Fairy Godmothers, Inc

TWELVE



Back to Bite You


No one was willing to inform Madame Stewart that the ice sculptures she had set out for the evening’s ball were not, in fact, made of ice. This wasn’t normally the case, as the palace had a standing contract with a local craftsman who normally did such work. But when a page had arrived at his shop with the news that they needed their usual batch of thirteen completed in two weeks, he had begun giggling in a highly unstable manner, making pointed gestures with his chisel. Not knowing what else to do, Stewart’s assistants had scoured the attic for old glass sculptures, which they then misted with water and threw in the palace freezers. As for Madame Stewart herself, she had recently been struck down by a bout of canapé poisoning and was, as of yet, too ill to notice.

Jon was quite sensibly hiding. Since the maids and secretaries were highly bribable and knew where all the offices were, he’d brought the paperwork he’d been avoiding to a walk-in closet in one of the bedrooms reserved for less important guests. As an extra precaution, he’d left the documents in terrifyingly large stacks between himself and the closet door, an early warning system that had the added bonus of hopefully destroying some of the papers should anyone try to come through.

Of course, that didn’t stop people from making the attempt. Jon’s head shot up as he heard the sound of the doorknob turning, then the muffled thud of the wood hitting the solid wall of paperwork. It was only when he heard swearing, the source unmistakable despite being muffled by the door, that he let himself relax. “Don’t move,” he warned Lawton, pushing to his feet just long enough to move some of the piles out of the way. “My paperwork has been trained to kill all intruders on sight.”

Lawton raised an eyebrow at him. “Being in love has clearly done little to improve your sense of humor.”

Jon carefully shoved a particularly ornate invitation to the bottom of a pile. “Kate would have thought it was funny.”

“Which, tragically, shows that love has made her delusional.” As Jon laughed, Lawton surveyed the closet with a resigned expression. “You know, Jon, most people would have considered a locking door to be an integral part of their chosen hideout.” After eyeing and then rejecting a particularly hideous green and purple pinstriped footstool, he gave up and leaned back against the door. “Perhaps even—oh, I don’t know—a chair.”

Jon smirked a little as he returned to the next document in the stack, a request from a local school of wizardry to run tests on and possibly dissect an heirloom frog skin purse. He immediately signed it—the only reason they still had the purse was because the frog was his Great-Aunt Gertrude’s ex-husband. Now that she was dead, it was definitely time to get it out of the house. “The maids don’t even look at these rooms unless someone is actually scheduled to be sleeping in them. As an added bonus, most of Madame Stewart’s staff seem to be at least mildly allergic to dust.”

Lawton’s lips quirked upward in amusement. “I take it that you’re not about to rush downstairs and start overseeing preparations for the ball?”

Before Jon could respond there was a sudden crashing noise from the general direction of the ballroom, loud enough to be heard even several floors up. Both Lawton and Jon winced. “Someone figured I was the one who wanted the ball thrown together on such short notice, then felt the need to share this insight with Madame Stewart.”

“I see.” Lawton was trying not to grin at whatever vision was running through his head. “I take it she is less than pleased with you?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Jon said dryly. “Thankfully, though, she’s too sick to be much of a threat at the moment. Her assistants, on the other hand . . .” Temporarily setting aside the family tree of an enchanted turkey who was requesting sanctuary before he ended up on the King of Nearby’s dinner table, Jon made a dramatic slicing motion across his neck. “You’d be surprised how many nails, needles, and scissors those people can pull together on short notice.”

“Not to mention the various lengths of measuring tape and ribbon they must have at their disposal.” Amused, Lawton gave Jon a carefully appraising look. “Given how pivotal this evening is to join efforts with your darling Katharine, I would have presumed that far more strategizing would occur on your part.”

Jon sat back, gaze going distant as he let himself visualize the best part of the evening in front of him. “The Golden Goose has reserved one of their private dining rooms for me the entire night—I don’t want us to feel pressured to get there by a specific time, and if she wants to stay until the place closes I’ll be an extremely happy man.” Careful questioning had left him pretty certain she’d like the food, and if by some off chance she didn’t, he’d already made it clear that the restaurant would then locate some food she did like. “When we do get there, I’ve got candlelight, flowers, the whole deal.”

Lawton raised an eyebrow. “And then you’ll tell her?”

Jon made a frustrated noise. “And then I’ll tell her.” He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “She’ll forgive me. She’ll be annoyed, and she’ll have every right to be annoyed, but I’ll make her understand why I did it, and she’ll forgive me.”

Lawton smiled slightly. “And if that doesn’t work, there’s always jewelry.”

Jon was inspired to a smile of his own as he returned his attention to the family tree. “There’s always jewelry.” He signed off on the sanctuary—with the condition that the turkey accept a job in the kingdom’s petting zoo—then hesitated again as a niggling case of nerves made him look back up at Lawton. “Do you think I should have something ready, just in case?”

“I think you’ll be fine.” A second later, however, he winced. “Rupert, however, may need to have a necklace and matching earrings on hand if he wants to keep this Rellie girl for longer than a few hours.”

“Actually, he’d have better luck bringing her fluffy bunnies.” Next in the stack was a letter from a Mrs. Peter, who was suing her husband in the royal court for inflicting “years of psychological damage.” Apparently, Mr. Peter had a nasty habit of getting drunk and trying to shove his wife’s head into a pumpkin shell. “Still, she seems to be pretty easygoing. As long as he doesn’t bring up the word ‘self-actualization’ in front of her, I think they’ll be okay.”

“Where is Rupert, by the way? From everything you’ve said about this Rellie girl, I can’t imagine even she will be agreeable enough to appreciate the new, even more exasperating Rupert we’ve all been suffering these last few weeks.”

“Hopefully, that’s starting to wear off,” Jon admitted, surprised at having forgotten about that aspect of things for a moment. But really, someone usually had to be shouting—or be Kate—to make it more than halfway up the list of things Jon worried about. “I checked on Rupert this morning. There wasn’t much time to actually talk, but he had that cheerfully unconcerned expression that used to be pretty constant with him.”

Lawton grimaced in mild distaste. “As much as it pains me to say this, I’m afraid that I’m relieved by the thought of Rupert returning to his former state of relatively harmless idiocy.”

Jon nodded. “If nothing else, he’s—”

Another series of crashing noises cut in from the ballroom, followed by a high-pitched scream and the sound of several people running for their lives. If the occasional shriek that followed was any indication of escape, not all of them made it.

After it was quiet again, Lawton glanced over at Jon. “Do you suppose Madame Stewart finally took a closer look at her ice sculptures?”


Finally, it was almost time for the best part of Jon’s evening. Unfortunately, that was only going to happen after the worst part was finally done.

He timed it as finely as he could, waiting until the absolute last second before heading downstairs to the ever-increasing swarm of newly arrived guests. He took the backstairs to get there, avoiding the area of the palace where his mother had spent the last several hours being sewn, stuffed, and starched into miles of satin and gemstones. After slipping from her grasp during the last ball Rupert would no doubt be pinned down in the next room over, enduring equal trussing in preparation for tonight’s hosting duties.

All Jon had to do was make sure everything was ready for Kate, then spirit her away at the first opportunity.

“Prince Jon! Thank the curling papers I’ve found you!”

Vowing to take sneaking lessons from someone in Lawton’s spy network, Jon reluctantly stopped at the frantic cry of his mother’s hairdresser. “As long as it’s not a fire hazard, I don’t care what’s happening or what you and my mother consider an appropriate outfit,” he said quickly, hoping to stave off the conversation before it started. “Even if it is a fire hazard, just have one of the pages follow her around with a blanket and bucket of water.”

The hairdresser’s panicked expression didn’t lessen in the slightest. Without a word, she grabbed Jon’s arm and promptly dragged him toward the small room just off the upper balcony in the ballroom. Commonly referred to as the staging area, the balcony was the place the royal family and other nobles gathered for last-minute touches before making a dramatic entrance down the main staircase.

Which, in short, meant he was being dragged right to his mother. “I will pay you not to force me to get involved in whatever problem my mother is causing.”

Her grip didn’t loosen and her pace didn’t slacken as they skirted past rows of pages, all of whom were helping organize the parking of dozens upon dozens of coaches. When Jon dug his heels in and forced the woman to slow down slightly, she made a small sound of distress and yanked even harder on his arm. “Your mother is beside herself with panic and shaking her miniature songbirds loose. I’m doing all the repair work I can, but if you don’t calm her down before the cage breaks I can’t be held responsible for what happens.” When Jon didn’t respond, she turned her head back to look at him. “Caged songbirds are angry songbirds, Your Highness, particularly with the amount of hairspray we’ve been using.”

Though Jon was desperately trying to convince himself that this was simply a fashion disaster blown out of proportion, he could already feel the tension headache forming behind his eyes. “I know no one seems quite able to process this, but comforting Mother has never been one of my specialties. It’s Rupert’s presence that always manages to soothe her.”

There was a long, terrible silence from the hairdresser before she hauled him forward with more force than should have been possible. Noticing this, Jon’s stomach immediately plummeted like a lead weight, and he dug his heels in deeply enough to jerk the hairdresser to a full stop. “Madame Durrell?” he asked, his deathly calm voice completely at odds with what he was feeling. “What’s happened to Rupert?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, eyes somehow growing even wider and more frantic. Jon finally just tore his arm out of her grip, then ran past her and down the hallway toward the staging area.

When he got there, he had to skid to a very quick and awkward stop. The staging room doors burst open only inches in front of him, spitting out three shrieking maids who nearly ran Jon over as they made their exit. Jon ducked at the flash of wings that immediately followed, the songbird barely missing his head as it shot out into the freedom of the hallway.

Inside the staging area, things were only marginally more controlled. Two pages were running in frantic circles around the room, trying and failing miserably to catch the second bird. His mother had, naturally, fainted across the ornamental couch, managing to fall in such a way that the sweep of her skirt still managed to drape itself artfully. She was flanked on one side by Madame Durrell’s assistant, who desperately tried to repair the wire cage in the queen’s hair that had presumably once been home to the songbirds. On the other side was Jon’s father, valiantly trying to pry open Mother’s fingers to get at the crumpled paper she somehow still held in a death grip.

Rupert, Jon realized, was nowhere in sight.

Oh, no.

Acutely aware of the immense crowd milling around in the ballroom—and the two very important people who would be joining them any minute now—Jon strode over to a side table and grabbed one of the voluminous floral arrangements. Yanking the flowers out, he carried the vase back to his mother and promptly dumped the water over her face.

The king backed away as his wife shot upright, sputtering and waving her hands in front of her face. “What—? Who dares—?” The assistant, deciding this was beyond the realm of the hazard pay she received, scurried as far away from the queen as the room allowed.

By the time the queen had all the water wiped out of her eyes, all she had left to look at was Jon glaring at her. Almost immediately, she burst into tears again. “I told you that your brother needed you.” She dissolved into incoherent sobbing, out of which only the occasional sentence fragment could be heard. “Ignore your family for appointments . . . might as well have no sons . . .”

Jon turned to his father, who had slightly more experience translating his wife’s crying jags, but all the man could do was shrug helplessly and gesture at the note still clutched in the queen’s hand. “A page came in with it about ten minutes ago. You saw what happened next.”

Oh, please no.

Feeling himself go very cold, Jon grabbed his mother’s hand before she could move it away. “The note, Mother. Now.” Since the sobbing continued unabated, it seemed at first that she hadn’t heard, but when he pried her fingers apart they gave in much more easily than they had for his father.

When he had the entire paper safely in his hand, he smoothed it out and angled the words away from everyone so he could read it. In the background, the noise from the ballroom took on a decidedly restless edge.


Dear Family,

I’ve gone to seek in enlightenment. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what it looks like, since most of the books I’ve been reading use really big words I don’t quite understand. Not even Jon was able to help me with them, but since he said I should go find someone who could, I think he’d think this is a good idea.

I’m giving the crown to Jon, since he’s a lot smarter than me and does most of the kinging stuff anyway. If someone sees him, they should probably tell him he’s the heir now, and that I left the crown on the top shelf in the closet in my room next to a box of old hunting trophies.

Cheers,

Rupert


Jon closed his eyes a moment, swearing softly. It was a poor substitute for what he wanted to do—scream, beat his head against the wall as a punishment for his sheer stupidity, and kick Rupert so hard he couldn’t sit down for a week—but he didn’t have time for any of that.

Instead, he crumpled the letter into a ball and turned back to his father, who actually flinched away at whatever he saw in Jon’s eyes. “I need the page who brought this,” Jon snapped, then pointed at the tallest of the two pages still being thwarted by the bird. “Get me one of the stable boys helping to park carriages downstairs.” As the first page raced off, Jon switched his attention to the shorter, still frozen one. “Get me Monsignor Lawton. NOW.”

Lawton—he’d decided early on that “Monsignor” conveyed suitable flair while meaning absolutely nothing—could tap his spy network and hopefully start tracking Rupert from the details provided by the page and the stable boy. Also, he was one of a very small number of people who could find Kate and explain the definitely temporary situation that had cropped up. He could fix it, of course—he just needed a little time.

The restlessness outside had gotten infinitely worse in the time it had taken him to read the letter. Only moments after the pages left, it got bad enough the royal announcer abandoned his post and pushed into the room. “Your Majesties, the people are waiting for you!” At the sight of the sobbing queen, he froze and stared at her husband and son in horror. “Her Majesty can’t be presented like this? What have you done to upset her so?”

“She’s fine,” Jon growled, shoving Rupert’s letter deep in his pocket. He wanted to leave so he could start seriously working on the situation, but he needed to get everyone here secured first. “And there’s not going to be any announcements for this ball—just get the music started. Now.”

The steward’s eyes widened in horror. “Surely there’s someone I can announce! At least Prince Rupert—he cuts such a stunning figure in those spotlights.”

At this, the queen erupted into a heartbroken wail. “My baby’s not even a prince anymmph—” Her husband’s hand clamped down over her mouth, but the horror in the steward’s eyes made it clear he’d gotten the message anyway.

If the resulting silence had lasted just a few more seconds, it might have given Jon enough time to come up with a suitable cover. Instead, the trumpeter burst in, a desperate look on her face, backed by the sound of a crowd that had started to grow almost angry. “Worthington!” she hissed at the announcer, glancing nervously over at Jon and his parents. “I don’t know what’s going on in here, but someone needs to get out there immediately.”

The steward grabbed Jon’s arm and practically threw him through the open doorway and onto the top of the ballroom stairs. The muttering of the gathered nobility turned into a sigh of relief that someone had come out to acknowledge their presence, but it faded away as Jon straightened. This was definitely not the member of the royal family they had been expecting.

Jon took a deep breath, already putting together a story about Rupert being called away on a quest at the last minute. Hopefully, everyone could hear him from here.

The trumpet started. “His Highness Prince Jonathan Alistair Crispin Lorimer Charming, heir to the throne of Somewhere!”

There were a few heartbeats of echoing silence, then a lone clapper started somewhere near the front of the ballroom. Soon, others followed, creating a hesitant, scattered round of applause fueled by a mixture of confusion and fear that they might be the only people who hadn’t already heard about this. Comforting himself with the thought that he was going to immediately fire the announcer as soon as he got clear of the crowd, he smiled in an attempt to assure people this was exactly what was supposed to be happening. He’d mention the quest as soon as the people had finally given up on the clapping, and everyone could start the ball far more relieved than they were at the moment.

Then, he saw Kate, standing by the furthest set of doors. Jon could tell even from this distance she was far too still, but he told himself that could just be some well-deserved shock on her part. He could get past it if she would just give him a few minutes to explain.

His stomach clenched as she backed away from him, almost stumbling in her rush to leave. When she hit the door she turned and ran with enough speed to make it painfully clear that she wasn’t planning on coming back.

Without even needing a command from his brain, Jon ran down the stairs after her.