Lauren DeStefano - Burning Kingdoms

“Well, we wouldn’t,” Pen says, “but who knows what Her Royal Stinky Highness will do from one day to the next? I wouldn’t let her catch you.”

Gertrude looks contemplatively at the window again. Her breath comes out in little clouds. She’s wearing a coat that seems too thin for this cold, though she has enough beads around her neck to constitute a scarf.

“Your princess is a wet blanket, huh?”

“That’s one way to put it,” I say.

“Once she senses a weak spot, she goes for the jugular,” Pen says. “Here’s a silly idea: Why don’t you use the door?”

“Father locks it,” she says.

“It isn’t locked now,” I say. “We’ve just opened it.”

“If you give us a heads up, we’ll make sure it’s unlocked when you want to sneak out,” Pen says. “That way you won’t have to sneak through the house or climb through our window and scare everyone senseless.”

“You’d do that?” Gertrude says.

“Back home, I used to sneak out all the time,” Pen says. “There was this little cavern in the woods. Remember, Morgan?”

Remember? How could I not? It was only last week and a lifetime ago. All I can do is nod. I suddenly feel that I’ll cry if I utter a word.

Gertrude smiles. It is a sincere, girlish smile, one that’s unaffected by her heavy eyeliner and blood-red lips. “Well, thanks,” she says. “I should get washed up before Father wakes us for breakfast. I must look like a ragamuffin.”

She’s a shy girl in a rebel’s garb. The ground is her home, but it’s still a big place, and I think she must be like Pen and me—trying to figure out this strange world as it reveals itself, bit by bit.

I think Pen was right, and that Gertrude Piper—Birdie—will have little insight into her father’s political dealings, but I would still like to get to know her.

After she’s gone inside, Pen looks at me. “What’s a night owl?” she says.

I shrug.

By the time we’re summoned for breakfast, Birdie is as fresh-faced and bright-eyed as her brothers and sisters. Not a drop of cosmetics on her face. After a night of no sleep, I’m not sure how she manages it, but no one suspects a thing, though I see Nimble elbow her as she takes her place beside him.

The plates are laid before us. Something yellow and fluffy, accompanied by little gray-brown cakes. “Eggs!” Annette says happily.

Pen can’t hide her skepticism. “The eggs of what?” she asks. We’ve never heard of eating something in egg form.

“Chickens,” Annette says.

“Chickens are birds,” Nimble says, watching to see our reaction.

I tuck my hands under the table. I was already having difficulty forcing an appetite, but now there’s no hope for this meal passing between my lips.

“We don’t eat a lot of plants,” he adds.

“Can it, Nim,” Birdie says under her breath. She clears her throat. “Where’s Father?”

“Otherwise engaged,” Nimble says. “He’s with a few of the king’s finest, trying to talk that crazy old man out of that ramshackle plane.”

“You should talk to that little girl—what’s her name?” Celeste says. “His granddaughter.”

“Amy,” Judas says. “And she hasn’t woken up yet. The trip exhausted her.”

“How exhausted could she be?” Celeste says. “We’re all recovered by now. Except for your brother, Morgan.”

At the mention of Lex, my hands turn to fists. She speaks so casually of people she doesn’t know at all. She doesn’t understand what it’s like for Amy and Lex. She doesn’t understand blindness or crippling fits or what it means to be anything but royalty.

“Is Amy all right?” Basil whispers to me.

I shake my head at my plate of strange food. I don’t know. “I’ll go and check on her,” I say.

“You have to ask to be excused first,” Annette says.

“May I be excused?”

“Yes. You may.”

When I open the door to Amy’s room, I find her standing at the window, her hair tangled from sleep.

“Here we are,” she says.

“Here we are. I went outside this morning. Didn’t realize how cold it truly was until I came back inside and the feeling started returning to my fingers.”

“It sounds wonderful,” she says. Her voice is subdued, though, and when she turns to face me, her eyes are cloudy.

“Would you like something to eat?” I say. “The food is strange, but the princess seems to like it. Pen has sort of been using her as a poison tester.”

Amy shakes her head. “My stomach is still recovering from the trip. I am getting restless, though.”

“Well, then, how would you like to go outside?” I say. “They could use your help talking the professor out of the bird.”

Her eyes brighten at that.

“And speaking of birds, I saw a real one today,” I say. “It flew straight across the sky and disappeared.”

“You didn’t,” she gasps.

“There are bound to be more. Maybe we’ll see one. Hurry and get dressed.”

“Will you come too?” she says.

“Sure, if you want.”

“And—could you tell Judas not to tag along?”

“I can talk to him, but—”

“If you want me to try and convince my grandfather to come out, those are my terms,” she says. “Let me get dressed.”

She shoos me from the room and closes the door.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” I mutter to the knob.

Judas doesn’t take kindly to being left out, but it’s enough of a relief to see Amy up and about that he concedes to her demands, though not without grabbing my arm at the door and warning that he will kill me if anything happens while she’s in my charge.

It isn’t the first time he’s threatened me in this way, but it is the first time I believe him. Now that his betrothed is dead, Amy is the only thing he has resembling family. Her frail health and stubborn bravery give him good reason to be concerned.

“I’ll guard her as if she were my own,” I say.

“If you had given birth to me when you were five,” Amy says snidely. Her way of reminding us that she isn’t a child.

“Don’t worry,” Nimble says. “I’m an old pro at driving in this weather.”

He drives slowly, glancing back at us in the mirror every now and again. “I couldn’t help noticing the tracks outside this morning,” he says.

“We’ve never seen snow before,” I say.

“Then this must be a real shock,” he says. “What do you get? Rain?”

“Rain?” I ask.

He laughs, turns the wheel against his open palms. “Oh boy.”

No matter how far we drive, we never seem to get any closer to the city in the distance. We do pass the field of strange machines I noticed when we landed, though. “What are all of those?” I say, nodding to the machines outside my window.

“Rides,” Nimble says. “That’s the theme park. Roller coasters and biplane rides to give you the sensation you’re flying higher than airplanes. For a penny you can get a look at the underside of the magical floating island through a telescope.”

“The magical floating island?” Amy says, scrunching her nose. “That’s what people call us?”

“What do you call it, then?”

Amy says “Internment” at the same time I say “Home.”

“Internment,” Nimble repeats several times, testing the word on his tongue. “As in ‘confined.’ Creepy.”

“It isn’t creepy at all,” I say.

“Maybe it is,” Amy says. “Not at first. You’d have to be there a while to see it.”

She’s quiet after that.

We pass what appears to be a sort of garden made of rocks, and Amy’s breath catches. Her chin snaps up attentively and her eyes are sharp.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you feel another fit coming on?”