Chapter Eighteen Eugene
Eighteen
Eugene
Two days later, Eugene isn’t sure if it’s tradition or precaution that sees them celebrating Verette’s birthday in the grand audience hall instead of the ballroom. Notably, this time he can feel the stares of many, many guards, especially every time he wanders by the refreshment tables.
The audience hall itself is another architectural marvel, with columns and vaulted ceilings carved like luminous geysers raining pearly stars, bedecked in garlands of white and blue flowers that shine vibrantly against midnight silk drapes and golden trim.
Great diamond-paned windows climb nearly to the roof, and doors to private verandas have been propped open to let the early evening breeze glide over the stone.
And it’s needed—even though the hall is massive, it’s jam-packed with dignitaries, many of whom are lined up to approach the dais at the head of the hall.
Eugene and Rapunzel are currently parked in chairs on the dais’s right side, watching as citizen after citizen pledges deeds in honor of Verette. King Enver hovers just over her left shoulder, the empty throne bristling at both of their backs a few yards away.
“I’ve gotta say,” Eugene mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “ ‘I will save the Starlight Spring’ is a pretty hard vow to beat.”
“It’s not a contest,” Rapunzel whispers back with the beatific smile of someone who has absolutely trounced the competition. Then she blinks. “Look at the king’s hands.”
“…to paint a public mural in your honor,” a slight man is saying at the head of the line, “the most extraordinary the island has ever seen. All blessings to the queen to come.”
Enver stands with his hands linked behind his back, and only Rapunzel, Eugene, and his guards can see them briefly clench.
Then the man Eugene is assuming to be a painter—otherwise that mural is going to be extraordinary for very different reasons—does something unexpected.
He taps below his left eye, then his right, then his chin. Just as Eugene and Rapunzel did when they met Verette.
Furtive murmurs skitter through the room as he bows and walks away.
“I thought that was just old-fashioned,” Rapunzel says under her breath.
Eugene watches Enver’s hands curling once more into fists. “It is. It’s the old way to greet a monarch.”
The next person to step up is wearing bracelets subtly evoking verette charms. The one after that has moon eye moths embroidered into their collar.
Rings, tassels, even cuff links—they flash on more and more people pledging their deeds.
And they’re almost always an indicator that the oath maker will refer to Verette as “the queen to come.”
It brings Eugene no small degree of bittersweet triumph to see Enver’s knuckles turn whiter and whiter.
They’ve spent the last two days planning with the People’s Council for tonight, and if Enver is somehow aware, he’s done a better job of hiding it than he’s hiding his annoyance now. Still…the palace only has one audience hall.
It may be tradition, or it may be Enver sending a message; either way, Eugene is keenly aware that they’re celebrating in the room where his parents’ deaths were ordered, with the man who ordered them.
Andreas Herbert. Marietta Fitz. It’s like double vision, the way he hears the names, and the way he knows he should hear them. Printers. Authors. Revolutionaries. Gone.
In another world, maybe he would have grown up here, knowing their faces, their voices, running down these cobblestone streets and playing Flynnigan Rider. And he’d never give up his life now—but until now, he didn’t know it was possible to mourn the one you never got to live.
Marietta Fitz. Andreas Herbert. And the Eugene Fitzherbert who should have been raised on starlight here.
He can add every one of them to what Enver owes.
The pledges continue for another half hour, and both Eugene and Rapunzel are happy to get up and stretch when they’re done.
Ordinarily this is when Eugene would expect a banquet before the evening continued with the issuing of invitations, but apparently Asteran custom dictates everyone graze from the refreshment tables throughout the night instead of gathering for a sit-down meal.
It makes for a convenient excuse to station himself by a cheese tray—the fountain seems to be deliberately retired—as Rapunzel makes her circuit around the room, and Minister Cressien and Councilor Teophine attempt not to look at him.
Right now, Sulian is smuggling a handful of operatives into the palace’s tunnel system. And if this night goes the way Verette’s hoping, the way Eugene’s dubbed Plan B, the stable master will wind up smuggling them right back out.
But if it goes the way everyone else suspects it will, then they’ll switch to Plan A. (For Apple. The order’s a little confusing.)
It doesn’t take long for Hughes to find him in the crowd. “His Majesty would like a word, young Fitzherbert.”
“Does he now.” Eugene only sounds a little insincere.
It’s partially because overall, he’d rate his interactions with Enver three out of ten at best. Primarily, it’s because Verette, Rapunzel, and Hughes have all waged an oblique but coordinated campaign the last couple of days to make Enver think he owes Eugene an apology.
They only need a few minutes. Then the first obstacle to Plan A will be removed.
Hughes leads him away from the refreshments, muttering, “He’s speaking with Councilor Persevault in his office. I believe you’re familiar with both the councilor and the office.”
“Just doing my future job,” Eugene replies. “Did you know Cressien wants me to apprentice to the spymaster?”
“I know when Enver discovered the missing letters, he had every servant and guard searched for ties to the People’s Dagger,” Hughes says through his teeth, “so perhaps this apprenticeship will grant you a more thoughtful perspective.”
Eugene feels a stab of guilt as they head into the royal wing. “Did anyone get in trouble?”
“No one was arrested,” Hughes says. “But some were dismissed for extremely tenuous connections, likely to discourage any staff from risking associations with the group.”
Eugene feels more than a stab of guilt at that.
The prospect of the apprenticeship almost feels too good to be true.
(Stay with the girl he loves? Check. Use his very specific skill set to protect her and their home?
Check. Presumptively decent pay? Cash or check, thank you.) And Cressien wouldn’t offer his recommendation lightly.
But if Eugene cost innocent people their jobs…
Hughes clears his throat. “It was better than if you’d left no sign of a culprit. The king would still be tearing the castle apart looking for the messages.” His voice catches a bit. “Your uncle, however, would have planted something to implicate Councilor Persevault.”
Then he holds a hand up, the “silent” gesture the People’s Council agreed on. As they round the corner, Eugene sees two guards stationed at the entrance to the king’s quarters.
Hughes doesn’t speak again until they reach the king’s office. The door is firmly shut, the voices inside low and muffled. It doesn’t sound like they’re close to wrapping it up.
Hughes confirms: “They may be at it a while. We’ll wait here.”
“Got it.” Eugene posts up by Hughes’s side.
Since the ball, Eugene has learned more than he’d ever dreamed about his parents, though that’s still mostly scraps and fragments, pieced together as best he can.
People like Sulian and Torch knew them from their time with the People’s Dagger, and Sol—no, Leona—and Ruvon knew them as the queen’s friends.
But there’s one void that no one can help him fill quite as well as Hughes. Eugene debates with himself a long moment, makes sure they’re out of earshot of any guards, then takes the plunge. “Can…can I ask about my uncle?”
Hughes briefly closes his eyes. “What do you wish to know?”
“Anything,” Eugene says.
For a moment he thinks Hughes will refuse. But then he says, “You’re more like your father than your uncle. But…there are similarities.”
“Really?” Eugene can’t help sounding almost like a little kid.
Hughes nods. “He was clever, funny. Resourceful. Irreverent. Occasionally hardheaded. Frequently boneheaded.” A shallow smile digs at the corner of his mouth.
“You know, he and your father used to play ‘Flynnigan Rider’ when they were little boys. People tend to underestimate the power of the stories we tell our children, and the stories children tell themselves. Andreas and Marietta saw something more than just adventures. They saw a dream that was possible because Flynnigan Rider never has to worry about his health or his money. They wrote it into the book because they believed better things were possible for all of Astera. And according to your uncle Eugene, they especially wanted that dream for you.”
Before Eugene can process this, the office door swings open.
“Fitzherbert,” Enver calls. “Just who I was looking for.”
Councilor Persevault gives him a particularly nasty look as he shoves past.
Eugene swallows and walks into the office. It’s not as dim as when he broke in a few nights ago, but beyond the wall of windows lies only periwinkle twilight and the scattered glimmer of lanterns in the city below.
Enver shuts the door behind him.
“It occurs to me,” Enver says, “that I’ve neglected to speak to you, when you must be in a very difficult position.”
Because you murdered my father and drove my mother into exile? Eugene keeps that to himself. He has one very specific job to accomplish here, and he can’t squander all the work that put him in this room.
Then Enver surprises him: “A position that, perhaps, only I understand.”
“Your Majesty?” Eugene braces himself on the back of an armchair. If this is Enver’s apology, he’s coming at it from a bizarre angle.