by Erin Johnson
Horace sniffed. “I doubt dear Hank’s feelings toward me have softened, but I must admit I’m impressed.” He looked at Hank. “Shocked, really, and I’m never shocked.”
Hank slightly shook his head.
“That you chose Imogen over your father. Didn’t think you had it in you.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, that puts me in the uncomfortable position of having to acknowledge my little sister was right, again.”
Where was he going with this? A tiny little spark of hope began to burn in my core.
“In fact…” Horace examined his fingernails. “I’d be happy to offer Hank a place in the Badlands Army once he’s disowned.” His eyes darted to Francis, who caught the look. The vampire’s dark eyes blazed.
I frowned. What was going on?
Francis drifted forward till he hovered right behind the king’s throne, and tucked the scroll in his jacket. “If your son joined them, that’d be three swallows, united.”
Horace clapped his hands together and let out a whoop. “We’d be unstoppable.”
A muscle in the king’s jaw jumped.
Francis leaned closer. “Assign me to him, so that I may stop him… in case.”
The king’s eyes slid to Hank. They burned with such intensity it was difficult to watch. He gave a jerky nod. “Yes.”
“We’re going to wreak such havoc!” Horace cackled. When had Horace ever cackled? He looked unhinged. Then again, he probably was.
The king growled.
Francis’s eyes widened. “So I’m bound to Hank?”
“Yes!” the king barked. “And take him down if he tries anything.”
Hank stumbled back a few steps as though his father’s words had cut him. “Father.” He shook his head. “Francis?”
I caught Francis wink at Hank and gasped. My head hurt.
“What do you want?” King Roch snarled at Horace.
My brother walked himself and Gunter to the middle of the platform to face the king directly. “I have a few things to say. I think I’ll start at the beginning.” He nodded to himself and adopted a dramatic tone, as though he were telling a fairy tale. “One snowy night in the dead of winter, some amphibious sea monsters, fleeing human trawlers, ravaged the mermaid kingdom and from there thrashed their way to Bijou Mer. The creatures clawed their way out of the sea and through the canals of the city. To save his people, a young King Roch had the ingenious idea to enlarge a portal mirror and lure the monsters through.” He blinked at the king. “Quite clever really.”
The king glared back.
“The only problem was that the portal mirror led directly to the home of a humble, though incredibly talented, portal mirror maker. The pathway had been intended as a way to ship future mirrors the king had commissioned.”
My stomach sank. “No.”
“Oh, yes.” Horace nodded. “The king, knowing that he was trading his people’s safety for the misery of others, sent the monsters straight through to the house where I lived with my baby sister, Imogen, and my father and mother, the mirror maker.”
Hank whirled around. “Imogen.” His wide eyes searched my face.
I had nothing left at this point. Tears poured down my face as I looked at the king. “How could you?”
He sat back down in his throne and ignored me. The king, Hank’s father, had killed my parents and ruined my brother’s life.
“The monsters tore through our town and killed nearly everyone. I hid my sister as best I could, and she was saved by a kindly old woman. I, on the other hand, was captured by a gang and forced to become a child soldier.” His eyes glazed. “The things I saw and did would send nightmares crawling through your skull.” He sniffed. “Anyway, while Imogen and I were surviving, the king, far from realizing the error of what he’d done, considered what an effective strategy this would be against other kingdoms.
“At this point, let us remember, while not openly at war, the kingdoms were far from aligned and the spaces between were wastelands of lawlessness. So the king sent the monsters through mirrors—again and again. He began searching for monsters to set on other kingdoms. And the other kingdoms caught on, and did the same. And soon all four kingdoms, but especially Water and Earth, were warring with each other with weaponized monsters.”
“Why doesn’t anyone know about this?” Madeline L’Orange’s quill continued to fly as it took notes.
“Great question from the journalist.” Horace lifted a finger. “Everywhere the monsters were sent, 99 percent of the inhabitants were killed, leaving very few people who could testify to what they’d seen. And remember, monsters roamed freely at that time, so who was to say they didn’t just wander into town on their own? But the warring grew out of control until the treaty was struck and ended it. The monsters were banished by common agreement to the Badlands and the portal mirrors outlawed. And of course the survivors were systematically silenced. After all, we couldn’t have the people at large realize just how deeply their governments had betrayed them and used them as fodder, could we? Not if we wanted to rebuild stronger and more unified after the great treaty.”
I shook my head at the scope of the thing. It made sense, what he was saying. Junie had been right to keep herself and the other survivors secret—she’d suspected that there was a government conspiracy.
“Do you have proof?” Madeline’s hungry eyes watched Horace. She was onto the story of a lifetime.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Queen Edith scoffed. “This is all nonsense!”
Horace cast a heavy-lidded look at Madeline. “I’ve spent years traveling the kingdoms and collecting testimonies from survivors. I’ve got hundreds of them.”
A slow grin spread across her lips. “You have?”
He lowered his chin. “And I’ve already sent copies to all the major news outlets.”
Her face fell and her quill lowered. “You have?”
He winked. “Don’t worry—I’ll give you exclusive content in just a moment.”
She brightened. Glad someone was enjoying themselves.
Horace clicked his tongue. “Where was I? Right. So the treaty banished the monsters to the Badlands. The location was forgotten and erased from all maps and the portal mirrors were all destroyed so that never again could the kingdoms use monsters to hurt one another.” He tilted his head. “The treaty even made teaching the craft of making portal mirrors illegal. Good thing my mom taught me so much before she was murdered.”
A sharp pain jolted in my stomach. Somehow this made my parents’ death more real—and more infuriating. It hadn’t been some terrible accident, a random monster attack. It had been intentional, heartless. The decision of one corrupt man.
Horace held up a finger. “I need to backtrack. The night our village was attacked, a monster mortally injured me. A young boy and a baby”—he nodded at me—“without shelter, in the middle of a snowy night—we’d have been dead from exposure, even if I’d survived two shattered legs.”
I winced, full of sorrow for the little boy who’d been my proud big brother.
“We’re only here today because of one of the ‘monsters.’ A kind and gentle creature, the swallow, healed us. That was its power, and it changed us forever by changing the nature of our power. Most magic folk generate their own magic and act it on the world. A swallow pulls from an outside source and funnels it through themselves. A swallow can even pour magic into another to heal or change them.” He sneered, his eyes hard. “Care to know what happened to that pure, innocent thing?”
I bit my lip as tears welled in my eyes. I had a feeling I did not. Maple squeezed my hand tight.
Horace continued. “After the treaty, when the monsters, including the swallow, had been sent to the Badlands, the king’s youngest son, a small boy of only two years old, grew very ill.”
I froze. Hank.
“He’d been born sickly and his condition had worsened. Despite all the best resources of a kingdom, no doctor or healer could do anything for him. The king and his wife were beyon
d distraught. For all the king’s faults, he did have a fondness for his children.”
Hank hung his head. “I was that ill? I never knew.”
Horace hauled Gunter up when the old man sagged halfway to the floor. “The king had nearly lost all hope, when he heard a rumor from a certain mercenary he did business with now and then of a child soldier who’d been healed by a monster.” Horace pointed at himself. “So the king decided to search the Badlands for this creature to heal his son, Harry.”
“How?” Inspector Bon looked as surprised as everyone else that he’d spoken. He cleared his throat. “I just meant—all the mirrors have been destroyed.”
“Have they?” Horace lifted his palm and a compact mirror like the one I’d snuck into Carclaustra appeared in his hand. He enlarged it until it stood taller than him and wider. A green light swirled where the reflection should have been. Madeline gaped, Amelia pressed her hand to her chest, and Inspector Bon spluttered.
“That-that’s highly illegal.”
Horace nodded. “Yes. This is one I’ve made recently, but the king kept quite a few of these and used one to go to the Badlands, treaty be damned.”
The king’s face reddened, but still he didn’t speak.
The inspector scoffed. “Preposterous.” But his brow remained furrowed and his expression full of doubt.
Urs glared at the king.
“The king’s men searched and searched—it took a quite a long time and more than a few lives, but on an island full of monsters, they finally found the kind and meek swallow.”
My stomach clenched and something slipped into place in my mind. “Colin!”
Horace grinned as everyone turned to face me. I gulped and looked at Hank. “He pardoned Colin, a deathly ill prisoner, to test the swallow’s powers on. The timeline matches up. He wouldn’t want to risk your life on a rumor, so he found a prisoner with no chance of living and pardoned him. A guinea pig.”
Horace grinned widely, a manic glint in his eyes. “Correct. The kindly swallow had a sense for a person’s character, I think, and it liked Colin, so it healed him. When the king saw Colin go from being in death’s grip to standing tall and healthy, he was astounded. He pushed his son on the creature next, and it healed the innocent babe.” Horace tilted his head at Hank. “But then the king grew greedy. He wanted those immense powers, that virile health and youth. King Roch demanded the swallow ‘heal’ him as well, and when the sweet creature declined, knowing the darkness that lurked in the king’s heart and fearing what he’d do with such limitless power, the king ordered his men to slaughter it. And they did. They killed the swallow—the only swallow.”
I recoiled and raised a trembling hand to my mouth. Somehow it struck me as so much sadder to hurt such an innocent being. Wiley hugged Maple to his side.
“Dad,” Cas, still on his feet, breathed out.
The king slammed his fist into his throne. “It was a dumb animal, you sentimental fools.”
The queen edged away from him. “You told me it had attacked.”
“It was a monster!” he bellowed.
There was no doubt in my mind who the real monster was. With his face red and contorted, his breathing heavy and his fingers curled around his twisted throne like claws, he even looked the part.
“And in case his own admission wasn’t enough”—Horace gave Gunter a little jostle—“I heard the story from a man who heard it from the king himself.”
The queen nodded. “I was there. As soon as little Harry was healed, Roch sent me back through the portal and I had no reason to disobey—I wanted to get back to the palace with my baby.” She shook her head. “You truly killed it?”
The king shot her a violent look and she shrank back.
“The only three living swallows are here in this room.” Horace looked at me, then Hank. “And we are the last three that will ever be. The king left young Colin Row there, along with the soldiers he’d brought, on an island of monsters to die, and returned to Bijou Mer. Couldn’t have any witnesses testifying to the treaty rules he’d broken.”
“You didn’t,” Hank breathed.
“Oh, he did.” Horace nodded. “But lucky for him, Colin was resourceful and had a little help, and he managed to survive. Which was lucky because, as dear Hank grew older and began to develop his powers, the king viewed his son and his limitless power as something of a threat. Here was a boy whose powers were not only out of his own control, but out of his father’s, as well. King Roch likes control. He’s got a vampire who must do his bidding, and sons whose powers depend on his approval. He could disown them if they crossed him. But little Hank—he seemed different.”
My brother turned to Hank and dropped his overly light, dramatic tone. “That’s why he hates you, Prince. He can’t control you.”
Horace turned back to the room at large. “Hank couldn’t even control himself. They needed help. Nothing they tried worked, until the king and queen thought maybe another swallow could help. Out of desperation, the king sent a team back to the Badlands, now five or so years later, and they looked for Colin. He’d managed to survive and they found him and brought him back with the promise of freedom and a life in the kingdoms if he tutored the king’s son. Colin accepted and proved to be a good mentor. He got Hank under control. It worked for quite a few years, but as Hank began to develop into a young man, the king grew threatened again. It wasn’t enough for Hank to have mastered his own powers—the king wanted a guarantee that his son couldn’t turn against him.”
I gasped. “The lab.”
Horace nodded. “Very good.”
I looked at Hank. “He formed that lab in the Air Kingdom to secretly develop something that could control you.”
Hank paled. “Swallow’s mew.”
Horace gave the old man in glasses a little shake. “Care to jump in, Gunter?”
The king stiffened and I suddenly realized why the man looked familiar. I’d seen him before as a younger man in that photograph of the lab.
“Gunter Braun?” Madeline’s eyes widened. “The famous scientist who went missing twenty years ago?”
Horace grinned. “Not missing. Tell them what you’ve been up to, Gunter.”
The old man trembled. I had to crane forward to catch his faint words. “I vas head scientist of za lab. A young man, at za height of mine career. I took za position with za understandink of complete confidentiality, at za expense off prestigious awards and a tenured position at za academy, because off mine thirst for knowledge. Such a thing as a swallow I had never encountered.” He shook his nearly hairless head; age spots speckled his skin. “I liked zat young man, Colin. He volunteered, seemed excited ven I taught heem sings. He vas patient, even zo vee needed him een za lab quite often for testing.”
“That’s why he went with you to the Air Kingdom,” Hank murmured, his eyes on his father.
The king sneered.
The old man turned his sad, cataracted eyes toward Hank. “Vee developed a prototype.”
“The black box.”
Gunter raised his bushy white brows at Hank, surprised. “You know eet? Yes.” His face darkened as he looked to the king. “I told heem not to do eet. But he didn’t listen. He brought hees guarts and zer veapons. He made Colin get into za box and closed za lid. He screamed. And ven he stoppet, zey lifted za lid, and he vas dead.”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
The old man trembled violently. “Za kink saw zat eet vorked, za box deed vat he intended. I swear I never knew zat vas vat hee planned to use eet for. And zen he ordered hees men to kill za whole staff. Zey cut zem down, my colleagues and friends, right een front off me.” Tears poured down the old man’s face. “But he left me. Za kink said zat een case zey needed me een za future, eef hees son got out off hand, zey vanted me alife.” He shuddered. “Zey srew me een Carclaustra. No vone listened to my pleas, I had no trial.” He sobbed. “Thees young man tells me eet has been twenty years. Twenty years.” He buried his face in his speckled hands and cri
ed.
Horace winked at Urs. “Only took a hefty payout to your ol’ boss Bernhardt to get a man locked up for life.” My brother grinned, his eyes hard. “And he’s far from the only one.”
Urs paled.
Horace nodded. “So King Roch killed everyone but you to keep the knowledge of his son’s powers secret and to hide the truth of what he’d done to ol’ Colin Row.” Horace blinked at the king. “Did I forget anything?”
Cas opened his arms wide. “This is outrageous! You can’t tell these lies about the king.” His wild eyes darted around the room and then settled on Roch. “Dad. Tell everyone they’re lying.” His chest heaved and his face slackened. “Dad?”
The king settled back in his throne and stroked his beard. His lips curled back as he looked up and off, his eyes hard. “You small little people.”
The big room grew quiet as I strained to hear his soft words. A few of the soldiers Horace had cut down began to stir.
“Small minds think small thoughts, and you’re all paltry little grains of sand. Nothing.” He slammed his fist into his throne and I jumped. “I’m KING!” He spat as he shouted, his saliva lit up red by the last rays of the setting sun. “You are nothing to judge me, any of you! I’m king! It’s my prerogative to send monsters through to another town—fewer lives lost to save many more, right here, in my city!” He jabbed his finger at the ground.
“But you kept doing it,” Hank ground out. “Over and over again, not as a split-second decision in defense of your people, but as attacks against innocents.”
The king leapt to his feet. “I wasn’t the only one.” He pulled on his beard. “They all did it, all the kingdoms. I was just the first and the cleverest. You have no idea what it’s like to lead a nation, to be on top. Every single person on this planet, hell, even the animals, are clawing and scraping their way up, anything to avoid being dragged down into the muck. To stay on top you have to have the sharpest claws and the strongest bite.” He balled his fists at his sides.
“You killed Imogen and Horace’s parents.” Hank trembled. “You killed an entire lab of thinkers and threw this man into prison.” He gulped. “You killed Colin, my only friend.”
