The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  “And everything starts fresh,” he agreed.

  He looked at her. She kept her gaze on the window, and crinkled her eyes into a dreamy smile, as if she was recalling the thaws of her past. He realized that her skin was not perfect after all. It was coated in makeup that barely concealed a serious outbreak of zits.

  They moved to the table to sit down, and it felt like something was unfolding — sitting down itself, maybe — in Elliot’s chest. If he was honest, he’d been thinking that Keira was a supercool Jagged Edge snob — even if she had a sense of humor — and that Samuel was a baby-faced, sycophantic nerd, and Sergio, a friendly-enough but seriously-what-was-he-doing-here? dancing stable boy, and Princess Ko, sort of impressive in her organizational skills and with the whole running-a-kingdom-without-your-family thing going for her, but her stupid act was so annoying it made you want to suffocate yourself, and the fact that she’d roped him into being here in the first place was worse than a stone caught in the tractor brakes —

  Well, that was sort of brutally honest.

  But still. There it was. That’s how he’d been feeling.

  Except that now, that glimpse of something real from Keira — her sentiment about thaws; her bad skin — it had shifted things for him. He felt calmer.

  The others arrived and the calming continued. Lunchtime seemed to have brought out the glow and the point to them all. Samuel had finally removed his jacket, and it’s true that his shirt was ruffled, but frills on a shirt were one thing: Frills on a jacket had been taking it too far. Also, the suspenders added some pizzazz to his look, and the kid’s face was maybe less manic than usual. Maybe a little plumper too. He ate a lot at each meal, that Samuel.

  Sergio seemed to shoot a line of energy into the room when he arrived with his bright eyes and his skip-dance-jog from the door to the table.

  Then Princess Ko was standing at the head of the table again, her hair as yellow as a quince. Even yellower than before. Was that possible?

  She pulled the whiteboard forward, and words appeared:

  KING CETUS — Sandringham Convention Center, Ducale, Golden Coast (Stepped out of a formal function for a brief meeting with the Commissioner for Foreign Relations — disappeared between cloak room and conference room).

  QUEEN LYRA — Department of Finance, Ducale, Golden Coast (disappeared while perusing finance reports in a second-level office).

  PRINCE CHYBA — Cast Iron Restaurant, McCabe Town, Nature Strip (disappeared en route to the restrooms).

  PRINCESS JUPITER — the Harrington Hotel, Ducale, Golden Coast (disappeared from penthouse suite).

  PRINCE TIPPETT — the White Palace, Magical North (disappeared from his bedroom; nanny had stepped out for two minutes to fetch a tissue).

  “There was not a single witness to any of the actual disappearances,” the Princess said. “Nor were there reports of any suspicious activity in the vicinity. Each took place in such short time periods, and in such confined spaces, it seems possible that the abductors came through a crack from the World then took their captive back with them.”

  “Nobody’s supposed to know about the abductions?” Keira said. “So how exactly did the security people investigate or ask any questions?”

  “Nobody does know,” the Princess agreed. “Apart from the two agents you see in this room, five other handpicked agents, and the head of the Security Forces. The people interviewed were all given plausible explanations for the questions and led to believe these were standard security procedures.”

  Keira seemed about to speak again, her expression skeptical, but Elliot interrupted. “Wait. If you know exactly where they disappeared,” he said, “can’t you just go to the WSU and get a detector, locate the cracks, go through, and get them?”

  “The royal family has no authority over the World Severance Unit,” the Princess said, shaking her head. “And yes, they have detectors, but those are only accessible to the highest-ranking WSU officers.”

  “Could you not humbly request a loan?” suggested Samuel.

  Again, the Princess shook her head.

  “It would be refused. The WSU guard their authority fiercely. Moreover, we would be forced to explain our request, which would mean revealing the disappearances, a risk that we consider not worth taking. A detector would illuminate a crack, sure, but what then? We would need to know how to unseal the crack, in addition to the secret to going through the crack. There is no chance that the WSU would ever give us that — assuming they even know it themselves. They would not permit communion with the World even to try to retrieve the royal family.”

  The Princess pressed a button and the words on the screen disappeared.

  “At this session,” she said, “I want to try something called brainstorming. Here’s how it works. I throw out questions, you throw back ideas. Nothing is stupid. Nobody laughs. The crazier, the better.” She paused, then added defensively: “I read about it — it’s a way of cracking a problem open and finding a creative solution.”

  Elliot glanced sideways at Keira and felt her glance at him too. Brainstorming was something teachers were always doing at school. Had Princess Ko missed that somehow? He remembered that she and the other royal kids switched between boarding schools and tutors a lot, so maybe she had missed it. Or not paid attention, being too caught up with princessing.

  It was sort of cute, her not knowing. He smiled briefly, and noticed Keira do the same.

  “Now, here are the questions — answer whichever grabs you. Who took my family? Why? Why take them to the World? What’s happening to them there? Have they found each other? Or are they still alone? Are they okay?”

  Samuel’s mouth fell open. He stared.

  “How could we possibly know?” he whispered.

  “Samuel,” said the Princess. “That’s the point. We don’t know. I want you to come up with possible answers — use your imagination. Go wild.”

  Sergio had not participated in the previous meeting, but now he spoke, and his voice was strongly accented. Elliot couldn’t place the accent.

  “The Hostiles took them so they can take power over this Kingdom,” Sergio said. “Only, why make such without you, Princess? Why leave a princess behind? The bandits of Sorranjin will steal a herd of wild white horses from the compounds of Mount Dkia.” He paused, eyes intense. “But never have I heard they leave one of the herd behind. Such a thing can I not even imagine.”

  “Right,” said Elliot uncertainly. “I guess the bandits of Sorranjin don’t plan to take power in the compounds of Mount Dkia — so, there’s that — but anyway, the thing is, all this time has passed and no Hostiles have made a move.”

  “Good. Great.” Princess Ko was scribbling on the whiteboard as they spoke. Hostiles, she wrote, followed by a question mark and an arrow that flew across the board to the word World. Beneath that she wrote: But not Ko?? No power taken???

  “Someone else?” she said, turning around.

  Surely she had seen this done at school.

  “Very well,” Samuel murmured, then in his own schoolboy voice: “Perhaps it was an enemy kingdom.”

  Ko wrote enemy and put a circle around it.

  “Or villains!” cried Sergio. “It is that villains wish something Cello has! The sapphire mines? The milk of the Hovers on the Golden Coast Swamp? These are such that I imagine. A horse, it will nuzzle you! It will nip at you! If it knows you have the sugar or the apple in your pocket. But a villain — a villain has more — how you say? — resources than a horse, and so it will steal a royal family.”

  Ko wrote rapidly. “Only, why have they not issued their demands yet?”

  Nobody spoke for a moment.

  “That question about why they took all the family except you, Princess,” Keira said. “Maybe they don’t see you as a threat.”

  “They took Prince Tippett,” Samuel pointed out. “How might a seven-year-old be a threat but not his older sister? Of course, he would have turned eight by now, but he was seven when taken, so, as to
a blister in a clam shell.”

  “His older sister is incredibly stupid.” Keira shrugged.

  There was a slight movement from the security agents, which was a little like a pair of potted plants twitching.

  “It’s all right.” Princess Ko frowned at the agents. “This is brainstorming. People must be free to say whatever comes to their heads. And I assume that came into your head, Keira.”

  “It did,” agreed Keira.

  “She started putting on the stupid act after they went missing,” Elliot pointed out.

  Keira nodded slowly, studying the palm of her hand.

  “When people go missing,” Elliot said, to change the subject, “it doesn’t always mean they were taken. They could’ve just upped and left.”

  The Princess turned back to the board.

  “All of the family?” Keira demanded, her words touched with contempt. “At the same moment?”

  Elliot had clearly been too quick to revise his opinion of Keira. Getting sentimental about a thaw didn’t mean you weren’t an ice queen. “Could’ve been planned in advance,” he said mildly. “Maybe they’d just had enough of being royals?”

  “And left Princess Ko out of their plans?” Keira’s contempt was building, then she stopped and reconsidered. “Well, in a way that makes sense.”

  The Princess’s back was turned and she was scribbling recklessly, the words barely legible. She turned, a blush threading across her cheeks.

  “I don’t think your family ran away,” Elliot said. “I think they were taken. I’m just doing the brainstorming thing.”

  The blush flared briefly and then faded.

  “Thank you.” She nodded at him curtly.

  Something seemed to light in Samuel’s eyes. “It’s a prank!” he cried. “A hoax! There was a club, if you will know it, inaugurated in Olde Quainte in 1327, and its name, be it known, was the Pranksters. Hear ye this, it had twelve members and they concocted the most elaborate pranks! A storm of giant cucumbers! The theft of the royal mint! Detachment of the Undisclosed Province! Why, snaffling the royal family is exactly like to this club!!”

  Sergio looked surprised. “They completed all this? With the cucumbers and the mint and the so on? Beautiful!”

  “Of course not.” Samuel frowned. “How could they? Where would they have found giant cucumbers? How could you steal the royal mint? It’s a building. And you certainly cannot detach an entire province. Continental drift might do the trick eventually — an earthquake perhaps — but pranksters could not do it.”

  Princess Ko was looking from Samuel to Sergio and back again, rolling the marker between her palms.

  “This club still exists?” she asked.

  “Why, no,” said Samuel. “It was disbanded in 1328 without ever having performed a single prank. They had a lark, however, imagining them.”

  “Aren’t we wasting time?” Keira asked.

  “But!” protested Samuel. “I was brainstorming! How is it that Elliot can …”

  Elliot widened his eyes slightly. Maybe he’d revised his opinion of Samuel too soon too.

  “Samuel,” Princess Ko said gently. “You just illustrated the reason I selected you. You have extensive knowledge of Cellian history. Now I want to add something and need your help. Can you tell us about the tradition of Cellian royal blood?”

  Samuel brightened. “There is a theory,” he said, “as to a sliver of orange rind, widely held in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but since somewhat slipped from popularity. Call yourselves to my attention for it is this: that the blood of the royal family is superior to that of ordinary Cellians. Thus, the theory goes, if the royal family were removed from the Kingdom, it would so destabilize the Kingdom — in a fundamental sense, not merely political — that a foreign power could walk in and take over.”

  Sergio raised his eyebrows, and his foreign accent (probably southern, Elliot thought, but he still wasn’t sure) seemed to grow stronger: “The Kingdom is destabilized!” he said. “It is the Color attacks! It is the farmers and the crisis! The beautiful crisis, it is everywhere! So! Yes! But what is it that they wait?”

  “Perhaps,” mused Samuel, “it is like to a tellybird that plucks twigs from the nest of a yellowcrest? Once it has plucked, the tellybird hovers out of sight, awaiting the moment of truth. That is to say, perhaps the enemy kingdom is waiting for Cello to plummet from the cliff edge to the mudswamp far below.”

  “What use is a Kingdom in a mudswamp?” Sergio wondered.

  “The tellybird swoops on the eggs as the nest falls,” Samuel explained gently.

  “Let’s not get off track,” said Princess Ko.

  Elliot was trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Are you saying this royal blood thing is true?” he asked the Princess. “That royals have better blood than the rest of us? ’Cause I kind of don’t get how it would work. Don’t royals marry regular Cellians all the time and have kids with them? So if royal blood really had this sort of magical power that makes Cello function, well, wouldn’t it get diluted over time?”

  “I’m not saying it’s true,” the Princess explained. “Only that there are people who believe it to be —”

  “Have they done scientific studies?” Keira interrupted.

  “I’m not saying it’s true,” the Princess repeated.

  “Is there genetic testing?” Keira persisted.

  “I think maybe —”

  “If your blood is so superior to us ordinary Cellians, why don’t you share it around?”

  “You don’t —”

  “You’re right. I don’t understand. If your blood is so much better, do you donate it regularly? Do you arrange for transfusions all across the Kingdom so the commoners can get some of your superpowers?”

  “Keira, I don’t —”

  “Why don’t you cut yourself right now and rain blood on our heads?”

  Keira’s words seemed to reconfigure the room.

  Sergio stood up so fast his chair crashed to the ground, his small face ferocious. Samuel buried his head into his arms. The security agents stepped forward, hands on their holsters.

  Princess Ko was so pale you could see the veins in her cheeks.

  “I have a suggestion,” Elliot said, speaking slow and easy, the way he might if he’d accidentally stumbled into a paddock of bulls. “Could be dumb as all get-out but for what it’s worth — I found this book a while back, that tells you how to find a spell at the Lake of Spells. I was going to use it to get a Locator Spell and find my dad, back before we knew the Hostiles had him.”

  Princess Ko’s eyes focused on the opposite wall for a moment.

  Then she looked at Elliot.

  “You can’t choose what spell you catch at the Lake of Spells,” she said.

  “I know,” agreed Elliot. “But I’ve got this book, says you can.”

  “But we know where my family is,” she said. “They’re in the World.”

  Elliot shrugged. “Don’t know where in the World they are,” he said. “Maybe the place where they disappeared will tell us which part of the World they were taken — if anyone knows how the World and Cello link up — but they could still be anywhere by now. If a spell can tell us where, I can ask Madeleine — my girl in the World — to track them down. The World’s a big place, is my impression.”

  The Princess’s eyes stayed fixed on him a moment.

  Abruptly, she gathered up her papers.

  “It’s not a terrible idea.” She straightened the edges, and walked toward the door. “Put your weapons away,” she added irritably, without looking back.

  4.

  They had to pretend to be friends right after that, which struck Elliot as funny.

  The schedule called for another photo shoot, and they slung their arms around one another and beamed. Reporters joined them for their Tour of the Environs, so they kept up the act, helping one another climb into the husky-drawn sleigh, checking that the rugs and furs were evenly distributed. Elliot felt
laughter building inside him. Ca-click, ca-click, ca-click, went the cameras.

  The sleigh rattled off across the snowfields, and the guide called out that he guaranteed a dragon, but that werewolf dens were anybody’s guess. They slid past Sergio, tramping through fresh snow, leading three horses, a stable boy again. The guide handed out foil-wrapped chocolate peppermints and they struggled to unwrap them with their bulky gloves, gave up, and slid off the gloves, holding these for one another, crushing the foil, smiling eyes around as they chewed on the chocolate. They all teased Samuel — gently, as new friends would — for flinching when a dragon swooped too close, and they asked one another if that smoke meant fire or just the dragon’s breath misting in cold air. “Maybe she’s smoking a cigarette,” joked Keira, and they all laughed aloud, Princess Ko the hardest.

  The reporters laughed too, and chatted with them about things like how they thought this generation differed from the previous one. Ca-click, ca-click, ca-click.

  Even when the reporters had gone, and it was just the three of them — Keira, Samuel, and Elliot — touring the Palace with the Princess as their guide, he felt the laughter in his chest. They kept standing back and saying, “After you,” at doorways.

  Now and then they had to run a few steps, to keep up with the Princess as she strode through ballrooms, games rooms, tea rooms; past fountains, sculptures, strutting peacocks, sleeping white wolves — those last were plain pretentious, he thought, but still funny.

  Walls rose high, halls ribboned forever, and staircases stretched so wide it made Elliot think of concertinas — but as far as he could see the only reason for any of it was to show off how many paintings they had, and how many fax machines sitting on curly-legged tables, and how many handwoven stair rugs.

  Then Princess Ko turned down a dimmer, quieter hallway, led them around a corner or two, and opened a door.

  “This is Prince Tippett’s room,” she said, and waved them in.

  It was a big room, sure, with a giant televisual screen on one wall — but otherwise, in a lot of ways, it was just like any kid’s bedroom.