Palace of Lies (29 page)

I recognized the hated voice before I could get my eyes to focus on the face.

It was Lord Throckmorton.

And beside him stood Terrence.

“You!” I cried, suddenly dizzy
with rage. Everything fell into place for me at once. “The two of you—were you working together all along?”

Lord Throckmorton waved the torch at me in a way that could have extinguished it completely.

“Not
all
along,” he said, his voice carrying the false cordiality I knew so well.

“Janelia assigned me to watch for you at the palace a few years ago,” Terrence chimed in. “Lord Throckmorton was wise enough to notice a young boy who was present in the courtyard a little too often. . . .”

“A boy who, plied with an occasional treat, could be relied upon to tell all about a former servant I had reason to want to spy upon . . . ,” Lord Throckmorton added.

“Janelia was so good to you!” I accused Terrence. “You agreed to spy on her for Lord Throckmorton? You betrayed her—and me!”

“Lord Throckmorton treated me even better than she did,” Terrence said, grinning carelessly.

“Only because he was using you!” I cried.

“And Janelia wasn't?” Terrence countered, smirking even more. “I had to spy on the palace for eight hours every day before I earned my supper.”

“She shared all the food she had with her boys!” I argued. “She would have given you more if she had it!”

Lord Throckmorton stroked his chin. Or, rather, his
chins
—he had three of them.

“Now, now, children,” he said. “You know I can't tolerate childish bickering like that. Though it amuses me, Desmia, to see you defending the sister who abandoned you so heartlessly.”

“Only because you kicked her out of the palace!” I replied.

Lord Throckmorton just shook his head in mock surprise.

“Oh, is
that
the story she's spinning?” he asked.

Once that tone of Lord Throckmorton's would have been enough to make me doubt myself. That was how he had controlled me for most of my life. I was surprised that now, even stuck in the Fridesian dungeon, I didn't feel the slightest quiver of doubt, the slightest desire to just give in to whatever Lord Throckmorton was going to tell me.

Maybe I truly had grown up.

I turned to Terrence.

“Were you still loyal to Janelia when you started out with
us, on the way to Fridesia?” I asked. “Or were you a total traitor even then?”

Terrence tilted his head, considering.

“I was still thinking that if I played my cards right, I could end up married to a princess,” he said.

“That's not an answer!” I insisted.

“You seemed so . . . royal . . . until you started screaming,” Terrence said. “I thought maybe you might still win.”

“Until I started screaming,” I muttered.

Terrence shrugged, and at least had the grace to avoid meeting my eyes.

“You know you lost as soon as you defied me,” Lord Throckmorton chided me. “I thought I taught you better than that! Siding with those anonymous girls and bumbling knights instead of me. You know I always win!”

It was true. I had seen him win against challengers again and again in the palace.

“What possessed you?” Lord Throckmorton asked. He sounded truly hurt, almost as if I had been a beloved daughter who ran away.

“What you were doing—what you wanted—it was wrong,” I said, stumbling over my own words. “The war was wrong.”

“Oh, and so you became a moralist?” Lord Throckmorton asked. “You, who were always so cold and aloof—you actually began to care for soldiers you'd never met?”

“Yes!” I said.

But had I? I thought back to the first time Ella and Jed had come to the palace, the way they seemed so different from everyone else I knew. And then Cecilia and Harper showed up, and Cecilia screamed and yelled and threw fits and Harper still stayed by her side. And they were different too.

“And . . . maybe I wanted friends,” I admitted. “Maybe I wanted true friends, for the first time in my life.”

I couldn't separate it in my mind. Wasn't it still good to want to impress friends who were good people, and wanted good things? Who maybe made me a better person myself?

Of course, better person or not, now I was imprisoned in the dungeon of the Fridesian palace, with Lord Throckmorton and Terrence both gloating over my mistakes.

“Why do you care about any of that now?” I asked Lord Throckmorton. “You're out of prison, and I'm in it. You got your revenge! And—are you working with Madame Bisset now? Was it the two of you who conspired to burn down the Palace of Mirrors?”

Lord Throckmorton smirked.

“We found so many people willing to help,” he crowed. “Jailers willing to accept the slightest bribe, palace officials whose feelings were hurt when the twelve new princesses had no interest in their advice . . .”

I closed my eyes weakly. I had known the sister-princesses needed to be more tactful. I should have warned them about that, too.

But I'd also been in awe of their bluntness, their energy,
their willingness to do what they thought was right no matter what.

I'd been a little jealous.

“You've won, of course,” I murmured. “So you can tell me—are they still alive? The other twelve
real
princesses of Suala?”

I opened my eyes, hoping to see the truth written on Lord Throckmorton's face. But he had even more years of palace experience than I did. I could tell he was keeping his expression carefully unreadable.

“None of you were ever
real
princesses,” he said. “Surely you realize that now. And surely you realize how easy that makes it for Madame Bisset and me and our underlings”—he glanced almost dismissively at Terrence—“to replace all of you in one fell swoop. With a fake princess who will serve
our
needs.”

“By marrying her off to the prince of Fridesia,” I muttered. “Joining the two kingdoms. Leaving you and Madame Bisset to be the powers behind the throne of a country that's twice the size of Suala.”

Lord Throckmorton beamed, his eyes greedy.

“I taught you well!” he announced. “You see the possibilities! Isn't it a marvelous plan?” He leaned in close. “We
were
willing to let you play the true princess role, if only you'd cooperated with Madame Bisset. Because you
do
look so much like a princess—you can, anyway—and you'd served that role for so long. But, alas, you chose to betray my goals yet
again
. By running away after the fire.”

“And so you started the rumor that I set the fire and murdered the other princesses,” I murmured, finally putting this piece of the puzzle together. “As revenge. And—to thoroughly discredit me. So nobody would believe me if I dared to come out of hiding and tried to rule alone.”

“Quite so,” Lord Throckmorton said, nodding. “Quite so.”

It was frightening how well I understood him. I didn't want to. How could I know him so well when he didn't understand me at all?

“But it's too late for you now,” Terrence interrupted, leering at me through the bars. “Lord Throckmorton knows not to give you any more chances. Right? And other things could change too. Maybe it won't be Madame Bisset who stays in power as Lord Throckmorton's second in command. Isn't that true? Because there are
other
people you'd rather help?”

Both Lord Throckmorton and I ignored him.

“But did Lord Twelling kill the prince's first wife?” I asked. “Did you kill the other princesses? And what happened to Ella and Jed?”

I tried hard to sound disinterested, as if I was only asking as a point of curiosity. But my voice cracked, letting out the pain and fear. There was too much for me to hold back.

The corners of Lord Throckmorton's mouth twitched.

“I believe I'll leave you in ignorance on those matters,” he said. “Consider it the first torture we decide to administer.”

Torture?

Was he just toying with me, or did they have that planned for my future?

Terrence tugged on Lord Throckmorton's sleeve.

“Lord Twelling should be pressuring the prince into making a decision soon,” Terrence said.

“Ah yes, I believe he is a hasty decider,” Lord Throckmorton agreed. “Madame Bisset told me he agreed to marry his first wife sight unseen. Which explains why such a handsome man ended up yoked to such an ugly hag.”

I had spent barely a quarter hour in Prince Charming's presence, and for much of that time he had been sobbing and I had been begging to be released from the dungeon. But I still winced at Lord Throckmorton's insult to the prince's deceased wife. I could imagine how hurt the prince would be.

“You won't get away with this,” I argued. “Long before the wedding, the Fridesians will realize you're lying. I already planted the seeds of doubt. Eventually they'll come to believe what I told them instead.”

“
Will
they?” Lord Throckmorton asked. “When we provide them with the proof you lacked?”

“You won't have proof,” I fumed. “Because you're lying!”

Lord Throckmorton tapped his finger against his cheek.

“Perhaps Janelia told you who Lord Constantine is?” he asked.

“The doctor who delivered Queen Charlotte Aurora's baby?” I asked. “Who was exiled because he knew the baby
died? The one who supposedly bribed Janelia to stay quiet, when really it was you?”

Lord Throckmorton looked like he was going to object to the last description, but then he only shrugged.

“Conveniently, Lord Constantine is going to show up in Fridesia in, oh, about a week's time,” he said. “He'll tell a tale of palace intrigue . . . about how the original baby wasn't dead after all. He'll be able to swear to the true claim to the Sualan throne of . . . well,
whomever
Prince Charming chooses!”

I stared at Lord Throckmorton
in dismay.

That would work,
I thought.
That would actually work very well.

I'd seen his strategies in action for fourteen years. A chill struck me as I thought of another angle he could use: All he needed was Janelia to testify that the man claiming to be Lord Constantine really was Lord Constantine.

And Lord Throckmorton could probably get her to do it by making her think it might help me,
I thought.

It was all I could do not to scream,
Stay away from Janelia! Don't hurt anyone else! Especially not anyone I care about!

“Milord,” Terrence mumbled beside Lord Throckmorton. I could tell he probably wanted to tug on Lord Throckmorton's sleeve again but was afraid to.

“Yes, yes, I know,” Lord Throckmorton agreed. “We need to go back to the ballroom to see who the lucky winner is. I believe we've told Desmia everything she needs to know.”

He can tell by my face that I understand,
I thought.
He didn't teach me to hide my feelings well enough after all.

“Put the torch back, boy,” Lord Throckmorton ordered Terrence.

Terrence hung it back on the wall, and then the deceitful man and the deceitful boy disappeared into the stairway.

I waited a few moments, because I still had my pride—I wasn't going to let myself cry until I was sure neither of them could hear me. But, strangely, after the footsteps receded on the stairs, my eyes stayed dry. I waited for the empty-sky helpless feeling to overwhelm me once again, but it didn't come.

I felt calm.

Because . . . my brain still thinks there's something I can do?
I wondered.
Even if I haven't figured it out yet?

Could there be some way to escape this dungeon cell, even without a shovel or a hole?

I went around poking at the stones up and down the wall. But they all seemed solid and unmovable.

If a guard or even that gravelly-voiced jailer showed up, could I bribe him to get a message to Tog and Janelia and Herk somehow?

What if a guard or jailer never shows up, and they just let me starve to death in here? What if nobody comes back until it's time to remove my skeleton?

I decided not to think about questions like that.

Lord Throckmorton was acting rather mean to Terrence, now that
he's done using him as a spy,
I thought.
If Terrence ever comes back down here, could I get him to switch his allegiance once again?

That seemed like a possibility. But it would require Terrence stepping down into the dungeon once more. And maybe he'd learned a lesson from me: that it wasn't wise to step foot in a dungeon when you weren't with people you could trust.

Just then, I heard footsteps again on the stairs. They were soft and hesitant, not like the confident stomping of Lord Throckmorton or Lord Twelling, or even Terrence or the prince.

“Hello?” I called. “Is somebody there?”

“It's us,” a soft voice called back. “
We
believe you.”

I saw the gleaming hair and glistening jewels and shimmering dresses first. And then I got my eyes to separate out individuals from all that glittering: It was three girls.

Three of the impostor princesses.

“Well, of course you believe
me,” I said bitterly, before I could stop myself. “You know you're not real princesses.”

“But we don't know for sure that you
are
,” the blond girl in the middle pointed out. Was she supposed to be Elzbethl? “So it
is
a matter of believing you. Trusting you.”

I clutched the bars on my door.

“You're right,” I said. “Completely right. I'm . . . sorry.”