Misfit Princess

by Nadia Jacques

She had finally convinced William, who was fourteen and didn’t have much time to play with either of his kid sisters, to play goblins with her. Grace had been making what she thought was an inspired argument about how she should get to be a fungus monster when Petra had arrived and asked, eyes big and pretty dress sparkling in the sun, and asked if she could play too. `

  “You could be a slime monster,” Grace had offered generously. Being a slime monster was even better than being a fungus monster, because you got to drape weeds all over yourself and slime attack whoever had to play the goblin.

  Instead of rushing off to gather mud and slime, Petra’s eyes had grown even bigger and brimmed with tears. “I don’t want to be a monster!”

  “But--” Grace had begun, before William put his big hand on his shoulder to cut her off.

  They had ended up having a tea party in the courtyard of the manse. To make up for it, William had allowed Grace to make an enormous mud pie, and Grace happily frosted it with the greenest algae she could find and brought it back on one of tea set plates. She served it with aplomb, putting it exactly in the middle of the place settings Petra had painstakingly laid out.

  She hadn’t meant for it to splatter all over Petra, but it had anyway.

  Petra had begun to wail, scrubbing at the mud stains with a handkerchief.

  “What did I do?” Grace had asked William before throwing up her hands and stalking off in a huff.

  Later on, Petra had come with an apology and a bunch of Petra's favorite flowers in a move of what turned out to be precocious diplomacy.

  Grace had accidentally trodden on the flowers before she got them home.

  She had put them in a vase anyway. That was the last time she had managed to stay angry with Petra.

  Slipping back into her room, Grace found Derrick gone and Alex fastening off the drawstring of her pack.

  “Leaving again?” she asked, stricken.

  Alex looked guilty. “It’s the job.”

  “But you just got here.” Reaching out, Grace tugged Alex’s hands away from her pack. “You can’t stay?”

  Flushing, Alex said, “Actually, I shouldn’t have come in the first place.”

  Grace drew away, horrified.

  Alex took a hasty step in, gripped Grace’s arms above the elbow. “I just mean that there wasn’t quite enough time between jobs to make the detour. But-- I wanted to see you.”

  Ducking her head, Grace said, “Well, it was good timing. I don’t know how I would have gotten out of that yesterday.”

  “Don’t remind me. I don’t like leaving you here with no one watching your back.” Sighing, Alex picked her bag back up and hitched it over her shoulder.

  Grace bristled. “I’ve handled myself for a long time now.”

  “Have you ever had people out for your blood before?”

  “I don’t think they want me dead. If they wanted me dead, they would have brought weapons,” Grace said in her best practical voice.

  “For some reason I don’t find that comforting.”

  “I can handle myself,” Grace said again. She didn’t know who she was trying to convince.

  “Stay alive, Princess,” said Alex. “So I can come back to you, no matter where you are.”

  “Will there be a time when you don’t have to leave?” Grace covered her mouth with her hands in horror after the words tumbled out without any intervention from her brain, but the damage had been done.

  “We can’t be glued together forever,” murmured Alex, like she was trying to laugh it off and half like she wouldn’t mind the idea.

  Grace shook her head very hard to clear it. “If you can, find out where Smithson mining is selling its metals. Production has gone up, but we haven’t seen any of it south of Arrosa,” she said. That was safe, safer than trying to talk about emotions.

  Alex’s carefully bland expression became intrigued. “Really? You’re tangling with some dangerous people, Grace, if that’s where you’re looking. They have a reputation for being ruthless in business.”

  Thinking out loud, Grace said, “I could break into the state building and to see if they’ve won any big contracts.”

  “That doesn’t help you stay alive.”

  “No, but it gets me answers. If people are going to beat me up anyway, I might as well make it worth it.”

  Alex dropped her bag on the bed. “I’m going with you.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Right now.” She drew open her pack and rummaged. “Get changed.”

  A wad of cloth hit Grace mid-forehead, and Grace caught it before it hit the floor. She unfurled it. “Won’t they see us if we go now?”

  Halfway into a black bodysuit, Alex looked up. A smile stretched broad across her face. “Of course they will. We’re going through the front door.”

  Chapter 12

  An hour later, they were on the streets. Alex had twisted Grace’s hair into a style that felt funny on her head and applied enough cosmetics that Grace barely recognized herself in the mirror. They’d both dressed in black draped in colorful scarves-- electric blue for Alex and a sunny yellow for Grace.

  The clothes felt too tight. Grace had to force herself to stop tugging the scarves as they rustled in the breeze.

  “Someone’s probably seen you before,” Alex said, voice low as they crossed the street. “Don’t talk and stay behind me.”

  “They haven’t seen you?” Grace asked, skeptical.

  “Maybe.” Alex shrugged. “Not like this, though.”

  On Alex, the bodysuit turned a practical build into lush curves. The bright scarves drew the eyes to broad hips Alex had padded with some of Grace’s terrible towels. Grace could understand why Alex thought eyes might not linger on her face.

  The metal-adorned edifice loomed in front of them. Grace could feel her pulse in her throat. She focused her attention on calming her breathing, on the building before them, so it caught her off guard when Alex wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her. Every thought fled from Grace’s mind as the length of Alex’s body pressed against her.

  When Alex let her up, Grace hissed, “What are you--”

  “Shhh.” Alex tugged on Grace’s wrist, and Grace stumbled after her, head reeling.

  Distracted, Grace barely noticed as they stepped into the company of a tour group approaching the building. A pair of bored security staff waved them through the doors in the middle of a throng of people all dressed like them.

  Once they were inside, Alex rubbed her fingertips lightly along the nape of Grace’s neck. “You looked nervous, honey. Feeling better?”

  A chill ran down Grace’s spine that was entirely inappropriate for the situation. “Much better,” she said, without a shred of sincerity. It would be better when they were out of there, preferably with the information they’d come to get.

  Her palms itched as they walked along. Grace knew the halls they toured from half a dozen visits to the building. She’d heard the story of fisherman’s ghost probably twenty times, the first when she’d been six and Dylan had been trying to frighten her. But she was meant to be blending in, which in turn meant she needed to pay attention. She swallowed hard and focused on every word the guide said.

  Alex took her arm and pulled her gently away from the group down a carpeted hallway.

  In the vault, wooden drawers held documents organized by year, and then by category. The wood here was dark and imported, a signal of the wealth and power of the government. A ladder perched in the corner for access to the higher drawers. Wooden signs with numerals emblazoned upon them labeled the drawers.

  Grace went immediately to the newest documents. The drawer slid out from the wall on metal bearings. Scrupulous organization made it easy to find the contracts procuring metal. With the stress of being somewhere she shouldn’t be fresh in her mind and bruises still tender on her arms, each second felt like a risk. It took long minutes to skim the documents, and more to re-read them when she couldn’t see anything that looked out of the ordinary.<
br />
  “Did you find anything?” she asked Alex, who had climbed up the ladder to look at the archives from prior years.

  Alex skipped the last few ladder rungs as she dropped to the carpet. Padding over to Grace, she offered a sheaf of contracts. “Not unless what you’ve got is a lot different from this.”

  Grace compared what Alex had handed her to the documents she’d found herself. She shook her head and handed them back.

  “So it’s not officially sanctioned, whatever it is,” said Grace as Alex re-filed the contracts. She straightened the papers and closed her own drawer. That was probably a good thing.

  “Either that, or someone decided it was too sensitive to write down,” said Alex. “We’d better get out of here.”

  Shutting off the light behind them, Grace followed Alex down a hallway.

  Halfway down the carpet, Alex made a low sound and grabbed Grace’s wrist and pulled her into a side room. Pressing them both against the wall, Alex put a hand over Grace’s mouth. The sound of footsteps came through the hallway. Grace thought

  “What’s wrong?” Grace asked, several long moments later after Alex released her.

  “If they have people working in this area, it means we got too far behind the tour group to catch up,” replied Alex, very quietly. “We can’t get out the front unnoticed.”

  Grace had a sudden clenching feeling in her gut, worrying they hadn’t left everything just as they’d left it.

  Alex crossed the room and shimmied the window open. “Don’t worry so much. What’s done is done. The only way forward is down.” She swung a leg over the windowsill.

  “I really wish you didn’t do this so much,” Grace said as she followed. She could see Alex crouched behind a bush. Before she could overthink it, she dropped.

  Her legs sang as she cushioned the fall with her knees.

  “Not bad for your first escape out a second-floor window,” said Alex, offering Grace a hand up. “Walk easy now, Princess. We’re where we’re supposed to be.”

  Grace glanced up. “Who’s going to close the window?”

  Wrapping an arm around Grace’s waist, Alex guided them out of the alley and merged into a gaggle of pedestrians. “We’re out. That’s the important part.”

  When they got back to Grace’s room, Alex hefted her pack. “Well, I’m late, and I’m hungry. Might as well get dinner. Wanna come?”

  Grace paused halfway out of the costume she’d worn. She’d already skipped every class she’d had that day. “I’d like that,” she said. There was a funny warm feeling growing somewhere in her chest cavity, and she wasn’t sure she could trust it.

  “Great,” Alex said, grinning at Grace in a way that made her self-consciously drag her tunic over her head before she finished shimmying out of the rest of the black bodysuit.

  Feeling much more like herself, Grace followed Alex out into the streets for the second time that day. They’d barely eaten while getting ready that morning, and Grace found out that she was astonishingly hungry.

  “I’ll head out on the night boat going along the coast into Geneana,” Alex said over a plate of fish.

  Grace took a sip of her water. She didn’t remember seeing a night-time boat on the posted schedule. “Is that legal?”

  Alex just looked at her over the rim of her glass.

  “Forget I asked. Is it at least safe?”

  Reaching out, Alex trailed a finger down Grace’s cheek. “It’s always nice when I get to do things are safe.”

  Grace winced. “And you’re worrying about me?”

  “Best if I leave you here now,” said Alex, brushing the barest kiss over Grace’s cheek. “What you don’t know can’t hurt either of us.”

  Emboldened, Grace reached out, grabbed two solid handfuls of Alex’s tunic, and hauled her in for a proper kiss.

  Mouth twitching at the corner, Alex ducked behind a tower of shipping crates. Grace left before she could do anything pathetic.

  Alone, she weighed her route home carefully. The Arrosan winters meant the nights ran long and it was after dark.

  The temperature had dropped palpably. With the memory of the warmth of Alex’s presence fresh in her mind, the streets felt colder and more inhospitable than ever. Snow blew in harsh gusts around her as she walked. She fastened her coat a little more tightly and shoved her hands deep into her pockets.

  This time, at least, it wasn’t a surprise when she heard footsteps behind her. There were more of them this time, though Grace noted with satisfaction that one of them was still nursing a limp.

  “Oh, stones,” said Grace, blood suddenly pumping faster in her veins. Not only was she screwed, she didn’t actually fancy getting seriously hurt. Was this the price of an open window?

  She had made plans for this encounter. In her fantasy, she’d separated one of her attackers from the group. His answers would explain everything, and she would be able to write home about it. Her parents would be grateful.

  Instead, she began to hastily revise. She was going to run like a rabbit from a mountain lion. With luck, she’d survive the evening.

  She glanced around. The pincer they’d used the last few times had tried to cut her off from the populated street. Running straight at the wall, she changed direction at the last moment and broke for the street. It wasn’t crowded at this time of night, but there might at least be a witness.

  When she’d nearly passed the last attacker, she thought she’d made it. Focused on her goal, she never saw them dart forward. She landed hard on the cobblestones. The knee of her trousers ripped open, and she could feel grit getting ground into her flesh. At least she hadn’t broken her arm.

  She pushed herself up from where she’d sprawled, made it as far as a crouching position before the first two had caught up with her.

  She saw a blade flash, but didn’t feel a blow land.

  Her thighs burned as she pushed up to her feet. She lashed out, riding on fury and adrenaline, and kicked out low on the shin of one of her attackers. She didn’t have high hopes, so it pleased her when they crumpled anyway.

  Taking off like a runner from starting blocks, she sprang forward.

  Voices hissed behind her, for the first time. “You aren’t supposed to kill her, just knock her out.”

  She tried to remember the voice through the thrum of blood in her ears.

  The reply came through the whistling of wind in Grace’s ears. “Who cares? As long as she’s incapacitated, I think we’ll be rewarded.”

  Arms reached for her. There was a dribble of liquid down her arm. Absently, she touched it, and her fingers came away with blood.

  She ran and ran, and did not stop until she was home.

  She swung into her room with the blood drying on her arm and began stuffing things into her bag. She hadn’t brought much she cared about, which made it easier.

  She tore through the room, making sure nothing that mattered had been left behind. A couple of colorful dress tunics were expendable; her travel knife was not. Task complete, she checked the contents over once, decisively, and packed with mechanical speed and precision.

  Satisfied with the pack, she checked the contents of her jacket pockets, making sure she had everything she needed: money, food. When it was ready, she hung it up by the door. There was a gash on the sleeve stained with blood, and she swiped at it with a towel before tossing the towel in the garbage bin. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

  Tumbling onto the bed, she pulled the covers tight around herself. She could deal with the consequences after some sleep. The sheets twisted around her as she rolled over in the bed. A moment later, the adrenaline wore off and she dropped into sleep like a stone.

  She woke up when Derrick slammed her door against the wall.

  “Grace, you have to run. Your parents have sent for you, and they've sent guards to make sure you go,” he said.

  Even though she was expecting it, the news still came as a shock. She was off her bed, in motion before he finished speaking. Her th
roat went dry. “Guards?”

  He snatched her coat off its peg and held it as she spun into it. “I don’t know why. I can't go with you.”

  She slung her pack over her shoulders, laced her boots with faster fingers. One of the knots collapsed, but the fit was snug against her ankle. She could fix it later. “Stay here. Keep an eye out.”

  “I will. Stay in touch.” He pressed a square of folded paper into her hand as he shepherded her out of the door. "Quickly."

  They parted ways almost immediately. If her parents had sent guards to ensure her compliance, then she couldn't be seen with him. He could lose his job.

  She walked down a side street, pace just a little too quick to be totally inconspicuous. The thoroughfares and alleys whirled together in her mind. Here she'd been attacked. Here she'd walked between lessons on electricity and lessons on wood-varnishing techniques. There wouldn’t be any more lessons, and she wouldn’t have to put up with any more symposia. The freedom of fresh air in her lungs didn’t feel nearly as good as she’d imagined while daydreaming in the lecture hall.

  The only thing clear in her mind was that she'd been set up. What was happening in Coura? Why would her parents, who never resorted to force, send guards to bring her home? Did they really think her so disobedient?

  Fury curled around her chest, giving energy to her steps as she made her way directly to the mountains on paths she'd walked before. She knew the ways out of town so well. It would be good to get out of Arrosa, she decided. But where would she go? Crossing Arrosa to the west was completely out of the question.

  It felt like another punch when she realized that she could not go home.

  Crossing Arrosa to the south or the east would cause more problems. She’d have to head north to the coast and try to get passage into Geneana along the coast. It meant she would have to double back past the city through the mountains, and then she would need to find a boat. At home, she’d sailed adequately well in the swift waters of Couran rivers. The choppy ocean of the port to the north would be a different beast altogether. It regularly claimed the lives of the experienced, and Grace was no expert.