Chapter Six Eugene
Six
Eugene
Eugene doesn’t exactly have a large polling sample to draw from, but if he had to rate the Asteran palace, at present, he’d give it a generous seven out of ten.
Is it technically bigger than Rapunzel’s palace?
Sure. Is the view from every single balcony majestic?
Unarguably. Is it aesthetically pleasing?
Well, there are some interesting architectural motifs, like leaf-shaped archways and columns carved in spirals, and somehow all the stone has what can only be described as an ineffable glow, so, academically speaking, yes.
But they’ve been here since late yesterday afternoon, and still haven’t had a formal tour of the palace yet. (Deduction: half a point.)
Minister Cressien’s room in the guest quarters is wedged squarely between Eugene’s and Rapunzel’s. (Deduction: half a point.)
There was that whole bizarre business with King Enver lying to get out of dinner last night. (Deduction: one point.)
Even though it’s summer, Eugene is constantly cold in here, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being just as constantly watched.
There was even a seagull planted outside his window this morning, and all it did was stare at him through the glass and scream.
(Deduction: a full point for the seagull, half a point for the resultant shivers.
He’s not sure if all Asteran seagulls burn with that sort of malice or if, somehow, Gothel has returned.)
And most aggravating of all, his record search in the palace library is proving to be a wild goose chase. (Deduction: one point.)
(Coincidentally, math has never been Eugene’s strongest suit.)
“I’m sorry, sir,” the head librarian tells him, poring over the massive catalog on his desk with a perplexed frown. If Eugene were to guess, he’s around forty, and unaccustomed to coming up empty. “You’re sure the author’s name is Rothar?”
“A. Drew Rothar,” Eugene says, keeping a tight hold on The Tales of Flynnigan Rider.
It’s not as if the librarian’s about to snatch it out of his hands, but the man’s had a rather manic gleam in his eyes since they landed on the royal seal inside the cover.
Eugene makes a note to hide it extremely well in his guest room.
Or maybe Pascal can camouflage himself as the book, since he’s currently napping under Eugene’s coverlet.
(“How chameleons work, broadly” may be another gap in Eugene’s general expertise.)
“I’m afraid we have no record of this book in our archives, or of anything by that author,” the librarian says with a sigh. “Frankly, I’ve never even heard of either.”
“Is it possible for a book to have this seal and not be from this library?” Eugene asks, tucking the book into his satchel.
The librarian thinks a moment. “Possible, yes, but…only just this side of impossible. It would have to come from a, er, personal collection. A royal one.”
So, the royal family’s private shelves. That does sound impossible.
“There’s some kind of a garden party meet and greet this afternoon.
Maybe I can ask around.” Then Eugene snaps his fingers.
“Hold on, I know exactly who to ask. I just need to track her down here. Do you have access to the municipal records too?”
Five minutes later, the librarian has escorted him to a very dusty corner of a very dusty basement stuffed with a concerningly flammable amount of paper. Eugene is trying not to focus on that as he repeats, for the fifth time, “Vald, V-A-L-D. First name Solena. Vald is her maiden name, though.”
The librarian, hunched over a veritable accordion of files in a drawer, grunts, “These are the citizenship enrollment records for when you say she arrived. She would have enrolled under her own name…but I’m not finding anything under Vald.”
“She left town around April of that year,” Eugene insists.
“She said she was marrying an alchemist. Do you see anyone with the first name Solena?” The librarian rolls his eyes, and Eugene scowls.
“Come on. There can’t be that many people who want to give up everything and move here forever. At least over the course of one April.”
To his credit, the librarian at least does a cursory sweep through the registry before shaking his head. “I apologize, sir. There’s no Solena, no Vald, and definitely no Solena Vald in our records for that entire year.”
“Not to be rude, but on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your confidence in your records system?” Eugene asks skeptically. “Because now we’re zero for two.”
Before the now deeply affronted librarian can respond, there’s a shuffle near the entryway. “Excuse me?” a messenger pipes up, poking their head in. “Is the, er, Princess Rapunzel’s? Companion? In here?”
“I’m afraid to say yes,” Eugene answers.
“Could you come to the stables?” The messenger looks frazzled. “The princess’s steed seems to be? A bit unsettled?”
Even if that weren’t already four question marks past Eugene’s comfort level, the fact that Maximus is causing trouble is a blazing red flag.
It was the queen’s idea to send him along, as what she politely framed as an “undercover extraction specialist,” in case things go very, very awry.
At the least, Maximus can get Rapunzel down to their ship in a pinch, and frankly, Eugene wouldn’t be shocked if he could also swim her straight back home.
After all, eleven hundred pounds of angry horse will extract whatever he bloody wants.
He follows the messenger down to the stables, where he hears the thuds well before they reach the row of stalls.
As they approach Maximus’s box stall, Eugene spots an older man standing at the half door, an apple in one hand.
From his simple uniform, Eugene guesses he’s a groom, perhaps the stable master. “Whoa, boy. Whoa.”
There’s an irate whicker. The door shudders on its hinges from another kick.
Max doesn’t get antsy for no reason. The hair on the back of Eugene’s neck prickles.
He does his best to cover anyway, calling, “Come on, Max, if you wanted a visit you could have just sent an invitation.” The only response is a snort.
“I brought the princess’s companion,” the messenger adds. The older stableman looks their way.
And then—his face drops.
He ducks his head and swiftly mops his tanned brow with a hanky embroidered in blue flowers. “Good—good,” he stumbles. “Maybe you can calm him down.”
Eugene draws up beside him in front of Maximus’s stall, face perfectly neutral as he tries to sneak a look out of the corner of his eye.
The stableman is on the shorter side, maybe in his early fifties, his dove-gray hair pulled into a short tidy braid and a neat beard.
It could be Eugene’s imagination, but he’d swear…
yep, the man’s definitely avoiding eye contact.
It’s like yesterday, the uncanny feeling of being almost—recognized.
Recognized in a land he’s never set foot in before.
Recognized by a king, his chamberlain, and now a palace stableman.
Before he can get in a follow-up question, the stableman rattles out, “Well, you’ve got him under control,” pushes past, and all but bolts off.
Eugene looks to the messenger. “What was that about?”
But the messenger only shrugs and bows. “No clue. Good day to you, sir.”
“Huh.” Eugene waits until the messenger’s gone and, as far as he can tell, no one’s close enough to eavesdrop, then asks under his breath, “Was that guy bothering you?”
Max shakes his head, though he does blow a puff of air in the direction the stableman went.
“Then what gives? Should we be concerned?”
The stallion just tosses his head again and keeps pawing the ground.
Eugene leans on the door, glancing around.
The stableman’s long gone. “Yeah, this whole place is weird. That’s the second time someone acted like they’re hiding something from me.
” Then he holds up the stableman’s embroidered hanky.
Generally he’s tried to leave picking pockets behind, but desperate times, desperate measures.
After all, Maximus has a very particular set of skills, scent tracking among them. “Want to find out what?”
It takes a bit of maneuvering. First Eugene takes Max for “a walk” around the stables just to look for the old man, but when the trail leads out toward the palace gate, Eugene has to shift tactics.
He approaches a stable hand mucking out a stall.
“Excuse me. Do you know who’s in charge of saddling up my friend here?
The princess will probably want to go for a ride when she returns. ”
It’s a blatant lie, but it gets Eugene what he wants when the young woman sets aside her shovel and peers around. “Should be Master Sulian, sir, but he said he had to run an errand. I can see to your mount.”
The man’s name is Sulian, then, and he is the stable master. This all comes in handy when Eugene rides Max through the gates and politely declines a guard escort by claiming he’s meeting Master Sulian in the city below—he just went on ahead, didn’t you see him?
Max’s nose takes them down into the city proper, which, from what Eugene can tell, is also called Astera, because somehow they thought giving a city and a nation-state the same name wouldn’t be confusing at all.
Once they’re out of sight of the palace walls, Eugene dismounts and lets Max lead him on foot, winding through an imports market with everything from overseas textiles to bushels of rice and dried beans.
It’s distinctly bizarre to wander around a place literally out of a storybook.
The Tales of Flynnigan Rider describes how the rooftops are shaped almost like squashed bells, and he can see the flare and curve of the timbers around him; in the book, the districts are laid out like starbursts around central plazas, and as they move through the vendors’ stalls, Eugene finds narrow streets branching out from the marketplace.