The False Princess

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I slept the rest of the day and woke the next morning only when one of the maids knocked on my door and told me that Philantha was waiting for me downstairs.
“A lecture, she says, on, oh, something magical,” Briath said as she headed back for the door. “Can’t remember the words she used. But she says you’re to go with her, and now.”
I scrambled out of bed, trying to smooth my wrinkled clothes as I went. As I reached for the comb on my desk—my hair looked like several birds had been at it with their beaks—I saw a small square of paper, folded over on itself and sealed with a blob of wax from the candle by my bed. Cracking it open, I recognized Kiernan’s hand.
Don’t you dare get up until you’re rested! When you are, send one of those message lights and I’ll come. In the meantime, I’ll talk to O., see if she remembers anything about last night. And I’ll find out if anyone saw M. or N. wandering the palace last night. Don’t frown like that! I’ll be sly.
I was frowning, I realized, which made me let out an irritated huff of breath. He knew me too well. Still, even his promise didn’t make my fears go away. Kiernan might think he was subtle enough to question Orianne, but I worried that his natural exuberance might give him away. And if the traitor thought that Kiernan knew about the second false princess … I shuddered, laying the note back down. “Be careful,” I whispered, then lifted my comb to my hair.
Finally decent, I hurried down the stairs to find Philantha wearing her black wizard’s robes over a dress that I knew had a rather large ink stain on the front. “There’s a lecture—Hemmel’s giving it, the old bore—on transference of energies from, well, you’ll see. It’s doubtful Hemmel will have anything really useful to say—I remember when he was a student and he was always so … rule bound, and that’s very limiting, always remember that—but you never know. It might be useful to you, though, so I thought we’d go.” With that, she flung the door open and marched out into the street, me at her heels.
It was a fine, clear day, without a cloud to be seen, and I found my head clearing as well while we walked. It seemed I had recovered from my sleepless night, and the edge of shock at what I had seen was being ground down a bit by time and distance. It was still sharp, but I was gradually getting used to the idea that Orianne was not the true princess. Now if I only knew what to do about it. Well, I would start by trying to get away from the lecture and at least look at Neomar’s rooms. That way, when Kiernan and I came back, we would know what sort of fortifications we were up against.
We made good time to the college, stopping only so that Philantha could examine a bird’s nest blown from a garden tree into the street. She pronounced it too mangled to be of use, though, and left it there. Once at the college, we hurried to one of the great lecture halls. I had been in several for various ceremonies throughout my years as the princess, and this one was no different. A bowl-shaped room with stair-stepped stone benches, all leading down to a small stage where the wizard would speak. Wizards sat scattered around the room, mostly green-robed Novices, but I noticed a smattering of blue and purple robes as well. We chose spots in the middle of the room, near a balding man I recognized as one of the few wizards who deigned to visit Philantha.
“Neomar’s not here?” she asked the man as we settled ourselves. Unprepared to hear his name, I nearly fell off the bench with my jerk of surprise. “I thought he was in agreement with Hemmel, more’s the pity. One of his only failings, poor man. Still, thought he’d come to support him.”
“Haven’t you heard?” the man replied, and I recalled that his name was Sarcen Belveer. “Neomar’s gone. He left town this morning, gone to the country for the air. He claims he’ll stay there until at least autumn.” Sarcen shook his head. “I told him, just the other day, that he looked peaked. And now I hear this rumor about redvein fever.…”
I stopped listening, my mind whirring. Neomar gone, and only this morning?
Philantha was shaking her head, a shocked look on her face. “I can hardly believe it,” she said. “He didn’t say anything to me, stubborn man, and I saw him just a few days ago. I have several concoctions that I’ve been working on, and they might have been helpful.”
Sarcen nodded, but just then a man sat down on the other side of him and he turned to greet the newcomer. With his attention diverted, I asked, trying to keep the perturbed note out of my voice, “But what about his experiments?”
Philantha looked confused, so I barreled on, “I mean, doesn’t Neomar have experiments, like you do, in his rooms? Will someone else be watching them now, or did he have to abandon them?”
Philantha snorted. “Experiments? Neomar? He hasn’t done a practical experiment on his own in years. Administrative duties keep him from it, I expect, and he was always more of a thinker anyway. His breakthroughs have always been … less tangible, more theory. He hasn’t left any pots boiling or feathers charring.”
“That’s good, really,” I managed. “I mean, someone might get into his room, while he’s gone, and mess them up. By accident, I mean.”
She waved a quick hand in the air. “Oh, his rooms will be guarded with powerful spells. Any wizard worth his salt wouldn’t leave his rooms open in a college full of nosy young things. No one will get into Neomar’s rooms. Even if he was sicker than a wet cat, he’d have set up spells a Master would have trouble breaking. Still, I wish he had told me. Maybe I should make a trip to see him, take some of my new potions, if we can get the … mishaps in them worked out.…”
Hemmel, the wizard giving the lecture, was mounting the stage below us. As the crowd quieted, I felt my heart sink. We would never get into Neomar’s rooms now. If he were here, coming and going, we might have had a chance. He might have forgotten to place his usual protection spells one afternoon, or simply left the door unlocked in haste one day. But now the rooms were sealed and would be until he returned in autumn.
I let my chin drop into my hand, elbow propped on my knee. We would have to look for clues to the identity of the sight-shielded person elsewhere.
“He’s gone, you’re sure? And there’s no way to get into the rooms?”
Running a finger through the sweat left on the table by my glass, I nodded. “I walked off after the lecture, told Philantha I needed to get some air while she talked to her friend. I ran all the way across the college to his rooms. Told his secretary I was supposed to deliver a message to Neomar, but he turned me away. The same story, just like Sarcen had said.” I rounded my back, pulling my shoulders apart to ease the tension in them. It had been two days since the lecture, and I hadn’t slept well. I kept having dreams in which a faceless girl called out to me, and though I went stumbling across fields and streets and mountains to reach her, I never did.
Kiernan let his mug thud down onto the table in disgust. “Are you sure he was telling the truth? He might have been lying to you.”
“I doubt that the whole college is in on it. If it is Neomar, he wouldn’t have told anyone else.”
“Well, it is suspicious, don’t you think?” Kiernan asked. “His leaving right after what you saw. Maybe he used up too much of his magic renewing the spell and wants to hide it from everyone. Or maybe he’s scared someone saw him and wants to lie low for a while.”
“It could be.” I had no idea how much energy it would take to renew that spell, especially for one person alone. Kiernan was right; it looked suspicious.
Kiernan tipped the front feet of his chair off the ground as he leaned back, head tilted up to the ceiling. “Autumn. Anything could happen by then.” The chair legs slammed back down as he leaned forward. “And I didn’t find anything out from Orianne. She didn’t even remember any strange dreams from last night.”
“Had anyone else seen anything?”
“Not a mouse. You’re right. Whether it was Neomar or Melaina, they were being too careful.” He laced his fingers together and cracked them. “Well, if we can’t search Neomar’s rooms, what about Melaina’s?”
I bit my lip, thinking, but ended up shaking my head. “At least at the college, I could have brought something from Philantha’s, claimed to have been leaving it for him if I’d been caught. You know, just played the fool, as if I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to go into his rooms. He might have accepted that, particularly if I waited until Philantha really wanted to send him something. But what could we say if we were caught in Melaina’s rooms? You’ve never said three words to her outside of court functions. And besides, Melaina has all of House Sare to leave evidence of any plotting in. She wouldn’t bring it to the palace, where servants she doesn’t really know clean her rooms every day.”
Kiernan grimaced. “So what do we do now?”
I let myself slump. The inn around us was loud and bright, the yellow light from the lanterns flickering on the walls, the people tired and happy, their day finished. It made me want to climb under the table. I had no idea what to tell Kiernan. It was too much; I should go to Philantha, or the king and queen, or any adult who might listen. Except that I didn’t think the king and queen would really listen, and Philantha was already thinking about trying to visit Neomar in the country. I wanted to trust her unconditionally, but a tiny voice inside kept prodding me with doubts whenever I truly considered going to her. Which left us alone. And I didn’t know how to save a country. Substitute princess, failed dyer, scribe—none of those roles had prepared me for this. I was out of ideas, and after only three days.
I closed my eyes, shuttering myself against the despair that grappled me. If only the oracle at Isidros had never made that prophecy. It hadn’t come to pass, had it? No one had tried to assassinate me before my sixteenth birthday, so there hadn’t been any need for a false princess in the first place. And if they hadn’t felt the need to switch me with the princess, whoever it was wouldn’t have had the chance to make a second switch. The throne wouldn’t be in danger, and I wouldn’t be trying to protect it. Why, why that vision? Shouldn’t the oracle have seen that it wouldn’t come true?
Something rippled down my spine, fanning out at the base like tingling waves. Isidros. That was where all this had started.
“Sinda?” Kiernan had seen that I wasn’t paying attention to him, and I felt him reach out to touch my arm.
My eyes flicked open, meeting his gaze. “Isidros,” I said. “We’re going to Isidros.”