Chapter Sixteen Eugene #2
Sulian leans in, nodding. “Torch—none of us knows her real name—was our leader, and I was a lieutenant. I was ordered to stay behind in case things went sideways, to take care of our people. She went to the meeting with a third of our members, including Marietta Fitz and Andreas Herbert.” His voice turns hoarse.
“Torch and Marietta were the only survivors from our ranks.”
Eugene’s gut clenches. It’s one thing to know his mother had to have survived. It’s another to hear how she lost everything.
Verette is staring hard into her tea, silent.
“Enver claimed he was purging the palace of traitors,” Sulian continues. “Torch swears his attack was all planned. That she got him in the belly. He must have had spring water ready to heal himself.”
“Your mother, young Fitzherbert, saved our lives.” All of Ruvon’s bluster has fallen away as he holds Eugene’s gaze with his own.
“Mine and Leona’s. Leona was just supposed to take her abroad and get her set up in a new life, but your mother passed a few months after giving birth to you, and Leona wanted to be certain you were cared for. ”
“The rest you know,” Verette finally says.
“Mostly. My father lied about a poison in the spring, blamed the People’s Dagger, granted himself emergency powers, appointed a new council with no power to override him, and keeps delaying the transfer of power to me.
” She grips her tea mug. “The surviving councilors and members of the Dagger formed this alliance. We’re now the People’s Council.
We’ve built a coalition of supporters at every level of Asteran society who believe it’s time for Father to end his reign, and are ready to side with me if—if Father defers again. ”
“How did you recruit Hughes?” Eugene asks incredulously. “Most of you I get, but that’s Enver’s right-hand man.”
Teophine sighs. “Hughes has served the king nearly thirty years. The massacre was horrifying enough for him to turn informant for us almost immediately, and then…he fell for his contact in our ranks. Marietta’s brother Eugene—your namesake, I believe.”
“I have an uncle?” Eugene feels sucker punched.
Another blow lands: “I’m sorry,” Ruvon says, “but he passed. He and Hughes were engaged to be married, but tragically, Eugene Fitz was caught trying to infiltrate the Starlight Spring and executed.”
Eugene Fitz. The name sounds too familiar. Cut short.
How bitterly apt.
“Hughes himself brought me into the People’s Council a month later.
” Verette drains the last of her tea and rises.
“So that’s where things stand. I’m sorry you’ve all been dragged into this mess, and we’ll do our best to get you out safely.
We just weren’t sure if we could trust you, since it was Father’s choice to break isolation and bring you here. ”
Teophine says, “I’m sure you have some questions, Your Highness.”
Rapunzel looks to Eugene, but he’s still processing, staring at the table planks. She gets to her feet. “You can call me Rapunzel. And the most important question I have is, how do I help?”
The words fall into a room abruptly stifled by the mere idea.
“Help,” repeats Ruvon, as if decoding an ancient rune.
“We don’t know why Enver invited me either, but I’m here now,” Rapunzel elaborates. “So what can I do?”
Verette shifts uncomfortably. “Nothing? At least, not right now. If none of us know what Father wants with you, we could be playing into his hands. Or, as I’ve told the People’s Council”—iron reinforces words that sound like they hearken to a well-trodden debate—“Father may have invited you because he actually means to transition power at my coming of age ceremony this time, and he wants to leave me with new allies. If that’s it, all we have to do is wait. ”
“And be ready if he doesn’t,” chimes in a new voice, gravelly and hard.
A rangy woman in her late forties lopes into the room and hangs up yet another nondescript gray cloak.
(Eugene’s starting to wonder how many of these they have on hand.) A long pink scar runs down the left side of her light brown face, and more dance over her bare forearms. Her white hair is cropped just as short as Eugene’s.
“Yes, Torch, I know,” Verette says a bit testily. “I just want to give him one more chance.”
“You really made it into the Starlight Spring last night?” Sulian is staring at the drawing of the tree. “No one’s ever been able to get close.”
Eugene gives him a dubious look. “No one in Astera knows how to pick a lock?”
“They always get caught, Yappy,” Torch says harshly. “No operative has ever come back from that job. We stopped sending them.”
“Roots line the whole passage to the spring.” Rapunzel picks up her sketchbook again.
“When I sang the queen’s lullaby, the roots lit up, and they might for Verette too.
We saw them at Third Street Hospital.” She thinks a moment.
“Enver probably hears anyone trying to get to the spring through the roots. But maybe since I was using the roots to light the way, I was controlling the ones around us, and they couldn’t alert him. ”
“We saw Councilor Persevault using the passage too,” Eugene points out.
“He led us right to the missing fleet Solena—sorry, Leona?—was talking about yesterday, before you so rudely chased me and Minister Cressien out of your hideout. Turns out there’s a big old sea cave under the palace with something like a dozen boats inside, and I bet Enver’s not paying attention to foot traffic as long as they stay away from the path to the spring. ”
“Enver must know about the tree in the spring.…How did it even get there? Is it possible someone else planted it?” Teophine asks.
Torch frowns. “What tree?”
One concise explanation later, Sulian is shaking his head. “Enver took the only key into the spring from Queen Gaelle.”
“He also originated the claim that the spring was poisoned,” Ruvon adds. “We assumed he did it to turn public opinion against the People’s Dagger and exert greater control over the spring, but perhaps it was to keep anyone from finding the tree.”
“He looked me in the eye and said that poisoning the spring might have been my father’s last act.” Eugene doesn’t intend the words to sound as strangled as they come out. “He lied to our faces that he was testing the water every day. Whether or not he planted the tree, he’s hiding it now.”
Ruvon reaches for the sketchbook. “May I?” Rapunzel pushes it to him.
He turns the pages back to the cloud apple tree, lips pursing.
“There’s another paradox, one you spotted yourself, young lady.
Verette’s unusual hair suggests she’s been more deeply affected by the starlight, yet…
she continues to age, albeit at a reduced rate, whereas Enver seems to have almost entirely stopped.
And he seemingly has a level of control over this tree that Verette does not.
Is it possible he’s not merely availing himself of the starlight-imbued water…
he’s been consuming a star-touched apple every three years? ”
Cressien leans in, rubbing his chin. “When our queen fell ill eighteen years ago, the flower itself was distilled to a tisane strong enough to heal her, and its magic passed on to Princess Rapunzel. But the witch Gothel had to regularly reverse her aging with the power of the sundrop flower. Its effects were never permanent.”
“We’ve been very secretive about Astera’s stardrop, but our scholars did theorize about the sundrop in Kourenne,” Teophine chimes in.
“The starlight water isn’t strong enough, for example, to save someone mortally wounded, or terminally ill, unlike the sundrop flower.
One theory is that the magic is in the Kourenne soil itself, and the flower drew the sunlight into a more powerful concentration in its blossom. ”
Eugene’s chair creaks as he folds his arms. “You said Enver stopped the Fountain Festival a few years before the massacre. Maybe he planted the tree then, hoping the apples would be stronger than just the water, and was trying to buy time for it to bear fruit.”
An aching pause smothers the room.
“These two made it into the spring, Verette,” Torch rasps. “If they can do it again, we can destroy the tree, take the apple ourselves, and keep it from Enver until he yields the throne.”
Verette fails to hide her flinch, and starts gathering empty mugs instead. “It’s an option. I’ll think about it. If you’re back, that means Leona’s ready, right?”
“All set in your normal rendezvous point.” Torch’s voice has become carefully neutral, which tells Eugene exactly whom the well-trodden debate has been with.
“Then we need to get going.” Verette deposits the mugs in a sink and heads for her cloak. “Fitzherbert, Rapunzel, Minister Cressien, we’re going to meet Leona, who will ferry us out to the pleasure barge. We’ll need to keep quiet once again until we reach her, but it’s a short walk.”
Eugene barely has time to push back from the table before Verette is hustling them out. The walk to meet Leona is just as swift and silent.
They reach a shallow little cove where only one skiff waits, half in the water, half on a thin strip of black sand. Solena—no, Leona—stands beside it, face tight and alight all at once. It eases when Eugene steps out of the mists.
“Eugene,” she croaks.
He strides over, wraps her in a hug, and mumbles, “Why on earth do they keep using clove hitches?”