Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  Sara heaved open the door and quickly shoved it closed behind her. She stood with her back against it, just breathing, before she walked the plush carpet to her and Flissa’s room.

  Flissa sat at her desk, eating off a giant tray that held a platter with great slabs of everything Mitzi and the cooking staff had served. She ate with one hand and held a book with the other, and didn’t even put down her fork when she needed to turn the page.

  “The meal is delicious,” Flissa said. “Katya brought it to me this time. She had to make a tray for Mother. For appearances. I’m not terribly hungry, but it’s wise to eat and keep up our strength.”

  Sara nodded. Usually Primka brought a sack of food to whichever twin didn’t go to a meal. The kitchen was always so crazy around mealtime, it was easy for the bird to flit in and gather things unnoticed. But with Queen Latonya down with her “cold,” it would only make sense that Katya would put together a full royal platter.

  Flissa’s face darkened. “You’re upset, I can see it,” she said. “What happened?”

  Sara told her about Rouen. When she was done, Flissa frowned.

  “It’s possible he’s involved,” she said. “But it’s also possible he’s heard rumors from other Keepers. Maybe he’s not in on it at all. Maybe he’s honestly worried about us.”

  “Or maybe they’re all in it together. All the Keepers,” Sara said.

  Flissa shook her head. “I just can’t believe that. The Keepers of the Light have protected Kaloon for generations. It certainly seems like one of them has turned against us—maybe even a few—but all of them? No.”

  Sara didn’t agree, but she also didn’t want to argue about it. Galric was coming at two in the morning to take them to the Underground and then the Twists, and they had to get ready.

  “You were reading,” Sara said, nodding to the book on Flissa’s desk. “Anything helpful?”

  “A lot, I hope.” Flissa grabbed a small leather-bound book from her desk. “I made a list of things I think we’ll need.”

  A rucksack topped the list, one for each of them, and Flissa had already pulled them out—buckle-down pouches with straps they could wear on their backs. Flissa wanted to bring all her books about the Twists, but that would make the sacks too heavy. She settled on her two favorite volumes, one for each sack. Sara complained that Flissa picked the two heaviest of the bunch, but Flissa said knowledge would be their most powerful ally on the journey, and having it was worth a little extra sweat.

  “Fine,” Sara relented. “Change of clothes? Pajamas?”

  “By the time we leave, we’ll have only around thirty-four hours to get into the Twists, find Gilward, convince him to heal Mother, and come back,” Flissa said solemnly. “I don’t believe we’ll be doing a lot of sleeping or changing.”

  Instead, Flissa thought they should use the rest of the rucksack space for food, but none of the leftovers on Flissa’s massive platter would travel well. “And we shouldn’t bring anything with too strong an odor,” she said. “Nothing that would attract the attention of beasts.”

  “Beasts?” Sara repeated

  “Beasts,” Flissa confirmed. “Both regular and magical. The books describe them in many different ways, but trust that we don’t want to see them if we can avoid it.”

  Sara said she’d take food duty. She waited until just before bedtime, when Princess Flissara might be hungry again after the banquet. She put on her nightgown and robe for appearances, and padded out of the room in her slippers. This time she couldn’t help but stare at the columns along the wall, each embossed with the name of another royal ancestor. The names started even before King Lamar and stretched down far beyond where her parents and she and her sister would someday be.

  Where her parents and Princess Flissara would be. One princess. Whether the Keepers were good or bad, as long as they held sway in Kaloon, the world would never know Sara and Flissa as two individual people.

  Was that even possible? Could they actually keep up the charade the rest of their lives? Sara had tried to bring it up to everyone she could: Flissa, Primka, Katya, her parents. Flissa never wanted to talk about it, and everyone else just told her not to worry, everything would be fine. Her dad always came the closest to a real conversation. Whenever she asked, he said, “Your mother and I have plans.”

  That’s it. He never said what the plans were, and she’d been asking off and on since she’d turned eight—but they had plans.

  Did the plans mean sharing a life forever?

  What if she fell and got a scar on her face? What if one of them got really fat or really skinny? What if they fell in love, or wanted to have kids one day? How would that possibly work?

  Sara had moved to the column with King Lamar’s name on it and absentmindedly ran her fingers over the letters as she thought. When she heard a voice, she yelped out loud.

  “You’re out late, Princess.”

  Rouen stepped out silently from between two columns farther down the row. Sara shut her eyes and cursed herself for not being more careful. “I’m hungry,” she said. “I’m going down to the kitchen for a snack.”

  “No need,” Rouen said. “I’ll save you the trouble. What would you like?”

  Something that won’t get the attention of magical beasts, she thought, but she only answered, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “I’ll bring up a selection,” he said. “In the meantime, you should go back into the Residence. The royal nurse is there with the queen, yes? Katya?”

  Sara frowned. The way he said Katya’s name, it sounded like he wasn’t sure who she was, which was weird. The question had to be a trap. Maybe Katya’s presence this late would tell him how sick the queen really was. If Rouen was one of the Keepers plotting against them, that’s something he’d very much want to know.

  Rouen leaned slightly forward and licked his lips, eager for an answer.

  “I don’t know,” Sara said. “I wasn’t in my parents’ room.”

  “Of course,” Rouen said blandly, though his whole face fell and he rolled heavily back on his heels. “I’ll get you your snacks.”

  He didn’t move, though, and Sara realized he was waiting for her to go back to her room.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Knock when you have them, please.”

  Standing tall and pretending she didn’t feel the weight of Rouen’s beady-eyed stare, Sara carefully strode back down the hall. She slipped into the Residence and leaned against the closed door. She didn’t dare move. When Rouen came back, she wanted to answer right away so he couldn’t count food delivery as a royal invitation to enter. If he did, and he saw her with Flissa, the Keepers wouldn’t need a Dark Magic Uprising to take down the royal family. Grosselor could do it in the name of Kaloonian law.

  Sara ran her fingers over the door’s carvings and counted her breaths until she finally heard Rouen knock. Quickly and carefully, she opened the door just enough to squeeze through, then shut it again behind her—on her robe. She pretended not to notice.

  Rouen stood right in front of her, his arms wrapped around a giant white wicker basket bursting with pink ribbons and flowers and covered by a pink cloth. He looked ridiculous holding it—like a giant canary clutching a baby bassinet.

  “When I told Mitzi the snacks were for you, she went a little overboard,” Rouen said drily. “Would you like me to take some back down?”

  “That’s all right,” she said, stifling a giggle. “I like having choices.”

  Rouen handed her the basket. She tilted heavily as it pulled her to the floor.

  “Need some help?” he offered.

  “No,” Sara snapped. “I’m good, thank you.”

  He didn’t move. He stood and watched as Sara put the basket down and struggled to open the door, which was stuck with her robe caught inside. When it gave, it swung open far too wide, and Sara had a horrible vision of Flissa standing right there, lured by the noise to check on her.

  She wasn’t. The Residence hallway was empty. Sara
picked up the picnic basket and heaved it inside, then kicked the door shut with a satisfying slam. Walking like a drunkard, Sara hauled the massive basket in to Flissa, who took it out of her arms like it was weightless.

  Flissa removed a note from Mitzi and read it aloud. “Enjoy the snicky-snacks!”

  “Awww! She’s so sweet!” Sara said.

  “Really?” Flissa said. “‘Snicky-snacks’?”

  “It’s cute! What’d she get us?”

  Flissa rummaged through the giant basket. She smelled each item, and agonized over what would and wouldn’t be strong enough to attract a ravenous magical beast. In the end, she left all meat, fish, and cheese behind, but plucked out the scones, several tea cakes, three small loaves of hearty bread, and several small jars of butter, nut butter, and preserves. She wrapped the baked goods in two old shawls, one for each of them, and put them into the rucksacks, which they hid under Sara’s bed, beneath a big pile of laundry. They shoved the picked-over basket into the back of Sara’s closet behind some unused canvases.

  “See?” Sara told her sister. “It’s good to be messy. If the whole room was like your side, we couldn’t hide a thing.”

  Flissa rolled her eyes, but Sara knew she’d made her point. By the time Primka arrived to tuck them in, there were no visible signs of their plan at all.

  “Your father wanted to tuck you in himself,” Primka assured them, her voice low as she pulled Flissa’s covers up to her chin, “but he’s with his Guards, searching for Gilward.”

  Sara met Flissa’s eyes, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing. She also knew Flissa would never speak up and say it, so she did. “Primka, Princess Blakely told Flissa she heard a rumor about Gilward. That people saw him riding out of Kaloon.”

  Flustered, Primka fluffed her feathers. For a second, she was twice her normal size.

  “People hear all kinds of things,” Primka said. She wouldn’t meet Sara’s eyes as she pulled up her covers. “Doesn’t make them real.”

  “Katya thought Gilward might have run away to the Twists,” Flissa added. “Do you?”

  Primka busied herself dousing every light except their tiny night-lamp. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t an answer at all.

  “I’m sure the king knows what he’s doing. Don’t give up hope.”

  “We’re not,” Flissa said, with such an edge to her soft voice that Sara immediately looked at Primka, to see if she’d noticed. Either she hadn’t, or she didn’t understand what it meant, because she flitted to each twin and ran her wing gently down a cheek, like she did every night, then fluttered up to the ceiling.

  “I love you both very much,” she said, her voice nearly cracking. “I just want you to know.”

  And then she flew away. Flissa looked stricken and ghostly in the dim glow from their night-lamp.

  “Primka never talks like that,” Flissa said. “She doesn’t believe Father’s going to find Gilward. She doesn’t think Mother’s going to make it.”

  Sara knew Flissa was right. She swallowed the lump in her throat to sound strong for her sister. “He doesn’t have to find Gilward,” she reminded Flissa. “We will.”

  Flissa nodded.

  Now came the hardest part. The waiting.

  Sara hated waiting, and she especially hated waiting when she had to be silent so Primka or Katya wouldn’t come in and try to get them back to bed. Or worse, think they were too upset to sleep and decide to stay in the room with them.

  Sara kept twitching and rolling over. Weird as it was, she was excited. For the first time ever, she was leaving the castle at night. Without a chaperone. With her sister. Just thinking about it made her want to leap for joy—but then she’d remember her mother struggling to live and she’d feel small and guilty and awful.

  Until her imagination took over and her heart started leaping all over again.

  When the clock struck one, Sara jumped out of bed…but got tangled in her covers and thumped to the ground.

  She froze inside her blanket cocoon—had anyone heard?

  She held her breath.

  No one came.

  She felt Flissa kneel silently beside her. She untangled her, then handed Sara the traveling clothes she’d picked out while Sara was at dinner. They’d both wear the exact same thing: their most comfortable silk pants and shirts, plus ankle boots and a traveling cloak. Each cloak had a large hood. It would stop prying eyes from a distance, and if the worst happened and they got caught, Flissa could stay covered and run away. Sara-as-Flissara would get in trouble for being out at night, alone, but their bigger secret would stay under wraps. Flissa had made Sara promise that they would stay hooded at all times, even when they were alone with Galric. Sara thought it was kind of silly. If Galric kept a black cat and knew people in the Underground, it was a pretty safe bet to assume he could be trusted to keep a secret, and he’d already said he agreed with Sara that twins weren’t evil. Still, Flissa worried, so Sara agreed.

  The two changed in the near darkness, then stood very still and waited. When the palace clock chimed fifteen minutes to two, Sara reached out, took Flissa’s hand, and squeezed.

  Time to go.

  They shrugged on their rucksacks, and Sara followed Flissa’s lead. They pushed through their bedroom door and paused, listening for sounds.

  Nothing from the hall to their parents’ room. No footsteps, no flapping of wings. Nothing at all.

  Sara squeezed Flissa’s hand again.

  Flissa moved forward. Slowly, to accommodate Sara’s searching half steps.

  They got to the thick wooden door that separated the Residence from the rest of the castle.

  They had no idea what was on the other side. Rouen could be out there, waiting. Galric could have been mistaken, and the late watch could be out on duty now. Anyone could be in that hall, really, and no matter who it was, if they saw two Princess Flissaras leaving the Residence, Sara and Flissa wouldn’t have to worry about sneaking into the Twists—they’d be thrown there, and they’d never get back out.

  Sara moved ahead of Flissa. She grabbed the metal knob. It felt cool against her palm. She turned it slowly, so slowly, so it wouldn’t make a sound. Then she cracked it open as silently as she could. The second she had enough space, she poked her head through—and choked on her own breath.

  The Royal Guard was so close she could almost lean out and touch him. Sara recognized Abrel right away. He was the king’s most trusted Guard, and extremely powerful—almost as large and strong as the door itself. It was a miracle he hadn’t heard it swing open. She could only imagine it was because he was concentrating so hard on potential threats from outside the Residence, not inside.

  For a second, Sara was surprised Abrel wasn’t off looking for Gilward, but then she realized of course her dad would leave his best Guard to watch his daughters and ailing wife through the night. She felt like an idiot for not thinking about it before.

  Sara felt Flissa tugging on the back of her cloak, looking for answers, but Sara didn’t dare move. If Abrel even turned around, it was all over.

  But how would they ever get past him to meet Galric? And what if they couldn’t get to Galric at all? Would he come looking for them? Sara shuddered, imagining what would happen if Abrel saw Gilward’s son slipping into the hall from a secret passageway.

  Flissa tugged harder on the back of Sara’s cloak. Sara didn’t know if Flissa wanted information, or if she was signaling Sara to go back in and give up, but it didn’t matter. Sara remained perfectly still.

  The palace clock chimed two.

  Sara almost cried out as Flissa yanked harder on her cloak, and she toppled backward. Flissa caught her before she could fall, but when Sara glared at her in the dim light from the hall, she saw the stony determination on Flissa’s face. She also saw Flissa’s locket hanging open, and the coin pressed between two fingers.

  Flissa had a plan, and the coin had told her to move ahead with it.

  Sara stepped aside as Flissa put back her coin
and tucked the locket away, then shrugged off her rucksack and pulled out one of the glass jars of preserves. Swiftly and silently, Flissa pushed the door open a little further, cocked back an arm like she would before throwing a javelin, then hurled her whole body forward, flinging the preserves with all her might before immediately ducking back behind the door.

  Silence…then the faraway sound of breaking glass.

  “Who goes there?” Abrel snapped.

  When no answer came back, Sara heard him race across the hall and pound down the stairs.

  Sara’s jaw literally dropped open. “You threw that all the way over the staircase?!” she whispered.

  “Let’s go,” Flissa whispered back. “Hurry.”

  She pulled her hood over her head, reached out and pulled Sara’s up as well, then grabbed Sara’s arm and ran. She didn’t stop until they were both at King Lamar’s column.

  “It’s like throwing a javelin from one side of the banquet hall to the other!” Sara whisper-hissed once she and Flissa had ducked behind King Lamar’s column. “And you made it over the railing so it smashed downstairs! That’s, like, perfect aim!”

  “Shhh!” Flissa hissed.

  She didn’t care how low Sara kept her voice, the last thing she wanted was to talk. The two of them were out of the Residence. Together. With other people around, and a Guard who could come back any second. She wanted to get out of the hallway. Now.

  She tapped gently on the column, and for the briefest second, she hoped nothing would happen and she and Sara could go back to bed and forget the whole plan.

  Then a panel in the column popped open. Flissa ducked inside, yanked Sara in after her, and pulled the door closed.

  “You brought someone else?!” Galric exploded.

  Flissa and Sara were at the top of a steep spiral stone staircase, and Galric was a few steps down, gaping at the two hooded girls.

  “Shhhh!” Flissa hissed. Then she pointed down the staircase.

  Galric paled, clearly remembering they weren’t alone in the palace. Without another sound, he turned and started down the staircase. Flissa, meanwhile, maneuvered Sara so she was between herself and the wall, and could hold on to both for stability. Even with that, it was a treacherous descent, with spirals so tight even Flissa felt dizzy. Only the dimmest glow from far-apart torches lit the way—just enough light to see how stunningly far they still had to go. Flissa felt Sara’s hand tighten on her arm as they spun down together, and her legs ached in sympathy for Sara’s with each steep step.