The Ruby Moon (2 page)

Queen Angelina hurried in, replacing the silver mug on the king’s desk with a second silver mug. She did this every morning, moving as quickly and quietly as a mouse.

Avery sat up, cranked the slat closed, and slipped back into the secret stairwell.

Returning to the kids’ quarters, she found Kate sitting alone amid scraps of fabric, working on brightly colored silk flags for the Olympiad.

“Angelina is killing the king,” Avery said bluntly.

Kate laughed. “First of all, how could you possibly know that? And second of all, how on earth could you prove it? Who would you tell, and why would anyone believe you? You could be sent to the gallows for simply suggesting it to the wrong person.” Kate continued her sewing.

“Fine, but it doesn’t change my opinion. Angelina doesn’t seem the least bit upset that the king is ill, and the timing is wrong.”

Kate didn’t look up from her work. “The timing?”

“As soon as she married him, he grew visibly ill. Either she’s contributing to his poor health, or she married him because she knew he was dying. Either way, I intend to prove she’s involved.”

Kate smiled, sewing the edge of a flag.

“I’m serious,” Avery pressed.

“I’m sure you are, but why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I believe Angelina is the reason we’re here. If she gives birth to the king’s heir and the king dies, it could mean destruction for all of us. The king may be the only reason we’re still alive.”

“He could also be the reason we’re being held captive,” Kate said. “How certain are you?”

Avery shrugged. “I’m sure a king is no match for the power of a determined woman.”

Kate laughed. “Is that another theory you plan to prove?”

Avery nodded. “I’m not ready to face the king yet, but someday I will.”

Later that evening, the thirteen-year-olds held a party in their meeting hall, wearing elaborate costumes and masks with gaudy embellishments obtained by the scouts after one of Angelina’s recent festivities. The kitchen girls delivered platters of treats while the kids laughed and poked fun at each other late into the night.

Safe behind her elaborate gold mask with fabric roses, Avery decided to ask Kendrick the question she had been struggling with for days. He stood off to the side, leaning against the wall, holding up a wolf mask made of black feathers.

She was surprised he was holding a mask but not that he was alone. Avery took a deep breath and gathered her courage. Once she asked the question, she would never be able to take it back. He might laugh at her or worse, but she needed to know his answer more than she needed her next breath of air. She determinedly stepped over to him. Still behind her mask, she said quietly, “I need you to be honest with me.”

He nodded.

Her throat tightened and she swallowed.

In that instant he lowered his mask, and she saw that he
wasn’t Kendrick
!

Avery quickly spun and marched away, the strange boy calling after her.

She finally found Kendrick, sitting alone, reading. She considered forgetting the whole thing. She wasn’t afraid he’d lie. She was afraid he might tell the truth and what that truth might be.

When he looked up at her, she knew it was now or never.

She set down her mask.

Kendrick looked annoyed by the interruption, but he closed his book. “Well?”

“Your eyes,” she said, barely above a whisper. “One is brown and the other is blue, just like the first queen.”

It wasn’t a question.

Kendrick’s expression—as always—was blank.

Avery wondered whether he’d heard her. Or if he had but didn’t understand the implication—which was itself an answer. At least he might not understand what she wanted to know, which might save her some embarrassment in the end.

He opened his book and stared at a page for a long moment. Avery was about to turn away when Kendrick slammed the book shut and stood, staring straight at her with those striking eyes.

“We can’t talk about this here,” he said.

She followed him into the stairwell and up the stairs until they arrived at a door with an X on it.

She grabbed Kendrick’s arm. “We can’t—”

But he pushed it open to reveal a tiny balcony under a sloping roof. He stepped out and hoisted himself onto the gable.

Closing the door, Avery followed, grateful for Kendrick’s hand. She had climbed a thousand trees but never in a billowy dress.

They sat in silence under a net of stars, looking out over the Salt Sea and a cluster of houses glowing with golden candlelight.

It was strangely peaceful, like the roof of her castle tree house back home, only a heavy secret dangled between them.

Kendrick spoke quietly. “How long have you had it figured out?”

Avery turned to look at Kendrick in a new way. “You’re—”

“The son of a king who doesn’t even know my name,” he said with a laugh. “Can you imagine how that feels?”

“No,” she whispered. But of course, she
had
imagined how it felt to be the child of the king. What thirteen-year-old girl hadn’t imagined a life better than her own? Now—ironically—she was living the life she had imagined and would give anything to return to the life she had taken for granted.

Avery could barely take it in. Kendrick was royalty. She leaned back on her elbows. “Start at the beginning.”

Kendrick exhaled loudly, and Avery sensed that the walls Kendrick had built around himself were slowly crumbling. With the moon as their only witness, he began.

“I don’t know my beginning,” he said. “When I was eight or nine, I overheard the woman I believed was my mother telling a friend she was angry that the king did nothing to support me. My family was poor, and I was draining them of their resources.”

“I’m sure you weren’t—”

“I was a burden, and I always knew it. When I heard my mother say that, I finally understood why.”

“And you never told your mother you knew the truth?”

Kendrick shook his head. “I was scared. I’ve learned since that the woman who raised me was a servant in the household of the first queen. She lived here in the castle. One of Queen Elizabeth’s women sent me to live with my new family in one of the country houses on the other side of the Salt Sea.”

“And you don’t know why?”

He shook his head again and stared up at the sky.

“Legend says the king’s only child died,” Avery said.

“Do you think the king even knows you were sent away? What if he doesn’t know you’re alive?”

Kendrick shrugged.

“You’re still scared,” Avery said.

“I’m
not
scared.”

“Then what’s stopping you? What if you are the heir the king wants? You could make him the happiest man on earth! He’s sick and needs a son, and you
didn’t
die!”

“But I will if Angelina finds me. It’s a risk I’m not sure I want to take.”

That sent a shiver up Avery’s spine. “You don’t believe there’s
anything
you can do?”

Kendrick whispered, “I have never told my story until now.”

“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

“It may be,” he answered, “but you aren’t safer for knowing.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re the first one to figure it out. And you asked. Plus, you might be able to help.”

Avery raised a brow. “How so?”

“Your mother has been right about everything else,” Kendrick said. “The stories she told you when you were growing up included the underground colonies, the tunnels, and the evil queen. I’m certain she gave you the information we need to get out of here alive. You need to think hard about everything she ever told you. Even the details you feel are insignificant. She wouldn’t have given you all this information and left out the most important clue.”

Avery hoped he was right.

She, too, had suspected her mother had left bread crumbs of information for just this moment, but Avery couldn’t for the life of her remember what they might be.

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

“I know you will. Once the king dies, the only thing I’ll be good for is the gallows if Angelina knows where I am. You, too, if it comes out that you know my identity. We don’t have much time.”

They climbed down from the sloping roof and landed on the tiny balcony.

And they saw that the door stood open.

Someone had been listening!

Keeping her promise to Kendrick, Avery plumbed her memories of her mother’s stories while pacing the stairwell or staring absently at her book in the sitting room or while bartering with other thirteen-year-olds in the makeshift shop.

She rehearsed everything she could remember while eating with Kate. At night she dreamed of conversations with her mother and relived the nights she curled up beside her to listen to the stories of her past while scented raindrops pelted the paper-thin windows of their tiny cottage.

The only result of all this effort was that Avery missed her mother even more.

She dreaded having to tell Kendrick she had nothing helpful to offer him. He would be rightfully annoyed.

Kate’s sewing room looked like a market stall with its colorful bolts of fabric stacked side by side. Avery loved to sneak upstairs and watch her friend work.

“What’s on your mind?” Kate asked without looking up, sticking pins into freshly cut fabric.

Avery smiled, her lip quivering. “It’s about your grandmother.”

Kate set down her tools and looked up. “Go on.”

“After she took Henry and me from the woods, she must have instructed someone to take my brother somewhere—another village, maybe, or somewhere here in the castle?”

Kate looked away. Avery wondered if this conversation came too soon after the old woman’s death.

Finally Kate said, “If you’re asking me where Henry is, I don’t know.”

“But you must!” Avery blurted. “You know everything else about the inner workings of the court, and your grandmother is the reason—” Sleepless nights had made her emotional. She would get nowhere blaming Kate’s grandmother.

Kate nodded and said quietly, “You should spend time in the chapel.”

Avery smiled. Her mother always gave her the same advice when she was struggling with something.
“You will find the answers to your most important questions there.
”

But Avery didn’t find her answers in the chapel, especially the ornate one upstairs in the castle, no matter how often she went. She preferred immediate answers—with audible replies.

She wished her mother—and Kate—would offer more useful advice.

At the end of each day, the scouts updated the cabinet.

They met in the sitting room off the kids’ dining room, where Bronte and her litter of quickly growing pups scratched the floor and nipped at each other’s ears while the council talked of serious matters.

In addition to the colorful tents near the king’s gardens, tonight two of the scouts claimed to have laid eyes on the largest stadium they had ever seen, being built on the east end of the royal land. They used terms like
magnificent
and
brilliant
and
astounding
—words larger than their usual vocabulary.