Father looks at me. “I don’t want you to worry about my business. We’ll be fine whether I make glass slippers or not.” I bite my lip. “You do whatever you have to do to help end this reign of terror with Alva with the help of others. Then we’ll all be home together. Deal?”
“Deal.” I’m not sure how I’m going to pull this off though. “I should find Anna before she gets lost.” I hear the sound of a piano and frown. I think I’m missing the Royal Ladies-in-Waiting pledge. Tessa will be furious. I was supposed to chime the triangle.
Father nods to the door. “You go find Anna. I can distract them while you’re gone. I’ll say you had a sash emergency.” He chuckles to himself.
I give Father a peck on the cheek—another unusual thing for me—and dash down the hall. Anna could be anywhere. Rumor had it they were going to shut the magical hallways for visitation day, but they haven’t. I tiptoe past the lecture hall where I can hear Blackbeard speaking (“Like the sea, lads and lasses have mighty tempers! Dealing with them takes a plank—or a plan…”).
A sudden left sends me past the choir room where students are singing “The Gingerbread Man” to a rapt crowd. On the other side of the hall, I can hear Madame Cleo leading a group of parents and students in the Fire Step. Miri appears in a mirror a few yards away to scold two fairies who’ve flown out of Wolfington’s reading of Enchantasia through the Magical Years.
I duck into a hallway to my right to avoid being seen and come face to face with the entrance to the vegetable garden. There’s no way Anna’s out here. I try to turn around and trip over a watermelon, landing on my face and smashing the watermelon with my fall. The melon juice drips down my arm and my chin. I hear someone roar with laughter.
“Well, if it isn’t the newest RLW!” Jocelyn say in a self-satisfied voice. She’s sitting on a picnic blanket with Kayla, who grimaces at the sight of me. “Shouldn’t you be more graceful, Cobbler? Oh, I forgot. You skipped that part of your training and went straight to being a backstabbing royal wannabe and a lousy friend.”
I cannot stand this witch. I pull on Jocelyn’s skirt and take her down with me. She lands in watermelon juice. Then I take a piece of watermelon and chuck it at her.
“Stop it, Gilly!” Kayla says, rushing over and helping Jocelyn up. Not me! “Just leave us alone and go back to the RLWs and your family. They’re who you want to be with anyway.”
“Leave us alone?” I question. “You would rather hang out with Jocelyn than me?”
“Yes.” Kayla holds her head up defiantly.
“Ha!” Jocelyn says.
“She may be rough around the edges, but at least she’s honest,” Kayla continues. “She doesn’t pretend to be someone she’s not—like you. How could you hurt Maxine like that? She’s your friend—we all were—and instead of sticking up for her, you cut her down to win favor with Olivia and the RLWs.”
“Kayla! Jocelyn!” Maxine comes bounding into the vegetable garden, crushing several melons in the process. “Come meet my family and—oh.” Maxine sees me, and the left side of her face falls. “I’ll come back later.”
I feel like I’ve been socked with a bag of flour. “Maxine, I…”
“Maxine, stay,” Kayla insists, and Jocelyn giggles with wicked glee. “We’re giving Gilly a piece of our minds. She needs to know how she’s made us feel.” She turns to me. “You haven’t been around at all since the breakout. It’s just RLWs, RLWs, RLWs!”
“Yeah,” seconds Jocelyn. “For someone so anti-royal, you sure seem to have made the glass slipper fit, so to speak.”
I’ve had it with Jocelyn chiming in. “If you must know, I joined the RLWs because I thought someone in there might be the mole or know who the mole is!” I glance at Maxine whose face is hanging to the floor. “I never wanted to take the sash away from Maxine. I joined because Princess Rose wanted me and I knew if I could get close to the group, I could find out information. The RLWs are obsessed with power.”
Jocelyn raises an eyebrow, her dark eyes narrowing. “Sound familiar?”
“If it was all a ruse, why didn’t you make them ask Maxine to be an RLW too?” Kayla questions. “Because you didn’t want to be made fun of. You knew they were being mean to her, and you let them do it.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Maxine says miserably.
“Admit it!” Jocelyn cries. “You like being the hero and getting the glory all to yourself! That’s why you went it alone and left your friends flat like stale gingerbread!”
“This is not your business!” I shout so loudly that even Maxine quakes. “This is between me, my friend, and my roommate!”
“Roommate?” Kayla questions. “Some roommate you’ve been. I know I lied a lot to you when you came here, but I was doing it for my family. All you’ve done lately is think about yourself! You never stopped to wonder what your friends were doing or how I’d feel about it being visitation day and having no visitors,” she adds. “At least the others invited me to be with their families today. You’re my roommate, and you didn’t even ask if I wanted to meet your parents or how I was feeling.”
“Exactly!” Jocelyn says, twirling her cape with glee. “You guys have wanted to stop Alva since the beginning, but it’s obvious Cobbler no longer remembers the prize. What have you found out by being an RLW, huh? I doubt anything. Meanwhile, Maxine has gotten another message on her scroll, and you don’t even know what it is because you’re too busy practicing curtsies.”
“I…” My heart is beating fast. And there is that feeling in my stomach I had the other day. I can hear Jax in my head and Father and even my own thoughts telling me what I already know: Jocelyn and Kayla are absolutely right.
“I considered you guys my family at FTRS, but I was wrong about you,” Kayla says. “I could never be family with someone so selfish.”
I sit down on the bench and steal a piece of the crumb cake they have on their picnic blanket. They probably lifted it from the cafeteria this morning. “You guys are right about everything.”
Jocelyn holds out her ear. “Can you repeat that?”
“I said you’re right,” I say gloomily. I glance at Maxine. “I was so worried about fitting in with the RLWs that I said some rotten things about Maxine, who has been kinder to me than anyone I know.”
“I haven’t been kind?” Kayla sniffs.
“You both have been,” I continue. “I didn’t mean what I said—any of it. I was foolish and rotten, and I hope you can forgive me and let me make it up to you.” I remove my RLW sash and place it over Maxine’s head. It gets stuck around her neck. “This is for you. If they don’t let you become an RLW, then I won’t be one anymore either.”
I glance at Kayla. “I got carried away. I should have thought about how visitation day would make you feel. Of course, I want you to meet my family. I want both of you to meet them!” Jocelyn coughs, but I ignore her. “Can you guys forgive me?”
Maxine starts to blubber and Kayla sniffles. “Yes, we forgive you!” Maxine cries, and she and Kayla hug me.
“Don’t ever act like a wicked stepsister again!” Kayla says, and we all laugh.
Jocelyn gives a lackluster round of applause, and I turn on her. “What are you still doing here?”
“Be nice,” Kayla tells me and my jaw drops. “Jocelyn has been helping us while you were off being royal.” I feel my cheeks burn. “She’s been hanging near the manifesto to see if anyone tries to contact Alva, and she’s been doing what she can to track down her sister and convince her not to turn evil again.”
Sisters. “I have to find Anna,” I remember. “She’s run off.”
“I’d run away if you were my sister too,” Jocelyn mumbles.
“I have to go back to Mother and Father,” Maxine tells us. “Come join us at lunch when you’ve found Anna.” We hug again and Maxine trudges off.
“Why did Anna disappear?” Kayla asks.
“We had an argument,” I say quietly. “It sounded a lot like the one we just had.
I wish I could wave a wand and make this week go away.” Wands. If I were a girl who wanted one, the wand room would be the first place I’d go. “I think I know where she is.”
“Well, don’t leave us here.” Kayla pushes the empty crumb cake box under the bench. “Maybe we can help talk to her.”
“I’m in too.” Jocelyn smirks. “I want to watch you get yelled at again.”
I give her a look, but I don’t want to get on Kayla’s bad side again. “Fine.”
The three of us step inside the castle and find the hallways shifting fast. I wonder if their magic is malfunctioning. “I’ll never find the wand room with the halls acting like this.”
Jocelyn removes a small pouch from her skirt pocket. She pours purple sand into her hand, mumbles words I can’t understand, and then blows the sand into the air. Within seconds, the sand is stretching out kernel by kernel down the hall, making a left near a giant sea-serpent water fountain. “This way,” she says triumphantly.
I follow behind her, wondering how Jocelyn’s magic slips under Miri’s radar. Because she’s learned it from Harlow, I realize. The former professor always had a free pass in her own school. We reach the wand room and find it locked.
“We should have known they wouldn’t let students have wands today,” Kayla says. “Where to next?”
I frown. “I don’t know. If you were visiting FTRS, where would you go?”
“The Pegasi stables,” says Jocelyn, blowing more sand into the air. But Anna is not there. The fencing demonstration has cleared out too, and there is still no sign of her.
“Maybe she left,” Kayla says.
I shake my head as a family with a map walks by us talking about the Arabian Nights’ Flying Carpet Tutorial. I wanted Felix to see that. “You have to be signed out.”
“Well, we can’t keep roaming the halls!” Jocelyn’s voice makes a pixie family walking by the fireplace we’re standing in front of jump. “Miri is going to catch up with us eventually and I, for one, don’t want any more time in detention for helping you.”
“I was fine finding my sister on my own,” I snipe.
“Um, guys?” says Kayla.
“Yeah, it looked like it,” Jocelyn retorts.
“You’re the one who asked to come along!”
“Guys! Look!” Kayla shouts over our bickering.
The fireplace has rotated to reveal a hallway behind it.
CHAPTER 13
Past the Point of No Return
The hallway smells like it hasn’t been opened in years. I cringe at the sight of all the moss and water dripping down the bricks, but I can’t help but be curious. Flora built this castle. There must be a reason there is a secret door here. A door that’s starting to close. Jocelyn and I both jump into the unknown, having the same reaction to pull Kayla through with us. Then the door closes and we’re enveloped in darkness. Jocelyn quickly produces an orb of light. Her dark eyes peer back at me.
“Thanks a lot. Now we’re stuck here!”
“You went through first!”
“Only because I knew you were going to if I didn’t.”
“Guys?” Kayla grips my arm. I can hear her wings fluttering. “Someone’s talking.”
We grow quiet to listen. I strain to hear anything other than dripping water and what I think is a squeaky mouse. Then I hear faint voices speaking quickly.
Jocelyn’s and my eyes find each other, and I know we’re thinking the same thing.
Alva.
Kayla begins backing away, her wings fluttering at warp speed, but I grab her, realizing something.
“It’s okay. Alva wouldn’t want to stay hidden,” I say.
“But Rumpelstiltskin might,” Jocelyn tosses out, and we both look at her. “So would that mole you’re desperate to find.”
The three of us say nothing, but we move onward. As the path begins to turn down and brighten, Jocelyn is forced to extinguish her orb. The voices grow closer, and I can finally make out what they’re saying. Gillian. Kayla grabs my arm.
“Gillian can’t know what is going on,” I hear a familiar voice say and stop. Flora.
“Use her as bait,” comes a second voice eagerly. “Gillian is the one she wants. If you hand her over to Alva, she might leave FTRS out of this hostile kingdom takeover.”
I feel like I might spin into the ground.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Flora sounds angry. “I’ve tried everything I can think of to avoid it. You know Rumpelstiltskin. His deal protects the school grounds, but not, it turns out, the students. That little troll. He knew that meant Alva’s manifesto could still persuade students to join her cause. Wolfington has been leaving the grounds every night for weeks to try to see if there is another way to stop Alva, but we have nothing. Those children keep mucking up any progress we make with their snooping.”
“You had to have seen that coming,” the other voice replies. “None of them hold a candle to my sister.”
Harlow! An outlawed villainous former professor and the headmistress of our school who is supposed to protect us are meeting up! I should have known.
Kayla and I look at Jocelyn, whose breath is coming so hard that I worry she might collapse before I do. She lunges forward, and Kayla and I grab her. Gosh, she’s strong. I lock my arms around her shoulders and try to drag her to the ground with me. The ground sounds so good right now.
Harlow wants Flora to give me over to Alva to save the FTRS students.
What does that mean for me?
For my family?
“A sister who is beginning to ask questions!” Flora continues. “If she knew…”
“She mustn’t,” Harlow says. “Flora, you gave me your word.”
“I know, but now you want me to use Gillian as bait and—”
“Your word,” Harlow presses. “Leave Jocelyn out of it while you can. I have enough trouble. I don’t have much time. I’m meeting with Rapunzel this evening.”
“How’s that going?” Flora asks.
Harlow sighs. “You know princesses! I must go before…”
“Yes, I know.” Flora sounds frustrated as we hear the familiar whizzing of Harlow whisking herself away in a puff of smoke that slowly billows toward us.
And then I realize. If Harlow is gone, then Flora will be leaving too—and there’s probably only one way out of here. “Up,” I hiss. “She’ll be coming back any second.”
We run out of the passageway and down the hall so fast that I don’t see the person in our path. Smack! Our crash sends the person flying backward where she lands on her butt. And that’s when I notice the pink dress, the tiara on the ground, the crinoline of her skirt over her head. Fiddlesticks. We hit Princess Rose.
“Princess!” Kayla cries, hurrying to help her up. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She adjusts her skirt. I don’t have the heart to tell her how messy her hair is. She looks at me stormily. “You were supposed to be at the RLW tea an hour ago!”
Um…
“Dress emergency,” Jocelyn says quickly and points to my skirt. “Gilly knew you said to wear pink today, and she had gotten some glue on her gown so we were trying to help her magically get it off. Obviously we didn’t have much luck.”
Wow, that was smooth.
“Gilly!” I hear my sister calling my name. She’s smiling and running toward me, which is odd. “I’ve been looking for you!”
“I guess I haven’t been alone,” Princess Rose mumbles.
“I got a little lost and wound up sitting in on Professor Wolfington’s history of Enchantasia lecture, and then I got to see a magic carpet tutorial.” Anna is wound up like a top. “It was amazing! Then I visited the Pegasi stables. You’re soooo lucky to go here!”
“You don’t want to go here,” I correct her, but Anna gasps at the sight of Rose.
“Your Highness, how wonderful to meet you.” Anna’s curtsy is far better than any I’ve managed. “I’m sorry we’re late to your tea.”
“Ladies.” W
e turn to find Headmistress Flora staring at us darkly. “Whatever are you doing in this part of the castle? You are nowhere near the Royal Ladies’ tea.”
Our headmistress was meeting with Harlow. Anything she says is a lie.
“I was looking for Gilly,” Rose answers for us. “Her tracker lead me here.”
Wait. What?
“Tracker?” Flora looks dumbfounded.
“Her new sash,” Princess Rose says as if it should be obvious. “It has a tracker in it.” Flora’s eyes nearly bulge out of her head. “These sashes are one-of-a-kind priceless beauties. I couldn’t risk visitors—or our own criminally prone students—stealing them.”
“But I took mine off and gave it to Maxine,” I say.
Rose points to the rose pin I’m wearing on my lapel. “But you’re still wearing your pinning ceremony pin. That’s a tracker too. I know where you all are at all times!” she says happily like this is a good thing.
I’m flabbergasted. Flora seems equally so. “You tracked the students?”
“Yes,” Rose says, growing impatient. “Now I really need to get back to our tea! A hostess should never be gone for too long. Neither should the cohost when she’s invited a new student to join the club without asking.” She looks pointedly at me.
Maxine.
When I open my mouth to speak, a siren blares through the castle.
“What’s happening?” Anna covers her ears.
“We’re under attack,” I say, grabbing her hand, “but don’t worry, we’ll be okay.” Rumpelstiltskin is protecting the castle. For the moment, that comforts me.
A mirror nearby glows green. “Headmistress Flora,” Miri says urgently.
“What’s happened?” Flora asks. “There can’t be a break-in. We’re protected!”