Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  The king didn’t respond. Mitzi moved toward him, slowly, like a tiger stalking its prey.

  “I had a little sister,” Mitzi said. “A baby sister. Adopted. She was left-handed. We hid that from the Keepers of the Light, because we knew they’d send her to the Twists, even though she wasn’t magic at all. I was, my parents were, but she wasn’t. Still, she had the sign of magic, so she was the one in danger. We tried everything to stop her from using her left hand. We even tied it behind her back for weeks at a time, which was awful, but we did what we had to do. Nothing worked. She’d remember to act right-handed for a little while, but then she’d forget and do what came naturally. When she was six, and that happened at school, her teacher turned her in to the Keepers of the Light. And then she was gone.”

  Mitzi’s voice caught. She looked away for a moment, and Flissa saw her father reach out as if to comfort her.

  “I’m so sorry, Mitzi,” he said gently.

  Mitzi slapped his hand away and glared into his face.

  “I’m not done,” she snapped, her jaw tight. “They sent my sister away, so my parents went to the palace and threw themselves at the mercy of the king and queen, your parents. Do you know what Their Royal Majesties said? They said giving her up was a public service to the safety of Kaloon. And we should be thankful she was adopted and not blood, or the Keepers would have had every right to throw us all into the Twists.”

  Sara reached out and grabbed Flissa’s hand. Flissa squeezed. It was a horrible story. And though Flissa was ashamed of the way her grandparents had acted, she also understood. Before her journey to the Twists, Flissa probably would have agreed that terrible choices had to be made for the safety of Kaloon, and sacrificing one six-year-old for the good of the kingdom might actually be the right choice.

  Yet now, with everything she’d learned…the whole thing was just tragic.

  Their father thought so too. Flissa could tell. His mustache drooped, and his face had gone ashen.

  “I truly am deeply sorry for your loss, Mitzi,” he said. “And I understand you were acting out in revenge. But my parents have long since passed. Don’t make my wife pay for their mistakes. Remove the curse. I’ll do everything I can to make things better for you.”

  Mitzi shook her head. “You can’t. You can’t bring back my sister. Even if you could, even if she’s still alive, you can’t take away her years of suffering. And you can’t bring back my parents, who died trying to sneak into the Twists and save her. You can’t take away my years, all alone, honing my skills and waiting for revenge. All you can do is make them worthwhile.”

  Mitzi was smiling now, an angry smile that added strange angles to her round face. The king betrayed no emotion, but his body tensed, on alert.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said calmly. “But I do understand that nothing can make up for your loss, and—”

  Mitzi strode even closer to the king now. Strangely close. She must have thought he’d take a step back, but Flissa could have told her that her father would never cede his ground.

  “I don’t want you to make up for my loss,” Mitzi said. “I want you to suffer for it. That’s what I wanted twelve years ago, and I worked so hard to put all the pieces together. But I forgot mixed magic is unpredictable. When my curse met Gilward’s, it bounced back on both of us, but I was stronger and it didn’t destroy me the way it did him. Still, it took my powers years to recover fully, and all the while I wondered, ‘Why didn’t it work? How did the princess survive?’ But now I know. Twins.”

  She turned and sneered at Flissa and Sara, spitting the word like a poison dart. Then, impossibly, Mitzi relaxed and smiled. And to Flissa’s horror, the cook plopped down on her parents’ bed, right next to Queen Latonya. Mitzi piled pillows against the headboard and settled back, smiling beatifically.

  The king’s whole body trembled with barely contained rage. His nostrils flared. “Mitzi…”

  “Oh, stop trying to scare me, you big phony,” she trilled. “Until Latonya dies—which should be any minute now—you need me, so I know I’m in no danger. But I do have to rethink my plan. You see, Eddie, I put a lot of thought into this.”

  Mitzi turned on the bed to face him. She sat cross-legged now, hugging a pillow like a giddy schoolgirl. Flissa listened to her, but all she could see was her mother’s wrecked body bouncing helplessly on the mattress with every move Mitzi made. It made her sick.

  “So all those years I was getting stronger,” Mitzi told the king, “I thought about it, and I realized the perfect time to strike again was right before Princess Flissara’s Ascension Day—just like what Maldevon did to King Lamar. Curse the queen, send the princess on a suicide mission to the Twists, leave you a wrecked shell with no heir. But unlike Maldevon, I’d finish the job. After Ascension Day came and went with a dead queen and princess but no ascension, I’d finish you off too. No chance for you to have more kids and continue your royal line, and best of all, a signal to all the mages in the land that we’re stronger than the Keepers, we’re certainly stronger than the royal family, and we deserve to come out of hiding and take back what’s ours.”

  Next to Mitzi, the queen gasped painfully for a ragged breath that tore out Flissa’s heart. Mitzi watched Queen Latonya for a moment, pouting with exaggerated sympathy, then turned back to the king.

  “That’s just about it,” Mitzi said. “I’d get ready if I were you. Once she croaks, I’ll need to get rid of you three right away, so you don’t try anything stupid. Not quite the way I planned it, but it’ll do. And it’ll be nice when I run out and grab your guard to show him the bodies of twin princesses. When word gets out about that, the people will lose their minds.”

  Mitzi giggled jubilantly.

  “Mitzi,” Sara said, and Flissa was surprised to hear her use the same measured tone as their father’s, “it won’t happen that way. If you go get Abrel and show him the entire royal family, dead…he’s gonna know you had something to do with it.”

  “He won’t, though,” Flissa said. “Because we’ll all have green mist coming out of us.”

  Mitzi beamed and pointed at Flissa, “That’s right! And who does everyone think the green mist belongs to? Gilward! He’ll get the blame—again—and I’ll be a poor, sweet, innocent victim, lucky to escape all the violence.”

  “No!” came a strangled cry from behind the tapestry. “Not again!”

  Flissa heard a loud scrape as a stone-carved bust of King Edwin slid off its pedestal and rocketed across the room toward Mitzi’s head, leaving a faint puff of yellow mist in its wake. A second before it smacked into her face, Mitzi pointed a finger at the bust, and in a blur of green mist it disintegrated into dust.

  Mitzi pointed her other hand at the tapestry.

  There was a strangled scream; then Gilward fell forward, coated in swirling green mist.

  “No!” Galric shouted. He sprang out from behind the tapestry and knelt at his father’s side. Mitzi smiled smugly.

  “Good to see you again, Gilward,” she said. “And thanks for all your help over the years. I do so appreciate it.”

  In the blink of an eye, Katya materialized in her chair and lunged like a raging bull toward Mitzi, but Mitzi blithely waved a hand around the room.

  Even before she felt the effects herself, Flissa saw Katya freeze in a puff of green mist, her body tilted perilously forward, caught mid-lunge. Then she heard Sara’s voice plaintively calling her name, but she couldn’t turn to look at her. She couldn’t move at all. Her whole body had frozen solid, even more powerfully than it had under Raya’s spell. She was soldered to the floor, every muscle immobile rock. Only her mouth and eyes could move, and she gazed around the green-hazed room to see them all frozen in place: their father, standing next to the bed, his eyes darting around in confusion and rage; Katya, still lunging for her prey; Primka and Nitpick, peering out from behind the tapestry; Galric, kneeling next to his father; and Sara, on the floor next to Flissa.

  Only Gilward was untouched
by the freezing spell. His body grappled with something much more dire. He coughed dark green mist as he clutched Galric’s frozen hand and looked into his son’s eyes. As Flissa watched in horror, Gilward’s body shrank and withered. He sank from a feeble old man to a dry husk.

  “Dad…” Galric said. “No…”

  Gilward smiled. He touched Galric’s face, and tears pooled in both their eyes. “Don’t be sad, Galric,” he said weakly. “We got to be together again…I’m happy.”

  He coughed again, harder this time. Racking, sandpaper coughs that shook his body, thrashing it up and down…until he went slack. Thick green mist oozed out of his mouth, ears, and blank, staring eyes.

  “No!” Galric cried. “No!”

  “That’s the last person you’ll hurt, Mitzi,” Katya said in clench-jawed fury. Her face was bright red, and Flissa was sure she was using all her strength to try to break the cook’s curse. “You’re saving Queen Latonya.”

  Mitzi rolled off the bed and touched Katya lightly on the nose, enjoying the nurse’s complete impotence in the face of her power. “I’m not,” she said. “And honestly, while this has been all kinds of fun, I’m done. And that means all of you are too. First things first”—Mitzi turned to the king and winked—“you get to watch your daughters die.”

  The king shouted so loudly that for a second Flissa was surprised Abrel didn’t run in. Then she remembered the walls were soundproof to make sure the king had his privacy. Probably for the best, Flissa supposed. If he had run in, Abrel would only end up locked in Mitzi’s spell, just like the rest of them.

  Mitzi swaggered toward her and Sara, smiling with deep satisfaction. “It really is more satisfying knowing you’re twins,” she said.

  Mitzi cocked back her arms, and in that split second, Flissa saw it all: the green mist enveloping her and Sara, withering them like their mother and Gilward, sucking away their lives. She should have been terrified, she knew, but she wasn’t. She was angry. She was furious, and not just at Mitzi, but at Grosselor, and the Keepers, and everything that had twisted Kaloon into a place where everyone was so scared that they did what they were told, and didn’t think about the cost.

  Flissa glanced at Sara. If she was going to die, she wanted her sister’s face to be the last thing she saw.

  Sara was looking at her too.

  The second their eyes met, Flissa saw it: pink. The pink they’d seen when the Keepers looked in Dorinda’s boxes. The pink shield that hid them all from sight.

  The pink shield that she and Sara had created.

  Flissa saw the recognition in Sara’s eyes and knew that she remembered it too.

  Flissa’s heart thumped faster. “Fight it!” she cried to Sara. “Fight her curse!”

  Even as she said it, Flissa herself strained with everything in her against the curse that had frozen her solid. She felt the temperature rise, felt her whole body break out in sweat and start to tremble. And from the corner of her eye she saw Mitzi thrust her hands forward. In her last second, Flissa strained even harder, forcing herself to fight, to pull, to move…

  …until the spell snapped away, and Flissa rocketed into Sara’s arms. They hugged each other as tightly as they could.

  A pink bubble exploded from their embrace and circled their bodies. Clinging to Sara with all her might, Flissa looked through it, out at the room. Everything had that same pink tinge she’d seen before, except for one spot, where a green mist pooled against the dome. As if in slow motion, Flissa saw the mist gather and swirl, getting darker and thicker, until it bounced and slammed back into Mitzi with so much force it threw her across the room.

  The pink shield disappeared. Flissa was still holding Sara, but now she pulled away to look at her sister. Sara’s face was flushed, her eyes wide and frightened…but she was smiling.

  “We did that?” Sara asked. “We made that happen?”

  Flissa nodded. “Second time,” she said, her voice shaky. “No way to deny it, I guess. We definitely have magic.”

  “Yeah, we do.” Sara grinned wider. Flissa couldn’t return it. She felt woozy and wanted to lie down. Then she heard an ancient moan.

  “Mitzi,” Sara said. They glanced over and saw the cook crumpled against a far wall, not far from where Galric crouched, still frozen next to Gilward.

  “It’s like she said,” Galric noted dully. “Mixed magic is unpredictable. Whatever you did, her curse bounced off it and back onto her. Just like she did to my dad. Look.”

  Flissa and Sara moved toward Mitzi and watched, amazed, as her beautiful blond curls receded into stringy white strands. Her skin wrinkled and sprouted thick webs of veins. Her cheeks sank. When she blinked her eyes open, they were rheumy and yellow.

  “What have you done to me?” she croaked.

  “It’s what you did to yourself,” Sara said.

  “And now you’re going to do something else,” Flissa said. “You’re going to undo your curse and heal our mother. Then take your curses off everyone else in this room.”

  Crackling laughter wheezed out of Mitzi’s throat. “Why would I do that?”

  She thrust out her hands to cast a fresh curse, but only the tiniest wisps of green smoke appeared at her fingertips. Sara blew them away like dandelion fluff.

  “You’re weak now,” Flissa said. “Withered and weak. So you have a choice. You’ll remove the curses and live out your days comfortably, under guard in a home on the outskirts of Kaloon, or you’ll spend your miserable life in the worst prison you can imagine.”

  “Ooh!” Sara piped up. “Like the Forever Flames under the castle. That’ll be super comfortable for you. ‘Torment of eternal fire,’ right, Flissa?”

  Flissa couldn’t help but smile a little. “Exactly.”

  Mitzi’s wet, yellowed eyes glowered at them. “What if I don’t do it? What if I let your mother die and keep you all frozen so you can suffer?”

  “Then we will suffer,” the king said, and Flissa was amazed by the strength and control in his voice. “But I promise, you will suffer just as badly.”

  Mitzi looked his way, then cringed back from what she saw in his eyes. She nodded slightly; then Flissa and Sara helped her to her feet and led her to the bed. As they shuffled to Queen Latonya’s side, Flissa heard Galric whisper to Katya, “Can she even do it? She’s so weak, she couldn’t even cast a spell.”

  “She can,” Katya replied. “Undoing your own curse is the easiest kind of magic. A mage could do it on her deathbed.”

  Flissa and Sara moved Mitzi as close to the bed as possible so she could lean and let the side of the mattress support her lower body. Mitzi sighed, then placed her hands on their mother’s withered temples. She stood there for a moment, matching her own breathing pattern to the queen’s.

  At first, Flissa saw only the tiniest trickle of green mist. It seeped from her mother’s nose, dissipating into the air. But as Mitzi held the queen’s head, the trickle turned into a deluge. Green mist poured from her body in torrents, as if the curse were racing itself to get away from her. As everyone watched, the queen’s hair grew back, thick and beautiful. Her body and face filled out. Color returned to her cheeks. And then finally, she bolted upright and coughed…and the last wisp of mist floated away.

  Queen Latonya sat up for just a moment, shock and confusion fighting for dominance on her face. Then her eyes rolled back and she fell against her pillows.

  “What did you do?!” roared the king. “Latonya!”

  “It’s fine, Edwin,” Katya said gently, and Flissa saw their nurse’s whole face had relaxed and happy tears pooled in her eyes. “She’s fine. Her body’s a little overwhelmed, that’s all. She’ll wake up in a bit.”

  “Now everyone else,” Sara told Mitzi.

  The cook rolled her yellowed eyes, but she moved her arm in a wide swoop.

  The freezing curse was obviously far less powerful than the curse on the queen. Immediately, puffs of green mist rose from the king, Katya, Galric, Nitpick, and Primka and they could all move
again.

  “Him now,” Galric said, his hand on Gilward’s shoulder. “Take back what you did to him.”

  Katya knelt down next to Galric and put her arm around him. “She can’t. He’s already gone. It’s too late.”

  Galric didn’t want to believe it. He shook his head, and the tears rolled down his cheeks. Then Katya pulled him into her arms and held him close.

  Flissa could tell Sara wanted to go to him, but there was something she had to do first. Flissa had always loved feeling like she and Sara were two halves of a whole, each one making up for the other’s imperfections…but maybe it was time for each of them to stand on her own. She took a deep breath.

  “You should take your curse off us too,” she told Mitzi.

  Sara looked at her, surprised. “Really?”

  Flissa nodded. Sara smiled gratefully and took her hand.

  “Flissa’s right,” Sara agreed. “We’re ready.”

  Mitzi scrunched her brows. “For what?” she scoffed. “My curse was meant to kill you, and if you’d been one baby, it would have. Instead you shared it and you lived. Whatever else it did to you, I didn’t ask for it to happen, and I can’t take it away. If you don’t like who you are, that’s on you.”

  It was the exact opposite of what Katya had told them, but it was also kind of the same. She and Sara were opposites in a lot of ways, and they did fill in each other’s spaces like a puzzle…but for the first time, Flissa understood they were also perfectly complete just the way they were.

  Flissa grinned. She squeezed Sara’s hand, then let it go.

  “Thank you, Mitzi,” Flissa said brightly. “You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  In bed, their mother moaned a little and rolled over in her sleep. The king rushed to her side.

  “She’ll be up soon,” Katya said. “I think we should clear the room. Don’t want to disturb her.” She squeezed Galric’s shoulder and nodded toward Gilward as she added gently. “Go with Primka, Galric. I promise I won’t leave him behind.”

  Galric took a deep breath and nodded, then sat in the armchair. Nitpick hopped onto his lap and Primka lit on his shoulder. The songbird shut her eyes, and Flissa saw them flip away to Katya’s house. Katya gave them a second to get out of the chair on the other side, then scooped Mitzi under one arm and Gilward under the other, before plopping down with them. An instant later, they were gone.