“Do you really?” I asked with more than a twinge of sarcasm in my voice. “This is serious, Maisie. You cannot go wandering around the palace halls without an escort. A Princess must always be protected. Even if you aren’t really her.”
“So I have to have you follow me around everywhere I go?” she demanded.
“Yes. Though if a murderer like me makes you so uncomfortable, we can always assign my most trusted guards to be near you at all times.”
“Gee, will they spoon feed me, wash me and brush my hair like a little tadpole, too?” she muttered just before she threw her hands up. “Fine. If this is what royalty must go through, then I’ll do it.”
I nodded once. Good. It was better she comply with minimal complaint. It was in everyone’s best interests. “Now,” I began, pacing across the floor with my hands behind my back. “We must first fit you for dresses and perhaps alter hers. Though you look like her, you are much skinnier and her clothes would not fit you.”
“Yeah, hunger has a funny way of doing that to a mer…”
I ignored her comment and went on. “Since the Princess has been deemed sick, they’ll only assume you lost weight because of it. We have that in our favor, at least. We will begin lessons right away.”
“More lessons?” she groaned.
“Speech, swimming, riding, and of course, you still must learn the Princess’s schedule and who she takes tea with, who are her closest friends and who she confides in.”
“Right.” She got up and there was a new light around her as she widened her smile. Determined. Ready. It was almost breathtaking. “Let’s get started, then.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maisie
THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE PURE TORTURE.I kept telling myself I had to get through it, remind myselfwhoI was doing this for. I whispered their names over and over as I suffered through facial massages, aggressive baths, hair trimmings and clothes fittings.
Lessons dragged on, in which Captain Saber treated me like I was an incompetent fool, though I knew he’d never admit to it. He was a very impatient teacher, and seemed to enjoy insulting me anytime I answered a question wrong.
Insults like ‘foolish’, ‘childish’, and ‘irresponsible’, became the norm for me. I was sure he was used to me calling him a tadpole under my breath. Under any other circumstances, I would have probably felt guilty about the way I spoke to him, but he deserved it. He was being a total piranha and was asking for it.
Josiah. Christof. The seamstress. The blacksmith’s son. The Black Blade. Lagoona.
I thought those names many times, the more my Princess training progressed. I mainly thought of the faceless Black Blade and tried not to mourn the loss of my weapon. Throwing myself into my studies helped to take my mind off the fact that Captain Saber hadn’t given me my stuff back.
“You will receive your belongings once the Princess is found and you leave the palace,” he’d said. I’d argued profusely, but he interrupted. “A Princess does not need weapons. Especially not those made by a criminal to the crown.”
And that was that.
I’d cried over the blade that first night and had thrown myself into my studies with great fervor the next morning. Maybe a part of me had hoped that if he saw how hard I was working, he’d be lenient and give it back.
That was not the case.
Days had already past and I was about as close to getting my blade back as I was to changing the fate of the kingdom. Which meant I wasn’t really close at all.
Lessons were usually confined to Princess Odele’s—my—room. The captain didn’t want to risk anyone else seeing me. Not yet. Not until I was ready. I felt ready, but he didn’t believe I was. So for now, I suffered through my confinement, studying the long names and faces of royalty that were close to Odele. I studied who her friends were, what her schedule was, how to take tea and how to swim and speak with elegance.
More often than naught, I laid awake at night, listening to the current slap at the sea glass window panes. Small bioluminescent jellies floated on the canopy above my head, illuminating the room in a soft blue glow in the darkness. I looked around her room, at the richness in décor, at the quartz wall covered in a thick painted seaweed tapestry. The painting was in pinks, golds and blues. The city of Eramaea.
I wondered how Odele could go through these lessons without a care in the world. How she could spend her days riding hippocampus’, taking tea with her royal friends or dressing in such finery while there were mer out there who were suffering under her parents’ rule.
Why hadn’t she done anything to stop the tyranny? Instead, she’d swam away from her problems—whatever those were. I couldn’t help the angry thoughts that sliced through my mind. Thoughts of a selfish Princess who obviously cared about nothing and no one but herself. She hadn’t done a thing to change Thalassar. In all her life, she’d done nothing to help.
And I vowed I would never be as weak and as spoiled as her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maisie
THE NEXT MORNING, THE CAPTAINdeemed me ready enough to swim the hallways of the palace. He’d checked with his trusted guards and had considered the palace empty enough to wander about.
