Rose and the Lost Princess

by Holly Webb

  “Gus isn’t human,” Freddie argued, and Gus made a strange noise, half spit, half snarl. “Oh, all right, mortal. He’s more than half magic already, Rose. It makes a big difference. If you use glamours too much, your humanity—felinity, then,” he added as Gus’s eyes sparked red, “it seeps away, and the magic leaks in to take its place.” He sighed. “I’m not saying don’t do it. I just mean be careful.”

  Rose nodded. “I will. Although seeing as I don’t know what the spell is and I don’t have any idea how it works, I don’t see how I can help it if it leaks magic into me.”

  “Even knowing about it will help,” Mr. Fountain promised. “Freddie was right to tell you. Some things I forget. The odd glamour, here and there, it all adds up. Who knows how much human I have left?” He laughed rather strangely, and everyone shivered. The king stared at him and unconsciously shuffled further back on the window seat, holding Princess Charlotte tighter.

  Rose glanced at her master under her eyelashes. He seemed perfectly human to her. But then, supposing that was all just a glamour! What was he underneath? She stuffed the back of her hand into her mouth to stop herself squealing. She was being stupid. She’d seen glamours before, on Miss Sparrow, and she’d seen through them too, spotting the inconsistencies far better than Freddie could. Although, she had thought before that perhaps Mr. Fountain was rather good at them…

  Rose shook herself. If the master were covered in glamours, surely he’d bewitch his mustache so he didn’t have to sleep with it in a net and wax it with bear’s grease every morning? And wasn’t obsession with one’s appearance a very human thing? A mostly magical creature wouldn’t care if its mustache weren’t perfectly pointy.

  Besides, Rose didn’t want to be Talish. She had nothing against the Talish particularly, although Bill swore they ate dormice, which seemed both cruel and unsanitary, but she liked being English, and eating porridge and kippers instead. If the peace efforts failed, and they went back to being at war with Talis, it was possible that they might lose—especially if the glorious power of the Royal Navy was disheartened by the loss of its princess. This spell was for the safety of the nation.

  It was rather exciting when one thought of it like that.

  “Help me with the spell,” she asked, standing up with Gus in her arms. He gave a little mew of pleasure and excitement, and scrabbled his way onto her shoulders, coiling himself around so that his tail stroked one cheek and his whiskers the other. Rose shivered as she felt his magic surround her. It had never been so clear before, tiny pinpricks of magical dust falling and flickering into her skin. She could see Gus’s luxuriant, powder-puff fur out of the corners of her eyes, and she suppressed a giggle. He might be a common tabby alley cat under all the magic. She would probably never know.

  Freddie took her hands, still looking anxious, and she felt his magic pour into her skin, heating up her blood so that it raced around her body in a torrent of power and excitement. Rose bit her lip, not quite hard enough to draw that overheated blood out but close. She must keep herself under control. They hadn’t even started the spell, and already she felt seduced by all that magic moving under her skin. She wondered if Mr. Fountain felt like this all the time, if perhaps she would when she was older and came into her full power. It made her all the more determined to make this work. She wanted to win, so that things could carry on as they were. So that she could grow up and learn to feel like this all the time.

  Mr. Fountain began to whisper the spell—at least, it sounded like a whisper, but whispering was soft and quiet and gentle, and this noise was only as gentle as the tides, lapping against a beach, washing away the sand, eating through bare rock. It was a voice of true power, using all her master’s magic and Freddie’s and her own, with Gus’s strange cat strength anchoring it all around Rose, as his body surrounded hers.

  Be the princess. In looks, in thought, in word, indeed. In looks, in thought, in word, indeed.

  “Indeed,” Freddie hissed.

  Gus purred the word so that it buzzed through Rose’s ears and seemed to echo round her skull. “Indeed…”

  “Indeed,” Rose added at last, completing the spell with her agreement and feeling her own flesh shudder and change.

  Thirteen

  Rose looked down at her own hands, and they weren’t hers anymore. Her hands were small and bony, and the nails were cut short. There were rough bits round her knuckles from scrubbing coal dust away after laying the fires, and she had a scar from slicing the side of her left hand with a knife back in the kitchen at St. Bridget’s, a long time ago.

  These hands were even smaller, with long, delicate fingers and prettily kept nails, trimmed round and polished with a silken cloth by Lady Alice every morning. Princesses never nibbled their nails. The skin was white and soft, and a faint fragrance of roses came from the scented oil that was rubbed into the princess’s skin.

  It made Rose feel slightly sick.

  “Go and look,” Freddie said quietly. His face was serious and rather scared. He nodded toward a pretty filigree mirror that lay on a side table, its handle inlaid with turquoises and enameled with a J. “It’s yours now,” he whispered after her, and Rose turned around to glare at him.

  “I’m not her! Don’t you forget who I am, Frederick Paxton.” Her voice sounded aristocratic. Royal. Not hers.

  “You have to be her,” Gus hissed in her ear, making Rose jump. She had forgotten for a moment that he was riding on her shoulders.

  “But I’m me!” Rose protested, as she picked up the mirror. Then she looked into it and gulped. She wasn’t her. She was a pretty, rather hard-faced little girl, with very smooth, light hair and pale eyes. At the moment, the girl looked worried, which was an unfamiliar expression on that face.

  “If you think that, you’ll be found out,” the cat told her sternly, jumping from her shoulders back to the window seat and gently nosing at the king, who seemed frozen by the sight of Rose. “Jane has been learning to be a princess for almost eight years. We have about ten minutes before we’ll have to tell everyone that you’ve been found.”

  “Won’t I know how to be her?” Rose faltered. “Doesn’t the glamour do that?”

  “Only a little,” Freddie explained. “A lot of it is just acting.”

  “Oh…” Rose laid the mirror back down and walked slowly round the room, trying to feel like a princess. She picked up one of the dollhouse dolls that had been left lying on the floor and put it back into the house, setting it on a tiny silken sofa and arranging its twisted limbs in a delicate pose.

  “Well, don’t do that for a start!” Gus snapped.

  “Princesses do not tidy up. They have people like you to do that.”

  “Yes…” Rose shut the dollhouse’s front distractedly and nodded. What did Jane do? She had lessons, and she played. She was rather like a doll herself, with all the dressing and undressing, and polishing and brushing. “I suppose if I’ve just been kidnapped again, that might give me a little leeway, don’t you think? I could be rather confused? Won’t that give me an excuse for anything I do wrong?”

  King Albert blinked his way out of a stupor, stuck staring at this witch child, and nodded. “Yes. Jane was confused when it happened last time.” He shook his head, clearly trying not to think what might be happening to his real daughter right now. “You look so like her,” he whispered sadly, his voice cracking.

  “Jane!” Unnoticed, little Princess Charlotte had woken up and was stretching out her arms to her sister. “They said you’d gone again, Jane, but I knew you wouldn’t, because you didn’t like it last time. You said so.”

  Everyone flinched.

  Princess Charlotte slid down from her father’s lap and went to Rose, who was staring at her rather as one would look at a snake. Rose stopped herself from stepping back and returned Charlotte’s hug when the little girl put her arms out. She had been holding her before, so why did it feel
so wrong now? She gave Freddie and Gus an agonized look, and the cat jumped down from the window seat to brush lovingly against Charlotte’s legs.

  Charlotte chuckled. “Oh, he’s pretty.” But she gave Rose a strange look as she bent down to stroke Gus. She seemed to know something wasn’t quite right.

  The king stood up and touched Charlotte gently on the cheek. He looked at Rose and tried to do the same to her, lifting his hand, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch her. “Frederick, please explain to the princess’s ladies that she has returned, though we are not sure how. Tell them that your master is trying to find out what has happened, and they should attend upon Her Highness in her bedchamber in a little while, when she has had time to recover herself.”

  “What do I do now?” Rose asked, reaching out to touch his arm as he made for the door, but she didn’t quite dare to grab his sleeve and he hurried away. Rose sighed and dropped onto the window seat. “I suppose I recover myself, whatever that means.”

  Freddie came back in and stood staring at her, as though she was absolutely fascinating. “Stop it,” Rose snapped.

  “That’s better,” Gus told her approvingly. “Much more royal.”

  “Sorry,” Freddie murmured. “You look just like her. It’s uncanny.”

  “I’m meant to!” Rose said crossly. “That was the whole point.”

  Princess Charlotte, meanwhile, had vanished back into her own bedchamber, which opened off the drawing room like her sister’s. She came back carrying a large book hugged to her front and looking hopeful. “Jane, will you read me a story? Please?” She gazed at what she thought was her sister and frowned again, just a little.

  “Freddie, come and help me search,” Mr. Fountain called. He was examining the carpet on his knees with a monocle.

  “What is that man doing?” Princess Charlotte asked, her eyes wide.

  “He’s looking for magic,” Rose told her, trying to sound like a big sister. “To see if he can find who it was who cast the spell that took me.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Rose sighed. “I honestly don’t know.” It was true after all. “Let’s go and read this book.”

  “Oh, yes. It’s your favorite,” Charlotte promised. “Can the lovely cat come too?”

  Gus twitched his whiskers graciously and led the way into Princess Jane’s room. They settled themselves on Jane’s bed, the silken sails forming a tent all around them that felt safe and warm. Rose looked out of the corner of her eye at her own bed, just visible through the door, and wished she was back in it, fast asleep.

  The book was a treasury of fairy tales, hand-colored and ornamented with gold leaf around the capitals. Rose couldn’t help stroking it admiringly, until Charlotte pulled at her sleeve. “Read it! Please,” she added, as an afterthought.

  Rose embarked on the tale of the Frog Prince, although she was rather distracted from the story and kept losing her place.

  They got as far as the princess allowing the frog into the palace and grudgingly allowing him to eat from her golden plate, which Princess Charlotte pronounced disgusting. Then she looked up at Rose, staring sternly into her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked. She was quite polite but obviously determined to have a proper answer.

  Rose looked down at her, open-mouthed, and even Gus laid his ears back.

  “You aren’t my sister,” Charlotte stated firmly. “She never does voices when she reads out loud, and she hates this book. She says the stories are all boring and stupid and wrong, and she won’t read it ever, ever again. But you didn’t even complain when I gave it to you.”

  “Tell her,” Gus said grimly.

  Princess Charlotte gasped. She had been asleep when Gus was talking before, and now her eyes opened wide and she gazed at him in wondering admiration. “Oh, a talking cat!”

  Gus rolled his eyes irritably.

  “You’re right,” Rose told her. “I’m just under a spell to look like Jane. Because she has to go to this big dinner tomorrow, and it would be awful for the country if she missed it.”

  “But where is she?” Charlotte asked. She was still looking at Gus, not Rose, but there was a note in her voice that suggested she very much wanted the answer to this question.

  Rose took a deep, careful breath. She didn’t want a screaming four-year-old, although an argument might be the best way to convince everyone that she and Charlotte were really sisters.

  “She was taken by a spell. That’s why Mr. Fountain is in the drawing room. He’s trying to work out who did it.”

  “And you’re really Jane’s new maid, aren’t you?” Charlotte pointed out smugly.

  Rose nodded. “I’m actually Mr. Fountain’s apprentice.”

  “Oh, I see. So that’s why you have a magical cat.” Charlotte nodded to herself, pleased to have this mystery solved. She placed a little white hand on Rose’s slightly larger white hand. “Mr. Fountain is very clever, isn’t he? He will find Jane, won’t he?”

  “I hope so,” Rose muttered. Then she added, trying to sound more confident, “Oh, yes, I’m sure he will.”

  Charlotte leaned back against her supposed sister’s shoulder again and pointed to the book. “You were here,” she said firmly.

  Rose gave a little gasping laugh and carried on reading. It was a beautiful story and funny, and keen to distract the little princess and herself, she let her mind wander among the wonderful pictures, until Gus hissed a warning in her ear, and Princess Charlotte cried out delightedly.

  “Oh no, don’t stop it! Look, he’s going to turn into the prince! The book never did that before.” She wriggled closer, so that her nose was practically touching the page, and Rose watched in horror as the frog in the painted illustration stretched and grew and turned into a rather beautiful young man with no clothes on and a discreetly positioned hot water bottle. The princess in the picture looked very shocked and so was Rose, but Princess Charlotte laughed and laughed. “I can see his bottom!” she giggled, obviously finding this hysterically funny.

  Gus put one plump white paw over the offending part and ran the claws of the other paw into Rose’s arm, but only a little way. “Be careful!” he hissed crossly.

  “How did it do that?” Rose murmured, hardly noticing. “I don’t even know this story. I didn’t tell it to do that!”

  “So I should hope,” Gus sniffed disapprovingly. “I should think the artist who painted it knew the tale though, and perhaps others have read the book and thought about things they shouldn’t have. You just—er—brought them out, shall we say…”

  A frog who turned back into a prince probably wouldn’t have any clothes on, Rose admitted, trying not to look at her embarrassing magic. Then she shook herself crossly, stared hard at the thick, smooth paper, and scowled. A large and rather too modern wardrobe appeared at the back of the picture (Rose was in too much of a hurry to think about accuracy here), the painted princess threw her dressing gown at the frog prince (who still had very pale green skin, Rose noted interestedly) and he shrugged it on and bolted for the wardrobe, pulling out a horrible, gaudy outfit in a garish shade of green (which was Rose’s revenge). He glared at her out of the page but put it on obediently.

  “Yes, he should wear green always, to remind him of being a frog.” Princess Charlotte nodded approvingly. “Can he have a hat, please?”

  The prince plucked a hat with a long acid-green feather from one of the bedposts and put it on, bowing to both princesses. Then the book shut, all by itself, with a snap.

  “That was the best story I’ve ever heard.” Princess Charlotte sighed with satisfaction.

  “Your Highness!” Lady Alice came running into the room—or would have done if she had ever done anything as unladylike as run. “What happened? Where did you go?”

  Rose looked frantically at Gus, who shrugged elegantly and most unhelpfully, and shook his shimmery whiskers.

>   “I don’t know. I can’t remember. It was all misty…” Rose hoped that this bore some relation to what Princess Jane had said about the last time; she had never dared to ask her.

  Lady Alice was distracted anyway, as she had noticed Gus nestling on the princess’s pillow. “Where did that animal come from?” she asked in a shocked voice. She was very much the queen’s creature and disliked cats on principle.

  The fur stood up on Gus’s back, and his eyes darkened to indigo and amber. Rose could feel him vibrating with fury, and she spoke quickly. “Oh, he is a present from Mr. Fountain, Lady Alice! As an apology, because that strange girl, Rose, whom he recommended to Papa has had to leave. Some problem with her—with her family.” It was hard to say that, but it sounded right, and she knew that Lady Alice had had her suspicions of the unknown servant-companion that had been foisted on her princess.

  “Oh, really!” Lady Alice’s eyes brightened at the news. “Well, that is quite typical. She seemed a most unreliable girl. I always said so.”

  Rose smiled. As she remembered it, Lady Alice had been quite happy to shuffle off some of her duties onto the unreliable girl, but she nodded anyway. “And now we have this dear cat instead.” She made her voice very firm. No one was going to suggest taking Gus away.

  Gus settled his fur back down but glared at Lady Alice, his tail twitching slightly.

  “Well, of course, if Your Highness is fond of him…” the lady-in-waiting murmured doubtfully.

  “Very fond. I find him quite delightful, and I shall be keeping him,” Rose said airily, trying to sound like Jane at her most regal.

  Flattery always worked on Gus, and he preened himself happily, purring at Lady Alice, who gave a thin smile. “Dear little kitty…” she said in a most unconvincing voice, and Rose tried very hard not to laugh. How on earth did Jane manage it? Perhaps she didn’t find all this as funny as Rose did—or perhaps she just didn’t know any different.

  ***

  Luckily, being kidnapped by magic meant that everyone was very sympathetic to Rose, and no one made her do lessons for the next two days, which was fortunate, as Princess Jane was extremely accomplished and knew all sorts of tricky dates. Rose had inquired of Gus whether he and Freddie could make her fluent in Talish to cope with Jane’s terrifying governess, Miss Plaidy. (She was Scottish. No one wanted the princess to have an actual Talish governess, as it would be politically rather difficult, but knowledge of Talish was seen as very important, particularly when one didn’t trust the Talish one inch.) Gus had yawned and said, somewhat unconvincingly, that he wished he could help, but magic didn’t really work like that, as it was regarded as cheating. Some things had to be done by proper hard work. Rose wasn’t sure if this was true or if he just wanted to keep her busy. But by looking pale and occasionally staring into the distance (usually because she was trying to work out what Jane would have said or done), Rose managed to make everyone think she was feeling delicate. The ladies-in-waiting reacted to this by not letting her lift so much as a teacup and fanning her every so often. It was so important that Jane was well and in good looks for the banquet that Rose was allowed to spend two days mostly on a sofa with her eyes closed, which was perfect, because she could manage to look like Jane, but behaving like her was full of pitfalls.