The Princess Imposter Read online

“Nope. Doing fine,” said the second.

  “All set here,” said the third.

  Phleg didn’t understand this. If someone ever offered to take over a task from her, she would have gladly accepted. She was always in favor of someone doing her work for her. She wondered if she could ask them to carry her, as she was getting a bit weary. Was that something princesses were likely to ask for? But all three of the cloaks were being used to transport Fred, and she didn’t want to be carried back to the castle like a sack of turnips slung over someone’s shoulder. People really should have wings—they were a big help for tired feet. She was about to ask the men—if they were to carry her, how they’d go about doing so. But before she had a chance, the newcomers said, “All right. Good-bye, then.”

  They turned abruptly and headed back the way they’d just come. Their steps went from a brisk pace, getting faster and faster, till they were out-and-out running. They were also shoving one another, each trying to take the lead, before they disappeared among the trees.

  Phleg considered, but then had to ask, “What’s that all about, then?”

  The man who had said he was doing fine paused to readjust his hold on the edge of the cloaks. “Each wants to be the one to announce you’ve been found. First to report where you are might get a reward.”

  In a very short while, they heard the sound of trumpets, proving that one or another of the men had delivered the news and that help was on the way.

  The fanfares got closer and closer, and Phleg suggested, “Why don’t you stop walking and rest, since help is on its way? They can’t very well not find us at this point.”

  Well, probably not. It seemed difficult to underestimate humans.

  “No, no,” the three rescuers said, forcing hearty smiles despite the throbbing veins in their necks and the sweat on their faces. Apparently they wanted to be seen working. Phleg guessed they were hoping there might be a reward for that, too.

  In another moment, a party from the castle appeared, led by the two kings—Gabriella’s father, King Humphrey, and Fred’s, King Leopold—along with a whole retinue of other men, including trumpet players.

  “Gabriella!” King Humphrey cried, his arms wide as he rushed toward Phleg.

  Phleg instinctively looked over her shoulder. How had the princess made it back without the changeling spell reversing? Then she realized he meant her.

  Drat! And she hadn’t determined yet whether royal people called their fathers Father or Daddy.

  She settled for saying, “I’m so glad to see you!” and she enveloped the king in a tight hug that seemed to take him by surprise, or at least took the breath out of him. But then he hugged her back and said, “We’ve been so worried about you. Why did you run away?”

  “Well … ,” Phleg said. “It seemed the thing to do at the time.”

  Apparently he was too pleased at having his daughter back to press, and meanwhile King Leopold had made it to Fred’s side. “Hello, Father,” Fred said, a bit hazily, probably because of the leaves she’d had him chew for the pain.

  Father, Phleg thought. Finally an answer to her father/daddy/papa dilemma. You couldn’t have helped me out with that before, Fred?

  “What’s the matter with him?” Leopold demanded.

  “He hurt his leg,” chorused all three of the men who had carried him. Apparently, despite scoffing at the two who had raced to be first to bring word to the castle, these men were also eager to share news.

  “Gabriella has been taking care of me,” Fred announced, slurring his words a little. He gave Phleg’s hand a squeeze. Except, of course, that she was no longer in hand-squeezing distance, having stepped away to embrace her—Gabriella’s—father. Fred held his hand up in front of his face and looked at both sides of it, as though hoping to find her hand there someplace. Still puzzled, he announced, “She has been a wonder!”

  “Then why are you talking funny?” his father demanded.

  “Valerian leaves for the pain,” Phleg told him. “Once we get back to the castle”—she couldn’t say home, and hoped nobody would notice—“you should make up some yarrow for him. Brew some rosemary tea. Maybe betony.”

  “I should, should I?” Leopold thundered. Did the man always thunder everything?

  “Well, yes,” Phleg said. Didn’t he want his son to get better?

  “I think,” said one of the three men who had been helping them, “she means you in a general way, sire, as in your attendants. Or,” he offered generously, “one of ours. We have both a physician and a wisewoman.”

  While the king mulled over that clarification, one of the others added, “Princess Gabriella has been instrumental in finding Prince Frederic, in rescuing him from … ” He trailed off. Understandably, they weren’t clear on exactly what had happened. Ever since they’d found the pair, Fred’s speech had been bizarrely full of accounts of forest wildlife, even before the princess had found the leaves for him to chew on. And she hadn’t been forthcoming with helpful information, either. “Well, she found him injured and rescued him, and tended him, and has been very brave and resourceful.”

  Gabriella’s father gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Well done!” he said proudly.

  The third man, with nothing new left to report, chimed in, “Yes indeedy.”

  “And I love her,” Fred announced.

  Which both filled Phleg’s heart with song and made it sink. He loved Gabriella, not her.

  The three members of their rescue party gave a spontaneous cheer. The newcomers who had accompanied the kings were a bit more reserved, but most smiled and nodded. King Humphrey, however, looked to his daughter for her reaction. When he saw her staring at her feet without responding, he gave her another squeeze.

  King Leopold, of course, was the least enthusiastic. He made throat-clearing noises that sounded like he had a chipmunk caught halfway down. Patting Fred’s head awkwardly, he bent closer, but his voice carried. “There’s something a bit off about that girl, you mark my words. This is an important alliance, and we can’t risk—”

  Fred struggled and managed to sit up. Speaking more clearly than anything he’d said in a while, he repeated, loud and strong, “I love her.”

  Leopold made some more harrumphing sounds, then told Fred, “We’ll see.”

  By then, some of the men who had been lingering at the back of the kings’ arrival party stepped forward, leading horses. “We have the supplies to make a proper litter for Prince Frederic,” one of them said, “and we can have him home in a trice. Meanwhile, the horses can make the journey in no time.”

  “Well, good for the horses,” Phleg said, wondering why the man chose now to share this useless information. But then she realized he meant the horses would carry the rest of them. People used animals, she reminded herself.

  Leopold was giving her a squinty-eyed look.

  “I mean,” she amended, “that if I rode on the horse, then I wouldn’t be able to be with Fr—Prince Fred. Rick.” She escaped King Humphrey’s embrace and stood by Fred, grabbing hold of his hand again.

  “My hero,” he whispered in a tone that could only be described as gooey. And still loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “I must insist,” King Humphrey said. “We are leaving Prince Frederic in capable hands, and your mother is most anxious to see you.”

  Phleg remembered seeing the queen take a spill while running after her. Gabriella’s mother had been kind, and Phleg hoped she hadn’t injured herself.

  Two of the men approached, leading a pair of horses.

  Now what?

  Before she could stop him, one of the men put his hands around her waist and lifted her up onto the back of the horse.

  Phleg gave a sharp squeal of dismay. “I can’t!” she said, waving her arms so that the man would lift her off. She really missed her wings.

  “Take hold—”

  “I can’t!” she repeated. “Take me off, take me off, TAKE ME OFF!”

  The man took her off, but she suspected that had les
s to do with her commanding him to do so than the fact that the horse was beginning to get wide-eyed at her noise and flailing hands.

  Everyone was looking at her.

  “I can’t ride a horse,” she said.

  “Why not?” King Humphrey asked. To King Leopold, he added, “She’s a most excellent horsewoman.”

  “Yay for you!” Fred called. “She’s most excellent at everything.”

  Phleg suspected she could no longer blame the bump on her head that she’d gotten the previous morning. If people hadn’t forgotten about that incident entirely, they would think the crack on her head had made her an imbecile. “I’m too tired,” she said. “I’ve slept outside and been walking all day … ” She wasn’t helping things, she could tell.

  “All the more reason to ride,” King Humphrey said.

  “I’m too tired to hold on properly,” Phleg explained—assuming that humans must have to hold on to horses.

  “You poor dear.” Gabriella’s father gave her another hug and kissed her on the forehead. “Then you shall ride with me, as you did when you were a little child.”

  “Oh,” Phleg said. “Really … I don’t … ”

  And so the king mounted first, then—before she even had a chance to ask the horse for permission—a man lifted her up into the seat-thing that was on the horse’s back, and Gabriella’s father took the leash things that trailed from the horse’s mouth, circling his arms around her.

  It was a comforting, safe feeling.

  Until the horse began to move.

  “I think my balance is off,” she said. “From being tired.”

  “I’ll hold on to you,” he assured her.

  And he did, all the way back to the castle, where big brass bells pealed to greet them as soon as they came in sight. He even carried her inside—not exactly like a bag of turnips.

  But he didn’t bring her back to her own room; he brought her to the queen’s chamber. Both queens—Gabriella’s mother and Fred’s—sat there, each holding on her lap a big round hoop with fabric stretched over it. They didn’t seem to be doing any sewing, however. Instead, they were talking quietly together.

  Gabriella’s mother gave a very unqueenly squeal of joy at seeing her. Both women, Phleg could see, were red around the rims of their eyes and a bit splotchy-faced. Gabriella’s mother stood, though she had one foot in a bucket—presumably cold water to lessen swelling. Fred’s mother made her sit back down, or she would certainly have rushed forward despite her injury.

  “Princess Gabriella is fine,” the king announced hastily to both women. “Prince Frederic is slightly the worse for wear, but—really—his injuries are minor and are being attended to. He should be back in fine fettle soon. He’s in jovial humor and is being taken to his room even as we speak.”

  Fred’s mother rose and kissed Phleg, first on one cheek, then the other. Perhaps she worried that her lips had missed the mark with the first.

  “Thank you,” Fred’s mother said to the king, her eyes filling with fresh tears, which seemed silly, since she’d just heard Fred was being returned to her mostly unharmed. Phleg wondered if maybe she distrusted the king’s report and thought he’d just said what he’d said to get her to leave.

  Before Phleg could work it out, the queen hurried out of the room. Which left only Gabriella’s mother. Still sitting, she held her arms wide for Phleg, her fingers twitching as though eager to hold her daughter. “Oh, Gabriella,” she said, and she was crying, too, though as far as she knew Gabriella was home safe and sound, and the time for crying was past. I’ll never understand humans, Phleg thought.

  But the king set Phleg on her feet, and Phleg went to the queen, who gave her a hug. It was a nice hug. Mumsy’s hugs were few and far between, and not so well padded.

  “Are you all right? Are you truly all right?”

  Phleg nodded.

  “What happened? Why in the world did you ever run off like that?”

  Phleg couldn’t think what to say, so she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  And, amazingly, the queen declared, “Well, then, we shan’t. And we shall spend a nice quiet evening, just the three of us, to celebrate your safe return to us. Have supper brought here to us rather than in the din of the dining hall.” She patted the cushion beside her, which Fred’s mother had just vacated. She seemed reluctant to let go of Phleg’s hand, and all the while Gabriella’s father continued beaming at them.

  Feeling a wicked imposter, Phleg grew uncomfortable. Eventually—though feeling guilty both for doing it and for not doing it sooner—she extracted her hand.

  The queen smiled at her. “Shall I send for Ellen to bring your embroidery to you?”

  Embroidery. That must be the fabric stretched over the hoop. “I’m a bit tired,” Phleg said. “How about if I just watch you?”

  And she did, and she was amazed at the delicate little rosebuds that the queen created with different strands of pinks and reds, and she thought—though it was a ridiculous thought—that she wouldn’t mind someone teaching her how to do that.

  At one point in the evening, the princess’s friend Amanda poked her head in the room. “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re safely home.”

  Phleg considered carefully. “I’m glad you’re safely home, too,” she said. How could anyone argue with that?

  Amanda didn’t argue. But she didn’t stay, either.

  Which was probably all for the best.

  And neither the king nor the queen pressed her for answers, and eventually Phleg fell asleep with her head on the queen’s shoulder.

  The dragon’s tooth ran out of magic just as Benlos put the finishing touches on the breakfast feast, so the second bowl of strawberries was a bit skimpy. But only compared to the first huge, overflowing bowl.

  Gabriella was just pleased that no one had to prepare the meal, just as no one had to prepare or clean up yesterday evening. Dishes that materialized full of food and dissolved once you were through with them struck her as an idea that could easily catch on.

  “You could at least have saved some magic so we wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the Council,” Parf complained.

  Mumsy smacked him on the back of the head—not hard enough to hurt, Gabriella surmised, just enough to get his attention.

  “Easy come, easy go,” Benlos pointed out.

  “Go!” echoed Miss-mot. She was sitting on her father’s lap, and she nodded so vigorously that the bow in her hair came loose and fell into her father’s porridge bowl.

  “You could try taking this seriously, you know,” Parf grumbled.

  “I am,” Benlos insisted, but since he was spooning the ribbon out of the porridge as he said it, Gabriella felt there was no being sure what he was declaring he took seriously: appearing before the Council or removing hair ornaments from his breakfast.

  “Still,” Gabriella said, thinking to deflect Parf’s bad mood by getting him to consider whether the sudden depletion of the tooth might have caught his father unaware, “can one feel the magic running out?”

  “Oh yes,” said all the fairies—adults and children. Even Miss-mot joined in after everyone else, though Gabriella suspected she had no idea to what she was saying yes. The fairy toddler seemed fully occupied in eating her father’s porridge with both hands.

  “And yet … ” Gabriella gave a cheerful smile. “It’s a perfect day for a walk.”

  “Except,” Parf pointed out, “the Council is nearly a day’s walk from here.”

  Not good news, since Benlos had been ordered to return that morning.

  Did this make him a fugitive?

  It was hard to find something cheerful to say about being a fugitive.

  “Not to worry,” Benlos told her and any other family members who might need reassuring. “Parf tends toward drama and tumult. For one thing, the walk is closer to half a day’s journey, not a full day. More importantly, the Council wouldn’t be willing to wait that long. Don’t
forget they’ve established a magic link to monitor where I am and what magic I’ve been using. They, too, will have been aware of the waning of the tooth. So when I don’t show up, they’ll catch on that there’s no way for me to get there in anything resembling a timely fashion. Being the resourceful, not to mention impatient, fairies they are—they’ll expend their magic to fetch me.”

  Surely that wasn’t the way to create a good impression.

  “I see,” Gabriella said. Benlos seemed determined not to allow concern about anything to mar his good humor. She herself had tossed and turned all night long, trying to figure out a way to prove Benlos’s innocence. All her restlessness and stomach-churning anxiety had been for nothing: No ideas had come to her. Which put her no further ahead than the never-worry-about-anything Benlos, who looked both well rested and jovial.

  Gabriella stole a glance at Parf as he shoveled food into his mouth, not talking with his siblings. By the circles under his eyes, she suspected that he, too, was giving more thought to his father’s future than his father was doing. Certainly more than he was willing to let anyone know about.

  To change the subject—to get Parf away from thinking how infuriating his father was—she asked, “So what happens to the dragon’s tooth now that it’s used up? Or has it physically worn away to nothing?”

  Parf snorted.

  “Not at all.” Benlos shook the tooth out of the locket he wore around his neck.

  Miss-mot made a grab for the tooth, but Benlos curled his fingers around it while using his other hand to distract her with a strawberry.

  Which made Gabriella ask, “Are used teeth dangerous?”

  “Only if little ones try to swallow them,” Mumsy said.

  Benlos handed it to Gabriella.

  Sitting in the palm of her hand, it looked … unremarkable. It was about as long as her little finger and no wider, but it came to a sharp point. Baby tooth, she reminded herself. “What do you do with used-up teeth?”

  “Use them to poke your sisters,” one of the fairy boys said, giggling and demonstrating on his closest neighbor with his finger.

  “Decoration for your dress,” one of the girls said.