The Wooden Prince (24 page)

“Your Hunter's Glass, my princess,” Maestro said sympathetically. “It's broken.”

“Better it than me,” Lazuli said.

She gave Pinocchio a look. It was definitely a scowl. He had disarmed her, after all, and nearly stabbed her in the face. Not his best introduction, especially to a princess. He wondered if all princesses in Abaton were this lovely. He realized he was staring at her rather stupidly and tried to undo the expression by giving her a scowl back. She looked away, unimpressed.

“After I escaped Siena, I thought the powers of the Hunter's Glass were destroyed,” Lazuli said to Maestro. “Until I reached Venice. After I lost you and Master Geppetto, I decided to come here, to see if I could find any of my father's undines still in the lagoon. I was hoping if any had survived the attack, they might have discovered where Father was. But I found none of his undines, and when I reached the city, the Hunter's Glass began glowing. It seemed to be working again, and it led me here. I was sure my father was being held in this house!”

“You thought His Immortal Lordship was being held in Catchfools?” Cinnabar said. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but this is the last place the doge would hold Prester John. Your father was held in the Fortezza until just a few days ago—”

“Where is he now?” Lazuli demanded.

“Gone,” Cinnabar said, splaying his clawed hands.

“What!” Lazuli and Pinocchio shouted at the same instant. They scowled at each other.

Pinocchio rounded on Zingaro. “You didn't mention they were gone!”

“I was just about to explain before Princess Lazuli arrived,” Zingaro said from behind the curtain.

Lazuli blinked at the silvery curtain, as if just noticing the undine.

“Your Highness,” Zingaro said, “it is a great honor to meet you. A great honor indeed to have Abatonian royalty in our home. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Zingaro, and this is my partner, Cinnabar.”

He gestured with a webbed hand to the djinni, who gave Lazuli another bow. “We serve in the workshops of the alchemists in charge of the imperial armories,” Zingaro continued. “In this position, we are privy to occasional news from the Fortezza, news we overhear from our masters.”

“We heard when your father was taken captive by the doge,” Cinnabar said. “How the lead chains the doge was using to hold His Immortal Lordship were weakening him. He's been dying, Your Highness.”

Lazuli gritted her teeth and looked away, but not before Pinocchio saw the tears spring to her eyes. He'd never been around any princesses before, but he could tell from the way everyone was acting that royalty was supposed to be treated differently from others, with a certain dignity, not gaping at them when they were on the verge of tears.

“I'm…I'm sorry, Your Highness,” Cinnabar said, gaze lowered. “But this has to account for why His Immortal Lordship has done it.”

“Done what?” Lazuli asked.

Zingaro gave a burst of bubbles. “Three days ago, the doge departed Venice with his imperial fleet. A dozen onyx-class flying warships.”

“But why?” Mezmer asked.

“Can't you see?” Cinnabar said. “His Immortal Lordship was left with no choice. The lead chains. He wouldn't have survived otherwise. He's…being forced to bring the doge…to Abaton.”

Maestro burst into a flurry of bewildered chirps. “Abaton! But…but that would mean…!”

“Are you saying my father is allowing the doge to invade Abaton?” Lazuli said, anger flashing in her luminous eyes. “This simply cannot be. He would die first! He would never—”

“I'm afraid he is, Your Highness,” Zingaro said.

“But what about my father?” Pinocchio interrupted. “Is he still in the Fortezza?”

“Your father is the only Venetian in centuries to have visited Abaton,” Zingaro said. “The doge naturally would have brought Master Geppetto with him.”

Lazuli spun around to Pinocchio, blinking hard as if coming out of a daze. “You! You're the missing automa.”

Cinnabar began a forced laugh as if trying to play along with the princess's joke. “The young master's no automa, Your Highness. He's Geppetto Gazza's son. Look at him. He's plainly human.”

“You're Pinocchio, aren't you?” Lazuli asked. “The automa my father sent to Master Geppetto.”

Cinnabar gave a few more dry laughs, but then saw Princess Lazuli's serious expression, and his yellow jaw dropped.

Pinocchio felt as if a cold and crushing slab of silence had fallen on the room. No one said a word.

He took a breath. “Yes. I am.”

L
azuli instantly regretted that she had revealed the boy's secret. She could see the panic in his eyes as they flickered from Cinnabar to Zingaro. She had just been so shocked that this was who—what—he was. With his mop of sandy hair and his funny pointy nose, he looked nothing like an automa. He looked real.

Sop started cackling, clapping a hand across his belly as his whole body jiggled. “I wish you could see the look on your face, Cinnabar,” he said, wiping a finger under his eye patch.

“You knew!” Cinnabar snarled.

“Of course we knew,” Mezmer said coolly.

Cinnabar slithered around Pinocchio, staring at him with fiery yellow eyes. “So this…this is nothing but an automa contraption?”

Lazuli could see that Cinnabar had an unmistakable hatred for Pinocchio.

Pinocchio reared up, nearly eye to eye with Cinnabar. “I'm no contraption!”

Cinnabar jerked back before circling around Pinocchio, scrutinizing his face. “Where are its seams?” He touched a finger to the back of Pinocchio's neck. “Look! There's a mark here in the shape of a keyhole! Where his fealty lock was.”

Pinocchio spun around and batted Cinnabar's hand away before clapping a hand over the back of his neck.

The djinni snarled a mouthful of fangs. “Don't touch me again, puppet.”

Pinocchio put a hand to his sword. Lightning fast, Cinnabar raised the crossbow pistol.

“All right! All right!” Mezmer said, stepping between them. “There's no need for all that.”

“Agreed,” Lazuli snapped. “Put down your weapons.”

Cinnabar looked at her contritely and then lowered the crossbow. “Forgive me, Your Highness.”

Lazuli ignored him, her gaze fixed on Pinocchio. “What's happened to this automa?”

Pinocchio frowned at her. She could see the hurt and anger in his eyes. He clearly didn't want to be called an automa.

Mezmer put her arm warmly around Pinocchio's shoulder. “Dear Pinocchio is flesh and blood now, Princess. He's not an automa. He's one of us.”

Cinnabar gave a skeptical snort.

“It's true,” Sop said, nudging Pinocchio in the ribs. “This ol' scratching post of mine sleeps. He breathes. He eats—”

“A lot!” Mezmer added.

Sop gave a disgusted look. “He even—”

Lazuli held up her hands to stop him right there. “Are you telling me…he's human? He's now a complete living human boy?”

They looked at each other and then at Pinocchio to let him answer.

He shrugged. “I'm not an automa anymore.”

Lazuli couldn't hold her princess poise any longer. She sputtered, “Master Geppetto told me…well, that you were changing. I knew Father had put some charm on you. But this…this is not what I expected at all! You seem so…so…”

“Alive?” Pinocchio said. “I
am
alive.”

“Ridiculous,” Cinnabar sniffed.

Pinocchio was searching Lazuli's face, obviously desperate to see if she also found it ridiculous. Something about his expression stirred a memory.

When she had been younger, she had been allowed to play with the children of the noble families who visited the Moonlit Court, leading them in games of hide-and-seek in the palace gardens or pretending to be the Celestial Knights of old. But then, after her mother died, her father began to expect her to act differently around their guests. No more silliness. No more cavorting about the flower beds with the other children. She was the daughter of His Immortal Lordship, the protector and king of Abaton. She was to act like a proper princess.

She remembered when a distant cousin she hadn't seen in many years had visited from Mist Cities. Her cousin had asked if they could go chase pixies around the trifle-tree orchards, and Lazuli had said she didn't play childish games anymore. Her cousin had given her a look—not unlike the one Pinocchio was fixing her with now—that seemed to want to know if she was a friend or not.

Though it had wounded Lazuli deeply to see her cousin's face change as she realized Lazuli was not her playmate but the princess of Abaton, Lazuli had known she had to obey her father's wishes. He was Prester John, and she would not let him down. Not then, and not now.

She turned from Pinocchio to the undine. “Zingaro, I need to go after my father.”

“Your Highness,” the undine replied, sinking a little lower in the water. “We are but slaves of the empire. We have no means of leaving Venice. Even if we did, how would you get past the Deep One, who guards the waters off Abaton? The doge has your father to help him pass the sea monster. But you…”

Zingaro looked lost as to how to finish this sentence politely, but Lazuli knew what he would have said if she hadn't been Prester John's daughter. She had nothing. She was just a princess, to be protected and treated with royal respect, not someone to be counted on for a daring rescue mission. Her father would have thought the same thing, had he been here.

“I'm sorry, Your Highness,” Zingaro added. “But this is impossible.”

“It isn't impossible for her,” Pinocchio said.

Lazuli turned to the boy, surprised by the determined look on his face.

“Oh, no,” Sop murmured. “Don't get him started on his
impossible
speech again.”

Lazuli appraised Pinocchio. “You know how I can rescue my father?”

“No,” Pinocchio said. “But I'll help you find a way. My father needs me as well. I'll do anything to help him. I have to! And I want to save your father too. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Prester John. Geppetto wouldn't want me as his son if your father hadn't changed me.”

How curious that the boy felt grateful to her father. That didn't seem like something an automa would think. And his reason for wanting to help Geppetto…This wasn't automa loyalty. This was something else entirely. She had seen it in Geppetto's face when he spoke of Pinocchio. She could see it in Pinocchio's expression now. They genuinely loved each other. It was as simple as that.

A spear of hurt ran through Lazuli. All her life, she had obeyed her father, played the part of the good princess, but for what? Did he love her as Geppetto loved Pinocchio? She wanted that more than anything.

“Yes,” Lazuli said, giving a brisk nod. “Our fathers need us.”

The smallest smile broke on Pinocchio's face.

Lazuli forced her eyes away from his. “There has to be a way. Maybe we could steal a boat.”

“Your Highness,” Cinnabar said. “No boat would be swift enough to catch up to flying imperial warships.”

“We'll steal a warship, then,” Pinocchio said.

“Why don't you just tame a Flying Lion and ride on its back?” Cinnabar said.

“Would that work?” Pinocchio asked.

Cinnabar rolled his eyes. “Don't be absurd.”

“What about a flying carpet?” Zingaro said.

Excitement rose in Lazuli. Now,
this
seemed a possibility. Sylph travelers used such carpets back in Abaton, although her father had never allowed her to fly on one.

“Zingaro, you know well enough that all the ones in the empire have been destroyed,” Cinnabar said. “To keep the sylph slaves from escaping.”

“But Princess Lazuli could make one,” Zingaro said, waving a webbed hand.

Lazuli had no idea how, but maybe the others could show her.

“No!” Maestro chirped. “No! No! No! She'd have to…No, she can't. As her subject and representative of the Moonlit Court, I have to insist. Not the princess!”

“Why couldn't I?” she demanded.

“Well…do you know how they're made, Your Highness?” Cinnabar asked, tapping his yellow fingers together uneasily.

“No,” Lazuli replied.

“It requires weaving a sylph's hair into the fabric,” Cinnabar said. “Sylphs here in the empire are required by law to keep their hair long. If a sylph slave is found to have cut their hair, it's assumed they have done so to try to make a carpet in order to escape. They risk arrest or worse.”

“I'm not a sylph slave.”

“Of course you aren't, Your Highness,” Cinnabar said. “What I mean is…you'd have to cut off all your hair. It wouldn't be proper for the daughter of His Immortal Lordship of Abaton to—”

Lazuli drew her sword. She had gone halfway across the Venetian Empire and back trying to rescue her father. She had faced Flying Lions and mad airmen. She wasn't going to let something like an unseemly haircut stand in her way now.