King Vaygran’s tree was a massive thing, with thick steel-colored branches that twisted upward. Its blue leaves were so dark they looked black in places. Several of the branches were bare, and thorns ran along the trunk.
Hudson pulled his hat down, hiding as much of his face as he could. He walked across the courtyard, where hundreds of people had congregated in front of the balcony, waiting for the king’s speech. Women and men stood pressed close together, talking in so many conversations the noise sounded like waves crashing into a shore. Some younger children played along the edge of the courtyard, laughing as they tossed a hat back and forth between them. Merchants walked around the courtyard, selling wares and where’s.
The people’s happy chatter seemed a stark contrast to the gallows that waited to the left side of the balcony. A noose hung from the center, unmoving, even though a breeze swept across the courtyard. Two soldiers stood at attention on each side of the castle doors, swords hanging at their sides. They didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in the crowd, just guarding the castle’s front doors. Hudson pulled his hat down a little more anyway.
A pair of large birds—harpy eagles, the falcon had called them—sat on the turrets above the balcony. They had gray checked wings and large feathers circling their heads like lion manes. Three more harpy eagles perched around the castle, watching the crowd with darting black eyes. Charlotte’s birds wouldn’t be able to come close to this place.
Hudson hated seeing the gallows, hated the thought that King Vaygran might send Charlotte there before Hudson could stop him. He wished he had some magical item that would sabotage the contraption, then realized he did. Sometimes magic came in small packages—in this case, a small, furry rodent package.
Hudson slipped his pack from his shoulder and opened the flap. Immediately, the squirrel poked a twitching nose out. “Are we there? Where’s Charlotte?”
“Shhh,” Hudson whispered. “I need you to do two things. Go to the gallows, climb up the side, and gnaw the rope. Cut through enough of it so it will break if they hang Charlotte. But don’t cut enough that the soldiers notice the noose is hanging by a thread. Can you do that?”
Meko nodded and lifted his paws, eager for the next instruction. Which was good, because there were more ropes that needed gnawing.
“When they bring Charlotte out, sneak over to her and chew through the ropes tying her up. If she’s bound with chains, see if one of the people near her has the key to the lock. Steal it if you can, and unlock her chains. Oh, and watch out for harpy eagles.” He opened the bag wider. “Go.”
The squirrel shot out of the pack, zipped across the ground, and disappeared among the feet of the crowd.
Hudson wished he could move through the crowd so easily. More people were coming into the courtyard with every passing minute. He needed to be close enough to the balcony that he could be sure to hit King Vaygran with the pouch of revealing powder. Hudson also wanted to be close enough that Charlotte would see him and know he’d come to help.
He strained his head, peering around the people who stood in front of him. How could he get closer? It was then that he saw more soldiers striding into the courtyard from the street. About ten of them, and they weren’t alone. Four villagers stood beside them. Hudson recognized three: Glamora, Proval, and Rex. The other woman with them was undoubtedly also a troll.
Hudson let out a groan. Even if his hat completely concealed his face, it wouldn’t keep him from the trolls’ detection. Trolls could tell what a person was hiding. As soon as they saw him, they would know he hadn’t come here to listen to the king; he’d come here to stop him.
Hudson turned so his back faced the trolls. I’m not hiding anything, he told himself. I’m proud of what I’m doing. He hoped thinking these thoughts would shield him from the trolls’ powers. As he pressed into the crowd, he tapped a woman on the shoulder. “I’m Hudson Brown.”
She cast him a questioning look, as though wondering if she should know him.
“I’m here to rescue Charlotte,” he said in an offhand manner. “I’m from Texas, and I was a jerk at school for not sticking up for her.”
The woman’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What?”
He didn’t explain, just went on spouting off things he wanted to hide. “I have a troll mirror, I escaped from soldiers, and I changed a bunch of people in the marketplace into Provals.”
The woman cocked her head. “Do you feel faint, young man?”
“I’m not hiding anything,” he told her. “It’s out in the open now. Could you let me through? I’ve got a bag of revealing powder to throw at the king.”
Rude behavior may get you nowhere in life, but crazy behavior will take you all sorts of places. Most people prefer you go there alone.
With her eyebrows still drawn together in question, the woman stepped aside and let Hudson pass. He squeezed by six more people and then got stuck in the crowd again.
A glance over his shoulder showed him that the soldiers were pairing off with the trolls and positioning themselves on all sides of the courtyard. They would methodically scan the crowd, searching for someone who was hiding who he was. Hudson didn’t know if his confession had shielded him from troll scrutiny. Even if it had, he didn’t have long. Soon everyone in the crowd except him would break out into boils. If the trolls hadn’t found him before then, they would know who he was after that.
What if the king didn’t come out for hours? Could Hudson leave every twenty minutes and come back? He didn’t let himself think about that, or about the other ways this plan could go wrong. In order to have a sure shot, he needed to get closer to the balcony. As he jostled around people, he listened to their conversations. Everyone spoke about either the tree or the assassin. They seemed to think King Vaygran had caught the assailant in the very act of wielding the king’s sword against him.
Hudson was nearing the front of the crowd when the trumpets sounded, announcing the king’s arrival. Two men in red tunics and leggings marched onto the balcony, each with a loopy trumpet pressed to his lips. A third red-tunicked man strode out and draped a flag across the balcony railing that depicted the king’s tree underneath the phrase PEACE, PROSPERITY, UNITY. IT’S THE LAW.
While the red-tunicked men retreated back inside the castle, King Vaygran strolled out, arms raised as though he wanted to embrace the crowd. He wore a gold crown perched high on his thick black hair, and his long blue robe dragged across the balcony like a trailing storm cloud. He looked tall, noble, and utterly powerful.
He stepped over to the railing, and the crowd cheered so loud the noise rang out through the courtyard. Behind him, Nepharo and a soldier half dragged, half carried Charlotte onto the balcony. Her hair had been blown into wild disarray, and her eyes were wide with worry. She was still gagged and bound by the silver rope, and more surprising, she still wore Macy’s face. Hudson had expected Nepharo to use revealing powder on her. Maybe he didn’t want people to know she was Fantasmo’s daughter. No point in alerting any friends who might help her.
While the people around Hudson continued clapping, he slipped his bag off his shoulder. Time to get out the revealing powder.
Nepharo gazed at the gallows with smug satisfaction and dragged Charlotte closer to the balcony railing. King Vaygran held up his hand to silence the crowd. Rings glittered on his fingers, tossing the light away from him like a sunburst. “People of Logos, I bring before you one of the assailants who broke into my chamber and seized my sword.”
Hudson found the bag of revealing powder and took it out.
“My soldiers apprehended her,” King Vaygran continued, “and now I bring her before you so you can decide her fate.”
The fate King Vaygran wanted for her was pretty clear, since he’d already set up the gallows.
“Hang her!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“Death to traitors!” Someone else shouted. Several people joined in agreement. One finished with, “And let that be a warning to all would-be assassin
s!”
Hudson shifted a step to his left, away from a tall man who stood in front of him. As he did, Charlotte’s gaze found him. He couldn’t see her smile through the gag but was sure she had. The corner of her eyes crinkled in relief. She knew he was here to carry out her plan and thought it would work.
Hudson was considerably less sure. When you came down to it, nothing had worked the way they thought it would. The bee had told him rescuing the princess was a process. If that was true, then the Cliff of Faces sure hadn’t known the process. They’d sent them to an empty tower in the Land of Backwords.
King Vaygran held up his jeweled hand to silence the crowd again. “I would not issue such a serious verdict on one so young. If the girl is to die, it must be because the people insist upon it. It must be your devotion to me and abhorrence of her crime that lead to her punishment.”
Voices all over the crowd erupted in agreement, insisting that assassins be punished. Hudson fingered the bag of revealing powder, getting a feel for its weight. He loosened the tie a bit and made a quick check of the soldiers’ positions. The ones to his left still stood, hands on their swords, peering into the crowd. The ones on his right—oh no, Proval was staring right at him. The troll boy grinned in gloating triumph and pointed out Hudson to the soldier next to him.
Hudson didn’t have any more time to spare. He turned back to the balcony. Charlotte was waiting with tense anticipation. Throw! Her eyes told him. Throw now!
It was during the moment when he wound his arm back that he figured out the riddle in the Cliff of Faces’ answer. The face on the cliff had said that if Charlotte and Hudson walked into the tower, the princess could walk out. There was only one way that answer was the truth, and the possibility made Hudson inwardly gasp.
The facts, he suddenly realized, had been there all along, scattered puzzle pieces waiting to be snapped together. In a whir of understanding, the pieces came together now.
Disguise paste changed the way a person looked—permanently, unless revealing powder changed them back to their original form. Which meant Charlotte could have looked completely different in Logos than she had when she came to Texas. Aziz Fantasmo was hiding her, so he would have changed her looks along with her name.
Hudson didn’t know what Charlotte actually looked like.
Charlotte’s memories were cut into ribbons. She hadn’t done that—she wouldn’t have, at least not without writing down what memories she was losing. A wizard had done it. One who’d made a calculater.
And a wizard had taken Princess Nomira from the tower at Backwords to someplace where she could live a safe, normal life.
What better place than the Land of Banishment?
The Cliff of Faces hadn’t given the wrong answer, after all. The princess had walked out of the tower. He and Charlotte just hadn’t realized it.
Hudson could hear the soldiers coming toward him, pushing their way through the crowd. “Out of the way!” they barked.
He threw the bag of revealing powder. It arced up toward the balcony high and fast, then struck dead center into Charlotte’s chest. A small cloud of powder shot into the air, covering her, glistening like glitter as it fluttered to the ground. Her eyes blinked in anguished disbelief. She thought he’d missed. But he hadn’t. He’d been aiming for Charlotte.
17
THE COLORS AND shape of Charlotte’s clothes ran together and drained away. Her hair darkened and grew longer, and her features changed. She wasn’t Charlotte—not the redheaded girl he’d gone to school with in Houston. The girl on the balcony looked a bit older than the picture Hudson had seen of her in Scriptoria, but it was definitely Princess Nomira. Charlotte had been the princess all along. She just hadn’t been able to remember this fact.
A series of gasps went up from the crowd. “It’s the princess!” several people yelled. Followed by “Why is she bound?” and “Release her!”
Someone yelled, “King Vaygran wanted to trick us into executing the princess!”
Even the soldiers halted where they stood, gaping openmouthed at Charlotte instead of coming after Hudson.
She stared at Hudson, her eyes circles of surprise. She was putting the pieces together, understanding what the gaps in her memory actually meant. Aziz Fantasmo wasn’t her father. He’d been King Vaygran’s wizard, the man assigned to guard her at the tower in the Land of Backwords. After he’d changed loyalties, he’d done something to her memories and taken her to Texas to hide.
Nepharo glared at the crowd and fingered his wand. King Vaygran strode over to her, the anger flowing off him like heat waves. “She isn’t the real princess!” he yelled. “It’s trickery. That boy hit her with magic powder to change her appearance.” He pointed at Hudson. “Guards, grab the boy and bring him to me.”
The soldiers tried to push through the crowd again, although fewer people moved out of their way now. Still, Hudson couldn’t escape from the courtyard, not when so many people surrounded him, pinning him in place.
“She is the princess,” Hudson shouted. “I threw revealing powder on her! King Vaygran knows she’s the princess, and that’s why he’s trying to kill her!”
This caused another murmur to go through the crowd. “Let the girl speak!” several people yelled.
Someone called, “Those of us who knew her will recognize her voice. Ungag her.”
“No!” the king snapped. “If she speaks, she might cast a spell upon you.” He glared at Charlotte, enraged. “She might be a wizard. I’ll have Nepharo question her in private, where he can protect himself from her magical treachery.”
The crowd seemed torn by this statement. Some nodded, while others protested. “How will we ever know the truth?” a woman called out.
“If it’s the princess,” a man yelled, “she’ll know where the scepter is. Ask her. Have her write the answer.”
King Vaygran put his hand to his chest and forced a benevolent smile in the crowd’s direction. “You need to trust my judgment on the matter. Haven’t I served you well this past year? Haven’t I brought you what none of my predecessors could? I’ve given Logos peace, prosperity, and unity.”
This statement didn’t rouse the support King Vaygran had hoped for. Murmurs turned into mutters of complaint.
The king pointed at Hudson. “It’s that boy who’s sowing disunity, and he’ll be punished for it.”
The soldiers pressed closer to Hudson. Nepharo stepped to the edge of the balcony and held his wand outstretched, perhaps shooting a spell in Hudson’s direction. Nothing happened. Hudson’s clover was protecting him.
The wizard was so busy with his wand-waving he didn’t notice that the squirrel had shimmied up the castle wall and run across the balcony, but Hudson saw it.
“It isn’t your kingdom,” he yelled. “Princess Nomira is the rightful ruler. Cut through her ropes right now!”
He didn’t expect Vaygran to do it. The instruction was for the squirrel. Meko darted behind Charlotte and disappeared from Hudson’s view. If she felt the squirrel biting at the rope, she gave no indication of it. She gazed stoically out at the people.
The soldiers who had pushed their way through the crowd finally reached Hudson. One grabbed his arm roughly and yanked him sideways. The second grabbed hold of his other arm. “She is the princess,” Hudson yelled again. “Rescue her before King Vaygran kills her!”
People in the crowd began talking in so many heated conversations no one heard the next few words the king said. At least a dozen men pushed toward the castle doors, demanding to be let inside so they could see the princess themselves. Other people cried out, “Let us examine the girl! We insist on it!”
One of the guards stationed at the doors pulled out his sword, but he tried only halfheartedly to keep the men outside. The other soldier had left his post and gone into the courtyard to see Charlotte himself. “It looks like her,” he called back to the other. “It might be the princess.”
King Vaygran’s eyes darted over the crowd, worried. He grabbed
hold of Charlotte’s arm to keep anyone from spiriting her off.
It was a mistake. The revealing powder glistening on her skin affected him, too. He’d apparently used some sort of magic to enhance his royal appearance, and once he touched the revealing powder, he shrank several inches. His features grew sharper, less handsome. Instead of glowing with warmth, his eyes looked as cold and dark as stones. Charlotte had said revealing powder also revealed crimes. Two words took shape across his forehead, glowing red like brands: IMPRISONED NIECE. Other sentences were written below these words, but they were too small to see from far away.
The crowd stared at him in wonder, their conversations now spinning around the revelation. “The girl must be the princess!” a man yelled. “He imprisoned her last night.”
“No,” someone else answered. “Those words mean that he unlawfully imprisoned her a year ago. He didn’t send her away to protect her. We have proof of that now.”
King Vaygran realized what had happened and jerked his hand away from Charlotte. It was too late, though. The words stuck.
“If that’s not the real princess,” a woman shouted, “then where is she? Bring her forth!”
“Let us ask the girl questions!” someone else demanded.
“That’s why the princess’s tree is dying!” a woman yelled, pointing at the king. “You’re trying to kill her!”
The crowd rumbled with agreement, and several people shouted, “Release her!”
The soldiers pulling Hudson slowed down. No one moved out of their way now, despite the soldiers’ commands.
King Vaygran stepped forward and planted his hands firmly on the railing. “I am the king! I decide what happens to impostors. Anyone who thinks differently will answer to Nepharo.”
At the sound of his name, Nepharo gave the crowd a thin-lipped smile, as though the masses below him were unruly children who needed discipline. He held up both hands and grew larger and taller, each moment adding height. His fingers stretched into sharp gray claws, and his skin turned dark red and scaly. A tearing sound came from his back as wings sprouted, unfurled, and flapped angrily. His neck jutted out unnaturally, and for a moment he looked like some horrible genetic accident—a dragon with a man’s face—then his beard disappeared and was replaced by snapping jaws and a reptilian snout.