Now Constantin was the one sagging against the desk. “Why is this on my dad’s computer?” he whispered.
Isabelle bit her lip for a second. It brought back the memory of their kiss, but Constantin shook his head and pushed the memory away. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said, “but your dad is one of the largest, most influential arms dealers in the world.”
Constantin just stared. He wanted to argue, to protest, to tell Isabelle she couldn’t possibly know, but the evidence flashed across his father’s screen. The proof was in his father’s weird business associates, people Constantin had always thought to be a strange fit for the food importing business. Did a glorified grocer like his father really need twenty bodyguards surrounding his home at all times?
“Who are you?” he asked her instead of continuing with those disturbing thoughts.
Isabelle gave him a sort of half-hearted laugh filled with cynicism instead of humor. “I’m a princess of Neubaden who takes the duty of protecting my people a little further than most.”
“Your people?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
This time her laugh sounded a bit more genuine. “My people. It’s true that they might not have much use for princes and princesses in this day and age, but that doesn’t mean my duty and loyalty should cease.” She pulled a tiny flash drive out of the computer and pushed the laptop shut. Pulling off the latex gloves he hadn’t noticed on her hands, she stuffed them and the drive down the front of her dress. There was no way he was going to try to get that drive back now.
“I would lay down my life for them,” Isabelle continued, “which I may have just done. If you tell your father about what I just did, he will have me killed.”
Constantin opened his mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut without saying a word. Two years ago, his dad had caught him making out with the second foreign minister’s daughter. The minister had rapidly lost his post, and his whole family, including the daughter, had moved to London. His dad had insisted it was for the best since “that girl” hadn’t been good enough for a Corvin. Only, that girl had disappeared from social media, and not even her best friend had heard from her after the move. Constantin had always kind of wondered.
God, he’d been so blind.
“I’m sorry you had to learn the truth this way.” Isabelle reached over to pat his arm, but he snatched it away.
“So, all this.” He pointed at the two of them. “All of it was just an act to get access to my father’s computer.”
“That kiss was not an act.” She touched her lips for a moment as if she too had been moved by that kiss, as if she’d also found it to be as momentous as he had.
Constantin didn’t say anything. There was nothing left to be said.
Isabelle moved to the door. She had her hand on the knob, ready to twist it open when she turned back. Giving him one of her brightest smiles, she said, “If your father doesn’t have me killed, I’ll see you in school in three weeks.” Then she winked. She. Winked.
Still reeling from the audacity, Constantin didn’t notice when Isabelle left the room. The click of the door shutting brought him back to the present.
With a sigh, he walked around the desk and put the computer back in the drawer where his dad had stashed it before the ball, erasing the last bit of evidence that Isabelle had messed with it. He stared around the room. The furniture hadn’t changed, yet his world had. His father was a gun runner; the best kiss of his life was some sort of spy.
He sank down on the uncomfortable chair behind the desk and sighed. Three weeks, she had said. He began to smile. He couldn’t wait.
* * *
Lori Bond is the code name for an author of teen books featuring spies, crooks, and those who want to be spies or crooks. She lives somewhere on this Earth (as opposed to another world in the multiverse) with people she claims are her family. For more books, her newsletter, and information, visit her at covertreads.com.
I never expected to be running for my life at only fifteen. I am Princess Deneige—“the snow” in French, if you’re wondering—and though my upbringing wasn’t conventional for royalty, still I never even dreamed that I would become a princess in peril. Actually, make that a princess in mortal danger. I survived two attempts on my life in as many days, and I knew who was behind it, too.
Royalty or not, my life hadn’t been pampered and spoiled. My parents, King Eriik and Queen Arcadia, had told me since I was old enough to understand words that I needed to be a “proper” Princess; that I needed to learn about Life as well as academics so that in the future I could be a good future ruler for my people. But what was “proper” changed with every nanny hired. One thought “proper” was sitting quietly and doing needlework. Her successor thought that “proper” meant learning how to clean my bedroom and make it shine. A long list of nannies came and went over the years, in addition to my tutors, to fulfil my parents’ plans for my education.
I was eleven when that changed. My mother died suddenly after coming down with a sickness, and while we were still in shock, a royal cousin on my father’s side of the family, Elspeth, came to the castle to take care of my father and me. It was nice to have someone to handle social duties for us while we were grieving my mother’s loss, but it wasn’t long afterwards that I’d been told by my father that Elspeth was to become my new stepmother. He’d tried to explain that I needed a mother and the kingdom needed a queen, but I think he just needed to have someone living beside him that wasn’t a daughter.
In short order my older, wrinkled, grey-haired and grey-eyed father and younger, beautiful, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Elspeth were married in a grand royal ceremony. But if I’d thought my life had been difficult before, it became unbearable almost immediately after the wedding reception ended. My stepmother started putting me to work. Real work. My academic tutors and my last nanny were dismissed, and instead I was given a stern “instructor” named Old Johann. His only duty was to oversee me in all kinds of household chores and to “instruct” me in a task when I did something wrong. Those frequently had involved lots of tiresome repetition of a task when I made a mistake, no matter how small; nor did it matter if I quickly corrected it. I had to start again, and do all the repetitions decreed by him. The palace servants, pitying me, had tried to help whenever they could, but they were often blocked in their attempts by Johann.
I’d tried complaining to my father multiple times, but he would only vacantly pat my head and say things like “But if you already know how to do that, what’s the problem?” and “Come come, now, you’re exaggerating,” and stuff like that. He didn’t understand, or maybe didn’t want to understand, that I had become little more than a servant and wasn’t learning anything that I would need to be a future queen.
One positive outcome, though, was that I’d became very fit and slender since I was kept on the run morning, noon, and night. Of course, since I too ate the kinds of foods my father and step-mother ate when I had my meals with them at my father’s request, I also remained healthy. Another positive outcome was that I’d figured out how to balance my work against each other to help myself. For example, the harsh soaps I used in my cleaning were balanced out by the butters and oils I put on my skin from baking and cooking. But I couldn’t understand why my new stepmother, instead of continuing to look at me smugly as I did my chores around her, seemed more and more sour as the years passed.
I found out why the hard way.
Four years later, I’d just had my fifteenth birthday and was sweeping in the throne room when I heard voices coming from the little study that was behind a hidden door in back of the throne. At that time of day no one should have been in there, and we had no visitors in the palace, royal or otherwise. So of course I was curious. I pressed my ear to the thin wooden door to listen. I distinctly heard my stepmother speaking angrily to someone. I almost wish now that I didn’t hear it, but my life would have been very much the shorter if I hadn’t.
“How is it that Deneige continu
es to thrive?” she’d spat venomously. “I’ve given her all the hardest tasks, and still she looks much the same as she did four years ago, except somehow more beautiful. Ugh! I should be the fairest of them all, not her!”
A male voice rumbled a reply which I couldn’t hear, and she’d said in turn, “No, I can’t put her in with the servants, much as I would like that. Her father would miss her, and the servants would only protect her more than they try to now. Since the King is besotted with me, he doesn’t listen to her complaints, and thinks things are like they have always been in terms of her ‘life lessons.’ But if Deneige weren’t around, her father would look for her. And then maybe actually listen to her.”
Another male rumble, and she said, suddenly sounding pleased, “Yeeesss. It needs to look like an accident. It has been long enough since her mother’s death. But it can’t be connected to me.”
I grew dizzy and leaned against the door. I had always assumed that Elspeth really didn’t like me, from the snide comments about my appearance to her refusal to touch me after she had been crowned Queen. But to hear her actively plot my death was shocking. Footsteps approached the door, and I’d hurried to duck out of sight behind the throne. Peeping up over the gold scrolled arm rest, I saw my stepmother in a set of gorgeous royal purple robes sweep haughtily from the study. She’d been followed by her brown leather-clad huntsman, a harsh man hired by her directly. I gulped quietly, because he was trouble. He was her eyes and ears when in the palace, and had license to go everywhere except the royal bedrooms. If I was to not die, I knew I would need to be on the lookout from now on.
Not long afterwards the first of the attempts on my life happened. I’d been scrubbing the cooking utensils in the huge tin tub in the wash room when hard hands shoved me in the middle of my back. I screamed as I went flying into the tub, soapy bubbles filling my mouth, and a sharp knife propped upright but hidden under the soap suds sliced my shoulder as I fell on it. I was quickly pulled up by Wash Mistress Marion; and when it was discovered I was bleeding, she’d bandaged me up.
“There now, Princess. Are you all right?” Marion had asked me with a worried tone, securing the bandage in place. “Perhaps you could sneak up to your room and have a lie-down. Don’t worry, we’ll cover for you with Johann.”
“How could this have happened?” I asked, shaken at my narrow escape. A couple of inches more to the right and it would have gone into my neck, not across the top of my shoulder.
She’d frowned. “I don’t rightly know. It does seem strange, but I guess accidents can happen anywhere.”
Coincidence that this occurred the day after the huntsman talked to my stepmother? Probably not. My stepmother had said it needed to look like an accident. And she had been speaking to her huntsman. And I remembered that I’d seen him leaving the washroom as I was carrying plates inside. It had to have been him who’d set up the knife, and who must have snuck back in to push me.
The second attempt came the day after that. I’d been in the kitchen baking the strawberry tarts my father loved so much, and saw a shadow block the sun from the little window up high in the stone walls behind me. Instinct kicked in, and I’d whirled away from the fireplace as if I had just remembered to get a particular spice when the huntsman “accidentally” stumbled right where I had been. Had I not moved, I definitely would have fallen—or been pushed—into the fire. Instead, he nearly fell into the flames. The cook nearest me rushed to help him stay upright.
“Are you all right?” I’d asked the huntsman, turning to face him with as much wide eyed innocence as I could manage.
He looked at me levelly before replying, “I am fine,” and leaving. That tore it. I knew then he really was going to try and kill me no matter who was around!
After finishing with the tarts and reporting in to Johann, who no longer physically followed me around, I’d gone to my room. I’d paced its thick flowered carpet and tried to decide what I was less afraid of: leaving the castle to save my life but having nowhere to go and no way to take care of myself, or staying and trying to avoid being killed while having a roof over my head, food to eat, and clothes to wear. I knew I couldn’t go to my father, because my stepmother had been right. He wouldn’t listen to me, probably thinking it all some sort of teenaged temper tantrum. But near-deadly accidents twice in two days had left me rattled and scared that a third attempt would be successful.
I decided to leave the castle right away. I packed a small basket, the kind I would use when sent out to gather flowers for the family rooms, and hid a few things in it like soap, a comb, some of the tarts I’d baked, and some gold coins under the light cloak I always took with me. I then dressed in my sturdiest grey work dress, white apron, and black knee boots. I couldn’t avoid castle servants or guards on my way out, but they paid me no notice once they saw the flower basket. I breathed easier when I stepped off the draw bridge, but was also struck with a sudden sadness. I already missed my father and all the people with whom I’d grown up. I didn’t miss the recent additions to the castle, though.
I forced myself into a carefree skip as I headed out to the fields where I often picked flowers because I didn’t want to draw suspicion with any changes in my behavior. As soon as I was out of sight I ran straight for the forest on the far side of the meadows. It was the perfect place for me to hide while I figured out what to do with myself even though I’d always been warned to not go there because it was dangerous.
It may be dangerous there, but being back in the castle was more perilous, I reasoned.
I hadn’t been five minutes in the woods when something prompted me to look back over my shoulder at the meadow. My heart stopped a moment, and then it started galloping wildly.
The huntsman was running towards the forest.
I whirled and sprinted further in, throwing my basket to the ground behind me so it wouldn’t weigh me down. He crashed in among the trees, sacrificing stealth for speed. Since he was full grown with longer legs, he was catching up fast. But I had speed borne of terror, and being smaller I could slip through the tangled places much easier than he could. Thankfully I managed to lose him. Knowing that he would stop and track me I was very glad to soon stumble across a small brook. I jumped in and waded upstream so that he would lose my trail, and stayed walking in the water until I lost feeling in my submerged body parts. I got out by climbing a grey-brown tree whose roots were halfway in the water and went as high in the branches as I dared. I took off my boots and rubbed feeling back into my legs and feet, slumping tiredly against the broad trunk. I closed my eyes for what I thought was just a second, and the next thing I knew it was night.
I woke up hungry and thirsty. Thirsty I fixed by cupping water into my hands from the stream, but eating was another story. A faint aroma of meat being cooked came from somewhere and I was hungry enough to want to find its source. I put my boots back on and followed my nose to a hidden little glen with a small house with a kitchen garden and a little pond. The delicious smell came from the chimney’s smoke. Taking my courage in both hands I walked up to the door and knocked.
A gruff voice from inside called out, “Who’s there?”
“A lost traveler who has lost her belongings and is in need of charity.” I crossed my fingers and prayed that the gruff voice was paired with a kind soul.
Abruptly the door was flung open. The people inside and I gaped at each other. I saw seven little men about three feet high with long beards of differing colors standing in the doorway, and beyond them was a rather chaotic, messy-looking house.
“You’re young to be a-travelling alone, missy,” the one in front, who was probably the leader, finally said.
“But pretty as a princess!” sighed a voice in the back. “With hair as black as night, lips as red as blood, and skin as white as snow.”
I froze. Those were the words my mother had used in the explanation of my name to me when I was little. Did they somehow know who I was? And if so, how?
“Quiet, Arrik,” scoffed anoth
er. “No princesses would be wandering around the woods at night dressed like that and without bodyguards. Idjit.”
“Please?” I begged, mentally breathing a sigh of relief that they didn’t really know who I was. “I would be willing to do work in exchange for a meal and a place to stay for tonight.”
“Where are your parents?” asked the leader.
“My mother’s dead,” I said, which was the truth.
“Aww, let her in, Garrin. She can’t possibly harm us,” said another voice.
“Yeah!” the others chorused.
Garrin sighed. “All right. You can come in. What’s your name?”
“Umm, Snow—Snow, uh, White,” I invented.
“All right, Snow. Can you cook?”
“I can.”
“Good. You can finish up the dinner we’ve started. Help yourself to any ingredients you find in the pantry in the kitchen.”
From what I could find, I decided to make a spicy meat and vegetable stew from the meat turning by itself on the magical spit in the fireplace, and serve it up with toasted day-old bread with the help of one knife that cut the bread by itself and another that spread butter on contact.
How much easier my castle chores would have been if I’d had some of these magical tools, I thought enviously.
The seven little men—introduced to me as Arrik, Kort, Frantz, Berg, Jarman, Garrin, and Hanz—enjoyed my meal so much that after dinner an arrangement was struck between us: I could stay as long as I wanted in exchange for cooking and cleaning. I immediately accepted.
The next morning, after the little men had left to work in the mine they owned, I got to work. I had just begun on the amazing pile of dirty dishes in the sink when a pounding sounded on the front door. Afraid, I immediately dropped to the floor and crawled under the kitchen worktable.
“Open up in the name of the Queen!” came a harsh voice from outside.
My heart raced. The huntsman!
How did he find me? I wondered.
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