Chapter Sixteen Eugene
Sixteen
Eugene
Eugene didn’t know it was possible to miss a place you’ve never been to, but somehow, he’s missed Merchant’s Crescent.
Or maybe he’s missed places like it. The way the fog dulls the lanterns in the night.
The tang of salt on the breeze, old seaweed, tar-laced dock timbers bristling with barnacles by the changing waterline.
The grit of sand in the mud beneath his boots, and the way guards don’t even spare them a second glance, because for the first time since their arrival, brown hair on an adult doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
Eugene’s not completely sold on whatever Verette’s deal is just yet, but Rapunzel is all in, and that means he is too. So when Verette leads them into a shipping clerk’s office, he’s not asking too many questions.
Amazingly, the clerk is still at the counter. Eugene spots little blue verette charms dangling from her earrings as she bows her head to Verette and says, “They’re upstairs.”
“Thank you,” Verette says softly.
A door off to the side leads to a narrow staircase, and every step squeals as they pass, so when they reach a wide space that looks to be a meeting room of sorts, the other occupants do not look remotely surprised to see them.
“Welcome to the safe house.” Councilor Teophine’s voice glides from a rickety chair to the right, where she’s sitting in her ball regalia with a steaming cup of tea, looking distinctly out of place amid the worn-down furnishings.
There’s a broad table with a motley of chairs and stools angled around it, maps and charts on the faded brick walls, ramshackle shelves full of scrolls and logbooks.
A round window at the far end of the room reveals the bay and main island. “Tea?”
“Please,” Cressien all but wheezes.
“Yes, of course. Please, make yourselves at home.” Verette hangs her mask on a wall hook and heads for a kettle on a squat iron stove. “I apologize for the secrecy, and how standoffish I’ve been, and how bizarre this all must be.”
“Not for kidnapping me?” Eugene grouses.
“No,” Verette says smoothly, “that was hilarious. Peppermint tea?”
“I saved you some of the little pickles from the refreshments,” Councilor Teophine calls from her chair.
Verette’s face lights up as she turns back toward Rapunzel, Cressien, and Eugene, all still clustered by the door.
She waves a handful of mismatched mugs. “Raise your hands for tea? Two? Great. So, for starters, my father has found almost every other base we’ve had in the last four years, but not this one or the one we took Fitzherbert to. ”
“He seems to have ears everywhere these days.”
The voice echoes from behind them. Eugene jumps as Rapunzel flattens herself to the wall.
Master Sulian stands outside the door. Behind him is another man, a few inches taller but much wider, with tight white curls cropped short and a pair of golden spectacles gleaming against a face darker even than Cressien’s, the black eyes behind them twinkling.
“Not everywhere,” the bespectacled man corrects in a deep baritone, shuffling forward.
Eugene recognizes that voice as the one he dubbed Stranger, the one who once slipped and referred to the Cardinal Council as us.
“Don’t mind us, now, I heard there was tea.
But yes, Enver’s always seemed to sniff out our retreats, and the closest pattern we can identify is it’s always after a busy meeting or when people chatter on the way in. ”
“Only place he’s never found us on the mainland is under the sunmills,” Sulian adds as he settles himself in a chair by Teophine. “We had to relocate to this safe house after you two”—he gestures to Eugene and Cressien—“escaped our headquarters. Couldn’t risk you leading Enver to us.”
“I think he’s finding you with the roots.” Rapunzel walks fully inside and sets her satchel down on the table. Pascal groggily climbs out, then scales her arm and curls up on her shoulder.
“Is that a tiny coat?” Verette asks wonderingly at the same time Councilor Teophine says, “Roots?”
“We snuck into the Starlight Spring last night,” Eugene says as he comes to stand beside Rapunzel. “The water’s all gone, and it looks like it’s feeding a huge tree growing down there.”
Everyone else seems to take in a breath almost as one, their faces spanning the spectrum from comprehension to confusion, all with an undertone of dismay. Verette’s brow furrows, a hand over her mouth as she thinks.
Stranger leans forward, adjusting his spectacles. “What manner of tree?”
“Like an apple tree, but it only had one apple.” Rapunzel pulls out her sketchbook and starts flipping pages.
“Its roots run at least as far as Third Street Hospital, maybe farther. Roots are really sensitive to vibrations, so someone with the power of starlight may be able to use them to eavesdrop.” She finds her drawing of the tree in the cave and holds it up. “Here. It looked like this.”
“That’s a cloud apple tree,” Stranger says with a frown. “But the leaves should be green, not…that. And it’s the largest I’ve ever seen. Typically, they produce a single apple after three years, then die.”
“Feeding from the Starlight Spring could have changed it.” Rapunzel accepts a mug of tea from Verette. Then she also frowns, setting the sketchbook back down. “Wait. Your Highness—”
“Verette is fine.” Verette has found the plate of tiny pickles and is eating them with what Eugene can only describe as relish.
“Did your father ever give you a strange apple to eat?” Rapunzel gestures to her own short hair. “When I had the magic of the sundrop flower, my hair was, er, unusual, too.”
Verette swallows, expression stiffening. “No, not exactly.”
Eugene’s trying to follow. “Right, we think your father is using the roots—no, hold on, that doesn’t make sense either…”
“Unless he…” Sulian begins.
Stranger almost spills his tea. “Of course—the reduced aging, and this root surveillance—that would explain everything!”
“Would it?” Eugene says dryly.
“We did promise to share what we know,” Teophine reminds Verette. “And gentlemen, introductions…?”
The shorter man nods to Eugene. “He already knows me. Sulian, palace stable master.”
“Councilor Ruvon du Val of the North,” rumbles the other man between delicate sips of tea. He correctly reads Eugene’s confusion and adds with a touch of ire, “Formerly. Katou Laroux holds the position at present, despite her egregious disregard for the field of anthropological—”
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Teophine interjects, looking like she’s ready to wrest control of the presentation away from the rest of the group.
“The Night of the Poisoned Dagger?” Eugene asks as he and a reluctant Cressien settle into chairs.
Verette shakes her head. “Earlier.”
“And we’re not the People’s Dagger.” Sulian leans back. “Not for a long time. I think it started…oh, fifty years ago or so, when the king moved all the international trading off the mainland, over to Merchant’s Crescent.”
“Earlier, even—Queen Gaelle’s health started declining a few years into their marriage,” Ruvon says.
“Enver banned outsiders from the mainland so word of it wouldn’t leave Astera.
Especially because the only thing that seemed to help her was drinking from the Starlight Spring every day.
We all understood that was why the queen’s aging slowed.
But years later we realized…the king wasn’t aging either.
We couldn’t confirm anything, but we suspected he was helping himself to the spring as well. ”
Verette has planted herself by the kettle on the stove, clearly fixating on the tea as a distraction.
“They kept my mother’s pregnancy a secret, and my father took over as acting monarch, claiming she had fallen ill again.
” She twists a lock of hair around her finger.
“From what I can guess, Father kept giving her starlight water daily all through her pregnancy, and I came out with white hair. I’m told childbirth nearly killed us both, so…
he kept us alive on starlight. And then he never stopped.
Every day at breakfast, I had to finish a glass of water before he would let me leave.
The water looks almost normal in the daylight, so I didn’t know what I was drinking for—years. ”
“Queen Gaelle never fully recovered,” Councilor Teophine adds.
“And Enver never announced Verette’s birth—word only reached the public when she was a toddler.
At that point, he’d skipped the Fountain Festival two years in a row, claiming it weakened the Starlight Spring and the queen needed its full potency. ”
Ruvon scowls, setting his mug down rather forcefully.
“And he was wrong. I drafted the report myself! My team determined the fountains could run once a month without depleting the spring, and the starlight only fades with time and distance—” He cuts himself off with a bitter laugh before Teophine has to.
“All of us on Gaelle’s council were concerned.
Gaelle tried to resume her full duties, but the strain only weakened her more.
When it was clear she didn’t have much longer, the other councilors and I planned to invoke the Consort Regency, which would limit Enver’s powers to those of a councilor until Verette was old enough to rule. And then Leona’s snake of a brother…”
“Leona Persevault, former Councilor of the West and Master of Seas,” Teophine fills in. “You know her as Solena Vald, Master Fitzherbert.”
Ruvon huffs, “And my enchanting wife! Her brother wanted her job for himself. He betrayed us to Enver, and…well, Enver decided to kill two birds with one stone. He granted a council audience to a political organization known for a more radical agenda, such as ending Astera’s isolation entirely, expanding the number of elected councilors…
and letting the fountains run once a month. ”
“The People’s Dagger,” Cressien guesses.