by M. A. Larson
Images began to flood back into Evie’s mind. Fire and the witch prison and the princesses in black, each of them stepping closer and closer with sharp blades in hand . . .
She felt a surge of panic, but she still couldn’t speak. She also didn’t have enough strength to sit up.
“Be still, be still,” said Maggie, gently holding her shoulders down. “You’ve been through a horrific experience, but you’re safe now. We all are.”
“Go fetch Princess Beatrice,” Wertzheim said to one of the other nurses. “Tell her Cadet Evie is awake.”
Evie looked back to Maggie. What about Demetra? What about Basil? What happened to Javotte and the Vertreiben? She couldn’t speak. Fresh tears ran down her temples and disappeared in her hair. Why couldn’t she speak?
“Come quick!” said Maggie, waving at someone to Evie’s right. “She’s awake!”
Evie turned her head and, like an answered wish, the smiling faces of Demetra and Basil appeared.
“There she is!” said Basil. “The lady of the hour! Or is it the lizard of the hour?”
Demetra slapped his arm.
“Jah—” croaked Evie. Through the screaming pain, her voice sounded like one jagged stone scraping against another. “Ja-votte.”
“Evie, please don’t speak,” said Maggie. “You’ve only just stopped bleeding.”
“You don’t have to worry about Javotte anymore,” said Demetra. “She’s gone. Go on, Basil, tell her what happened.”
Basil scratched the top of his head nervously. “I . . . took care of her. We had a bit of a smash-up with our swords, and . . . well, I suppose I got the best of it.”
“He’s an absolutely brilliant swordsman, Evie. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s what comes from having twenty-one brothers, I suppose.”
“Don’t be so modest, Bas. If it weren’t for him, Javotte would have killed us all in there.”
“You were quite the warrior yourself,” he said. “Demetra fought through a whole group of them to get to you, Evie.”
“Kel . . . Kelbra.”
Their smiles faded. They exchanged looks, as though none of them wanted to say anything.
“Kelbra’s gone,” said Demetra. “I’m sorry, Evie.”
She nodded. She’d expected that, yet it still broke her heart to hear.
“Oh no,” said Maggie softly, her eyes looking past Demetra and Basil to the door, where there came the loud clacking of heels on stone.
“Make way, make way.” Demetra and Basil stepped back, replaced by the humorless scowl of the Headmistress General. She grabbed Evie’s cheeks in her wrinkled hand and peered into her open mouth. “Hmm.”
“She’ll need a battery of potions, Headmistress,” said Wertzheim. “I’ve never seen burns like these before. But—”
“Cadet Eleven, you have done a remarkable thing,” said the Headmistress, who looked angry enough to strangle a cat. Evie’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You have broken a entire volume of rules, but I have received a note from Princess Hazelbranch explaining why. The rules that govern this Academy, the rules that govern all princesses, are some of the most sacred things in the world to me. But even I know they must be broken in extreme circumstances. And this circumstance with the Vertreiben was nothing if not extreme. I was wrong about them. But thanks to you, my mistake was not nearly as costly as it might have been.” She looked at Maggie, her eyes as sharp as Javotte’s sword. Then her eyes snapped over to Demetra. Then Basil. And finally back down to Evie. “You will still need to take your final exams, except for you, Cadet Eleven, but I’ve decided to advance you all to the first class anyway. Submit your applications for your service branches to Princess Ziegenbart as quickly as you can. And rest that throat of yours. I shall see you in the fall.”
She turned on her heel, several other princesses and advisers following behind, and walked out the door.
“What just happened?” said Maggie.
“I think we made first class,” said Demetra.
“We did?”
“We did!”
Maggie grabbed Evie’s arm and began to jump up and down. Evie smiled, tears running down her temples.
“Did—” croaked Evie. “Did it.”
“We certainly did,” said Basil.
“Cadets, if you please, this one desperately needs rest,” said Wertzheim.
“Of course, Princess,” said Maggie.
Wertzheim walked off, leaving the four of them alone. Evie looked up at Demetra and Basil. “Thank—” She began coughing again, but no amount of pain would keep her from what she needed to say. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Evie, really,” said Demetra. “The whole thing was incredibly brave. Mad, but brave.”
“You know, it’s possible we just averted the worst crisis in princess history,” said Basil. “I wonder if Lieutenant Volf will think we warrant a chapter somewhere.”
Demetra slapped his arm again. “Let’s go, Bas,” she said. “I think you left your humility outside. Bye, Evie. We’ll come back after supper and fill out our applications together, all right?”
As they began to walk off, Basil said, “What? I’m only stating the facts . . .” And the two of them argued all the way to the door.
Evie turned back to Maggie and her heart broke open. Her friend was smiling down at her, as sunshiny as ever, but Evie was overwhelmed with remorse. All she could see in her mind was the look of betrayal on Maggie’s face as her finger bled from the spindle and her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Mag—” Evie tried to swallow, but there was nothing there to swallow. Her voice sounded like carriage wheels on gravel.
“Please, Evie, it hurts me to see you speak, I can’t imagine how—”
“Mag-gie. I . . . I’m . . .” She tried to swallow again, building up the strength to fight through the pain in her chest. “I’m sorry.”
The smile on Maggie’s face transformed into something altogether different. It was still a smile, but a deeper, more truthful one. “You’ve no need to apologize, Evie. I was too scared to see what you saw.” Tears began to pool in her eyes. She took Evie’s hand in her own, cupping it with the other. “After my mother, Cinderella is the most important woman in my life. She’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. And you saved her. I owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
Evie squeezed Maggie’s hand. “I’m. Sorry.”
Maggie’s smile faded. She looked deeply into Evie’s eyes. “I forgive you, Evie.”
And now it was Evie’s turn to smile.
“Cadet, I do apologize, but I’ve simply got to get this serum into her,” said Wertzheim.
“Of course,” said Maggie. She pointed to the chair next to the bed, where the deerskin bundle containing Callahan’s letters sat. “I’ve brought you some reading material in case you get bored. Goodbye, first-class princess cadet. I’ll see you this evening. And when we’ve finished our applications, we’re going to write a letter to Remington.” She raised her eyebrows with a cheeky grin. Evie squeezed her hand once more, and then she was gone.
Evie glanced around as Princess Wertzheim busied herself around her bed. The Infirmary was just as it had been the previous year when she’d first arrived for her memory treatments. There were statues scattered around the floor. Some were in beds of their own. Animals roamed here and there. A donkey lay curled on a pile of straw next to her.
And there she was. A dragon.
“I’ve got a special treatment for you, my dear,” said Wertzheim. She turned and held up a small jar full of a clear liquid, as thick as honey. “We’ve had a lot of experience with burns, as you can imagine. The knights keep us quite busy with that sort of thing. Now, I’ve never treated burns in a throat before, but . . .” She pulled some of the liquid into a syringe, then carefully squeezed it into the back of Evie�
��s mouth. There was a quick, almost unbearable burning sensation as it touched the tender skin inside her throat, but within moments it was gone. And what it left behind was beautiful, cooling relief. “If you apply this three times a day for the next week, your throat should be back to normal before the carriages leave for home.” She put the lid back on the jar and set it on a small wooden table next to Evie’s bed. “There is one thing I must tell you, Cadet. I’m afraid with a burn as bad as yours there is bound to be some adjustment. So even once your throat has recovered, it may feel a bit strange when you talk or breathe or even eat. There won’t be anything wrong with you. It’s just something you’ll have to learn to live with.” She patted Evie’s hand. “Just a bit of scar tissue is all.”
Princess Wertzheim walked away. A soft, small sound came from Evie’s throat. It was laughter. Her sister had told her before she’d left the cave that she would need to develop some scar tissue before she could be a proper dragon. Well, in a very roundabout way, she had done it after all.
She rested her head on the goose-down pillow, thinking back to everything that had happened. But with all the turmoil and danger she’d dealt with that year, her mind kept returning to her father’s letters. He had thought, after losing his wife, that Evie would become his life’s companion. But Countess Hardcastle and the witches had tragically shortened that life. Now it was he who would be her life’s companion. She had his letters, his words, and she would carry them inside her until her dying breath.
She could feel others inside her as well as she lay in her recovery bed. In her darkest hour, in the moment when she was trapped with no way out, it had been her mother who had emerged to save her. Her dragon mother. The mother who had raised her, who had tended her wounds and dried her eyes. And there was more. Although she had tried to betray Evie, it was her sister who had ultimately saved the day by spiriting Cinderella to safety. Her witch sister.
Human father. Dragon mother. Witch sister. It was all family. Perhaps Evie wasn’t made up of pieces of them all, like stones in a basket. Perhaps, instead, they were more like watercolors, each swirled together to form one image. To form Evie.
Her eyes slid to the side, to where King Callahan’s letters sat. All she wanted to do was read them over and over again until she’d memorized them. But that would have to wait. Because the only thing she could do at that moment was to rest and to heal. Soon enough it would be time to board a coach, then to go and find Boy and give him a good hug and a brush, and then ride back to the cave to be with her family. I am different from them, she thought. And I always will be. But we are the same as well.
And if that meant another summer of listening to her sister call her “girl,” well, that would be just fine with her.
Acknowledgments
I’M TEMPTED to just say, “See previous book,” since so many of the people to whom I owe thanks are the same. But there are two in particular who were integral to the writing of this book.
The first is Jennifer Besser, my editor, without whom this book would quite literally not exist. She saw around corners that I couldn’t and realized there was a book where I hadn’t seen one. She is patient and intelligent, and I owe her a debt of gratitude.
The second is Arianne Lewin, my other editor, a woman of great ideas and great speed. I told her it felt like we were Olympic Ping-Pong players, volleying the manuscript back and forth at a ridiculous pace, yet somehow each time it came my way, it was filled with fresh insight and artistry. I owe her, too, a debt of gratitude.
Thanks as well to all of the following: To my agents, Alexandra Machinist, Sally Willcox, Michelle Weiner, JP Evans, and Jon Cassir. To my lawyers, Kimberly Jaime and Debby Klein. To my producers, Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. To Ian Wasseluk for drawing another stellar medieval map. To Antonio Caparo for his superb cover art. To all the copy editors, art directors, marketing people, assistants, and everyone else at Penguin Young Readers who have helped put the whole package together. What a fantastic team.
I would also like to thank all the readers who have continued on to their second year at the Academy, and to the teachers, librarians, parents, friends, and fairy drillsergeants who brought those readers in the first time around.
And an extra special thanks to my wife and daughters, who graciously allow me to be the Basil at the princess table.
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