“Are you?” I snap. “What was he to you?”
Her mouth works. A puff of breath escapes before she pins her lips closed between her teeth. Her eyes harden. “What was he? He was the father of my friend.” She draws out the last word, ending it with a hard d. It feels like an accusation. “Don’t forget how hard I worked to get that royal order for him.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “That was quite an effort. Quite a sacrifice on your part—”
“Astrid,” she says. Her hands have wrapped around my wrists. I notice that my own are balled into fists. Would I have struck her? Did her Cientia feel it coming? “You have a right to be angry and you have a right to feel wronged, but I worked hard to convince the king to sign that royal order. I may not have known your father, but you also don’t truly know mine, so save your condemnation for someone else.”
Her eyes burn, bright and scalding. There’s a taste in the air like gunpowder—steam and sulfur—and I know my Cientia is noticing Renya’s indignation. I don’t know if convincing her father to sign that order was difficult or not, but she did it. She helped me. That’s more than anyone else did. “I’m lost,” I say. “I don’t know where they took my father’s body. I don’t know where they took Marlon.” Hot tears spill onto my cheeks, which only makes me angrier.
“I don’t know either, but I’ll find out,” she says. She glances up the avenue. The band leading the parade is just a half a block away. “But right now we need to go back to the platform.”
I let her lead me by the hand. It isn’t until we’re climbing the steps that I notice all the flashbulbs going off, and I hope they are mostly pointed at the parade and not at us, though I doubt it.
Back on the platform, King Marchant stands center stage, looking down on the parade. The wind is gusting, and his white hair is blowing back in a way that makes him look far less dignified. Prince Lars is on his right with Kit behind him, and then Sir Arnaud. The prince is turned away from the railing, glancing back at us. He looks a great deal like Renya, only in place of her auburn hair, his is almost blond. His eyes are cold. He’s handsome in that way a vampire might be handsome.
Below us, the parade draws a torrent of sound from the crowd. People are all calling out, but not in unison . . . not even the same words. Some are shouting Hail the harvest! while others seem to simply be yelling Apples! Renya takes her place on her father’s left, and I stand behind her. Between carts overflowing with red and green apples, military officers pass by on horseback, accompanied by children on bicycles. My eyes can’t fix on any one thing. A gust of wind catches one of the flowers pinned in my hair and it breaks free. Renya’s hand shoots out, trying to catch it. She misses, but when she watches it float away, her gaze lingers on her father and Sir Arnaud.
When she turns back to face me, she smirks like a child who’s found a way around the grown-ups’ rules. “What are you planning?” I ask, knowing whatever it is, it almost certainly will put me at risk of a beating.
Before she can answer, though, a voice calls out, and it’s not Hail the harvest or Apples or anything like that. It’s a scream in pain. I look down directly below us on the street, where a wagon is passing by in the parade.
To call it an applecart would be like calling the palace a barn. This is a massive wagon, loaded down with bushels of silver-skinned apples, decorated with so many flowers it looks like someone died. I’m so distracted by the pageantry of it, I almost forget what called my attention, but then I hear it again.
A scream.
It’s coming from the front of the cart. A half dozen Outsiders are strapped into harnesses, men and women, some old enough to be my grandparents. An Enchanted taskmaster walks behind them, a wide-brimmed hat on her head. There are no horses or mules—these Outsiders are pulling this enormous cart. They’re slump-shouldered, their bodies leaning hard against the load. All of them are suffering, so much so I can’t tell who screamed. But then I hear it again, and I notice an old woman, harnessed near the front, who buckles to her knees.
I can’t help but think of Papa, down on his knees. I wish I could run down the steps to help this woman, but I know it would be futile. Horses could pull these carts, and they’d do a better job of it. But that wouldn’t remind Outsiders what we’re worth: the strength of our backs. Our resilience. Our ability to survive the hardest struggles, to be hurt, fall down, and still, to get back up again. It’s the role of Outsiders in Lanoria, and even when there’s a parade, the Enchanteds make sure we don’t forget.
A line of Authority guards on horseback moves up beside the cart and blocks my view. The wagon rolls on—the woman must have gotten up—and if she’s still screaming, I can’t hear her voice anymore.
When I turn my attention back to the princess, I notice she’s backed me up to the steps we came up earlier that lead down to the hidden space between the stalls. She presses her hand into mine. I realize what she has in mind, and my heart rattles with panic. She says, “I can see by the look on your face you think this is a mistake.”
“I do.”
“Hear me out. There are medics stationed just one block away. I saw their white tent from the railing. You want to know where they took your father and brother, don’t you? Then that’s where we need to ask.”
“Renya, if we get caught—”
“Don’t be silly; we won’t get caught.” She wraps a shawl over her head and shoulders. It’s one that a vendor foisted on her, red with silver trim. It does help hide her hair and face, but still, this scheme of hers is dangerous. “I never found a silver honeypot. If anyone asks, we went out looking for one.”
It’s pointless to resist her—she’s going to do what she wants anyway, and she is trying to help me—so I let her lead me down the steps and into the crowd. With so many people, everyone’s invisible, even the princess, as long as she keeps her head down, and she drags me behind her as she cuts a winding course along the parade route.
Once we’re inside the white medical tent Renya is immediately recognized. The Outsiders bombard her with bows and curtsies, and the Enchanted taskmaster makes a bit of a fool of himself trying to address her, blurting out nonsense like Your Loveliness and Your Enchanted Highness.
“Your Royal Highness will do,” I say. Renya eats it up with a spoon.
But she knows how to get what she wants. She’s both calming him down and buttering him up. Pulling him aside, she speaks low, as if to take him into her confidence, so I step back out to the street and watch the spectacle: Enchanteds popping sweets into their mouths and pinning flowers in each other’s hair, while Outsiders scurry to serve them or struggle under unbelievably heavy loads. The sounds of the carnival—music and shouting and the feet of dancers pounding on the stones—blur together into one deafening roar. I wish I could lose myself in the festivities, find a silver honeypot and be happy with it. But now that my father is dead, every inequity I see at the carnival strikes me like a slap. My Cientia picks up so many emotions in the crowd—the sour heat of desperation and the heavy darkness of pain, swirling with the light citrus sting of raucous joy. Inside me, my grief ripens into rage.