by M. A. Larson
“What?” said Evie. “Why have we changed companies?”
“Because you’re in the second class! Ironbone Company is only for third-class cadets.” She noticed the crestfallen looks on their faces. “This is a good thing, girls. And Princess Copperpot will be a wonderful House Princess for you. She’s a bit unusual, but tough as an ogre. I think you’re going to like her.”
“So we’re not with you?” said Evie.
“I’m sorry. I’ll have my hands full with all these new girls. But there is one bit of news that should please you. Leatherwolf Company is made up of the girls from Goosegirl and Ironbone, and Goosegirl’s commanding officer will be rotated to Schlauraffen Company—I’ve no idea who they’re going to assign to all these new companies. In any event, the Academy has a rather complex formula for issuing assignments that involves alternate-year rotations and the like. It’s of no importance except to say that you will get to keep your commanding officer!”
She beamed at them. As it dawned on Evie exactly what Hazelbranch was saying, her heart sank. “You mean . . . ?”
“You’ll have another year with your fairy drillsergeant!”
Evie flinched just hearing the words.
“Now, I’d highly recommend you get on this next round of coaches so you don’t find yourselves trapped here in Waldeck. I’ll see you at the Academy, girls! Off you go!”
They said their goodbyes and tried to navigate through the throngs of recruits. It was difficult to keep hidden with so many girls trying to get Evie’s attention. The previous year she hadn’t even had a name. Now she couldn’t escape it.
“Wait!” she said to Demetra. “Shouldn’t we try to tell Princess Beatrice about the attacks?”
“In this?” cried Demetra. “It can wait!”
A girl at the enlistment table screamed so sharply that it cut through the noise of the crowd. She jumped up and down, clutching her hands to her chest. “I’m Cadet Eleven! I’m Cadet Eleven!” Behind her, several other girls looked distraught.
“This is too strange,” said Evie with a look of distaste. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Remington’s going to be so jealous. You’re more famous than he is!”
Finally they made it out of the crowd and headed for the coaches. Parents and their daughters said goodbye and promised to write, but Evie and Demetra paid them no mind as they searched for the Leatherwolf coach.
“There’s no way to tell which is which—”
There was another scream. Evie wheeled just in time to see a spray of red hair, and then she was on her back in the dirt. Her arm was pinned beneath Demetra, who was herself pinned beneath . . .
“Maggie!” shouted Evie. The three of them hugged in a huge pile on the ground.
“You’re here!” she shouted. “You finally made it!”
“Yes, well, if you don’t mind, I’ll just say hello from here,” came another voice.
Maggie climbed off, and there stood Basil in the door of the coach, his usual uncomfortable smile on his face.
“Basil!” shouted Evie.
Maggie pulled Evie and Demetra to their feet, then hugged them each properly. “Come on! We’ve held spots in the back.”
Evie gave Basil a hug. He stepped aside to let her in. “After you,” he said to Demetra.
Inside, they made their way through a coach that was three-quarters full of the eighty it would eventually hold. Evie recognized many of the faces. Even some of Goosegirl Company looked vaguely familiar from the previous year. But now they were all one. Leatherwolf Company. That would take a bit of getting used to.
“Straight back here,” said Maggie. “Basil and I were just catching up on the summer. Didn’t you get any of my letters? I was so hoping you’d come to Sevigny.” She plopped down on an empty bench, the smile wide across her face. “This is so exciting!”
Evie and Demetra took the bench in front, and Basil sat next to Maggie. “I never got any letters,” said Evie. “I mean, I got loads from Demetra, but none from you.”
Maggie’s smile fell. “Really? That’s odd. I sent quite a lot.” She shrugged and her smile returned. “Ah, well, I suppose that’s what I get for living so ridiculously far away. It’d be a miracle if any of my letters made it past the Glass Mountains.”
“Speaking of living far away,” said Basil, “I heard you were in the Eastern Kingdoms and didn’t even bother to pop by, Evie.”
Evie looked at Demetra, who shrugged and said, “I wrote him, too. I write everyone.”
“Next time you’re off to the Blackmarsh, you’ve got to come by Witch Head Bay and collect me first. Save me from my brothers for a bit.”
“Hang on, you went to the Blackmarsh?” said Maggie.
“I had to get out of the cave. And Demetra invited me, so . . .”
“Nice, isn’t it?” said Basil. “Beautiful kingdom.”
“It’s the most incredible place I’ve ever seen. You should see the palace, Maggie. Oh, and the garden with all those leaves—”
“The Garden of the Dancing Princess,” said Maggie. “I’ve wanted to see that my whole life.”
“And Anisette was there as well!”
Maggie gasped. “Does that mean you got to see Princess Camilla?” Her eyes were as wide as some of the girls outside who had just been goggling at Evie.
“Oh yes. She told us all about how Pennyroyal graduates are compiling information about Calivigne and the Seven Sisters.”
“The Seven Sisters?” said Maggie.
“That’s what they’re calling the witch leadership now.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. Must’ve been fun to be part of the latest excitement. I spent the summer scraping ice off my father’s cart.” There was a hint of disappointment in Maggie’s voice, but none of the others noticed.
“How in the world are they going to fit all these firsties in the barracks?” said Demetra, looking out the window at the roiling crowd.
“I’m jealous you got to meet Camilla,” said Maggie, her smile gone. “I’m such a big admirer of hers—”
“Ah, there you are,” came a sharp voice. It was Kelbra, one of Malora’s best friends. Just behind her was Sage, a girl who had been cursed with no sense of humor. “I was hoping you lot would’ve just stayed home.”
“Come on,” said Basil. “Malora’s gone. Can’t we just move on from this?”
“Move on from what?” spat Kelbra, her lip curled in a snarl. “Her thinking she’s better than the rest of us?” She flicked her head dismissively at Evie. “I suppose she’s got you all convinced that Malora really was a witch, hasn’t she?”
“Of course she was, don’t be—”
“Right, and did anyone else see it? Anyone? No, they didn’t. Not one person. So we’re all supposed to just take your word that my best friend was a witch who deserved to be tossed out of the Academy.”
“What are you talking about? Of course she was a witch!” said Evie. “Have you gone mad?”
“It seems everyone else has. I know what happened out there in the forest. I know that you couldn’t bear to be in your sister’s shadow. You couldn’t bear that she was better than you in every possible way. So you had to make up lies to get her discharged.”
“Kelbra, you’re wrong about—”
“She was my friend,” said Kelbra, jutting her finger toward Evie’s face. “And you ruined her life. You’d better hope no one does the same to you.”
She glared at Evie for a moment, and then she and Sage turned and found an empty bench near the front of the coach.
“Well,” said Demetra with a sigh. “It seems we’ll pick up right where we left off.”
“Look at the bright side—at least there are only two of them this year,” said Basil.
IT WAS NEARLY SUNDOWN when the coach finally emerged from the enchanted forest and into th
e clearing that held Pennyroyal Academy. Evie’s heart swelled at the sight of the towers and castles perched atop the hillside. The Queen’s Tower, still one of the most remarkable structures she’d ever seen, glowed like a diamond above campus. She couldn’t wait to get off the coach and smell the fresh air and the dank corridors and to hear the voices of fairies shouting orders and trumpets sounding across campus at daybreak.
She was home. She was home, and her dragon family was the furthest thing from her mind.
The coach rolled across the stone bridge and into the courtyard arrival area. The old familiar fountain, a princess and a knight standing triumphant, trickled with bubbling water over soft green moss. There were already people everywhere—princesses and knights and woodsmen and scullery maids and trolls and fairies—all scurrying to prepare for the first night with a truly full campus.
“Open the door! All of you off, now!” came a familiar voice. The Fairy Drillsergeant had started shouting before the coach had even come to a stop. “Come on, you layabouts, summer’s over! Move!”
Evie felt a surge of excitement in her stomach as she followed Demetra down the aisle and off the coach. Even the shouts of the Fairy Drillsergeant couldn’t quell the fluttering inside her. It was as though her yearning to be back at the Academy had actually grown stronger now that she was finally there.
“No time for pleasantries, this is an emergency situation!” shouted the tiny fairy, multicolored dust shimmering from her wings. “We’ve got bargeloads of cadets headed this way and nowhere to house them! The woodsmen are hard at work clearing away the brush, but we’ve got to get the old barracks sparkling and we have only a few hours to do it!”
A heavy thunk thunk thunk echoed across campus, followed by the shouting of men’s voices.
“Well? Shall I arrange a gilded carriage to ferry you to the barracks? Or are you going to move?”
“What about our things?” asked Kelbra.
“The trolls will see to your things. Now get over there before I solve the barracks problem myself by sending you all home!”
The girls of Leatherwolf Company, with many looks exchanged that said, Here we go again, ran off across Hansel’s Green, the great, grassy meadow that served as a training field, and headed toward the barracks.
“Not that way, you dunderheads!” shouted the Fairy Drillsergeant. “Over there!”
Evie looked every which way, but didn’t even see the Fairy Drillsergeant, much less which way she was pointing. But then the front of the group began to turn, like a flock of birds in the sky, heading for a small grove of trees and brush about one hundred yards to the left of the main grouping of barracks buildings. Several immense men with hairy backs and massive axes were hacking down trees at a rapid pace. And there, peeking out from the vegetation, were several more long, low barracks buildings. They were overgrown, some so completely covered in bushes and trees that they looked like small hills rather than man-made structures.
The company slowed to a stop at the edge of the grove. Two woodsmen hauled a giant piece of tree trunk away and threw it on top of a stack. Another tree fell, revealing another building buried beneath dirt and moss.
“Welcome to your new home, ladies. We haven’t had to use these barracks in years, but now they’re all yours.”
Small pieces of the barracks’ stone walls peeked out from beneath stumps and vines and trees and bracken. Even those were covered in moss and lichens.
“We’re going to live in there?” said Demetra with distaste. Evie couldn’t help but smile. After the cave, these old barracks were positively luxurious.
“Well? You can’t look them into shape! Get moving, unless you plan to sleep out here on the grass!”
“At the moment that sounds rather appealing,” said Basil under his breath.
“Cadet Basil!” said the Fairy Drillsergeant with a smile in her voice. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
Basil’s face fell. “Er, hello, Fairy Drillsergeant.”
“I’d no idea you were such an admirer of our grass here at the Academy. Why don’t you and I get to know it a bit better while the rest of the company prepares the barracks?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Fairy—”
“Cadet Basil has just volunteered to demonstrate a new exercise I’ve prepared for you second classers! I call them Frog’s Legs. And now he’s going to show you why. Run in place, Cadet! Move those froggy legs!”
“But—”
“Run in place! The rest of you, get to work unless you’d like to join him!”
The girls began to climb through the undergrowth to get to the buried buildings. Evie glanced back at Basil. He was running in place, and every time the Fairy Drillsergeant shouted, “Croak!” he had to drop to his stomach and then jump back to his feet. After only five of them, he already looked as though he might be sick.
“You know who we’ve got to thank for this, don’t you?” said Kelbra loudly. “The famous Cadet Evie!”
“Kelbra, please,” said Demetra. “Are we really going to have to listen to this all year?”
“Croak!”
The girls fanned out around the barracks and got to work. Evie could feel the eyes of her new company-mates, the girls who had been in Goosegirl Company the previous year, on her. But all she wanted was to be a normal second-class princess cadet like everyone else.
In short order, the cadets were covered in dirt and grime, their faces and arms scratched bloody from branches and thorns. The woodsmen continued to knock down the larger trees, opening up more of the sky to the fading blue of dusk. Basil had rejoined the company after a half hour of Frog’s Legs, and his thighs were so wobbly, he could barely stand. The barracks were now mostly uncovered. Some of the girls had gone inside and begun opening windows, chasing away rats and spiders, and scrubbing bunks. About an hour into the work, the other second-class company had arrived from Waldeck. Bramblestick Company was made up of the other two third-class companies from the previous year, Schlauraffen and Stonewitch. They got straight to work on the barracks buildings still hiding beneath the growth, though one of them didn’t seem to be at all usable. A corner of its arched rooftop had collapsed, and vines had begun growing inside.
Evie was busy scrubbing windows, which were black with mold. The steady chopping echoed around her. She glanced over at the entrance area, hoping, in truth, for a glimpse of the knight cadets, and among them, Remington. Instead, she saw coach after coach arriving, dumping cadets into the area in front of Pennyroyal Castle. There were people everywhere, with staff shouting to organize them all. Torches had been lit across campus. Evie recognized straightaway which ones belonged to the Dining Hall. Her mouth watered at the thought.
“This is incredible,” said Maggie, passing by with an armload of sticks. “How are they possibly going to handle all these people?”
“When do we get to eat, that’s the real question,” said Basil, scrubbing another window near Evie’s.
“Could someone help me here?” said Demetra, struggling under the weight of a fallen branch that was leaning against the roof.
“Hang on!” said Evie, setting her bucket down.
“We’ve got it!” called two of their new company-mates who had been in Goosegirl Company the previous year. One was tall and lithe with smooth dark skin, and the other was shorter and had tight ringlets of brown hair swept back from her face. Both of them seemed effortlessly regal, even as they strained to help Demetra work the heavy branch to the edge of the roof, where gravity brought it thumping to the ground.
“Thanks!” said Demetra.
“No problem. I’m Nessa and that’s Liv,” said the taller of the two.
“Demetra.”
“Yeah, we know,” said Nessa. “She’s from Oxie and I’m from Arrie.”
“Oxenholtz and Arrenholtz? Really?”
“Yeah,” said Liv. “My family
holidays at the Blackmarsh every summer.”
“What a small world!” said Demetra. “Oh, uh, these are my friends Evie and Basil, and that’s Maggie.”
“Hiya,” they all said.
“They’re from Oxie and Arrie, the two kingdoms just below the Blackmarsh. So you must know Prince Düvier, then.”
“Of course!” said Nessa, laughing. “He’s married to my cousin Marlow—”
“Attention, second-class cadets!” sang Princess Hazelbranch, making her way through the gathering darkness with another woman at her side. Bramblestick and Leatherwolf, the two second-class princess companies, assembled on the grass in front of the most habitable of the barracks. Hazelbranch handed her torch to one of the woodsmen, who used it to light the hearths inside the newly excavated structures. Smoke rose from the chimneys. The whole area began to glow orange as the sky faded to black.
“Isn’t this exciting?” said Hazelbranch, her eyes wide. “Nearly full capacity! This is what it used to be like round here!”
“Yes, Princess,” said several of the girls lethargically.
“My name is Princess Hazelbranch, House Princess for Ironbone Company, over there.” She pointed into the darkness, toward the barracks where Evie had lived all of the previous year. “Now, before you’re excused for supper, I’d like to introduce you to your House Princesses. Bramblestick Company, may I present Princess Helgadoon.”
Helgadoon stepped forward and curtsied. Her black hair was braided across her shoulders, her eyes as kind as Hazelbranch’s. “I’m very pleased to meet you, cadets,” she said. “We’re going to have a lot of fun this year. And I want you to know that if there’s anything you need, any concerns you might have about anything at all, my door is always open. I am here for you.”
“Yes, Princess,” said the Bramblestick cadets.
“Right, well, let’s go have our supper, shall we? Come along.” She led her cadets across Hansel’s Green toward the torchlight of the Dining Hall. Those who remained looked at Princess Hazelbranch with confusion. She appeared to be alone.
