“Nonsense,” King King said, flourishing his red-and-green-checkered robe. “Come with me.” He took his son by the hand and pulled him from his seat.
“Have fun,” Snow chirped as her husband was yanked out of the room.
“Dad, do we have to do this?” Duncan moaned.
“Yes, yes. Very important business,” the king said. He led Duncan down a long, twisting corridor into a large chamber, the walls of which were lined with dried-pasta mosaics. “Ah, here we are,” the monarch said. He pointed to a cushiony armchair upholstered with tiger-striped velvet. “That is a throne. That’s where the king sits. And if you’ll look to the left, you’ll see another throne. And that lady in it is a queen.”
“Yes, I know,” Duncan mumbled, waving to his mother halfheartedly.
“Hello, Duncan,” Queen Apricotta said with a smile, her bright-orange pigtails waggling. “Ooh, is it time for you to learn about all your future kingly duties?”
“Apparently so,” Duncan said sourly. “Even though I don’t think—”
But King King tugged him over to the two inky-haired twins who were standing by the window staring at each other through thick, round goggles. “You probably also know Mavis and Marvella,” the king said.
“For sixteen years now,” Duncan said with a sigh.
The girls turned to look at their brother. “Duncan, you’ve turned huge,” Marvella gasped.
“No, girls, he’s still Duncan size,” the queen said from her throne. “You’ve just got your magnifying goggles on.”
The twins lifted their goggles and nodded. “Ah.”
“We were playing Shrinky People,” Mavis explained. The girls put their goggles back on. “Ahh! We’ve shrunk again! Everything’s giant!”
“Yes, Mavis and Marvella are your sisters,” the king said. “But they have official titles as well. Mavis is Royal Treasurer, which means she keeps track of all the kingdom’s gold. And Marvella is . . . hmm, I want to say Minister of Poultry. I don’t quite remember. But neither job is very important. Being king, however, is very important. When you are king, you have a lot to do. You make proclamations—about things like what our national insect will be, or whether a meal can really be called brunch if it’s served after noon. As king you decide what color to paint the fence. You look at maps; you organize chickens— No, wait, that’s probably Marvella’s job. But most importantly, there are people—real people—who live out there in Sylvaria who are called ‘subjects.’ And occasionally, those subjects need something. So they come here to the castle to ask you for it. Which is so nice, because people actually come here.”
Duncan had missed most of his father’s speech; he was watching his sisters and thinking how fun those magnifying goggles looked. When he realized the king had stopped talking, he turned to him and asked, “But why are you telling me all this? You’re king, not me.”
“For the time being,” King King said. “But someday I won’t be around anymore, and the kingdom will be passed on to you. Maybe sooner than you think.”
Duncan frowned. “That’s a bit doom-and-gloomy for you, Dad. You’re still young. Well, not young young—you have a lot of nose hair, and you smell like old library books. But young for a king. Look at Snow’s father, the king of Yondale; he’s a hundred and twelve and still has all his original teeth—by which I mean his baby teeth. It’s very odd to see an old man with such itty-bitty teeth in his mouth. My point is: You’ll be around for years and years yet, so why bother with this?”
King King chuckled. “Don’t worry, Son; I’m not foreshadowing my own demise or anything,” he said, patting Duncan on the head. “I just want to make sure you’re ready to rule the realm someday. Now come along. Let me show you where we keep the royal back scratcher.”
But the back scratcher would have to wait. At that very moment, two glowing blue sprites burst into the throne room.
“Visitors!” Queen Apricotta squealed in delight, and began primping her pigtails.
Mavis and Marvella flipped up their goggles and gawked. “Real shrinky people,” Marvella whispered in awe.
“Are you the ambassadors from Fairyland?” the king asked. “I’ve been waiting for you. You’re seventeen years late. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. How was your trip?”
“We needs Princety Charming!” Deedle cried.
“Princety Duncan!” Blink clarified.
“That’s me!” Duncan blurted in surprise. “That’s both me! As long as ‘princety’ and ‘prince’ mean the same thing.”
“Really? You?” Deedle asked skeptically.
Duncan nodded. The sprites looked at each other and shrugged.
“Creepety men took Zel,” Blink said.
“Who’s Zel?” Duncan asked.
“You sure you right guy?” Deedle asked. “Zel! Goldety hair, fixety people . . .”
“Oh, you mean Punzy,” Duncan said.
“No, we mean Zel. Who’s Punzy?” Deedle snipped.
“Frederic and Gustav, too,” Blink interjected. “Creepety men grabbed all of them.”
That was all Duncan needed to hear. He raised his chin and declared, “Duty calls, everyone! I must go!”
He saw his family’s faces droop. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll be back. And I’ll bring souvenirs!” Everybody smiled again.
Ten seconds later, after getting as many details as he could from the sprites, Duncan ran back to the kitchen and pushed down the door. “Frederic, Gustav, and Rapunzel have been captured! I’ve got to go rescue them at once!”
Snow dropped the plate she was washing back into the sink. “I’ll grab our things,” she said eagerly.
“You want to come with me?” Duncan asked, surprised. “On an adventure?”
“As long as we get to leave the castle, yes.”
They dashed off together. Pip looked up mournfully from his soot pile. “There go the only half-sane people in this place,” he said. “But then again, who am I to judge? I’m talking to myself.”
“Dunky, should we get Liam to help us?” Snow asked as they grabbed their horses from the stable.
Duncan shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to bother him on his honeymoon.”
6
AN OUTLAW CRIES FOR HELP
Several months earlier, about the same time Frederic left Harmonia, Prince Liam had struck out on his own as well. He didn’t know exactly why Briar Rose had decided to annul their marriage, but he didn’t want to risk sticking around and giving her the chance to change her mind. He raced out of Avondell, telling himself that the best times of his life were just beginning. He didn’t have to be a hero anymore. No one was hounding him with calls for help; no one was begging him to rescue their kidnapped grandmother or to save their farm from invading bandersnatches. He was finally free to live whatever kind of life he wanted. The only problem was, he had no idea what he wanted to do.
He tried his hand at goatherding for a while; but after several weeks without a single wolf attack, he grew bored and traded his goats for a new cape. He attempted to make a living building log cabins for woodland families, but his very first clients fired him for adding too many escape hatches. He even took a shot at setting up a roadside stand and selling homemade acorn-head figurines—but he had no artistic talent and most passersby assumed his statuettes were clumps of trail mix. On the morning that one of his customers chipped a tooth trying to eat a Prince Gustav figure, Liam knew he’d made a mistake. Being a hero was the only thing he knew how to do.
And it was all he wanted to do.
He just needed to figure out where to do it. He certainly wasn’t going to stay in Briar’s home kingdom of Avondell, and he had no desire to face his parents back in Erinthia, so he trekked to nearby Hithershire—a land that, as far as he knew, was sorely lacking in big-name national heroes.
Hithershire has bandits and monsters and natural disasters, just like any other kingdom, Liam said to himself as he galloped over the hilly, green countryside of his newly chosen homeland, bu
t no champion to protect its people. Until now. Sitting astride his sturdy black stallion, Thunderbreaker, with a gleaming sword at his side and a deep-blue cape fluttering behind him, Liam felt energized and ready for anything. It didn’t take him long to come across a situation that was crying out for some heroic intervention.
An apple cart had been overturned on a dirt road, with half a dozen bodies lying unmoving around it. Bandit attack, Liam thought. He spurred Thunderbreaker and sped up to the cart, where he leapt down, drawing his sword before his feet hit the ground. Two apple vendors flinched when they saw him.
“Have no fear, citizens,” Liam said. “You’re safe now.”
“Yeah, we know,” said the first vendor, a tall, messy-haired young man in a dirty apron. “It’s pretty great, isn’t it?”
“Who are you anyway?” the second fruit seller asked.
“I’m Prince Liam of Erinthia. I’m here to rescue you.”
“A bit late for that, eh?” the man chuckled, elbowing his partner.
Maintaining his battle stance, Liam looked around. Now that he could see them up close, the bodies on the ground all appeared to be bandits—each unconscious, with his hands and feet tied. Liam frowned.
“Did you see the fight?” the tall vendor asked. He had a huge smile on his face and a dreamy look in his eyes. “She was amazing.”
“She took ’em all out in about ten seconds flat,” the shorter man added.
“Who did?” Liam asked.
“Our new hero,” the tall man beamed. “Ella, Mistress of the Sword.”
“Ella?” Liam asked skeptically. “Short brown hair? Swishy pants?”
“Oh, you’ve seen her then?” the tall one asked giddily. “Isn’t she incredible?”
“Ella did this? Why is she even in Hithershire?” Liam mused. “And where’s Frederic? She wasn’t with a very, er, elegant man, was she?”
The tall merchant shook his head. “No, just her. Wonderful her.”
The shorter vendor clutched his hands to his chest. “I can’t wait till we get robbed again.”
“So, just to be clear, you guys don’t need any more rescuing?” Liam asked.
“Nope.”
Liam sighed and turned back to his waiting horse.
“Hey, wait!” the tall merchant said. “You’re, like, a hero, too, right? A hero wouldn’t make us clean this all up by ourselves, would he?”
Liam surveyed the four hundred or so apples scattered along the road and sighed again. Ninety minutes later, with the cart righted and all the apples back in place, Liam finally remounted his horse and bade the merchants farewell.
“Don’t worry,” the tall one said. “We’ll tell everyone about you—Prince Liam, Retriever of Fallen Fruits!”
“Oh, please do,” Liam droned as he rode off.
Over the next couple of weeks, Liam heard the citizens of Hithershire singing Ella’s praises in every village he visited. But Ella herself always seemed one step ahead of him. He would show up mere minutes after she’d chased a gang of thieving goblins from a candy store, pulled frightened toddlers from a burning nursery, or hog-tied a disappointed mugger. I’ve got to find her, Liam thought—and there was only one way he could think of to get her attention.
“Help! Help!” he called. He stood alone by a windmill on the outskirts of the town of Digglesbury. “Help!” he cried again. Then he crossed his arms and waited. As he expected, it wasn’t long before Ella appeared, dropping down from the windmill blades with her rapier drawn, ready to strike.
“What seems to be the . . . huh? Liam!” She threw her arms around him in a warm embrace. “It’s so good to see you. But what gives? You don’t need help.”
“I needed help finding you,” he said. “So . . . thanks.”
Ella crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t appreciate the trickery. And what if there’s some poor person who really needs my aid out there right now?”
“I wouldn’t be too worried,” Liam said with a sly grin. “I think you’ve already taken out every criminal in this kingdom.”
Ella couldn’t help but grin too. And Liam couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she seemed to fit into the role of adventuring hero. She wore a laced green vest over a puffy-sleeved swashbuckler’s shirt and a pair of her trademark satiny “fighting pants” tucked into tall black boots. Her hair was cut into a short, asymmetrical bob—a look she’d decided to keep after getting an impromptu restyling by the fangs of a bladejaw eel the previous summer.
“Thank you,” she said. “So, what are you doing in these parts anyway?”
“I came here to be the hero of Hithershire.”
“Job’s already taken.” Ella grinned again and performed a fancy flourish with her blade. “Besides, why would you want it? Two kingdoms not enough? You’ve already got Erinthia and Avondell. Speaking of which, I’m surprised Briar let you this far out of her sight.” She suddenly hunched up, her eyes darting back and forth. “Wait, she’s not lurking under a rock somewhere, is she?”
“No, I haven’t seen Briar since our marriage was annulled.”
Ella’s eyes widened. “Whoa. You really ended it? How in the world did you convince her to agree to that?”
Liam cleared his throat. “I, um, can be very persuasive when I want to be. And I decided I’d finally had enough of her.”
“Wow,” Ella said, running her fingers through her hair, trying to process the news. “I’m just surprised. I mean, the last time I saw you, you seemed pretty content to head back to Avondell and be Briar’s dutiful husband.”
Liam bristled. “The same way you went off with Frederic.”
“Yeah, well . . . ,” she began sheepishly. “That only lasted long enough for us to get back to Harmonia. I haven’t seen him since then. I sort of . . . broke up with him.”
Both of them were silent for quite some time.
“Well, this is interesting,” Liam finally said. “We’re both, um, available. I suppose we could—”
“We could be partners,” Ella said. “Partners in fighting crime. Let’s thwart the evildoers of Hithershire together and . . . see how it goes.”
Liam offered his hand, and Ella shook it.
“Partners it is,” he said. “Let’s show ’em what we’ve got.”
Fig. 5
FORGED PARTNERSHIP
Liam and Ella’s partnership lasted approximately forty-five minutes.
In the next town, they stumbled upon a burglary in progress—thieves ransacking the mayor’s house. Ella wanted to swing in through an open window and surprise the robbers; Liam insisted on a head-on attack through the front door. Neither was willing to compromise. They each did their own things; and by the time it was over, the house was a wreck, Liam was tangled in the living room drapes, Ella had a flour sack over her head, and the crooks were safely back at their hideout with a wheelbarrow full of stolen loot.
“I was better off on my own,” Ella huffed.
“Then you should stay on your own,” Liam snapped.
“I will!” Ella growled, getting right in his face.
“And so will I!” he snarled back.
“As soon as we clean this place up!”
“Yeah! As soon as . . . oh. Uh, sure, all right.” He sheepishly rehung a picture frame that had been knocked down.
Two hours later, when the house was spotless, Ella and Liam stormed out in opposite directions. Neither noticed the sheriff only a few yards away, hanging a Wanted poster on the mayor’s fence—a poster with their faces on it.
The following afternoon, while patrolling as a solo hero once again, Liam heard another call for help. Man, he thought, Hithershire is not a safe place. He followed the cries to a secluded field behind a rickety barn, where he saw a white-haired old man dangling upside down from a peach tree.
“Oh, thank goodness,” the man croaked. “All the blood is rushing to my head.” He pointed up at his right foot, which had a rope looped around the ankle. “It’s a trap,” he said with a
n embarrassed shrug.
That was when Liam spotted movement out of the corner of his eye—Ella! She was entering the field from the other side of the barn. As soon as she and Liam made eye contact, they each took off in a mad dash for the tree.
“My rescue!” Ella shouted, running as fast as she could.
“I was here first!” Liam grunted, charging forward.
When they were each within a few yards of the hanging man, they both dove. The old man nimbly pulled himself up and out of the way, letting Liam and Ella crash into each other, forehead to forehead.
“Well, that was easier than I’d hoped,” the old man said. With one hand, he gracefully slipped the rope off his ankle and hopped down to the ground. He motioned to an unseen partner in the branches of the tree and stepped back as a weighted net fell onto his would-be saviors. Liam and Ella, still clutching their throbbing heads, looked up in shock at the old man’s nearly toothless grin.
“I did say it was a trap.” He chuckled. “You two have had the pleasure of being captured by Wiley Whitehair, oldest bounty hunter in the Thirteen Kingdoms.”
Pinned under the heavy net, Liam and Ella couldn’t even think about drawing their swords. Instead they glared at each other.
“This is all your fault,” Ella hissed.
“My fault?” Liam scoffed. “You’re the one who couldn’t stand back and let me make one stinking rescue.”
“If you didn’t feel such a burning need to out-hero me, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Ella said.
“Come on down, boys,” Whitehair called up into the tree. Three more bounty hunters leapt down from among the leaves. The first was a rotund man with thick mutton-chop sideburns, the second a wiry teenager in a mask, and the third . . . Well, Liam and Ella recognized the third immediately.
“Ruffian,” Liam growled. “I should have known this had something to do with Briar Rose. Fine, take me back to Avondell. But let Ella go.”
“Ooh, sounds like a confession,” said Whitehair, rubbing his hands together. “But I’m afraid I have to say no to your request. We’re gettin’ money for both of you. Hey, Ruffian, since you’ve got a history with this fella, why don’t you be the one to tie him up for us. Yellow Tom, you take care of the girl.”