Chapter 26
26
“Oh, no. The weirdo is coming.”
I looked to see who Nix was talking about. Fortunada was heading toward us. “Don’t be mean,” I admonished Nix. She’d surprised me by showing up at the palace early in the morning so we could talk about everything we’d discovered so far on our way to school. It was a week to coronation, and there was a mambabarang out there, and I still hadn’t manifested any magical ability.
“Wait, you know her?” Nix asked. “That weirdo?”
“Yes, why? She helped me out on my first day here. She’s really nice. I feel sorry for her. No one talks to her.”
“Because she gives everyone the creeps.”
“Why do you say that? Anyway, stop; she’s coming.”
“She just showed up one day and started, like, following people around,” Nix managed to say just as Fortunada approached.
“Hello, Your Highness,” she said while giving an awkward curtsy. Her shoes and thick knitted tights were strangely old-fashioned, I realized, and she wore yet another gorgeous jewel—this time a pearl-and-diamond brooch on her lapel. “I received my invitation to the Coronation Eve Ball.”
“Oh, great! So you’ll be there?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” She smiled, showing her crooked teeth.
Something else looked different about her. “By the way, I like your hair.” That was what it was—she’d pulled it up with two jeweled clips.
She touched them. “Thanks, they were my grandma’s. Like my brooch.” She pulled it from her robes and waved it in the light so it sparkled.
Nix tapped me with her foot. “Do you know my friend Nix?” I asked, to cover the obvious nudge.
“Um, not really,” Fortunada said shyly. “I don’t really know a lot of people.”
“I think I’ve seen you around,” Nix said cheerfully. I appreciated that she was at least trying to be nice. I gave her a grateful smile. But her eyes looked dark. “What class do you have right now?” I knew that was code for “go away” but hoped Fortunada hadn’t picked up on it. If she did, she didn’t let on.
“Oh, yes. I have to run. I just wanted to say thank you. The invitation is beautiful.” She gestured around. “It’s all so beautiful.” Referring, I guessed, to the decorations going up around the city.
“Thank you. I have to give credit to my lady-in-waiting, Jinky, and my assistant, Ayo. They coordinated everything.”
“Well,” Fortunada said, her voice abruptly serious, “I sure hope you appreciate what they do for you.”
“Of course,” I said. I looked at Nix. She gave me the slightest shrug, like, Told you—weird .
“We’re gonna be late,” Nix said.
“Oh! I’m so sorry to keep you,” Fortunada said. “I’m sure we’ll get to speak later?”
“Yes,” I said. I had to admit, I was relieved when she finally walked away. “Okay, fine, you were right,” I told Nix. “She’s a little weird.”
“Seriously, what was that? ‘I hope you appreciate everything they do.’ Okay? How about mind your business?” Nix was super irritated.
“No big deal. She’s just awkward. You heard what she said—she doesn’t know a lot of people.”
Nix watched Fortunada slouch away, her back slumped like she wanted to crawl in on herself. “I guess.”
***
The next day, Nix, Lucas, and I gathered at the round table in my apartments that was now our de facto planning area and laid out the next steps. Nix argued for searching the king’s chamber right away. “We can’t do anything else until we cross that off the list,” she pointed out. “I think that’s where we need to start.”
Lucas agreed. “All roads do lead back there. We should do as Nix says, go back and comb through the rooms for any clues as to who the mambabarang might be. Maybe they dropped something or left a shoe print. Maybe the king wrote something down—a meeting with someone, a concern, who knows?”
“All right, let’s do this,” I said. “No time like the present.”
I needed this off my mind so I could work on finding my magic. The other night, I had tried breathing underwater in the bathtub and almost drowned. I only had less than a week left, and so far, it wasn’t looking good. At least this situation was something I could immediately control.
We made it from my rooms to the wing where the king’s chambers were located without any drama. But once we got there, I realized I’d forgotten something. I slapped my forehead. “Argh. I just remembered; we need to get the key.”
“Actually, I’ve got it.” Lucas pulled something from his pocket: a golden key.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was my father’s.” He slipped it into the lock and opened the door. “After you,” he said, sweeping his arm into the room.
Nix went first. “Thank you, sir,” she said in a faux-fancy voice.
Lucas waited for me to follow her. I looked down at the key and back up at him. “You’ve had that all this time?”
He straightened his shoulders. “Yes. Like I said, it was my father’s.”
“What other rooms does it—”
“None. If that’s what you’re worried about, don’t. I wish you would trust me, Princess.”
“MJ,” I corrected him. “I told you, stop calling me Princess. Isn’t that something we learned in P and P class? That once a couple is courting, they can drop the formalities?”
“Sorry, I didn’t think it bothered you so much,” he said.
It didn’t. I was just being irritable, because I wanted to trust him, I really did. I liked him. A lot. And I think he genuinely liked me, too. But after what Elias had told me, about keeping our enemies close, I had to keep up my guard.
For now, however, we were already there, so I walked inside my father’s old rooms once again.
Lucas closed and locked the door behind us. The sudden silence was overwhelming. It felt like we weren’t even in the same palace anymore. More like an abandoned old mansion or something, between the thick layer of dust, the spooky sheets draped over the furniture, and the imposing oil paintings that seemed like they were either watching us or might come alive any moment. I could hear Nix’s footsteps creaking in the next room over. “What’s taking you guys so long?” she called out.
“I’ll take this room,” Lucas said. “Go with Nix.” I thought I detected a slight edge in his tone, like he was annoyed with me or wanted to get me out of his hair, which made me kinda angry and sad at the same time. He didn’t have a right to be upset with me as far as I was concerned; I wasn’t the one with a secret key to his father’s private rooms. It annoyed me, because somehow we kept falling back to being combative. I didn’t know if I wanted to hit him or kiss him.
I left him to it and found Nix rummaging through the tiny drawers of a tall apothecary-type cabinet against the wall. I hadn’t noticed it last time I was there. Most of the room looked different, actually. Probably because I was far more relaxed, less terrified. I saw a lot of things I’d missed before. “Anything interesting?” I asked her.
“Not yet,” she said, shutting one drawer and opening another. “Most of them are already empty. Others have writing ink, quills, blank parchment, stuff like that.” She kept opening and shutting. “There are, like, a hundred drawers, so this might take a while. I was curious about that, but I figured I should leave that for you.” She nodded toward a mahogany rolltop desk against the opposite wall.
I went over and opened the top. I expected it to be locked, but it wasn’t. That was good, except it also meant anything useful was probably already gone. And just as I’d thought, the desktop was completely pristine—not a piece of paper, nor an errant writing utensil, nothing. Just a black leather desk mat that appeared to have been wiped clean. To be thorough, I began opening all the little doors and drawers, but they were empty. “There’s nothing here,” I said.
Nix looked over at me. “I’m not having any luck either.” She looked inside another cabinet. “This is getting boring.”
I tried to pull out the last drawer, but it was jammed. I wiggled it and yanked, and then it came open, creaking so loud I was afraid I was about to break it. Much to my disappointment, it was also empty. But then I heard something metallic clinking around. I pulled the drawer a little more, and a silver coin about the size of a quarter rolled out from the back. I held it up to Nix. “Well, I found this, at least.” It looked different from the ones I’d seen. Took a couple seconds, but I realized why—it was not a coin currently in circulation. The profile on the front was not of King Vivencio, my father; it was someone else—King Paolo IV. My grandfather.
She came over to get a closer look. “Well, at least one of us found something cool.” She looked back at the cabinet. “I quit. Someone else already took everything. Let’s try the other room.”
First I peeked my head in at Lucas in the receiving room. He was patting down an upholstered chair, like a CSI investigator or something. He’d been inspecting every surface methodically. Sheets were pulled off the chairs, and one chair was lying on its back. “We’re going to try the king’s office,” I told him. He nodded, deep in concentration.
I went back and joined Nix, already doing her own thing, checking the windowsill for footprints or anything suspicious. I decided to go through the desk where I’d hidden from Lucas last time. “Wait,” I said, realization dawning on me. Nix looked my way. “Have you seen any bugs?” I asked her.
She tilted her head. “No, I don’t think so? If I do, I’ll let you know.”
No bugs. I leaned and looked under the desk, checked the floor, inspected near the floorboards—definitely no bugs. They didn’t get up and walk away; they were dead. That means someone had to come clean them up. I felt dread in my heart.
“We shouldn’t stay here long,” I said.
Nix agreed. “Let’s just do one last sweep.”
“Yeah,” I said. I opened the desk drawers slowly, positive I’d find a beetle in one of them, dead or alive. Nothing. They were as empty as all the others. And then another thing occurred to me—all the handles were clean. Everything else was grimy. “Hey, did you happen to notice if there was any dust on the handles?” I asked Nix.
“Uh, I don’t think so?” She looked at her hands. They weren’t dirty. “Actually, no, they didn’t. Wait.” She ran out of the room and then returned seconds later. “I checked the drawers I hadn’t checked yet—no dust.” We stared at each other, both understanding what that meant. Someone had been here.
“The witch?” she asked. “Do you think the witch was here?”
I just shook my head. “I don’t know. My first thought was the mambabarang, too. But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe just cleaning staff doing their job.”
“Right, that makes sense,” Nix said. I could tell neither of us was convinced, though we really wanted to believe it was just staff and not the witch returning to clean up evidence... or take something they hadn’t before.
I put my hands on my hips and looked around the room. If I was my father, where would I hide something? If the witch was here, then they had reason to believe there was something to get their hands on.
Lucas walked in. “Nothing,” he said, referring to the other room. He began running his hands down the curtains. Nix and I watched him curiously. “Something could be sewn into the fabric,” he said, like it should be obvious.
That gave me an idea. I went back to the king’s desk and pulled the drawers all the way out, checking the bottoms and looking into the empty spaces where they slid into the desk.
“What about the middle drawer?” Lucas said. He began tugging on the front of the desk.
“It’s a false front. It doesn’t open. It’s just decorative.”
But he kept yanking at the knob, and nothing. He stopped and stood back, staring at it.
“Told you,” I said. “I already tried.”
He got under the desk and began knocking underneath. “It’s hollow,” he said.
“Let me see.” I got under the desk and lay on my back right next to him. Our shoulders touched; my hip rubbed up against him. He pressed a little closer, so I knew it was deliberate, and I felt butterflies in my stomach again.
“Try it now,” he said.
“Right.” I knocked on the desk. It did sound hollow. He smiled. I looked over at his mouth. Realized how close we were to each other. We hadn’t been together like this since the day Ayo walked in on us. I thought he was going to give me a quick kiss, but instead he scooted out from under the desk, leaving me feeling abandoned.
“How do we get into it, though?” He was focused on the drawer.
“Yeah,” I said. I tried to banish any thoughts of romance and get back to the immediate problem. I ran my hand all over, looking for a latch or handle or notch, something. “Wait!” I yelled. I felt a very small dip in the wood near the edge. It was too perfect to be an accidental chip.
“Did you find something?” Lucas knelt down near my feet.
“Feel right here,” I told him. He reached under the desk blindly. I grabbed his hand and directed it to the spot. “Right here,” I said.
His face lit up. “That’s it,” he said. He tried to pull from there, but nothing happened. “It’s like it needs a key or something.” He got up to search around for one.
I had an idea. “Actually, I think I might have it,” I said. I took out the coin I’d just found in the other desk. Found, or that was given to me, I thought. It didn’t seem like a coincidence. It was exactly the right size for the little notch. I lined it up and pushed.
There was a click.
“Ha! You did it!” Lucas yelled.
I crawled out from under the desk. Nix rushed over to join us. Lucas opened the hidden drawer. I was prepared to be disappointed again, as it looked empty at first, but then we saw it: a plain black book.
“Well? Open it,” Lucas said.
It felt sacrilegious, but I told myself this was my father’s. I had every right to open it, and I was just as anxious to see what it was. There was a folded piece of parchment stuck inside the front of the book. I unfolded it. “Just a sketch of some plants,” I said. Ugly ones at that. Ragged and pointy, with spiky thorns jutting out like some kind of nightmare dandelion, only less pretty. “Looks like a weed.” Biringan did a good job of keeping them out of gardens, because I’d never seen one.
Nix took the paper out of my hand and began examining it.
I turned pages. It seemed to be a journal. My father’s journal. I began reading—it wasn’t a personal diary; more like a record of something, sort of like a register. Lists. Sketches. I went back to the beginning.
I knew in my heart that, just like with the coin, finding this book had not been an accident; it was meant for me to have. Right as I was thinking that, Lucas pointed to a symbol drawn at the top of the page, a mermaid holding the sun. “The book is enchanted,” he said.
“By the mambabarang?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not at all. This is protective magic.”
Meant to be hidden from anyone except the one it’s meant for, I thought, as if somehow I already knew about this enchantment. “Wait, how do you know it’s enchanted?”
“It’s my talent,” he said.
I stared at him. “Your talent is sensing spells?”
“No,” he said, looking me in the eye. “Sensing danger and hidden threats. This book can be used for evil.”
“Useful,” I said, breaking away from his gaze and looking down at the book, “for a knight.” I tried not to feel too jealous of his magic. Then something occurred to me. “Wait. Do you know what my father’s other talents were? I know he could command the seas, but I heard he could do other stuff as well. But no one’s ever mentioned it.”
“He was clairvoyant. He could commune across the veil,” Lucas told me.
“Like, talk to ancestors?”
“As far as I know. I don’t really know the specifics.”
I almost told him my secret right then and there by saying, Maybe that will help me find mine , but I stopped myself. I began reading out loud from the parchment instead. “?‘Heirs of Biringan, rulers of the Court of Sirena, descendants of Queen Felicidad.’?” I looked at Lucas. “Does that mean I’m a descendant of hers, too?”
“Of course,” he said. “I thought you knew that.”
I was floored. Goose bumps rose on my arms. “I didn’t,” I whispered. I kept reading.
I, King Vivencio II, hereby vow to relinquish the firstborn of my blood to the Babaeng Pinuno of the Kalahok of Mambabarang, in order to guarantee victory in the Endless Wars between the four courts and thereby bring peace to the entire realm.