before we discovered the library, and Gil refused to leave, even for cake. Fortunately, King Steve heard we were looking for him and appeared just in time to help me pry Gil’s fingers off the bookshelves.

It was nice of King Steve to let us stay, but part of me just wanted to get back to school. To see my friends again and make sure Peter was okay. Alexa said they were, that Fred and Fran had been taken back to school right after we disappeared, and that Peter had gotten picked up and was no worse for wear, other than having Ms. Macartney officially reprimand him. And it’s not that I didn’t believe Alexa, but I wanted to see for myself.

On the third day, I went back to school. Breakfast was mostly over when I arrived under official royal escort; the front doors swung open and Fred came running out, and then Frances, Mrs. Murphy, and Mr. O’Hara, and Cesar, and a couple of the kitchen rats. A cry of “Abby!” was all the warning I got before Fred yanked me up and spun me around. For a few moments there were just hugs and people laughing and calling my name, and I have never felt as popular as I did at that moment. Mrs.
Murphy—relief mixed with concern on her face—barely had time to say how proud she was, when Cook Bella huffed out into the courtyard and demanded to see “the worst of it.”

“Well, I suppose you can’t get these wet,” she said, her hands surprisingly gentle as she held out my bandaged arms for inspection. “I’ll get Sarah to scrub the floors until you’re better, but heal up fast, mind. She’s not got as deft a hand at it.”

In the midst of this, someone was missing; I had to ask Fred where Peter was. “Um, he was at the table with us, so …” Fred looked around, blinking in surprise. “… still there, I guess? I’m glad you’re back,” he sighed, and then corrected himself. “I mean, I’m glad you’re back, just for
you
, you know, period. But also because Peter’s, he’s been a lot more
Peter
than usual. Can you please go turn him into a real boy?”

Fred was right. Peter was still sitting at the table, alone, arms crossed and jaw tight. I shoved my way through chairs and just about climbed over a table to launch myself at him with a “You’reokay, you’reokay, you’reokay!” His fingers dug into my shoulders, and it took me a second to realize he was prying me off, and that I was making a fool of myself. “You’re okay! Alexa said you were and I knew you had to be and what
happened
—?”

But he pushed himself away and moved around behind his chair. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

And his voice was so hard, and his face so closed that it cut through my babbling excitement. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” he shouted, still not looking at me. “And I don’t want to talk to
you
!” Then he grabbed his book and slammed out of the dining hall. I followed
him into the courtyard, calling after him—wanting to know what was
wrong
—but he ran into the dorm and locked himself in his room and stayed there the rest of the day.

Trixie remained “at large,” as the newscasters called it. Nobody saw her either, and I overheard Dimitrios wondering to Becky if anybody would see her.

As you can probably guess, Mom and Dad weren’t thrilled with having to head back to Lennox after that. Oh, sure, they ordered Jeremy back to Thorten because he had classes, and Mom packed off Olivia back home because somebody had to run the bakery. But the two of them stuck around for a week, sleeping in Alexa’s living room and driving her crazy. Fortunately for her, Yuletide was coming up in a month, and it’s a big holiday for bakeries and luxury goods both, which meant they eventually had to leave.