Chapter Text
“The Chief and I…just the Chief, reeeally, were called up to the Palace so he could do the Welcome Ceremony for the Princess that the Queen had just made her Heir. He asked me to come along so I could see how it was done, since I might need to do it someday, or at least teach someone else how it went.”
Really, it had been an excuse to keep working together. Cabanela had passed his final exams the week before, and was poised to officially graduate from his Apprenticeship, but neither Master nor Apprentice was ready to call it quits after seven years and a day.
Alma said, “There were rumors. That the Queen’s husband had brought someone home, to be a Princess.” She was stroking a hand over Lynne’s back.
“I didn’t know anythin’ at the time. When we got to the Palace, there was just the Queen and her husband and a little girl in the Throne Room, waitin’ for us. They muuust’ve come straight from sortin’ out all the legal documents, and the diplomatic mess earlier in the day, because the Queen had ink stains on her fingers.” Cabanela remembered they’d all looked tired—but happy.
“Diplomatic mess?” Jowd questioned.
“Ambassadors from another country,” Cabanela said. “They were…weeell, they’re where the Supreme Custodian came from.” Jowd frowned. Cabanela continued his story. “I saw the little girl had a shaved head, so you couldn’t see what color her hair was. The Chief was the one who asked about it while he was setting up, and the consort laughed and said pests were a rite of passage for every sailor. I fiiigured that meant he’d picked her up somewhere overseas, what with the traveling he did. The Queen said she was beautiful no matter what, and hair didn’t make one a good Princess.”
That was the last thing the Queen had said.
Cabanela swallowed, wishing he could do more than make Lynne hunch in on herself on his sofa. “They both looked so pleased to be doin’ the ceremony,” he offered. “One of the first things the consort told us was that it was their Princess’s birthday, so we could say happy birthday.”
Lynne didn’t look up.
“I…wasn’t doin’ anything important, so I was in a corner out of the way when someone burst in. I saw he was wearin’ red and black, that he had blue skin, so I thought it was some fresh nonsense from the Ambassador we’d heard about. But he had a golden pistol.
“The Chief was faster than me on the uptake. He got halfway through a SafeShield before the Assassin shot him. I ran to help, but…he just pushed the Akhu Amulet into my hand.”
Cabanela touched the silver amulet that hung around his neck. He remembered the heavy white robes he hadn’t been wearing a second ago tangling around his legs as he’d thrown himself to his knees beside the Chief, a rare Transformation overtaking him as the mantle passed in an instant from Master to Apprentice. The Chief hadn’t even had time to cough on his own blood, or whisper the last few words of the SafeShield. His priority had been giving Cabanela the authority to act.
The first thing Cabanela had done as ExtraOrdinary Wizard was get blood all over the white.
Cabanela cleared his throat. “I heard a click, and when I looked up the Assassin had reloaded. We were all so shocked nobody had moved an iiinch. When he aimed, I did the first spell I could think of and tried to Transmute the bullet to something else, but I…”
What else was there to say? He’d failed. Cabanela had fumbled the spell, the second thing he’d ever done as ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and when the Assassin had fired at the Queen’s consort he’d screamed for help instead of the real last word. He could have turned the bullet into cotton. The consort could have fled with his new daughter. The Queen might have stayed where it was safe…
“He shot faster,” Cabanela said. “The Queen’s consort took it straight to the chest right as I finished.” He didn’t doubt it was as fast a death as the Chief’s had been. “I tried to change tack, but Magyk can only move so fast.”
In truth, Cabanela could not remember every one of those seconds clearly. He stuck to what he was sure of. “I finally stopped bein’ stupid and finished the SafeShield that the Chief started, and for a few minutes we were safe. But the Queen had run to her husband when he was shot, and the ooonly person on the same side of the shield as me was the Princess.
“I could hear the Castle guard fightin’ outside the Throne Room. Someone asked what was goin’ on, and the Assassin shouted back that he’d already loaded the Princess’s bullet and they’d have to get the Queen later.
“I knew they had to be Named bullets, then. It’s Darke Magyk, the kind that ensures that it finds its target.” Cabanela shook his head at Alma’s gasp. Jowd, who had guessed the Named nature of the bullets when Cabanela said ‘golden’, sank onto the sofa and gripped Lynne’s hand. “They dragged the Queen out, and I saw him hand off the Queen’s bullet to another Assassin, and…I heard a shot out in the hallway.
“The SafeShield was keepin’ us from gettin’ shot at, but it was also between us and the door. The Assassin must’ve knooown that it wouldn’t last forever, he was just standin’ there waitin’. But I was ExtraOrdinary, now—then—and I had all the Magyk I wanted. I got the Princess under my cloak and held as tight as I could, and Transported us out of the Palace. And then I…”
There Cabanela faltered.
“And then I went to you,” he said at last. “You and Alma—knew kids better than me. You wanted kids.”
Jowd was holding Lynne’s hand very tightly. Alma’s hand had gone still on her back.
Lynne wished she’d had the courage to run before Cabanela started talking. The memories were unfolding in her head, the ones she’d tried so hard not to remember, but now it was there, as easy as recalling the time Jowd had taken her fishing, or sitting with Alma matching the shapes of fallen leaves to the illustrations in Alma’s plant book.
She remembered the way the Queen had screamed as she tried to catch her husband.
Jowd exhaled slowly, and squeezed Lynne’s hand before finally letting her go. “The least we can do is remember that it is your birthday today.” He reached inside his cloak and took out the wrapped present that had been sitting on the kitchen table, what felt like weeks ago.
Lynne stared at the bow, which was crumpled from being shoved in Jowd’s pocket. She’d forgotten about her present in the frantic rush to pack. “It’s not my birthday,” she said.
“It’s the same day it was last year,” Alma said, concerned.
“H-he asked me when my birthday was. When they were writing up the papers. I said I didn’t know and he said maybe my birthday could be that day, because it was like the start of a new life. And I said okay.”
“The consort?” Jowd asked her gently. Lynne tried to nod. “Do you want to open this now?” She managed a nod the second time.
The sound of paper crinkling attracted Missile, who came over, tail wagging, and whined until Lynne gave him a strip of paper to play with and shred into the carpet. Cabanela winced.
“Oh,” Lynne said, staring down at the notebook in her lap. It was a shade of pink so bright that it had to have been Magykally dyed, with a star in gold leaf on the cover next to the little brass lock.
“There’s a pen,” Alma added. It was slipped into a pink loop inside the band of the lock, where it could be safely stored. “It should write in whatever color you ask for.”
Lynne said, soggily, “I love it.” Jowd patted her comfortingly, and gave the rest of the wrapping paper to Missile.
“You know, baby,” Cabanela said with forced brightness, “I’m suuure I’ve got a birthday present for you, too.” Lynne watched him in surprise as he rifled through the room, cabinets popping open at invisible prompting. The few interactions she’d had with the ExtraOrdinary Wizard hadn’t left her with the impression of a man who gave presents to people he barely knew.
“Ah! Here we are.” Cabanela turned around, showing off what he’d unearthed.
A golden circlet glinted in his hands.
Lynne nearly threw herself off the sofa scrambling away from the sight of it. “No! No, that’s not mine—it’s not,” she cried, as Jowd caught her before she could topple backwards and crush the Fragile-Fairy Pots on the bureau that stood behind the sofa.
“Breathe,” Jowd commanded, getting both arms around Lynne and pulling her back down where Alma could seize her, too. The pink notebook had gone tumbling to the floor. Lynne tried to breathe, she really did, past the sight of the circlet she had last seen in a pair of dark hands, being presented by a smiling face under another crown. The circlet that signified everything about why there was an Assassin, coming for her even now, with a Darke bullet enchanted to make sure it killed her.
“Lynne,” Cabanela said blankly, astonished at the violence of her reaction, “it’s not a trap. It’s just the Princess’s circlet.”
“I’m not—I don’t want to be—"
Cabanela’s heart twisted in sympathy. But: “The last thing the Queen did before her death was name you her Heir. Whateeever’s come of that, you are important to the Castle. The Castle needs a Queen.” Lynne couldn’t escape Reality any more than Jowd could, no matter how long Cabanela had spent trying to hold it back from pouncing on them.
“Nobody knows about that. Nobody has to know!”
“It’s not so simple as lettin’ it be forgotten. If I could do anythin’, I would, but you swore an oath; oaths are the real deal, since long before there were ExtraOrdinary Wizards.” Cabanela sighed. “More importantly, at least for today, the Supreme Custodian doooes know.”
“Can’t it be over?” Lynne begged. “They said I only had to try. The Supreme Custodian probably has those papers somewhere. Can’t we just make him find those and prove that I’m not the Heir anymore?”
Surprised, Cabanela said, “What do you mean, ‘try’?”
“Cabanela,” Alma snapped.
Cabanela put a hand up, placating. “I only mean…Lynne, it might be veeery important. What exactly did the Queen say?”
Lynne swallowed, getting her breathing a little more under control. “When I agreed to come,” she said. “He said I only had to try. If I didn’t like being—being a—” She skipped the consequential word entirely. “They’d let me leave.”
Come be a Princess for a year and a day, he’d said. If you can’t stand it, we’ll let you go. We’ll pay for your Apprenticeship in a trade, whatever you want to do. But if you don’t mind staying—and he’d looked so hopeful, even with his weird smoked-black glasses in the way—we have room.
“For a year and a day,” Cabanela guessed keenly, and Lynne nodded.
“What does that mean?” Jowd asked. He was turning over the implications in his head: had the year and a day begun and ended before any of them but Lynne knew about it? Or had it never properly begun at all?
“I don’t knooow.” Cabanela looked troubled.
“No amount of legalese is going to keep the Supreme Custodian from doing whatever he wants to,” Alma burst out. “Haven’t we learned that by now? We have to do something!”
Lynne sniffled. Alma gave Jowd a significant look, and he stood, bringing Lynne with him with one arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t we get you something to eat? We never finished breakfast. I know there’s a kitchen around here somewhere, it’s not the first time I’ve been in the ExtraOrdinary’s rooms…”
Jowd’s inconsequential chatter faded out of hearing as he took Lynne out of the room. Cabanela sighed, and put the circlet down on a side table. He hadn’t meant to scare her like that.
And he hadn’t missed that Alma let Lynne go upstairs without her. He eyeballed Alma, trying to judge the cause. “What is it?”
Alma hugged herself. “Beauty befriended me,” she said. “I let her into our home.”
The spy. “Baby, she would’ve found out somehow,” Cabanela said, easing into the spot Lynne had vacated. “You’re a nice person who’s nice to people. It’s no fair that someone used that to hurt you, but we’re fixin’ it.”
“Are we?” Alma hid her face in his shoulder. “What are we going to do, Cab? You couldn’t even come visit us.”
Words caught in Cabanela’s throat. He’d expected Alma to say…something else. Anything else. He’d expected her and Jowd to be angry at him for being gone, and the anger’s absence tricked him into treating them like they were twenty-somethings again, and he barely thirty. But Time travel couldn’t be done; there was no going back.
“Jowd’s right,” Cabanela said. “Go eeeat somethin’, baby. I’ll make sure this Young Army kid doesn’t wake up and, I don’t know, set anythin’ on fire.”
Alma’s daughter was a more powerful lure than the opportunity to sit with Cabanela. The same was true for Missile, who, finished sowing Cabanela’s carpet with slobber-soggy paper scraps, followed Alma out.
Cabanela sighed into the empty room. He Vanished the damp paper scraps. After a moment’s thought, he got off the sofa and transferred the sentry there from the floor. He wanted the kid asleep so nothing incriminating got overheard; discomfort wasn’t a requirement.
He decided against putting the circlet away. No matter how little Lynne wanted to do with it, it might be needed, soon.
Breakfast did little to soothe anyone’s anxieties. Jowd fixed Lynne’s loose shoe sole, dried her sock, and then he and Alma and Cabanela sent her downstairs to ‘keep Missile occupied so he doesn’t poo on anything’.
The three of them in privacy had gone back and forth about what to do with Boy 412, and how to keep Lynne safe, without coming up with any useful, concrete plans. Cabanela didn’t understand why they couldn’t all hole up in the Wizard Tower, which could outlast a siege; Alma grew frustrated enough to throw up her hands and wonder aloud why Cabanela hadn’t just used Magyk to kill the Supreme Custodian years ago.
She’d apologized, but she’d said it.
Lynne interrupted then to exclaim that the dishes in the sink were washing themselves. Cabanela (who had spent seventeen years getting used to the Magykal apartment) did not find that particularly worth exclaiming over, but he was unduly relieved for the excuse to end the conversation.
The sentry was the only one who could sleep that night, though probably not through till morning. The spell Cabanela had used couldn’t put a person in a coma, just enough sleep for them to Sleep It, whatever It was, Off. The rest of them were all too anxious to rest.
It was technically only ten past eleven, not midnight, when the cat yowled outside.
Lynne had opened one of the windows and then, obeying proper caution, sat well away from it and still tried to enjoy the winter breeze. The fire for Boy 412’s health had made the room hot and stuffy, but the boy wasn’t shivering, so Lynne had figured it was all right.
The yowling was loud enough that Boy 412 sat up with a jolt. She was dismayed to see that it was all real. She was still trapped in the Wizards’ hideout, not waking from a nightmare in her narrow, thin cot in the Young Army barracks. Worst of all, there was a ghost sitting right there, staring at her.
The Chief had shown up hours ago, after haunting the Palace for as long as it took to make sure the Supreme Custodian had not instantly discovered the family’s hiding place. He noticed with some feeling that the poor kid, clutching the blanket Alma had put over her, looked more terrified than reassured to wake up in warmth and safety.
“What was that noise?” Lynne asked. “Can you look, Chief?”
The Chief drifted obligingly over to the window to peer out. “I assume it was the cat that was hanging around when I arrived,” he said. “It…” He abruptly fell silent.
“Chief?” Lynne asked.
The Chief said, “I thought I saw someone go through the doors who…excuse me, Lynne, I’ll just go downstairs and check.” He sank through the floor.
That left Lynne with Alma, who had been debating going to Boy 412, but now crossed the room to Lynne. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Alma said. The tight grip she had on Lynne’s shoulder said she was lying.
“It was probably just some Wizard,” Lynne said. “Only Wizards have the password, right?”
Alma did not say, Wizards can tell anyone they want what the password is. Jowd had told her what it was, years ago when they were courting.
Missile finally realized they were upset and started howling to match, which brought both Jowd and Cabanela scrambling into the room to see what was wrong. “The Chief just saw something odd at the doors,” Alma said.
“I’ll CharmLock them,” Cabanela said at once.
“Too late!” The Chief gasped, shooting back up through the floor. “He’s already inside! They’ve found out where you are and sent the Assassin!” Boy 412, still on the sofa, went as cold down to her bones as she had been that morning. She was sure this Assassin was meant for her.
“What?” Several people demanded at once. “He can’t have the password,” Cabanela said, over Jowd saying, “Where did he get the password?”
“That spy!” Alma said.
“We’ve got to go, now,” Jowd said. “Cabanela, are there any other doors out of the Tower?!”
“The trapdoor into the Ice Tunnels,” said Cabanela, startling everyone in the room who didn’t know about the Ice Tunnels’ existence (which was everyone except him). “But that’s down in the Entrance Hall—”
“It’s better than nothing!”
“We’ll never make it!”
“For pity’s sake!” The Chief yelled. “There’s no time to argue! He’s already on the stairs.”
There was not a single noise in the room after that, except for breathing, and the slight, sibilant noise of the stairs outside rotating around their central pole.
The Assassin had not commanded the stairs to move at full speed; he knew there were no exits for the prey to leave by except the windows. And if they took that exit, no need for bullets, except to make sure of the Princess’ body.
Cabanela wouldn’t make the mistake of another SafeShield like the last time. He Locked and Barred the door. The lock slammed home with a heavy kachunk. A long bar jumped out of the doorframe and snapped into place as silver settings folded out of the barring on the door to receive it.
Jowd rounded on Cabanela. “How many people can you Transport?”
“Not all of us,” Cabanela said. He’d done the math on that several hours ago. And also several weeks ago, and about a year ago, just in case. It paid to keep checking in; he’d practiced with some volunteer Ordinary Wizards and could still only manage two people alongside him safely. McCaw had gotten stuck halfway through a wall when he tried taking three, and it was a nasty business Disentangling him from the fouled Transport, though McCaw had kept up a good attitude about it once he could talk again.
“I can take myself—”
“That still leaves everyone else and the dog,” Cabanela hissed. “Even if we leave the dog—”
“We are not leaving Missile,” Lynne whisper-shouted in outrage, sounding exactly like Alma at her angriest.
BANG!
The bullet bored straight through the purple wood of the door and buried itself in the opposite wall, missing Alma by inches. Jowd cried out, belatedly yanking a frozen Alma behind him.
Boy 412 was shaking as she got up. Better to turn herself in and get it over with quickly. If she sat here and waited, she would get cold feet and run, and then they’d really draw it out when they killed her.
Lynne, for a moment, saw her younger self overlaid on the small figure walking towards the door. “No!” She tackled Boy 412 before she could get to the door. “It’s not safe! You have to come with us!”
Jowd and Cabanela were shouting now about Transports, if they could risk multiple trips when the Midnight Minutes were half an hour away at least, who should be taken first if they did risk it. Lynne looked frantically around the room for another option, something that could take all of them away as quickly as possible, and landed on the square silver door set into the wall.
Lynne whipped her head around to stare at Jowd, looked back at the trash chute, and decided her math worked out. “We can escape through the trash chute!” She shouted over them.
“What,” Cabanela yelped in dismay, but Lynne was already yanking open the door of the chute. Boy 412, in her secure grip, had no choice but to go with her. Missile loyally sprang for the opening in the wall, and was as dismayed as Cabanela to find that there was no floor inside. A howl echoed up after him, along with the scrabbling of tiny claws for purchase.
Alma jumped after Lynne. Cabanela windmilled his limbs as Jowd got an arm around him. “I’ll Transport myself! I can do just myself!”
“Name where the chute lets out,” Jowd said.
“It’s—ah—” It was exceedingly hard to think on his feet while wearing all white and being towed threateningly by someone he was supposed to be able to trust towards a very long fall full of very, very dirty trash. “Jowd, don’t you dare—”
Jowd shoved Cabanela down the chute, ignoring the choked protests, and swung in himself. He got in a quick LockFast and Weld as he pulled the door to the chute closed behind him. He’d pay to see the unMagykal Assassin get through that.
Then the bottom dropped out of Jowd’s stomach from vertigo, his grip slipped, and he spent the rest of the fall trying not to throw up on everyone ahead of him.
There were, in fact, Magykal enchantments on the Wizard Tower trash chute; after the first few days of its existence, the first Wizards had very quickly realized that it was no fun for even a small piece of trash to reach terminal velocity when it hit the turn at the bottom of a not-quite-vertical twenty-one-story fall. Those enchantments and the smooth, perfect joins of the panels that made up the square trash chute meant it was near impossible for a person to be injured by (the Master Masons who built the Tower hoped accidentally) falling down the trash chute.
It was, however, quite easy to get incredibly filthy very quickly.
The trash chute, when it began to level off under the Wizard Tower, turned and ran under the Palace as well before it finished emptying into the Riverside Amenity Municipal Dump. When the chute finally disgorged its cargo into the wintry night air, there was no one among the piles of trash to see the ragtag group stagger out and to their feet again.
Except one, who caught the glimpse of movement through the window.
Memry frowned and squinted out into the darkness. The Chicken Kitchen was as well-lit as possible once the sun went down, and that made it hard to see out through the glass panes, but she was sure she’d just seen people walking around on the Municipal Dump. Maybe the Castle authorities were finally listening to the many complaints she’d put in about how close the Dump was to the restaurant.
Memry moved to the back of the Chicken Kitchen. The far corner was darkest, and easiest to see out of, on account of being closest to the Dump and therefore the occasional smell that wafted over; nobody wanted to sit there, and there were fewer candles lit.
The Chicken Kitchen was, other than that corner, usually humming with activity. It was built on pontoons at a prime spot on the Moat, neighboring the Palace Landing Stage. It was the second thing travelers saw as they came up the river, and therefore was where everybody stopped when they arrived. The Chicken Kitchen’s reputation had risen via the mouths of travelers over the years until a visitor to the Castle would be crazy not to go there for the famous chicken and a drink as soon as they disembarked.
Memry considered it her restaurant, and indeed, hers was the face most people saw and remembered. Nobody had ever gotten the name of the tall man who served the fancy drinks, and the only hints that a chef existed was the chicken itself and the beautiful singing from the kitchen.
There was barely anyone at the tables so late at night. The Northern Traders who usually made up the bulk of travelers for the season had all gone back to their ships, preparing to sail home before the Big Freeze; the only ones left were a couple ensconced by the fireplace and some guy on his eight millionth black coffee. Memry safely ignored them, squinting harder against the candlelight reflected in the mullioned windowpanes.
There were definitely people moving around on top of the Municipal Dump. Was that the ExtraOrdinary Wizard dancing around up there? Who else would be wearing all white? Who’d go with him for whatever weird Magyk (or, possibly, personal kink??) he was out there for?
Now flattened against the window, with her hands cupped around her eyes, Memry could make out more details. Surely that was Lynne’s ponytail, sticking up from her yellow cloak, but why—? Was that Jowd out there? Dear gods in heaven, Jowd was eloping with the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and taking the kid with him.
Memry was out the door so fast she left skid marks behind her.
Jowd threw himself in front of the others when he saw her coming, until he realized it was only Memry and relaxed. “You!” Memry yelled, to a chorus of “Shhhhhh!”s and some quickly muffled barking. “I knew it! Ohhh, you thought you were SUBTLE! How dare you?”
Cabanela didn’t answer. Instead of dancing (or rather, in addition to,) he had been chanting an urgent One-Second DryClean that was turning into a One-Minute DryClean. For good measure he’d been widening its radius, to catch everyone else and make sure there was nothing that could leave a stain if he bumped against them.
“Memry, what are you talking about,” Alma said.
Memry deflated abruptly. “Oh, you’re here too, Alma. Wait, why are you all out here?”