A New Queen

A week later and I was still there. Any thoughts of escaping had abandoned me. Even though there wasn’t a guard directly outside the kitchen door, I knew that if I tried the main doors, I’d only set off the alarm again. The thought of being thrown back in the damp basement was enough to keep me from trying. By day, I studied the cookbooks and came up with my own take on the dishes in them, and by night, I slept on rags by the fire just like Cynder had done all those years ago when he was a boy. We’d had such different upbringings, and yet, we’d both managed to end up in the same place, being a servant and sleeping among the cinders.

One evening I heard the sound of someone shouting. It was distant as if it came from outside, but when I listened more closely, I realized it was actually coming from upstairs. I glanced at the kitchen clock, just discernible in the moonlight, and saw it was close to midnight. Pulling myself up from the bed of rags and cinders, I cautiously opened the kitchen door and peeked out. The stairs were dark as was the entrance hall at the top, so I took the chance to sneak up. As before, there were no guards on the door, so keeping to the shadows, I followed the sound of the voice along the corridor. Light shone out from a crack under one of the doors, and I didn’t have to open it to know it was Luca in there. His voice was loud enough for the whole house to hear. He was arguing with someone about Cynder. I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized he was no closer to finding him or the others. That’s why he was so mad. I jumped back, hugging the shadows of the wall as he slammed his phone down hard. I hid behind a curtain thinking he was going to storm out of the room, but he didn’t. I heard him talking to someone else, this time much more quietly. Edging out from behind the curtain, I held my ear to the door.

“It’s been a stressful day...”

“I know darling, we’ll be able to tell the world soon enough about us...”

Darling? Was he talking to his blonde friend over the phone? I could only hear his side of the conversation, so I had to fill in the blanks myself.

“She’s in the kitchen. I’ve got her working. First time in her useless life she’s actually done anything. She can’t cook, but I enjoy watching her try...”

He laughed. He’d not be laughing tomorrow when I retried the dead rat recipe. Maybe I’d boil the whole rat carcass this time.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got guards surrounding the place. The door is alarmed, and only those with a special key fob can get in or out. Even if she did manage it, there are so many guards outside, they’d catch her...”

“Yes, the city is still under lockdown. No one can get in, and no one can get out without my permission. I’ve left the northeast gate open for your arrival. Make sure you go there, or you’ll not be let in. They are expecting you, so you can come through at any point in the next few days. Just leave it until tomorrow. I’ve got a dinner party tonight, and we don’t want to let the cat out of the bag and announce you as the new queen too early do we?”

More laughter.

“I love you too. Good night.”

A noise along the corridor had me jumping back behind the curtain. The blonde woman wearing a silk robe walked up to the door and opened it just as Luca put the phone down.

“Who was that honey?” she drawled.

“Nothing, just one of my guards. Come on, let’s go back to bed.” He turned the light off, and the pair of them walked back down the corridor leaving me feeling extremely confused.

So he was with one woman and telling another he loved her, and that she would be queen?

I don’t know why I was surprised. I was quite frankly amazed how he thought he’d pull it off. How could the blonde not know? And then I remembered what he’d done to me and to everyone in Silverwood. He was an unbelievably brilliant liar.

Making sure they were both long gone, I crept out from behind the curtain. Luca had mentioned something about a key fob to get through the main door. It was unlikely, but if he was having secret conversations in that room, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he kept key fobs in there too.

The door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open and sneaked in, closing it behind me. I turned on the small lamp on the desk and looked around me. It was an office. Luca’s office. On the wall hung photos of himself dressed in his Thalian royal regalia. He’d also framed clippings of newspaper articles about himself. The guy was the epitome of narcissism.

On the other wall was a huge map of Silverwood with arrows and scribbling all over it.

A huge red circle was drawn around the capital with red X’s marking the gates. I searched for the northeast one. It too had a red x, but in Luca’s tiny writing were the words leave open.

Another set of X’s marked the border crossings surrounding the whole kingdom. He’d been thorough. Every path, road, and street crossing the border to another kingdom was marked in some way, and unlike the capital, none of these had been left open. Effectively he’d managed to shut down the entire kingdom in only a couple of weeks. Just how long had he been planning all this?

Smaller crosses, this time in green ink were dotted around the kingdom. The largest was over a field in the south. I realized with a shock that it was exactly where the farmhouse was. He’d found us. I’d never been gladder that Cynder had made the decision to move everyone. I scrambled around in my pocket for the map he’d given me. Comparing it to the large map on the wall, I saw, with relief, that he hadn’t yet found the Freedom of Magic’s new hiding place, but it was only a matter of time. With all the crosses on the map, he must have a whole army working for him.

A noise outside the room alerted me to the fact that a guard was walking along the corridor. I quickly switched off the lamp and hid behind Luca’s desk. The footsteps continued past the room and drifted off into silence. The only sound I could hear was the sound of my own heart beating. I was really walking on thin ice, being out of the kitchen and yet when would I have this opportunity again? I’d noticed on the way in that this particular room had a lock on it, so I suspected the only reason it was unlocked now was because the blonde had caught Luca up to no good. I’d never get this chance again. When I was sure the guard had truly gone, I switched the lamp back on and began to open the drawers in his desk. The top drawer was filled with junk. Paper clips, pens, etc. The only thing in there that did cause me to stop was a gun and a round of ammunition. However much I wanted to take it to try and escape, I knew that I’d never make it. The guards were armed too, and there were a lot more of them than me. After sorting through the rest of the junk, and coming up with no key fob, I moved down to the next one. It was filled with papers. I pulled the top one out. It was a mock-up of an invitation to Luca’s coronation. I threw it to one side in disgust and moved on to the next one. It too was an invite, although this time to a wedding. It wasn’t the invitations we’d sent out. They had been delicately hand drawn with a beautiful carriage on the front and tied with gold ribbon. This had a crass painted picture of a man in a crown and a young woman. The man was obviously supposed to be Luca, but who was the woman? It was not the blonde upstairs that was for sure. This woman had dark hair. I opened the card and gasped when I read what was inside.

It was an invite to the wedding of Luca and Drusilla Bloom. I didn’t need to search around in my brain to remember that name. It had been in the papers almost as much as mine had in the past six months. Drusilla Bloom was one of Cynder’s ugly stepsisters. It all made sense now. How she’d managed to get the money to forge a wedding certificate to Cynder. Luca had been behind it. For a woman who desperately craved fame and fortune, she’d hit the jackpot with Luca. Although I’d never met the woman, the pair of them were a good match for each other. I checked the date. Three months from now. He was planning on getting married in three months, and no one even knew they were dating yet, least of all his mistress or whatever she was upstairs. Picking up the Coronation invitation I’d thrown to one side, I looked at the date on that one too.

It was dated just one day before the wedding. When Drusilla got married, she’d be marrying a king.

She’d be leading my kingdom.

The thought of that awful woman taking my place was almost too much to bear. She, along with her mother and sister, had abused Cynder as a child, forcing him to sleep by the kitchen hearth just as I was doing.

I took a few deep breaths and tried not to let my emotions take over. Crying would do me no good. I needed to come up with a plan. Once Luca was the king, it wouldn’t matter if I was dead or alive. I had to stop this madness before that happened and I had three months to do it.

After scrabbling around in the rest of the drawers, I found nothing else of any interest and definitely no key fob. I carefully placed the invitations back in the drawer where I’d found them and turned the lamp back off.

The corridor was deserted as it had been before and it was easy for me to walk back down it without being detected. The main doors were still closed. How easy would it have been for me to just walk right through them, but as soon as I tried, all the guards in the building would come running. I remembered what Luca had told Drusilla on the phone. He had guards outside too. Basically, without a key fob, I’d never be able to leave.