Lauren DeStefano - Burning Kingdoms

HAVALAIS: HOME OF THE FLOATING ISLAND

“Five!” Pen whispers, after she’s closed the door behind us. “I counted five children. The nerve, Morgan.”

“Shh. Someone will hear.”

“Oh, who’s to hear us? This building has more rooms than Internment has people.”

“He works for the king,” Celeste says. “He could be spying. Though it isn’t as though we have anything to hide.”

Pen narrows her eyes. “Nobody was talking to you, Your Bloody Highness.”

“I am only trying to help,” Celeste says. She sits on the bed and fans the skirt of her dress around her. “As the only one among us with any knowledge about public relations.”

“What public relations?” Pen cries. “You and your brother only ever left that clock tower to fire darts and arrows at things for sport.” She looks to me. “I’m not sharing a room with her. I won’t be able to close my eyes at night unless there is a lock between us.”

The three of us have been left alone to share a bedroom as large as the apartment I shared with my parents. Jack Piper told us that we would find clothes in the closets and “a place to wash up down the hall.” One of the children boasted about their indoor hot water both upstairs and down; it’s quite revolutionary, he said.

None of us questioned the way we were divided up and sent to the bedrooms. We’re approaching all of this with due caution.

“Pen, come here. Try to be calm,” I say, patting the space beside me as I sit on the adjacent bed.

She chews on her knuckle and paces.

“All right,” Celeste says. “I know the three of us haven’t gotten off to the friendliest start—”

“You kidnapped us and held my betrothed at knifepoint,” Pen says.

“Yes, and you tried to murder my brother. We’re quite even. And despite what you may think, I do know a thing or two about people. That sign out there says that this is the home of the floating island. That means they recognize where we’re from. They’re interested, maybe even fascinated. They know nothing about the way our city is governed, and now for the first time they have a chance to learn. Perhaps their king and my father can do business.”

“Oh, wake up, will you?” Pen turns to face us. Behind her, the white flurries are tangled in a dance within the window frame. “Their king and your father can’t do business. This was a one-way trip. We can’t go home. Not ever.”

“Nonsense,” Celeste says. “Why would the lot of you leave Internment with no way of getting back?”

Pen looks away. Her face has turned red. Her eyes are misting.

“We had no choice,” I say quietly. “We were fugitives.” I stare at the floor; it appears to be made of some kind of fabric cut out into a giant oval, and it’s so plush that I can see traces of our footprints in it. Even the floors are different. I fear what will await us when the sun melts away that blanket of snow. “What Pen said is true. We can’t ever go back.”

“You can’t, maybe,” Celeste says to me, “but I’ll have to return. Of course I will.”

Pen laughs cruelly.

Celeste raises her chin.

“We should change,” I say. It’s the only thing I can think of that should come next. We’ll find new clothes. We’ll start learning to adapt. No matter how impossible it seems.

There’s a wooden screen that divides off a portion of the room. Pen and I hide behind it and change into the dresses we’ve selected from the closet. On the hangers are the most exquisite dresses I’ve ever seen—all tiers and flowers and lace. Pen helps with the buttons at my wrists, and she straightens the lace at my collarbones. And while we’re facing each other, her mouth purses. She shields her eyes with her quaking hand. “Oh, Morgan,” she whispers.

I wrap my arms around her shoulders. “I know.” We’re both as good as orphaned now. My parents are in the tributary, but she’ll never see hers again whether they’re living or not.

“We can’t cry,” she says firmly.

“No. Strength, remember?”

She nods, draws back, and pulls my hair in front of my shoulders.

I pinch her cheek, and she smiles.

From beyond the screen, Celeste clears her throat. “What sort of woman wore these dresses, do you think?” she says.

Pen growls.

“And what do you think they call this fabric?” Celeste goes on.

“Maybe they belong to Mrs. Piper,” I say.

“He didn’t mention a wife at all, did he?” Celeste says.

I step out from behind the screen, and Pen follows. “Maybe they don’t have wives here,” Pen says. “Maybe the women just come around to lay eggs and then they leave.”

I can’t help laughing. “Be careful what you say,” Celeste says, but she’s laughing too.

“I’m quite serious,” Pen says, assessing her reflection in the oval mirror that hangs wreathed in dry flowers. “What kind of woman could birth five children? Can you imagine? It isn’t human.”

“It would be rude to ask,” I say. “We’ll have to look for a ring.”

“He had a ring,” Celeste says. “A metal one. It was the same shade of gold as the curtains downstairs. Gold is an odd choice for a wedding ring, isn’t it?”

“We can’t ask,” I repeat firmly. “If we were to offend our host, we could well be tossed out into the snow, and then what?”

Pen walks around me, dragging her finger through my hair so it rises and falls. It’s so straight that it falls immediately back into formation. “What if he killed his wife? What if we’re next?” Pen says.

“Are you always so grim?” Celeste says.

A knock at the door silences our chatter. I loop my arm around Pen’s.

“Excuse me.” It’s one of the children. A girl. “Dinner is being served downstairs.”

The thought of food nauseates me. For just a moment, I nearly forgot the magnitude of this ordeal, but that strange affectation in the child’s voice has reminded me.

“Thank you,” Celeste says sweetly.

“Should we try to eat any of it?” Pen whispers into my ear. “What if it’s poisoned?”

I’m not eager to relive the experience of the poisoned sweetgold. “We should at least pretend to,” I say.

“Let’s let Her Highness eat it and see if she survives.”

Celeste, who is fixing her braided crown, pauses to glare at us in the mirror.

Jack Piper is a man who strives for order; that much is clear. His children do all things in order of height, which includes taking their places at the largest dinner table I’ve ever seen. He gives them a nod, and they shake open their folded napkins and lay them in their laps.

“I have to compliment you on your gold curtains,” Celeste says. “We don’t see much gold fabric back home.”

Back home. What a notion.

Riles’s snorting laugh says he think we’re the strangest things alive. “You don’t have gold fabric?” he says.

“What else don’t you have?” one of the younger girls asks.

“Don’t be brats,” Nimble tells them.

“Yes, gold is popular down here,” Jack says. “It’s a precious metal.”

I’ve never thought of any one metal as being more special than the next. They all come in handy for something or other.

“Do you have ham?” the smallest one, Annette, asks. She isn’t teasing; she really wants to know. “Because that’s what’s for dinner.”

“I don’t think so,” Celeste says. She doesn’t seem to mind speaking on behalf of us all. “What is it?”

“It’s from a pig,” Annette says. She presses her nose upward with her finger and makes a snorting sound.

“We don’t have those,” Pen says, speaking before the princess can get in another word. “And we don’t eat animals very often. Only on special occasions.”