Chapter Nine Rapunzel
Nine
Rapunzel
Rapunzel first saw the floating lanterns on her fifth birthday.
In retrospect, if Gothel had known about the lanterns, Rapunzel has no doubt she would have lied and claimed Rapunzel’s birthday was a week earlier, or locked all the windows before bedtime, or slipped something into her dinner so she’d sleep through the night.
But Rapunzel had already been sneaking around to look at the stars for months at that point, and so the distant lights were one last birthday surprise.
When she saw them on her sixth birthday, she thought they might be meant for her.
By her tenth, she knew they were.
She couldn’t explain it—what they were, why she was so certain, how she knew in her bones that everything would change if only she could reach the lights. How she believed they would lead her to where she really belonged.
It was easier to be certain from the window of a tower she never thought she’d leave. And it was easier to stay with Mother—no, Gothel—telling her she’d only ever be wanted for her hair.
The problem wasn’t believing that those lights were meant for her.
The problem is that she followed them to where she should belong, and now, as a princess, with a home she can leave and parents who love her…
there are no clear answers in her windows.
She feels like she keeps looking for what she’s meant to do but finding nothing in reach, only distant, scattered stars.
Like now, with Eugene telling her he has to choose between the truth about his past…and her.
“I didn’t agree to anything,” Eugene is saying as he paces at the foot of Cressien’s bed. “In fact, I told them to get stuffed, more or less. They seemed very convinced I would change my mind.”
Minister Cressien looks like he’s thinking fondly of Duke Louis’s five barrels of rosé, perched stiff as a board on the edge of the mattress.
Rapunzel can’t tell if he’s more distraught by the invasion of his personal space or the burgeoning political crisis.
To her surprise, though, when he speaks, it’s not nearly as prickly as she was bracing for.
“Master Fitzherbert, I would not typically pry, but…do you recall anything from your childhood that might be related? Any time spent on a ship? Any unusual visitors?”
“Nothing,” Eugene answers bluntly, rearranging decorative knickknacks on one of the guest room’s shelves.
Rapunzel’s clocked by now that his anxiety tends to be stored in his hands.
“All my earliest memories are in the orphanage. And please call me Eugene. ‘Master Fitzherbert’ sounds like a mean teacher in a kiddie book.”
Cressien ignores that. “What about this Solena?”
“Part of the orphanage staff. She never said anything about knowing my parents or having a connection with Astera, and when she left, she said it was because she was settling here. But she’s not in the Asteran immigration records.”
“Maybe her real name isn’t Solena,” Rapunzel suggests from her post in the desk chair. “Or she snuck into Astera. Or both.”
Cressien pinches the bridge of his nose. “Master Fitzherbert’s profile has certainly become more prominent in the last month.…It is possible that this invitation was issued with the intention to bring him here.”
“Mm,” Rapunzel hedges. Cressien looks up at her in a way that implies a gaze over nonexistent spectacles. “Well, Verette said her father invited me, and she doesn’t seem happy we’re here. But if King Enver expected me to bring Eugene, he wouldn’t have been so shocked when he saw him, right?”
Cressien’s brows rise. “Fair point.”
“I do think this is something, well, big,” she says, fumbling for the right words. “This organization wants Eugene to spy on me and Enver, they have at least one operative here as the stable master, and…I felt like they were acting strange on the tour.”
“How so?” Cressien asks.
“It was like they didn’t want me looking too closely at anything.
I—I wasn’t trying to pry or be rude—” Rapunzel catches herself fiddling with a sleeve.
There’s no reason to be nervous. She knows what she’s talking about.
“They kept changing the subject or moving us along. And a lot of the stonework in the palace has been repaired. You can tell because the patch material has a different luster. The damage it’s covering would have been huge.
I think the palace was attacked at one point. ”
“Perhaps natural causes…” Cressien starts, then shakes his head. “No, I concur, we were being handled on the tour, but we would have noticed repairs to other major structures. An attack on the palace suggests Astera may not be as united as it seems.”
“Moon Eye was asking about Verette’s coming of age ceremony, like they suspect something might happen,” Eugene pitches in, moving from the shelf to fuss with the dried flowers in a decorative urn. “I said I didn’t know about the plans.”
“I don’t think any of us do,” Cressien says slowly.
“She seems to be popular among the citizens of Astera, and they referred to her as the ‘queen to come,’ but when I asked Councilor Teophine if Verette would be ascending the throne at this ceremony, she just said, ‘We’ll see.’ Traditionally, many more royal families would be invited to attend such a coronation. ”
Rapunzel rubs the back of her neck. “Does…does anyone know how old Verette actually is? I’m not really good at guessing.”
Eugene and Cressien trade looks. “Beats me,” Eugene says, and drifts over to stand near her at the desk.
Cressien’s gaze narrows. “So to summarize: There are signs of previous violence within the palace. Master Fitzherbert has connections to Astera that were concealed from him with, it seems, great effort. It seems increasingly likely that the princess’s coming of age is a smoke screen, though we’re not certain to what end.
And an underground organization is attempting to extort Master Fitzherbert into spying on the king and Princess Rapunzel in exchange for information they hypothetically have about his parents. ”
“Aaaand you’ve been holding out on us,” Eugene says with a sudden jolt of delight, gawking at the contents of a desk drawer he’d idly pulled open. Rapunzel glances down, bewildered. Inside is a skein of coral yarn, a crochet hook, and…
“Is that a crab?” Rapunzel asks.
Cressien lunges faster than she knew he could move, swooping on the contents of the drawer like a hawk and slamming it shut. “It’s an octopus, if you must know, and it’s purely for meditation.” He stuffs the whole business under his pillow, scowling, and adds resentfully, “And it’s incomplete.”
“Color me impressed,” Eugene says, and when Cressien gives him a suspicious frown, he holds up his hands. “Truly! If I had an octopus like that as a kid I’d take him everywhere. I’d probably call him Mister Fitzherbert, even, and he’d have a job as a mean teacher.”
Rapunzel can’t help a smile at the image of a baby Eugene sleeping with a crocheted octopus. Then her smile wavers. He grew up with so little; it’s not fair to deny him more.
She catches his sleeve. “I trust you,” she says, “and I don’t want to cost you your one chance at learning more about your family. If spying on me helps you with that…”
Eugene covers her hand with his, then drops to a crouch by her chair, all bravado suspended for the moment. “Look, Freckles. Even if I was willing to put you in danger—and I’m not—you’re also a little too good at putting everyone else’s needs first.”
“Isn’t that my job as a princess?” she pushes back. “To help everyone?”
“To a point.” Cressien, to her surprise, is staring at the far side of the bed.
After a moment she realizes he’s not wringing his hands, just rubbing the knuckle of his bare ring finger.
“Selflessness is an easy default when you feel lost, Your Highness. But ultimately, if you overextend yourself, you hurt the people relying on you.”
Rapunzel swallows. “What if we gave them bad information? Or a mix of information that’s true but useless, and fake information, and then we see who acts on it? Say I like cherry tarts, for example. Then if the Councilor of the North tries to bribe me with them, we know she’s involved.”
“That could work,” Cressien allows, “if we’re all very, very careful.
But if Astera is indeed having some sort of internal dispute, it’s best we stay out of it as much as possible.
All we have to do is make it through this week without further disaster.
Now, about this serious matter the king wants to discuss—”
There’s a knock, not at Cressien’s door, but the guest parlor’s. They find Hughes standing just outside. “His Majesty wishes to let you know you will be escorted to dinner with him in an hour.”
“Thank you for the notice,” Cressien says.
He shuts the door again as Hughes bows and leaves, then eyeballs Eugene’s severe dishevelment.
“There’s no use speculating what this dinner is about with as little information as we have currently, so I would suggest using our time to…
freshen up. Unless either of you has anything else to add? ”
Eugene’s eyes flicker, but he just brushes a stray breadcrumb from his sleeve. “Nope. All set to dress to impress.”
Rapunzel doesn’t need the full hour to get ready, but it does take her a couple tries to get her cosmetics right. Years of delicate brushwork and pigment blending make some parts of it easier, but they don’t steady the shake in her hand.
It’ll be fine, she tells herself. She can handle this, no matter what. Maybe King Enver will admit why he really invited them. Maybe he wants to talk about the coming of age ceremony. Maybe there’s a problem, one only she can solve.
Whatever it is…she can handle it. With or without her hair.
(And then Minister Cressien can put that in his report.)