UnTwisted

by Elise Allen

  Loriah sat in the middle of the circle, her back against one side, one leg dangling free and the other bent in front of her. She still wore her white-blond hair in a high ponytail, but the rest of her head was no longer close-cropped with markings shaved into it. Instead she’d grown it out into a sleek cap with bangs, and she’d traded in her rough-hewn leather clothes for leggings, a simple cotton shirt, and soft-soled shoes like Flissa’s. If someone wasn’t close enough to see the fine scars that crisscrossed her skin, they’d never imagine she’d spent her life in the Twists.

  “Took you long enough,” she said. “I thought you ditched me.”

  Flissa had already dismounted Balustrade and was scrambling up the ring tree’s trunk to join her. “No you didn’t.”

  “Nah, I didn’t,” Loriah admitted. “You wouldn’t.”

  Flissa settled herself on the other side of the tree trunk’s wide circle, mirroring Loriah’s position. From this height she could see Sara and Galric approaching on Gus and Klarney, but they were still far away. She lowered her voice all the same. “Are the teeming throngs all terrible?”

  Loriah shrugged. “Beats me. I stick to my dorm and do my own thing. I don’t know why your folks made me leave the palace in the first place.”

  “Because students without immediate family members are supposed to live in the dorm,” Flissa explained for the zillionth time.

  “Uh-huh. But I’m friends with the royal family. Isn’t that supposed to make me special?”

  “You are special,” Flissa said. “But you can’t get special treatment because you’re our friend. It sets a bad example.”

  Loriah rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You haven’t seen the place since they finished it, have you? Check it out.”

  Loriah jerked her head over her shoulder, and Flissa leaned forward to look. The school had been one of the first priorities after Kaloonification, but it was still a massive undertaking that required the cooperation of Mages, Genpos, and Magical Animals. When Flissa and Sara had left for their most recent trip outside the kingdom, it was still unfinished, and she hadn’t had a chance to see it since they’d returned.

  Staring at it from up above, Flissa found it hard to believe it was finished even now.

  In order to save time, Maldevon Academy wasn’t built from scratch. It was fashioned from the remains of Grosselor’s compound—a magically hidden enclave of large, luxurious homes reserved for the most elite members of the Keepers of the Light. The magical shield that had rendered the compound invisible to anyone uninvited was gone, but the buildings still sat deep inside a valley so you couldn’t see them until you were at the very top of the surrounding hills…or perched in the center of the ring tree.

  Flissa wasn’t sure how the buildings had been arranged originally, but now, from high above, Flissa could see they made the shape of a K, for Kaloon. The original buildings had all been different bright colors—mint green, teal blue, coral pink, and of course Keeper yellow—but when they were moved and magicked into one school, all the colors ran together, making the Academy a pastel patchwork, like when Sara spread paints on her palette and ran through them with a toothpick to see what kind of design she’d make. While it was hard to tell the buildings’ size from up above, they definitely looked tall but oddly…gloppy.

  “It’s like they’re made from candle wax,” Flissa said.

  “They’re not,” Loriah said. “But yeah, they look it. Something about all the magic it took to shove ’em together. Wait till you see it from down there.”

  “What’s it like inside?”

  Loriah shrugged. “Don’t know. They haven’t let us in yet.”

  Flissa kept staring down at the academy. From where they sat in the tree, the bottom of the K faced them, and the ground there was groomed into a large garden. The left side was laid out in the shape of Kaloon’s royal seal. The right was laid out in the shape of a rigdilly, a beautiful three-petaled flower that once grew only in the Twists, and which for many imprisoned there became a sign of hope. The two gardens were separated by the academy’s walkway but linked by four natural leafy arches, a symbol of Kaloonification.

  The top part of the K opened out to sports fields. Flissa thought she could make out a hoodle field and jousting fields, then three more pastel buildings in the far distance.

  “Those are the dorms,” Loriah said when Flissa asked. “Boys’ and girls’. And the third one’s the orphanage. For kids who lost their families, but are too young to go to school. And all that space off to the side, where the K opens up, I heard that’s outdoor classrooms. Some of the larger Magical Animals aren’t into the inside thing.”

  Flissa nodded. She’d heard about all of it from her parents, but it was amazing to see it for herself.

  “It’s so colorful!” Sara cried.

  Flissa hadn’t even realized her sister and Galric had arrived, but now they were just beyond the ring tree, and sat on Gus and Klarney at the edge of the steep hill that rose above the academy.

  “Hold up,” Galric said. “Is the building…stretching?”

  Flissa looked down. Sure enough, it looked like all four ends of the K were slowly growing longer.

  “Yeah,” Loriah said, “it does that. The mixed-magic thing turned everything weird. Sometimes the buildings like to stretch. They get taller too. It all goes back eventually.”

  “I remember hearing about that now,” Flissa said, recalling snippets of conversation between Katya, Rouen, and her parents. “It’s not just the mixed magic, it’s also that it’s all fairly new. Apparently the stretching and moving isn’t dangerous and it’ll settle over time.”

  “I hope it doesn’t; I love it,” Sara said with a grin. “Should we go down and meet everybody?”

  “I guess,” Galric said.

  He looked uneasy. Flissa was glad she wasn’t the only one.

  “We can go,” Loriah said, “but I’ve met everyone I want to meet.”

  She and Flissa clambered down from the tree, then they both hopped onto Balustrade. Flissa looked at her sister’s face, gleaming with excitement as she gazed down at their future.

  Flissa sighed. There was no point putting it off any longer.

  “Onward, Balustrade,” she said. “Let’s go to school.”

  “Hurry, Gus! Hurry!” Sara cried as they jounced down the hill. Both Klarney and Balustrade were far ahead, and Sara didn’t want to miss out on a second.

  “Hold your horses,” Gus said. “Ugh, I hate that saying.”

  He took his time, but Gus finally met up with Klarney and Galric at the bottom of the hill. Up ahead, Sara saw a pebbled path at the bottom of the K. The path went through the two gardens Sara had seen from up above, and a stream of kids her age and older piled out of carriages and disappeared down its length. The sound of buzzing voices electrified Sara; it was like walking into a royal reception, except better because she didn’t know what to expect.

  Sara was so excited, she forgot to magic herself up another set of steps. She swung her legs to one side of Gus and plopped clumsily down to the grass, then quickly hopped up and turned in circles, trying to see her backside.

  “Tell me I don’t have grass stains on my dress,” she said.

  “Okay,” Loriah said as she got off Balustrade’s back. “You don’t have grass stains on your dress.”

  Sara looked at her face. She had no idea if Loriah was telling the truth. “For real? Or I do have grass stains and you’re just saying I don’t because that’s what I told you to say?”

  Loriah smirked and shrugged.

  “You’re good,” Galric said. “No stains. Just…” He awkwardly swiped at the back of her skirt. “There. All clean.”

  “Thanks.”

  Despite having seen it a million times, Sara was still amazed by how easily Flissa dismounted Balustrade—like water slipping off a duck. Once she was off, she pressed her forehead against his nose. “See you when it’s time to go home.”

  Balustrade nodded nobly, as if in answer,
then turned and galloped away.

  “Later, Blusters!” Galric called after the horse.

  Balustrade whinnied back, and Flissa gave him a glare so withering they all laughed. No matter how much she liked Galric, Flissa would never get over the fact that he’d bonded with her horse.

  “We’ll be on our way as well,” Klarney said. “But do visit. And never hesitate to reach out if you need us. We’ll come in a jiffy.”

  “Exactly,” Gus said, “Or, you know, we’ll come whenever we’re actually free. See ya!”

  Klarney reared back majestically. By the time he planted his front hooves back down, Gus was already out of sight. “No sense of drama, that one,” Klarney muttered, then took off after his friend.

  “Come on!” Sara cried. She ran to the pebbled walkway and darted in before any of the others. “Hi!” she called to everyone she passed. “Hey! Hi there! Hello!”

  Most people said hi back. Some of them gave her that look—that eyes-wide, oh my gracious it’s the princess look. She’d seen it a million times before, but this time everything was different.

  “Sara, wait!”

  She heard Flissa behind her, but she pretended she didn’t. It was terrible, she knew, it was just…for the first time ever, she wasn’t half of Princess Flissara, she wasn’t out performing royal duties, and she wasn’t hanging out with friends who knew her and Flissa as a pair. She was just herself. Sara. Starting fresh in a brand-new place.

  She wasn’t sure whom to approach first, so she just stood tall, held her head high, and kept saying hello to everyone. Lots of people seemed to already know each other. They stood in groups, both along the path and scattered around in the gardens, talking and laughing together. She noticed that a lot of the groups seemed to dress alike. There were girls in dresses like hers, and boys in velvet breeches and doublets. Others wore simpler frocks, or rough-hewn fabrics with frayed edges, and several clusters of people wore mostly leather, with their hair in the unusual cuts and styles that Sara had seen in the Twists. Magical Animals seemed to group together too, and she was delighted when she saw an adorable Pomeranian dog standing on the back of a bushy-bristled hog.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “You’re giving her a real piggy-back ride!”

  They stared daggers at her.

  “First of all,” the Pomeranian growled gruffly, “I’m a dude. Second of all, my friend here’s a boar. Not a ‘piggy,’ a boar.”

  “‘Piggy’ is an offensive term,” the boar said. Her voice was high-pitched with an upper-crust accent. “It’s species-ist. I would expect more from a princess, Princess.”

  She said the title like it was a horrible insult. Sara considered telling the boar she was being royal-ist, but instead she just apologized and waited for Loriah, Galric, and Flissa to catch up with her. She was still eager to be her own person, but a little backup might be nice too.

  As she waited, she checked out everyone who walked by and always smiled and said hi. There were a lot of twins, which Sara now expected, even though she’d found it truly bizarre when Kaloonification began. Until the Keepers of the Light fell, she and Flissa had been the only twins she knew, but it turned out they weren’t even the only ones sharing an identity to survive. Now Sara saw several pairs of identical-looking siblings, a few of whom still dressed exactly alike. Sara wondered if that was by choice, or just a habit they couldn’t let go.

  “Hey,” Galric said as he, Loriah, and Flissa caught up to her. “You disappeared.”

  “Sorry,” Sara said. “I got excited and walked faster than I thought. So…is there such a thing as species-ist?”

  “What’d you do?” Loriah asked.

  “Nothing! Nothing on purpose. I just…I called a boar a piggy.”

  Loriah, Galric, and Flissa all groaned.

  Sara gaped at her sister. “Oh, come on! How would you know that’s bad? You’ve met exactly the same Magical Animals I have!”

  “Yes,” Flissa said, “but I also listen when Primka tells us things. The Magical Animal community has been very specific about their designations.”

  Sara was about to object that it was impossible to keep track of every single thing Primka told them when she always chirped a mile a minute, but a loud female voice cut her off. “No way!” the voice screamed. “It’s you!”

  Clearly someone had recognized Flissa and Sara, so Sara put on her biggest smile and turned to see five kids her age, maybe a little older. Three girls and two boys. All of them wore rough-hewn pants and tunics, and their hair hung in asymmetrical lines. One had several piercings in her ear and a small tattoo on the back of her hand, another wore thick-soled boots.

  Sara knew that look. They were Untwisteds—people like Loriah, who’d spent their lives in the Twists but had been freed to live in Kaloon.

  The girl with the multiple piercings left the group and ran up to them. Her frizzly black hair bounced with every step.

  “Hi!” Sara said. “It’s great to meet—”

  “Galric, right?” the girl asked. She zoomed right past Sara and straight to him. “You’re Galric!”

  Galric frowned, confused. “Um…yeah, but—”

  “I knew it!” the girl shouted. She turned back to her friends, and Sara noticed her curls weren’t spread all over; one side was shaved from the top of her ear down, so the curls there made a little awning over that part of her head. “I told you it was Galric.”

  She turned back to him and held her hands up, palms touching. To Sara’s surprise, Galric mimicked the gesture exactly. The two slapped their hands together one way, then the other, then clapped and crossed their arms, slapping their hands on their shoulders.

  When it was over, Galric’s smile was genuine. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” the girl said.

  She moved a lot when she spoke, Sara noticed. Like she was bobbing and weaving in a boxing match. “I’m Krystal. I’ve heard tons about you.” Then she looked at his face and gasped. “No way! That’s the scar you got from Grosselor, right? And I heard there’s one on your arm too. Can I see?”

  To Sara’s dismay, the girl grabbed Galric’s sleeve and pulled it up to reveal the thick pink rope of seared flesh. “Whoa,” she said. “That. Is. So. Cool.”

  “It’s a scar,” Loriah said drily. “It’s not cool, it just is.”

  “And I didn’t get it from Grosselor,” Galric said, clearly embarrassed. “A giant magic snake smacked me into a rock pile. That’s all.”

  “A giant magic snake enchanted by…?” Krystal asked, though she obviously knew the answer.

  “Okay, Grosselor,” Galric admitted. “But still, it wasn’t like I was fighting or anything. I mean, I passed out at the sight of my own blood.”

  “After you sent the warning that saved our fighters,” Krystal said. “Pretty heroic if you ask me.”

  Krystal leaned forward a little and swayed back and forth on her toes as she smiled at Galric.

  “How do you know all this?” Sara asked. “Were you there?”

  Sara didn’t mean to sound confrontational, but once again she’d managed to offend someone. Krystal stepped back and raised an eyebrow.

  “You don’t have to be a princess to hear things,” she said. “Word gets around.”

  As Krystal looked at her friends and exchanged annoyed eye-rolls, Sara leaned closer to Flissa and Loriah. “Why does everyone here say ‘princess’ like it’s a bad word?”

  “Oh!” Krystal suddenly squealed. “You just got here, right? You haven’t seen it yet. Come on!”

  Krystal grabbed Galric’s hand and ran with him down the path. He stumbled after her, casting a helpless glance back at Flissa, Sara, and Loriah as he went.

  “I know where she’s taking him,” Loriah said.

  Flissa smiled. “I have a feeling I do too.”

  Sara couldn’t believe it. “How am I the only one who doesn’t know anything? And don’t tell me it’s because I don’t listen to Primka,” she added when Flissa opened her mouth to answer.

 
“I was actually going to say it’s because you don’t listen to Mother and Father when they talk about General Council business, but I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

  “Just…show me where they’re going,” Sara said.

  “This way,” Loriah said.

  She led them down the path between the gardens. Sara still called out hellos to people as she passed, but she was more focused on craning her neck and rising onto her tiptoes to try to see Galric. He was tall enough that she caught glimpses of him above the crowd, but looking for him meant she couldn’t watch where she was going.

  “Oh, hey! Sorry…Hi! Sorry…Really sorry—and hi!” she said as she bumped into who knew how many people and stepped on way too many toes.

  Then she followed Loriah out of the tree-lined walkway and into the main courtyard, right at the center of the K. Her jaw dropped.

  Next to her, Flissa smiled. “It’s perfect.”

  “It” was a giant bronze sculpture of Gilward. When Sara knew him, he was old beyond his years: gaunt, wrinkled, and hunched over. In the sculpture he was young, and he stood tall and proud. He posed majestically on a high dais, legs apart, hands outstretched. In one palm he held a perfect rigdilly flower. In the other he held an exact replica of the amulet he’d left for Galric—the amulet they’d used to find him in the Twists.

  It left Sara breathless and sad. She could only imagine how it made Galric feel. “Wow,” she said.

  “Mother and Father commissioned it in honor of all the Kaloonians wrongly imprisoned in the Twists,” Flissa said reverently. “It’s made from the armor of soldiers who fell in the Battle for Unification. The metal was melted down and recast to make the statue.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Sara said.

  Her skin prickled with pins and needles. She had to find Galric. She rose back on tiptoe and scanned the courtyard. Most people weren’t even looking at the statue; for them it was just part of the scenery.

  Then she saw him. He stood with Krystal and her friends, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. He just stared up at his father’s face.