Chapter 48
As a group, we all whip around and stare at her.
“I beg your pardon?” Mother says.
The sorcerer gestures toward the sounder, which sits up and wags its tail at me. “Tiddles,” she says. “Sniff.”
But Tiddles—Tiddles—simply grins a toothy grin and remains seated.
“There you go. Broken.” She smiles a little smugly and crosses her arms.
“When did you break it?” Honey asks, sounding astonished. After all, up until about five minutes ago, the woman was snorting dust off an old book.
“Didn’t,” she says, uncrossing her arms and wiggling her fingers at me. “I presume she met the conditions of her curse with her little outburst just now, and that was that.”
“By throwing a strop?” my father says. “She broke her curse by having a temper tantrum?”
The sorcerer shrugs. “Stranger things have happened.”
The room is so silent I can hear the birds in my little garden, three stories below. Everyone is staring at the sorcerer, a few of us with our jaws agape.
She looks around and shrugs. “What can I say? Deep magic is a funny thing.”
“She can leave?” Mother says. She looks at me. “You can leave?”
Not daring to believe it myself, I open the casement window and push my hand into the sunlight, expecting to feel the invisible barrier.
I don’t. My arm simply moves outside, into the cold late-morning air, up to the elbow.
“Well,” I say, a little wanly. “My arm can.”
The room explodes, everyone talking over everyone else.
My father is hugging me, saying something very genial and telling me it’ll be all right, we’ll figure it all out.
The moment he lets go of me, Sasha and Amaritha tackle me, talking over each other, each taking one of my hands—the bluecaps took flight once things got noisy and are whirling in the air above my head—while the girls twirl around me.
I extract myself long enough to seek out Honey, standing in a corner, looking a bit grim, and Bash, standing in a different corner, also looking a bit green about the gills.
The sounder hops about us, making its funny, trilling kind of bark.
I dare a glance at my mother and find her in deep conference with the sorcerer.
I am more than happy to be swept up in Sasha’s joy; she’s telling me about how we must go to the someplace, and see the something that Amaritha’s been working on; it’s her project and a larger-than-life representation of something, although none of it quite makes sense to me, since Amaritha is joyfully telling me we must go visit Sasha’s room at home, which she’s decorated entirely in black silk, even the ceilings, and it’s such a statement.
My mother clears her throat, and we calm ourselves.
“Well then, Tanadelle,” she says. “I suppose we’d better get along and go have our discussion.”
Ah yes, our discussion about how I apparently broke the nearly unbreakable curse on myself simply by admitting that I don’t want to go back to my old life.
“Actually, I’d prefer if we stayed here,” I say. My heart is hammering in my chest as I speak, and my hands are shaking, but I stuff them into my pockets, and no one can see my heart.
“This is hardly the place—” Mother begins.
“It’s my home,” I say, mustering as much courage as I can. “Mrs. Gooch gave it to me, and it’s mine.” I suppose, truthfully, I handed it off to Bash earlier this morning, including the key, but unless he says something—and I’m betting he won’t—no one else knows that.
“Sweetheart,” Mother says, using an endearment that hasn’t passed her lips in nearly a decade. “I’d really rather we were somewhere more…fitting. We do have quite a lot to discuss. And the facilities here are less than ideal.”
I don’t know if the endearment is a good sign; I hope it betokens relief, and some sympathy.
“I have tea. And biscuits,” I say. “And I’d rather we stay here to talk.
I meant what I said. I don’t want to…” Be a royal princess?
“I’m not happy, and we need to make a change.
This is my home; it’s been my home for the past six months, and I love it.
So I’d prefer we remain here for the time being. ”
“But lunch,” my father says.
“Oh, Roth,” Mother sighs. “She said she has…biscuits.”
“There’s a shop down the road that makes incredible cinnamon rolls,” Amaritha pipes up. “I could go get us some?”
I turn to her and Sasha, still holding hands and beaming at me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, I really want to,” Amaritha says. “Really want to.”
Ah, so she can tell everyone the curse is broken. Who am I to deny her that?
“Then by all means,” I say. “Take Honey with you.”
Amaritha and Sasha sweep out of the room, followed by a distinctly thoughtful Honeyrose. We haven’t had a chance to speak, and she clearly has something on her mind. But it’ll keep.
“And this…person?” Mother says, gesturing to Bash.
“He stays,” I say.
She sighs. “If this is some sort of delayed teenage rebellion…You were always such a tractable child. So unlike your sister.”
Bash makes a funny noise in the back of his throat, but when I glance at him, his expression is composed.
“Perhaps, somewhere to sit,” my father suggests, eyeing the pillows on the floor.
I ask everyone to stand aside and enlarge the table and chairs, which makes my father smile; he’s always liked little magic, and knows a few spells himself, despite never having taught me any—the enormous tulips in our various royal gardens are his doing.
Honey and the girls return bearing plates of rolls and biscuits, all still warm from the oven, and a giant, steaming urn of tea, which Honey explains she borrowed wholesale from behind the counter at Mrs. Mangigony’s.
I refrain from asking if she also bought the entire counter’s worth of baked goods.
Sasha’s brought me a cinnamon roll now and again, but I feel a distinct and uncomfortable heaviness in my chest at the idea that I can now walk down the street and buy one myself.
If I were staying in Little Pepperidge. Am I staying here?
I wonder. Is that what I’m about to insist on, in front of Bash and Sasha and Amaritha and this lunatic sorcerer and my parents and Honey? They’d never let me.
The sorcerer is busy helping herself to a roll.
“The princes are all gathered outside,” Honey says, without preamble.
“So’s everyone else,” Sasha adds.
It seems news travels fast. I should have known. Can’t get them in here to buy a book, but they’re all happy to stand outside and wait to see what a recently de-cursed princess looks like when she finally leaves her bookstore.
My mother takes a sip of her tea—Mrs. Mangigony had also provided nicer teacups than Mrs. Gooch left me—sighs, and turns her gaze to me.
“Tanadelle,” she begins. “I understand that you’re upset, and this represents a lot of change for you, and that I may have been a little overzealous in bringing up the various duties that you must begin attending to now that you’re free…
” She pauses. I use the opportunity to tear a cinnamon roll in half.
“Certainly we can give you the time you need to reintroduce yourself to your role in society, given that you have been in, essentially, seclusion for the last few months.
“Perhaps,” she continues, “you’re feeling a little overwhelmed; I can see that there are some strong feelings between you and this young man here.
” She indicates Bash, who continues to sit in complete silence, with neither tea nor roll to occupy himself.
“You’ve never really had a, well, a young man before, and I certainly understand how overwhelming such feelings can be.
But please don’t make a decision that might affect the next few years of your life, if not longer, based on a…
well.” She clears her throat awkwardly. Mother was never keen to talk about the love lives of her daughters, even if one of us didn’t have a love life.
“A young man,” she finally says, having found no other suitable synonym.
She can’t call him my suitor, and princesses don’t have beaux.
If he even is, which he isn’t; we spent the night together and managed not to confess any deeply held feelings, much less say anything to betoken a relationship. Well, he didn’t.
“I’m not,” I say, simply because it’s the truth. “These months here—this is the first time in my life where I’ve felt like I have a home, and friends who aren’t…” I glance at Honey, and she gives me a sympathetic nod; she understands. “Who aren’t Crown employees,” I say, sadly.
“I mean, technically, I am your employee,” Sasha pipes up, and Amaritha shushes her.
“It’s a little different with you, Sasha,” I say, gently. “You’ll grow up and leave and live your whole life, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be a little part of it. But I’m Honeyrose’s job.”
“I report to the Crown,” Honey adds.
“Oh,” Sasha says, a little more quietly.
“And Bash isn’t my…my young man,” I say.
I dare a glance at him, but he’s staring at the table, color high on his cheeks.
I presume this entire experience is as excruciating for him as it is for the rest of us.
“Even if he were, I’m twenty-two years old.
I’m more than able to separate my private feelings for a person from my understanding of my royal duties.
And my feelings about them.” Surely my parents have faith enough in my reasonably good sense to know I’d never make a life-altering statement like I don’t want to do it anymore about my entire existence simply because of another person?
“Tanadelle, I really do feel we should continue this discussion without your associates here,” Mother says, setting her teacup down.
They can’t leave. I need them here, in part because I’m terrified that if my parents get me alone, I’ll back down, agree to some compromise.
Here, in my bookshop, with people I care about beside me, I feel I might have a chance to make my parents understand.
My friends believe in me. They make me believe in myself.
“They stay,” I say again.
Mother sighs. “You should know, then, that we’ve done some research into your young man,” she says, and my heart sinks.
Of course I’d mentioned him in my official letters to Honeyrose; I’d said there was a cursed sailor in town and asked for a book on water magic.
“There are some things you should know.”
I glance at Bash and then back to my mother. What could she possibly say? It wouldn’t change the fact that I’m in love with him, which is the only bit that matters. “All right,” I say.
“Don’t tell me he’s not a real pirate,” Sasha gasps.
“He’s a pirate?” my father says, leaning forward to peer at Bash. “I thought he was a sailor!”
“Darling,” Mother says, sounding exasperated. “Just look at him. Have you ever set eyes on a sailor who dressed like that?”
“Ah yes. Quite so,” my father says, subsiding.
Amaritha giggles.
“Well,” Honey says, shuffling a sheaf of papers on the table in front of her. Oh, by the great green dragon, she has a dossier. How did I not notice it earlier? Dread builds inside me.
“First off, he’s a real pirate. Or was.”
“Thank the gods. Barn Pirate forever,” Amaritha whispers.
“Not a pirate captain?” Sasha guesses.
“No, he was a captain.”
“I mean, was he a bad captain?”
“I suppose it depends what you mean by bad,” Honey says, in that maddening way of hers. A smile quirks her lips. I realize she’s enjoying herself, and feel a little of my tension ease. Whatever she’s learned about him, it’s not going to be too terrible, if she’s smiling. I hope.
“Bad like a bad guy. A villain.”
“No again. He seems like he was fairly neutral for a pirate captain, actually,” Honey says. “More of the ‘searching for buried treasure’ and ‘scrapping with other pirates’ line than the ‘pillage and murder’ line.”
I sigh, quietly. At least he was telling the truth about that.
“Maybe he wasn’t a good pirate captain,” Amaritha suggests. “Like, his ship was dirty and his crew hated him.”
“Again, no,” Honey says. I glance at Bash again. By the gods, he looks like he’s sinking down in his seat. Like he’s…embarrassed. “His crew were very fond of him, and his ship was reputed to be very clean, and remarkably free of scurvy.”
“Do get on with it, Honeyrose,” Mother says.
“It’s his curse,” she explains. “When you asked for the book of water magic, and mentioned he had an unusually powerful fear of water, something to do with a sea witch…well, I started to do some digging, mostly to assuage my own curiosity.”
“He is cursed, isn’t he?” I say. I can’t help myself. The wild seawater-salt scent of him; what else could that be? Why else would he be here, the farthest point from the sea in the entire country?
“He is,” Honey says, her tone even. I suppose that’s a relief. I never got the sense of Bash as a liar—mostly because he never said anything sincere, except for once or twice, and those moments felt very true—and it’d be beyond awful to think I’d fallen in love with a sham.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You’ve satisfied yourself that he’s everything he says he is. He’s not even a particularly villainous pirate.” That bit’s a relief, though I’d never really seriously considered that he might be. “Then what am I meant to be shocked and appalled by?”
“I looked into his curse, mostly out of curiosity.” She pauses.
Honey doesn’t do it often, but she does occasionally indulge her need to make dramatic pronouncements, and it seems that this is one of those moments.
“And?” I prompt.
“Has he explained how he came to be cursed?”
“Angered a sea witch, yes.”
“How did he anger the sea witch?”
I smile. “Probably spent too much time hanging around her sea cave, talking nonsense.”
“Not quite.”
“Honey, please,” I say.
“Seriously,” Sasha breathes.
“He stole her magic scallop,” Honey announces, closing her dossier and sitting back in her seat.