UnTwisted

by Elise Allen

  “They’re all Genpos.”

  Sara woke up grinning.

  She hadn’t been sure how the combination of Jentrie and Krystal would work out. They’d both spent their whole lives in Kaloon, but Krystal was a village girl who dressed like an Untwisted, while Jentrie was a noble who wore ball gowns to muck the stables.

  That was of course a figure of speech; Jentrie would never muck the stables.

  But whatever Amala had been telling the Ambassadors seemed to be working on Jentrie, because she really bonded with Krystal, especially when Sara told them about Galric’s ball-posal and they grabbed each other’s hands and squealed.

  They’d spent hours going through Sara’s dresses, and they were both impressed that every time they suggested a different color, or a different trim, or a slight change in the cut, Sara could wave her hands and let her scarlet-mist magic do the trick.

  They thought they’d settled on the perfect dress, but Sara wanted to try it on one more time to be sure.

  Then her stomach rumbled. Breakfast first. She pulled on a light frock and opened the door to the Residence…then heard screams and shouts.

  Her heart thumped—what was going on?

  She raced to the railing and looked down.

  It was chaos. The floor below was dotted with stiff bodies, people splayed out with every muscle tense and taut. Others flitted around them, jumping from one to another, feeling their necks and wrists for a pulse.

  Sara didn’t understand. Her skin prickled, then she turned toward the stairs and froze.

  Rouen and Katya were walking her way, her mother’s body stiff between them. Immediately Sara remembered Mitzi’s curse, how it had withered her mother’s skin and made it cling to her bones.

  “It’ll be okay, Sara,” Katya said, “I promise. But you’ll be better off if you don’t look.”

  Sara was sure she was right, but she looked anyway. Tears instantly sprang to her eyes and her voice cracked.

  “Mom?”

  Unlike before, Queen Latonya hadn’t aged eighty years in a blink. She looked like herself…but somehow trapped in her own body. She was brutally stiff, but her eyes darted around, as if fervently searching for help.

  “What happened to her?” Sara asked.

  “Katya, Rouen, you have to keep it moving, please,” Primka said. “Filliam’s right behind you.”

  That’s when Sara looked up and saw Rouen and Katya weren’t alone. Just behind them, Filliam and one of the royal guards held King Edwin’s equally stiff body between them. “Hurry!” Primka urged them. “And be careful with him, for goodness’ sake, he’s our king!”

  Sara fell into step next to Katya. “What happened? What’s wrong with them? Are they okay?”

  “Hush, child,” Katya said gently. “We still don’t know, but it seems like a curse on the palace. Right now only Genpos are affected, but I don’t know how long that’ll be the case. Galric already left to visit a friend, thank the universe.”

  Galric. For a second she imagined him frozen like her parents. The thought made her shudder and she pushed it out of her mind. She was glad he wasn’t home.

  Primka left the king to flutter around Sara’s head. “You should go to your room,” she said. “Stay put until we know what’s going on.”

  “No,” Sara said. She looked down at the unresponsive bodies of her parents. “I’m staying with them. They need me.”

  “They need you to be safe,” Rouen said.

  “I agree,” Katya said. “Do what Primka said. In your room.”

  They were in the Residence now, in the long hall that branched off to her own room, then continued down to her parents’ suite. Primka fluttered against Sara’s chest, backing her toward her own door.

  “Stay here. Trust that they’re in good hands. I’ll come get you when we know the palace is safe,” Primka said. Then, under her breath she muttered, “Thank goodness your sister isn’t home.”

  Primka slammed the door shut, showing the unusual strength she had for a tiny songbird. Sara made herself slowly count to twenty. Then she eased open her door.

  Primka wasn’t there, and her parents’ door was closed. She wanted to slip inside their room and check on them, but Primka, Katya, and Rouen would only shoo her out again. Instead she quickly slipped down the hall and out of the Residence.

  She had to get to Flissa. She couldn’t tell her about this in a bubblegram.

  She ran through the palace. She tried to block out the bodies, and the people screaming and racing around to help. She focused on her sister and beelined to the front door. She didn’t stop moving until she’d climbed into a carriage and leaned forward to tell the driver, “Maldevon Academy, please. And fast.”

  Unfortunately fast didn’t seem to be in the driver’s vocabulary. His horse took his own sweet time, meandering along the roads that might one day, several eternities from now, get them to Maldevon Academy.

  Sara jounced her knee up and down. She shifted from one carriage bench to the other. She looked out the window and tried to count every blade of grass they passed. Then, when she was about to explode and scream at the driver that she was the Princess of Kaloon and he had best do as she said and speed it up—a thing she’d never normally do—she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something small and black, running next to the carriage.

  Sara leaned out to get a better look. “Nitpick?”

  Nitpick meowed. Loudly.

  Alarm bells clanged in Sara’s head. She threw herself forward and frantically yelled, “Princess of Kaloon! Stop carriage! Now!”

  It wasn’t exactly the message she’d intended to deliver, but it did the trick. The driver pulled his horse to a stop, and Sara jumped out of the carriage so fast she tumbled onto her side and rolled into a puddle of mud.

  “Ugh!” she spluttered. She crawled her way out of the sludge and came face-to-face with Nitpick. He meowed.

  “Show me,” Sara said. “Show me where he is.”

  Nitpick quickly raced off. Sara scrambled to her feet and followed the kitten to the top of an orange-and-green grassy hill.

  Galric was at the bottom, his body rigid amidst a thicket of thorny brambles. Nitpick ran down the hill, hopped onto his chest, and let out another plaintive meow.

  “I see him,” Sara said, her heart racing. “I’m coming.”

  Sara forced herself to take her time. She wouldn’t do Galric any good if she tumbled down and broke a leg. She edged to her left until she was far away from the brambles at the bottom of the hill, then she lay down carefully on the grass, extending her arms and legs long.

  Here we go.

  She pushed off and rolled. The path she’d picked wasn’t quite as smooth as she’d thought. She bounced into the air at one point and smacked down so hard she was afraid she’d cracked a rib, but once she reached the bottom and staggered to her feet she was fine. She lurched to Galric, praying to the universe that he was okay.

  His tunic and pants were torn, but none of his limbs were bent in strange directions. She didn’t think anything was broken.

  Then she looked down at his face and yelped out loud. He was scratched all over, but the worst part was his eyes. They were open but darting around in a wild, helpless frenzy.

  “Galric?!” she cried. “Galric, can you hear me? Can you say anything?”

  He couldn’t; she knew that before she asked. He looked the same way her parents had looked. Whatever curse took the palace, it had reached far enough to take Galric too.

  He was alive, though, that was the only thing that mattered.

  Sara took his hand and squeezed it. “Don’t be scared, okay? I’m here. Nitpick too. We’re gonna make sure you’re okay.”

  Katya. It was the only thought in her head. Katya could help him; Katya would make him better.

  “Help me!” she screamed up the hill. “Driver! Help me! I need help!”

  It took a lifetime, but eventually Sara saw the driver stroll toward the top of the hill. He was whistling
a jaunty tune, and Sara wanted to hurl something at him, but his song cut short when he looked down and saw Sara and Galric.

  “Oh no…I’m coming, Princess!”

  The driver scurried down the hill, and thankfully he was much more sure-footed than Sara. When he reached the bottom, he gently took Sara’s arm and tried to help her up, but she whisked it away. “Not me—him!”

  “Right,” the driver said. “Sorry.”

  He picked up Galric and held him by the waist, but Galric didn’t bend at all. He remained stiff and straight in the driver’s grasp.

  “Let me get him up, and I’ll come for you next,” the driver said, but Sara had no intention of waiting. She struggled up the hill, trying to step directly into the driver’s footsteps so she’d have a clear path. Sara knew Nitpick could have scrambled up in an instant, but he stayed by her side until they crested the hill and she stumbled back to the carriage.

  “Thanks, Nitpick,” Sara said. “You’re a good friend.”

  The kitten meowed, then leaped into the carriage and watched carefully as Sara and the driver eased Galric inside as best they could…which wasn’t well at all. Since Galric’s body couldn’t bend, the best Sara and the driver could do was lean him so his body slanted diagonally across the carriage, his head pressed against the ceiling and his feet on the floor of the opposite side. Sara climbed in and contorted herself so she could slip her hand between his head and the carriage wall; that way he wouldn’t get hurt as they jounced along the road.

  “Back to the palace, please,” Sara told the driver. “As fast as you possibly can.”

  This time he obeyed, and before long they were back at the palace gates. It was much easier slipping Galric out of the carriage than it was to force him in, and soon he was back in the driver’s arms, still stiff and straight as a board. With Sara and Nitpick at his side, the driver walked down the main entry hall, but his eyes boggled when he saw all the bodies. “What in the…?”

  Sara didn’t have time to explain. “KATYA!” she screamed. “KATYA!!!”

  Katya must have heard the terror in her voice; Sara had never seen her ex-nursemaid run so quickly. When Katya reached the balcony and saw Galric standing stiff in the carriage driver’s arms, she paled, teetered on her feet, and clutched her heart. “Sweet merciful heavens.”

  That was it; that was all the time she gave herself for sentiment. She raced down the stairs and ran to the driver. “Give me the boy,” she said, though she didn’t wait for the driver to listen. She took Galric out of his arms and strode down the hall to the parlor, Sara and Nitpick right behind. Sara had to jog to keep up. Once inside, Katya laid Galric down on a sofa and let her hands hover over his body. For several tense moments the only sound in the room was Galric’s shallow breathing. Then Katya closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a sad but grateful smile.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s the same curse that got the others. I’ve tried, but I can’t tease out the magical signature.”

  Then she stared at Sara. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head as if she’d never seen her before.

  “Katya?” Sara asked. “Are you okay?”

  “We’ve been getting reports from Amala,” Katya said, and for a minute Sara’s breath caught in her throat because she was sure it was about what she’d overheard. “She says your magic is strong for someone your age. Exceptionally strong.”

  Sara couldn’t help but glow under the compliment, but it seemed like an odd time to be talking about her classes. “Okay…”

  “I want you to come with me,” Katya said. She took Sara’s hand and pulled her to the door.

  “Wait!” Sara said. “What about Galric? I don’t want to just leave him here.”

  “I’ll send Rouen down to sit with him. This is important. Don’t drag your feet.”

  Sara wasn’t sure she had a choice. Katya was moving full speed ahead; if Sara did drag her feet, Katya might accidentally pull her arm out of its socket.

  “Stay with him, Nitpick!” Sara called to the cat, though she knew she didn’t need to tell him. He was already sitting on Galric’s chest, staring expectantly into his dancing eyes.

  Katya pulled Sara through the hall and back up the stairs, then into the Residence and to her parents’ room. She threw open the door. The guard and Filliam were gone; only Rouen and Primka were in the room with Sara’s parents. Katya locked eyes with her husband.

  “The parlor. Galric.”

  It was all she needed to say. Rouen sucked in his breath but said nothing. He strode out, pausing only for a second to grip Katya’s hand on his way out. Primka, however, couldn’t contain herself.

  “Galric?! How was he cursed? He wasn’t even in the castle!” Then she gasped as she realized, “It spread wider than the castle! Oh, may the universe help us all.”

  “I’m hoping Sara will be the one to help us all,” Katya said.

  “I don’t understand,” Sara said. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “If a single curse hit all these Genpos, it was cast by a very powerful Mage. That Mage’s signature is in there; it’s inside them. We just have to tease it out, and I can’t do it myself.”

  Sara waited to hear the rest of Katya’s plan, but all she did was stare at Sara, her beady blue eyes boring down from deep in her cushiony face.

  “Wait, you think…you think I can get it out? You’re stronger than any Mage I’ve ever met outside Amala. I’m, like, a thousand-million times weaker than you. If you can’t do it, how can I?”

  “It’s possible you can’t,” Katya said. “But you are strong. And more important, you’re family. I doubt you could get the signature out of anyone else, but you might get it out of your parents.”

  Now Primka was staring at her too. Sara didn’t like it. There was no way she could do this if Katya couldn’t, and she didn’t want them counting on her. “But Galric’s your family, and you couldn’t get the signature out of him.”

  Katya took Sara firmly by the shoulders and placed her next to her mother’s side of the bed. “You’re blood,” she said, “and you’re their child. It’s different. Now try.”

  Sara looked down at her mother’s locked-open mouth and her jangling eyes. She was too terrified; she had to look away. “I don’t even know what to do!”

  “Place your hands on her,” Katya said. “Close your eyes, and let your magic reach out for the magic inside her. Feel for the signature.”

  Trembling, Sara reached out for her mother, but she stopped as she remembered Gilward, when he tried to pull Mitzi’s signature from her mom. She saw the green mist coming out of his ears and mouth; she saw his eyes turn to swirls of green.

  Sara felt like a coward for asking, but she had to know. “Will it hurt? Like Gilward?”

  Katya squeezed her into a pillowy hug. “Oh, child, no,” she said. “No, I would never let you do this if it put you in any danger. Gilward was trying to remove another Mage’s curse; that’s very different. You’re not healing; you’re diagnosing. You’re showing us what’s inside your mother, and that’s all. Whatever you find, no matter how strong it is, it can’t hurt you. Understood?”

  Katya held Sara at arm’s length and looked at her. Sara nodded. She would die for her family if she had to, but she was glad she wouldn’t have to do it today. She thought about what she’d seen Katya do downstairs with Galric. She’d held her hands over his body, but she’d told Sara to touch her mother, so she rested a hand on either side of the queen’s unblinking face.

  It felt cold.

  “That’s good,” Katya said. “Now close your eyes, and just reach out with your magic. You don’t want to do anything to the curse, you just want to see it.”

  Sara nodded again, then closed her eyes. She took deep breaths and sank every bit of her energy into her hands. She imagined her fingers had long red-mist tentacles that snaked out of her body and streamed through her mother’s. The tentacles weren’t bothering anything, just gently feeling around. Sara could sens
e those long strings of magic swimming through her mother’s body. Scanning. Searching. Sara felt herself slipping away, like she wasn’t in her own body at all. She was one of the tentacles. She was inside her mother, looking around. She wasn’t anxious or rushed, simply curious, floating and looking…though she saw only blackness. Blackness, tinged with the scarlet of her own streaming mist.

  Then there was something up ahead. A blue light. She eased closer.

  Breaking through the blackness was a jagged web of lights.

  No, not lights. Lightning. Bright blue lightning.

  It crackled and sizzled. There was a chiming sound too—a single note—but it was hard to hear under the sputtering lightning bolts. From somewhere far away she thought she also heard someone calling her name—very angrily, in fact—but she was only vaguely interested. She wanted to see the lightning. Sara floated closer, and soon it took over her entire field of vision, shard after shard of lightning, so bright it burned her eyes, but she couldn’t look away because she wasn’t in her body. She was in the lightning now, surrounded on all sides. She heard the chime ding again, but it was the lightning that mesmerized her, and all she wanted to do was reach out and touch it and…

  “SARA!”

  Hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her backward. Sara felt an unbearable, searing pain in her forehead, but it disappeared as fast as it came.

  She blinked. She was back in her parents’ room, her back pressed against Katya. She didn’t remember letting go of her mother, but she was several feet away from the bed. Primka hovered just above her, looking worried.

  “What happened?”

  Primka fanned her face with a wing, deeply relieved. “Oh, thank the universe,” she said.

  Katya spun her around and eagerly searched her eyes. “Sara? You’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “My head hurt…but it doesn’t anymore. What happened?”

  Katya smiled and her eyes shone. “You did it. You gave us a scare and you nearly got swallowed by that curse, but you did it! We saw the magical signature. It flashed by your hand. Only for a second, but we saw it!”

  “You did?” Sara asked. Then she tingled all over as she realized. “The blue lightning. That was it, wasn’t it? The magical signature was blue lightning!”