Pennyroyal Academy (15 page)

He set off down the hill and left her reeling beneath the statue of a man in smooth, impenetrable armor, the granite draped in a fine layer of snow. He was a knight, lance in hand, grave frown forged in the blood of a thousand dragons. She lingered there a moment, staggered by the implication of what Forbes had said, and when she finally stumbled through campus and rejoined her company for the joint training exercise with Thrushbeard Company, she received the crushing news that he was the only knight cadet still without a partner. But for her sister, she made up her mind that she would do whatever it took to succeed, even if it meant working with a pig.

And so, as she struggled to slither under a downed tree, she refused to take his hand. She could feel her strength being sapped away into the black mud beneath her, but would rather have been stuck there forever than accept his help.

“Hurry up, will you?”

The knight cadet next to her squirmed under easily, then reached back to drag Basil through.

“In a life made up of humiliating moments, this beats all,” he said as his partner hauled him out of the slop.

Evie twisted her body until she was on her back and kicked into the mud. Finally, she began to slide through. She grabbed the rough bark of the log and pulled with all her remaining strength until she came free, then scrambled to her feet, great walls of black slopping off of her. They ran; she was tied to Forbes by a long rope, most of which was coiled around his shoulder. Up ahead, there loomed a thirty-foot wall topped by a crenellated parapet. It was scorched and battle-damaged, and a fetid moat intersected it to the right. But the cadets they were chasing had gone left, to an outbuilding that housed a staircase up to the wall walk.

“
Move, Cadets!
” shouted the Fairy Drillsergeant behind them. “
All of you run the Woundwort Tower spirals today except the first team up! LET'S GO!
”

Evie and Forbes paused at the base of the wall. He began cutting himself loose with a blade from his belt.

“Hurry, you bloody idiot!” It felt good to insult him, even though he wasn't doing anything wrong. She glanced at the staircase and frowned when she saw Remington helping his partner, Malora, mount the first step.

Forbes slapped the coil of rope into her chest. “Would you rather kiss him or beat him? Go!”

She hauled the heavy rope to the stairs and sprinted up, taking them two at a stride. She and Malora reached the wall walk at the same time. Only a handful of others were there.
I'm going to win this challenge,
she thought as she raced past the first crenellation. Demetra was there, her rope taut across the battlement, already struggling under the weight of her knight.

Evie leaned into an open crenel and saw Forbes waiting below. She threw the coil over the side, wrapping the other end from palm to elbow. Moments later, he began his climb, jerking her into the stone.

“Bloody hell!” she heard him yell.

She regathered the rope and braced herself.
This will be harder than I thought.
He began again. She gritted her teeth, leaning into his weight. The rope dug into her shoulder. From her neck through her back and down both legs, her muscles screamed.

“What are you doing?” It was Demetra, and there was distress in her voice.

Evie glanced over and saw Malora standing in Demetra's crenel with her rope over the side. Other blue dresses scurried past down the wall walk, but there was plenty of open space along the battlement. Malora had intentionally chosen that one to harass Demetra, and had already started edging her to the side.

Evie's arms shook from exertion, yet she eased back until she could see down the wall. There, not quite halfway up, Demetra's knight was nearly on top of Remington.

“Keep 'er steady!” he called in a thick brogue.

“Malora, give me some space!” shouted Remington.

Evie looked back to the crenel and saw Demetra struggling mightily to maintain her grip. Malora, also having a difficult time with the rope, still managed to land a kick to Demetra's shin.

“Malora!” shouted Evie. “What's the matter with you?” She was so disturbed by the assault that she lost focus. The rope fibers began to eat at her fingers.

“Shut it!” yelled Malora as she forced Demetra to the crenel's edge, where her arms would soon meet stone and she'd have to drop her knight. The girls grunted, each trying to protect her space, but Malora was taller, her will stronger.

“Can't you even hold a bloody rope?” called Forbes from down the wall.

“COME ON, LADS, CLIMB!” yelled the Fairy Drillsergeant, and Evie's heart sank. If she was still down at the bottom of the wall, there would be no help coming for Demetra.

“Malora, please!” said Demetra. “I'm going to drop him!”

But it was Malora who lost her grip and tumbled to the wall walk, her rope whizzing across the stone and disappearing over the side.

“Remington!” shouted Evie. She leaned against the coarse limestone, the rope biting her shoulder. He was sprawled on the ground, rubbing the back of his head, dazed but alive.

She pushed back from the wall and peered to the next crenel. Demetra was struggling mightily under the weight of her knight. Her eyes were clenched, her teeth were gritted, and her arms shuddered like dragonfly wings.

“He's almost to the top, Demetra!” called Evie. “Just hold on!”

Malora scrambled to her feet and charged at Demetra, knocking her into the stone battlement. Demetra's rope zipped over the side, and the thud of her knight hitting the ground followed.

“WHAT'S GOING ON UP THERE?”

Demetra put a hand to the back of her head. It came back slick with blood. Her face hardened and she shoved Malora, leaving a dark smear across her dress. “Don't ever touch me again, you cow!”

Malora lunged. She clutched Demetra by the shoulders and hurled her into the crenel. Demetra tried to grab the stone, but her momentum was too great. She toppled over the side.

“DEMETRA!” shouted Evie. She dropped Forbes and leaned over the battlement.

“
Aahhh!
” he shouted from the ground, clutching his leg.

The Fairy Drillsergeant, meanwhile, caught Demetra with her wand only a moment before her neck would have snapped on the ground. “HOW IN BLAZES DO YOU FALL OFF A WALL, CADET?”

Something flared up inside Evie. She charged at Malora and they both crashed to the wall walk.

“Oi, Evie! Stop!” called Anisette.

The girls grappled. Evie reached for any sort of leverage—linen, flesh, or hair—as Malora clawed a line of blood into her face.

“Get your hands off me!” she snarled.

“You could have killed her!” shouted Evie, enraged.

Anisette dove on top and tried to force her body between them. Others stood and watched, holding their ropes as best they could.

“That's enough, girls!” said Anisette, jerking Malora's arm back and freeing Evie's hair from her grip. Malora shrieked and tried to claw Anisette's face. Evie reached up to grab her wrist, and as Anisette tried to push them apart, her elbow inadvertently smashed into Malora's eye.

“
THE THREE OF YOU, GET OFF MY WALL!
” bellowed the Fairy Drillsergeant, who had arrived on the wall walk just in time to see Anisette strike Malora.

Evie scrambled to her feet, then helped Anisette up. Malora, feeling around her tender eye for blood, pushed herself to a sitting position.

“We're sorry, Fairy—”

“
GET OFF MY WALL!
”

“You can't send me home,” said Malora. Even through labored breath, her voice remained calm and defiant. “My mother will never—”

“I don't care if your mother is Cinderella herself! I want you off my wall! NOW!”

Evie, breath pluming from her mouth in the bracing winter air, suddenly realized what she'd done.
I'm being discharged. I've got myself thrown out of the Academy, and now I'll never learn to defeat a witch.

Behind the Fairy Drillsergeant's trail of sparkles, Maggie finally arrived at the top of the staircase. She looked horrified by the scene she found waiting on the wall walk.

“It's not Evie's fault, is it?” said Anisette. “I started the fight.”

The Fairy Drillsergeant turned her ire full on Anisette. “Good, then we're agreed!
GET OUT!
”

“With respect, it ain't fair to send her home for what I done. It's my responsibility—”

“Anisette, what are you doing?” said Evie, but Anisette cut her short with a glare.

“GET OFF MY WALL, CADET! I WON'T SAY IT AGAIN!” Then the Fairy Drillsergeant turned to Evie and Malora, jabbing her tiny finger at them. “You. And you. We'll let the Headmistress sort you out.”

“But it's not Anisette's fault!” said Evie.

“Eves. Enough.”

Anisette limped across the wall walk past the Fairy Drillsergeant. Down below, Captain Ramsbottom shouted at the knights in an attempt to restore order, but up on the wall, the only sound was the steady huffing of Evie and Malora.

Evie found Maggie's eyes, but there was only helplessness there. Anisette paused next to her, at the head of the stairs, and turned back. She was crying. A small circle of red had already started to rise from a knock on her forehead. She laid her hand across her heart, smiled through her tears, and vanished down the staircase.

W
ITH HER HANDS
interlocked behind her, Princess Beatrice glowered at the two girls standing in front of her desk.

Evie's eyes hadn't left the floor since she and Malora had been summoned, but she could
feel
Beatrice's glare, and knew she deserved it. Her dress was torn, and so soon after Rumpledshirtsleeves had given her thread to repair the damage from the night she had returned to the Academy. She tried to conceal her left hand with her right, but the stains of dried blood seemed to be everywhere. A tangle of hair fell across her eye, but she left it; at least it prevented her from seeing the girl standing next to her. The girl who had just gotten one of her only friends discharged from the Academy.

The door snapped open and Evie jumped. “Discharge papers, Mum,” said Liverwort. She strode to the desk, knocking into Evie as she did, and set two parchments atop the heap of clutter.

The Headmistress walked deliberately around her desk, lips pursed. She stepped in front of Evie and Malora and let her hard blue eyes linger on each of them. Then, like a viper, she snatched up Evie's scarred and bloodied hand. “Is this the hand of a princess?”

Evie grimaced. “No, Headmistress.”

Beatrice threw her hand down and turned to Malora. “And you. Would the Queen be proud of your actions today?”

Malora's eyes fell to the worn beams of the floor. She didn't respond.

“Cadet Anisette is gone, and quite rightly so,” said the Headmistress, and Evie finally placed the particular tone she heard in Beatrice's voice. It wasn't anger or disappointment; it was disgust. “I see little reason to keep either of you—”

The door flew open and a woman entered, her face drawn in urgent concern. “Malora?”

“Mother!” She ran to the woman's arms. Beatrice opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself. Evie studied Malora's mother. She had clearly been a staggering beauty in another life, and had aged into the cold elegance of a porcelain vase. She had eyes as dark as her hair, which spilled over a shawl that was wrapped around her shoulders like a web around a fly.

“I assure you, Headmistress, this is not how I raised her.”

“Yes, well,” said Beatrice, “you have long been a friend to this institution, Countess Hardcastle, for which we are forever in your debt . . .”

Evie stood transfixed by this woman, this Countess Hardcastle. The others kept talking, but she was so deeply mesmerized that she heard none of it. There was something about Malora's mother . . . a strange familiarity . . . a nagging sensation that perhaps they had met somewhere before. And the longer she studied that face, the more certain she became.

She reached behind her for a chair, for something to lean on, but before she could steady herself, she was rocked by a memory so clear and total that it eclipsed everything else . . .

It was her, the younger Evie, from her very first recovered memory in the Infirmary. She stood in a cozy room with a wood-burning stove, an oaken table, and two grimy windows flanking a heavy door. The walls were covered in cabinets and hooks and all manner of cookery gear. It was dark and warm, and she was about to take a bite from a golden-crusted pie . . .

The memory faded, and she was back in Beatrice's office, disoriented and dizzy—

But another came right after the first. A bear of a man with a hearty smile in light mail armor. She had seen him before as well, only as a wisp of a vision after one of her treatments, and never so clearly as this. He sat atop a huge white palfrey with black mane and hooves. And she sat behind him, the young version of herself, clutching him around his thick middle, grinning ear to ear . . .

Words began to mix with memories and reality, and all she could do was stand there and stare at Countess Hardcastle and wait for it to stop. “. . . but fighting another cadet,” came the muted voice of Princess Beatrice, “
that
is something a Princess of the Shield would never do . . .”

Another memory now. A stately manor of white plastered walls crisscrossed with deep brown timbers nestled high above a valley. The walls were punctuated with large, iron-framed windows. Two redbrick chimneys spired from opposite ends of the roof like horns—

And another: two little girls running through a meadow near a wood. One was Evie. The other had long, black hair—

“. . . and here is the other player in our great drama. May I introduce Cadet Eleven . . .”

Hardcastle's eyes, the dark umber of rust, met Evie's. There was a flicker of recognition, but she couldn't place Evie, either—

The memories came faster now. Countess Hardcastle, ten years younger, slipping a pie from the wood-burning stove. Evie was there watching as she set it on a stone to cool—

Little Evie throwing a ball of snow at the great bearded man. He roared with laughter, then dropped a scoop of white flakes over younger Hardcastle's head—

Evie and the black-haired girl sitting on either side of Hardcastle as she taught them to play a harp . . .

Evie's eyes bored into Hardcastle's as the memories started to pool together like liquid mercury.

“What are you doing?” said Malora. She had finally noticed the peculiar looks Evie and Hardcastle were giving each other. Evie turned to her now, and another memory came—

The black-haired girl climbing into a small larchwood bed next to Evie's. She turned with a smile, and there was simply no question. This was Malora, ten years ago . . .

Evie's face went white. Her eyes swung back to Countess Hardcastle . . .

“Mother?”

No one spoke. Then, in a faint whisper, Hardcastle said, “Nicolina?”

“What's she talking about?” said Malora. Despite the hint of panic in her voice, everyone ignored her.

Evie was staggered. That word—
Nicolina
—was so foreign, yet so entirely loaded with meaning. Beatrice caught Liverwort's eye and flicked her head, sending her assistant scurrying for the door.

“Countess,” she said. “Do you mean to say you know this girl?”

“I should say so, Headmistress,” she replied, her voice soft with wonder. “This girl is called Nicolina, and she is . . .” She nearly choked on the word. “She is my daughter.”

The next few minutes blurred past. Beatrice ushered Evie into a private room adjoining her office. She collapsed into a plush chair and listened to Malora's frantic voice muffled through the door. Beatrice poured her a cup of passionflower tea, and her mind seemed to go blank after that . . .

“My darling Nicolina, I thought I'd lost you forever.”

Evie looked down at her hands. They were enveloped inside Countess Hardcastle's.
I must have fallen asleep,
she thought,
but, then, why isn't this a dream?
She glanced around and found Beatrice and Liverwort huddled over a massive tome with ancient, brittle pages. Sure enough, everything that had just happened was as real as the scars on her hand.

“Would you mind calling me Evie?” she croaked. Her voice was dry, like the pages of the book.

“Of course, my darling, whatever you prefer.”

Thank goodness. I couldn't bear changing my name again.
She felt as though she should say something, to explain somehow this incredible thing that had just happened, but her mind was blank. She glanced up at Hardcastle, cringing when she saw her muted smile. How could this woman—spindly, hard-edged, and pale as fog—possibly be her mother?

“Registry of Peerage proves it. That there's Countess Hardcastle's little one,” proclaimed Liverwort.

“Peerage?” said Evie. “But isn't that for the highborn?”

“If you please, Countess,” said Beatrice, motioning to the ancient book. Liverwort stepped aside, and Hardcastle scrawled her mark with a quill, which she then handed to Beatrice to witness. Once the Registry had been updated, Liverwort closed the cover, tucked the book under her arm, and exited.

“Young lady, it is quite right you should be confused,” said the Headmistress. “You were cursed at some point in your young life, and it stripped away your every memory.” Hardcastle returned to the chair across from her, but Beatrice remained standing. “This woman is your mother, and you are terribly fortunate for that. She's a fine woman, a true friend of the Academy.”

“Thank you, Headmistress, you are most kind.” Now that some of the initial shock had worn away, Evie could hear the same silky ribbon running through Hardcastle's voice that was present in Malora's. “Your sister is quite . . .
unsettled
by all of this, as you can imagine. The physicians said she had blocked all memory of you when you went missing, and I had always believed that to be for the best.” She shook her head, her eyes haunted. “I couldn't bear the thought of her feeling such grief as I had. She had found her own way round the pain, and for that I was eternally grateful. My only wish was for her to be able to live as a normal girl.” Beatrice put a hand on Hardcastle's shoulder. Her smile was tinged with sadness. “Tell me, Nicolina—er, Evie . . . is there nothing
you
remember?”

Evie seemed to remember many things all of a sudden. More in the last hour than in all the rest of her time at the Academy. But most were only flickers of things—faces and places and images—but nothing of substance.

“Quite often in cases such as these, a sudden event will jar loose other memories,” said Beatrice. “Take a moment. Breathe. Think back.”

Evie inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, only too happy to escape the scrutiny of that room. After a moment, a scene began to form from the black of her mind. It had the same disconcerting familiarity of all the other memories . . .

She was in that small kitchen, the one with the dingy windows. Only now, she was actually there. The room felt wide and deep and safe and warm. The slate floor was scattered with lavender-scented rushes, and the windows weren't dirty, but layered with frost on the outside. Other scents filled the room, warm smells of baking and stewing. She was really there, a little girl, in that kitchen with her mother.

She had just placed a wedge of white cheese into a lashed straw basket, and was waiting for more. Hardcastle, softer and younger and lighter behind the eyes, wrapped a small pie in linen, then handed it to her daughter. Evie gave her a cheeky, sidelong glance, then took the steaming pie from its sleeve.

“Aha, young lady, it may be your birthday, but you must still wait 'til you get there.”

“One bite?”

Hardcastle gave her a stern look that the little girl knew wasn't real. “All right,” she said, breaking into a smile. “But only one.”

Evie shoved the pie into her mouth and bit off a huge piece. As she struggled to keep it from spilling onto the floor, Hardcastle laughed with delight. “You're a naughty one.”

The big bearded man barreled into the room. He had a voice ripe with laughter and authority, cheeks permanently reddened from hours on horseback, and a twinkle in his eye for the little girl with the basket. “Pie, is it?” he bellowed, grabbing it out of Evie's hands. He took a huge bite of his own, and just like that, half of it was gone.

“Daddy!” she said, admonishing him.

“There won't be any left for the picnic,” said Hardcastle, putting the rest in the basket.

“All right, all right.” He wrapped his thick arms around Hardcastle and pulled her tight. “You're certain you don't mind, my lovely?”

“No,” she said, then pecked him on the lips. “You must go. We've been promising this one her birthday picnic for weeks, haven't we?”

“My stars, is it someone's birthday?” he roared, releasing Hardcastle and scooping Evie off the floor. She giggled with delight as he swung her through the air.

“Your map to the picnic ground,” said Hardcastle. She handed him a rolled parchment. “And your expertly packed picnic.” She hung the handle over his forearm. “And, please, don't worry about Malora. I'll find a way to break that fever.”

He raised the parchment like a sword and aimed it at the door. “Very well, then, let's be off . . . for adventure!” And he charged out into the biting autumn air.

Hardcastle squatted down and embraced Evie, then looked at her with a mother's bittersweet awareness of the passage of time. “My little girl, five years old already. All our plans will one day come and go, won't they?” Little Evie kissed her mother's cheek, then galloped to the door . . .

“Ah, yes,” came a distant voice. “King Callahan.”

Evie opened her eyes, as disoriented as if she had woken from a deep sleep. It took her a moment to realize that she had been recounting the memory aloud. Everything had felt so vivid and so
real . . .

“What a lovely man was he,” said Hardcastle.

“She's on an aggressive treatment plan, Countess, and more memories should return as the days pass. But I'm afraid for now I must cut this wonderful reunion short.”