Burning Kingdoms

by Lauren DeStefano

  “Picture show?” Birdie says.

  “Brass club?” Pen asks hopefully, dancing as we make our way for the ferry.

  “We shouldn’t,” Birdie says. “We’re underage and someone might recognize me and tell my father. People love to beat their gums in this city.”

  “What else is there to do?” I ask.

  Birdie cants her head to the stars as she walks. It’s as though the cold has sharpened them and they shine more brightly for it. “Oh!” she says, and grabs our wrists as she heads back in the direction of the hotel. “Neither of you have ever been to a theme park, have you?”

  “Can we go on the rides?” Pen asks.

  “Well, no,” Birdie says. “I have the key only for the gate, and it’ll work on some of the restaurants. Nim is usually the one who handles the rides.”

  “Can we sit on them and pretend?” I ask. Even that is more than we’ve ever done.

  Birdie laughs. “Sure, if you want.”

  “What about the telescopes?” Pen says.

  My skin swells with little bumps at the idea of looking through a lens, of maybe seeing home. I don’t know how it will feel, if it will make things easier or impossibly harder.

  “Sure thing,” Birdie says, like it’s any mundane attraction. I suppose, to her and everyone else on the ground, it is.

  Though the park is filled with elaborate rides and restaurants, the telescopes are the main attraction. They sit at the heart of everything, atop a tower that contains a gift shop. As we climb the stairs that wrap around the tower, Birdie prattles off a list of things that can be bought there: key chains, toy planes, shirts, and fake passports so people can pretend they are taking a trip to the magical floating island.

  “It may be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say.

  “Don’t spoil it for the girl,” Pen tells me. “If she wants to think we’re as interesting as all that, let her.”

  “You are interesting,” Birdie says. “I’ve always wondered what kinds of people lived up there. What language they spoke. If they had green skin and antennae. Who’d have thought we’d be so copacetic?”

  “I’ve thought the same,” Pen says. “The antennae part, I mean.”

  At the top of the tower sits a row of telescopes affixed to the railings. “You might not be able to see much,” Birdie says, fishing coins out of her coat pocket. Even the sky costs money here. “It’s still pretty cloudy.”

  “Maybe I can see a star up close; I’ve always wondered if they have faces,” Pen says, squinting one eye as she looks into the telescope. I stand back, unwilling to admit how frightened I am to do the same. Birdie drops a coin into a slot by a sign that reads BEHOLD THE FLOATING ISLAND.

  “Do you see anything?” I ask.

  “Stars,” Pen sighs. She moves the telescope around, trying to find her way home.

  “Maybe you can see another planet,” Birdie says.

  Pen draws away from the telescope, blinking. “A what?” She looks to me, as though I should know, but I can only shrug.

  Birdie is staring at us like we truly do have antennae. “You’re from the sky,” she says. “How can you not know everything that’s happening in it?”

  “Clouds, sun, moon, what’s to know?” Pen says.

  Birdie seems to pity us for this. I know what she’s thinking. “We spent all our time looking down,” I say. “Not up.”

  “You know what?” Birdie links her arms through ours. “I have a restaurant key, and I think this is a conversation that would go well with some gin.”

  I’m nearly finished with my second glass, and the warmer I feel, the more believable it seems that the ground is not, in fact, a flat plane below Internment.

  Pen traces her finger around the brim of her glass. “If this planet is round, does that mean people are walking around upside down on the other side of it?”

  “It’s relative,” Birdie says. “To them, it’s not upside down. Everyone is right-side up.” She tops off our glasses. Pen diminishes her drink in seconds, and she throws back her head, staring upside down at the window behind her.

  “How can you bear it?” Pen breathes. “There’s so much out there. How can you bear it?”

  I think she’s brave to even face the stars. They no longer seem the same to me. How many gods must there be? How many planets, moons, suns?

  Perhaps we are upside down. I have lost the sense to tell.

  Pen sits upright and nearly topples out of her chair. “Your eyes are unfocused,” she tells me.

  “I feel like I’m floating,” I say.

  Birdie squints at the label on the gin bottle. “Really?”

  “No, I mean, I thought the ground was it. I thought this was the very bottom. But it isn’t. There is no bottom at all, is there? Just stars forever and on into the abyss.”

  “Maybe it loops back around again,” Pen says. Her eyes are wide and I can see that I’ve frightened her.

  “One day we’ll know,” Birdie says. “King Ingram says a man will walk on the moon.”

  “Perhaps not,” Pen says. “Maybe it’s one of those things we’re not meant to know.”

  “Not anytime soon, obviously,” Birdie says. “We have a war to think about. And getting to the moon will cost money and take years and years even if they started on it right this second. Who knows? Maybe if I live to be a hundred, I’ll see it.”

  “Or a thousand,” Pen says.

  “Doubt it’ll take that long, doll.”

  “But it might.”

  “You know what I think?” I say. “I think we should ask the professor about it.”

  “What would he know?” Pen says.

  “He knew a way to get to the ground. He knew not to listen to King Furlow’s rules all the time. It stands to reason that he’d at least be interested.”

  Birdie holds the gin bottle up to the light, watching the way its patterns illuminate. “Father says he won’t come out of that contraption.”

  “Bird,” Pen and I amend in unison.

  “I know how we can make him talk to us,” I say. “Amy said he’ll be out of food soon. I bet he’d open the door if we brought him something.”

  Pen shakes her head. “Just tell him that there’s a universe that goes on and on forever? He wouldn’t believe it.”

  “We believe it,” I say.

  “We are drunk,” Pen says.

  “It’ll still be true when we’re sober,” Birdie says.

  “That’s tomorrow’s problem,” Pen says. She pushes her chair away from the table and walks behind the counter and drags her fingers over the bottles as she paces. “This is getting depressing, all this talk of planets and forever.”

  “We could sit on the rides,” I say.

  “Novel plan, if Birdie’s up to it.”

  “Sure,” Birdie says, and with the word comes a loud hiccup. She slaps both hands over her mouth, mortified. But it makes us laugh. And laughing makes us forget what we were talking about. “You are terrible influences,” she says. “Is everyone from your floating island like this?”

  Pen squeezes my shoulders. “We’re two of a kind,” she says. “We’re just like a double birth.”

  Birdie scrunches her nose. “A what?”

  “It’s when two babies are born at the same time, and they look just alike,” I say.

  This makes her break into hysterical laughter. “Oh,” she says. “You mean twins! I love the way you girls speak. I swear, I could just listen to you all day.”

  “Glad to entertain,” Pen says, managing a graceful curtsy. “Even if nothing we say is that funny.”

  “I know something that’s funny,” Birdie says.

  “What is it?” I say.

  “It’s a huge secret,” she says. “Nobody in the kingdom knows.”

  “Well, now you have to tell us,” Pen says.

  Birdie regards us with wide eyes, and then she snorts with a laugh and says, “I’m royalty.”

  Pen claps her hands together. “I love it,” s
he says. “Let’s all be kings for the rest of the night.”

  “We can’t be kings,” I tell her. “We’re girls.”

  “So what, we’re girls?” Pen says. “We can be anything we want, and tonight I want to be a king of this mad world.”

  “No,” Birdie says. “I mean I really am third in line to the throne. King Ingram is my grandfather.”

  The laughter has left her face. I lean closer to her. “How can that be?” I ask.

  “Years and years ago, when he was still young and his wife was alive, King Ingram got a servant pregnant. He paid her off and she raised the baby herself. My father.”

  “You’re making that up,” Pen says giddily.

  Birdie’s hair swishes as she shakes her head. “And as it turned out, the queen was completely barren and they never had any children. So now my father is the only prince. But it’s like this huge secret shame and no one in the kingdom can ever know.”

  “But who will inherit the throne when King Ingram dies?” I ask.

  “My father,” Birdie says. “It’s already all planned out. The story will be that the king left the kingdom to his trusted right-hand man in lieu of any heirs. No one will ever know my father is really his son.”

  “You’re a princess,” I blurt.

  She giggles, takes another drink. “I am.” She stands, pushes in her chair. “Let’s go and explore the kingdom, shall we?”

  She takes our arms and leads us to the theme park. Bits of metal on the rides glint in the moonlight like earthbound stars.

  We spend the rest of the night climbing into the seats of rides that take us nowhere. I keep imagining that one of them will come alive and send us speeding away. Past Internment, past the stars and sun and moon, to whatever lies beyond.

  9

  All the cold weather has taken its toll on Basil. When he doesn’t come to the breakfast table, I find him with the blanket pulled over his head. I peel it away, and his face is red.

  “Basil?” I touch his forehead and his eyes open, glassy and dark.

  “Are we home?” he asks.

  “No.” I run my hand down his face, feeling either cheek. “You’ve got a fever. I’m going to get a cold cloth.”

  “Don’t leave,” he says. “I dreamed all night that I was in a world of doors, and you were forever moving through them.”

  “That was only a dream,” I say. “I’m here.”

  He sighs, closes his eyes. “You smell like tonic,” he says.

  “Are you angry?” I bite my lip. “Birdie took us to see the theme park last night and we shared a bottle of it.”

  “Pen was with you?” He opens his eyes.

  I nod.

  “Be careful, Morgan. She isn’t as strong as you.”

  “Pen is one of the strongest people I know,” I say.

  “Not about that,” he says. “You know what I mean.”

  Though I never speak of Pen’s attraction to tonic if I can help it, it’s not something that can be hidden from everyone. What began as a worrisome habit over time became a part of who she is.

  I climb into the bed beside him, rest my chin on his shoulder. “I know,” I say. “Don’t worry. Just sleep.”

  He’s in a thin and fitful sleep for much of the morning, and I begin to worry that this will prove to be more than just a cold. While he sleeps, I have hours to wonder about viruses that may be in this foreign air, or about our immune systems being ravaged without Internment’s temperate climate.

  But by midafternoon, he’s awake and asking for something to eat. “What would you like?” I ask, and brush the sweaty hair from his forehead. His color is better now. Not so blotchy.

  “Something close to familiar,” he says. His smile is rueful, though I think he means to be reassuring. I know him, and I know that he’s missing home.

  “I’m so sorry, Basil,” I say.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” he says.

  Only a few weeks ago, we sat in the grass on a warm day and I confessed my curiosity about the edge. I thought it meant something was wrong with me. I worried about the king’s specialist and remembering my pill so I wouldn’t have to endure what Alice endured. I worried about my parents while I struggled to fill the emptiness my brother left us with when he jumped.

  Those things all feel small and as faraway as a star. I couldn’t have known about what was soon to happen.

  “All I want to do is fix it,” I say.

  “The princess thinks aerial technology is advancing,” he says. “Maybe one day.”

  “We might all be worse off for that,” I say. “I’ve sort of begun to hope it doesn’t happen.” The weight of my sorrow and guilt is threatening to crush me, and I stand, as though that can rid me of it. “I’ll go find some lunch for you,” I say.

  I’m happy to see Alice in the kitchen, helping the cook arrange a tray of pastries. She has been fastened to Lex’s side since we arrived, but she can stay idle for only so long. She was out of their room for a bit yesterday, too, telling stories to the younger children and playing games with them.

  “How’s Basil feeling?” she asks me.

  “Hungry. I came in to find something.”

  “I thought he might be,” she says. “I’ve set aside some soup in the cold box. Give me a few minutes to heat it up.”

  “It’s okay. I can do it,” I say, even though I’ve no idea how to use this unfamiliar stove and was never much use even with the one I was familiar with back home.

  And it is a peculiar stove, mint green with cabinets and six burners.

  “Love, let me help you,” Alice says.

  “I’m his betrothed,” I say, more snappily than I intended. “I should be able to at least boil soup if he’s hungry.” I have to believe these little gestures mean something, that this ring I wear still means we are to care for each other, whether or not there’s a law down here that says we should.

  I manage to heat the soup without burning down the hotel, and whether or not it’s any good, Basil downs it without complaint while I sit on the window ledge, the portrait of a sullen girl against a world that is slowly prevailing beneath the snow.

  “Something is on your mind,” Basil says.

  “Lots of things are on my mind,” I say.

  “Besides the obvious things, I mean. Is it something to do with last night?”

  He’s finished the soup now, and I set the bowl on the night table and climb onto the bed beside him. He wraps his arm around me and I close my eyes. There is still comfort in his touch. It gives me hope that we will find some normalcy in this world.

  I tell him all about the telescope, and the planets, and the grand dream these people have of walking on the moon. I tell him all of this. But I don’t betray the confidence of Internment’s princess, or my best friend, who are at each other’s throats, with me in the middle. I don’t tell him how powerless I feel, and how very much to blame.

  All I say at the end is, “I don’t know what to do.” It’s become my mantra. My head is aching from that gin, and my mouth is dry. And what a mess I am. Not at all the one who can carry on my parents’ legacy.

  Basil can sense that there’s more than I’m letting on. But he doesn’t press, and I’m grateful for that. He’s the only one on this planet who doesn’t see me as a place to keep secrets, it seems. And he is always so patient with me.

  “Rest,” he says.

  “Shouldn’t I be telling you that?” I say.

  He kisses the crown of my head. “You need to hear it more than I do.”

  It’s the last thing that’s spoken between us before we drift off. I’m able to pretend that the comfort of his arms is the only thing, and that when we both fall asleep, we’re in a world of our own.

  It’s dark when I awaken, and I’m feeling worse for the sleep. My headache has doubled, and all I want is a hot bath and to go to bed, preferably without another spat between my roommates.

  Basil’s sleep is a heavy one, and it doesn’t seem fitful anym
ore. His fever has gone down, but I bring a cold cloth for his forehead before I go upstairs. I want him to know that I am still here to care for him.

  Celeste opens the bathroom door just as I was reaching for the handle. “Oh, Morgan, good,” she says. “Just the one I wanted to talk to.”

  “Me?” I say.

  She looks over my shoulder at the hallway of closed doors, any one of which can be filled with listening ears. She leads me into the bathroom, closes the door behind us.

  “Tomorrow, I’m to see King Ingram,” she says. “I wanted to invite you along. He’s determined that the metal bird poses a risk. He doesn’t want King Erasmus to realize we’re here, so he’s going to move it, whether or not the professor comes out.”

  “That should be a sight to see,” I say.

  “I suppose, if you’re interested in that sort of thing,” Celeste says. “That’s not what I’m going for, really. I was hoping to speak with the king, is all.”

  I should go, if only to be aware of the king’s plans. But I hate this role I’ve fallen into, in which I must watch the princess’s futile attempts to save her mother while I’m to quietly try to sabotage it for the sake of keeping the entire city of Internment safe. “What are you speaking with him about?” I say.

  “The truth is, I don’t think he sees Internment as a substantial ally in this war. Nimble has spoken with him since our last visit, and it seems it would drain too many resources trying to focus all their attention into their aircrafts. Their technology is already ahead of King Erasmus’s on that front.”

  “What about all that business of you being the heiress presumptive and him being a fool not to help?”

  “All of that still stands,” she says. “But it’s taking a backseat to the war. He’s spoken to his advisers since our meeting and now feels that his responsibility is solely to his own kingdom while it needs him the most.”

  I can’t seem to look away from the tiles. “I don’t see how I could change his mind,” I say. “You hold more status than I do.”

  “I could use your support, as a fellow citizen of Internment,” she says. The hope in her voice is too much. “And—well. As someone who understands what it’s like to have lost someone.”