Misfit Princess Read online

  The dirt floor of the bazaar gave way to brick pavements under her boots, and Grace tried to turn off her brain and arrange her face into something sufficiently pleasant. The throngs of the bazaar had made her invisible, but now there would be people who would know her and would care.

  It was home, so Grace would spend the effort go get home early enough to bathe and change properly to show her parents she meant well.

  When she reached it, her room was as she’d left it: small and undecorated. Her bed stood in the center of the room, made sloppily with brown sheets and a spread in a color that reminded her of warm spice cake drenched in syrup. Orange-toned lights cast a warm glow over everything, and she gave half a thought to curling back into her bed.

  Instead she turned into the adjoining bath, where she washed with precision and speed. Her mind was on the events of the day, and the feel of water and soap on her skin faded into the background. Once she’d dried off, she picked the first suitable outfit that hit her hand and dressed.

  Task accomplished, she glanced herself over and found herself unremarkable. She knew she was on the short side, but not remarkably so; her brown hair, brown eyes, and brown skin were utterly typical of Coura. Perhaps the most unique feature she possessed was her stocky build. She'd spent time and effort enhancing it with muscles, and was pleased with the results, but once she dressed for the day, most people assumed her bulk stemmed from a fondness for too many sweets.

  In any event, she was ready for the evening.

  She would have been nearly an hour early to the function, but Petra caught her as she was about to walk out into the gardens and snagged her wrist. “Come on, we can do our make-up together!”

  Grace opened her mouth and shut it again when she saw a worry line etched faint on Petra’s forehead. Rolling her eyes, she let Petra lead her inside and up the stairs.

  “You didn't miss much today,” said Petra as they settled onto the plush stools in front of the mirror in Petra's room. “It was all trade agreements and long speeches.”

  “Anyone unhappy?” asked Grace, only half looking for information. Petra thrived on long speeches about trade agreements.

  “Not really.” Curling her leg under herself, Petra began to twist her hair up in an intricate design. “Geneana wants to sell more leather. When doesn't it? And Myriara spent forty-five minutes talking about a new fabric one of their traders invented. It's a hemp hybrid and the way they work the fibers to make it waterproof is really interesting.”

  Grace let Petra's voice wash over her. She focused on not poking herself in the eye with the make-up brush and didn't pay close attention until the steady noise of Petra's chatter faltered and then died away. It had taken years before she’d learned she had to let her talk herself into calmness before she could ask the real questions.

  Taking the opportunity, Grace asked: “What’s bothering you?”

  Petra ran her fingers along the handle of her brush. “Dylan mentioned you at lunch.”

  That startled Grace. “He what?”

  “We were walking in the gardens and he mentioned that he was impressed how loyal your team seemed when he toured the facility.” Her long fingers traced the curve of the brush, worrying at the curls of delicately details carved on it. “The way he said it was a little left-handed, but I'm sure he meant it well.”

  Grace could still feel the sting of his cheek against her knuckles. “You were walking with him in the gardens?”

  “You should get to know him, Grace,” said Petra, in a rush. “He's always really nice to me, and it's always so-- quiet when he's around. Talking to him is a little like talking to you, you know, where I'm not overwhelmed with every little thing everyone is thinking and not saying. I know the two of you don't really get on, but I would like it if you two tried to get along better.”

  Grace nodded and took Petra’s hand. She had nothing nice to say about Dylan, but she could still offer her sister comfort. Instead of picking a fight, she said, “I couldn't find Jack and Nell at the bazaar today.”

  Petra looked badly startled, but the line etched in her forehead had softened. “The mountain roads can be tricky to navigate this time of year. Did they reserve a booth space this year?”

  “I'll check tomorrow.” She stood and tugged Petra up with her, pleased the distraction had worked. “Shall we?”

  Chapter 2

  Grace and Petra arrived together and on time. It was light out, days summer-long, and the sun slanted in the windows on the hordes of people beginning to amass. It was, Grace decided, slightly less awful than a ball by simple virtue of dividing people up amongst a set of small rooms and providing them with something to discuss other than each other.

  She gave the paintings on the walls a cursory glance. They exploded in riots of color, already attracting clusters of brightly-clad patrons jockeying for influence and the ear of those in power. There was nothing compelling to note. The art would be up for the first half of the bazaar. If it proved interesting, she could visit the exhibit at any time. The reception was for socialization.

  Petra led the way to their parents. Grace turned back in time to see the grateful look her parents sent Petra dissolve into incredulity before they finally smiled and nodded at Grace. Petra squeezed Grace’s hands and stepped away. A clump of Geneanans swept her up immediately.

  “I am trying,” said Grace, voice dry. Breaking into the intimacy of a wordless exchange always felt rude.

  Her parents started at the sound, as they so often did when Grace's voice interrupted their silent conversations.

  “We know. It's just--” The queen made a jerky gesture.

  “I know,” said Grace, and squashed the urge to add ‘I'll be good’ as if she were still a child.

  She mingled as well as she could and tried not to skulk behind refreshments table too much. Once, her older brother William had caught her there and tried to introduce her to what William called “just a few of my closest friends” and Grace called “a horde of strangers”. It had been mortifying for both of them.

  Grace had even remembered to compliment the artist when the susurrus of half-spoken half-connected conversations ground to a halt.

  “Alessandra LeMieux,” she heard her mother's voice over the sudden lull. “We're so glad you could make it.”

  Grace looked around and saw her parents greeting a tall, curvy woman in a sleek suit. A handful of excitable fashion designers had discovered a new dying technique during last year’s bazaar, and they’d pulled out all the stops from the palette. As a result, a tumultuous rainbow had taken over the fabric market, and designers had lapped it up. Reds sizzled, greens sparkled, and blues dripped kaleidoscopically over the arms, hips, and legs of the fashion-forward.

  Grace had frantically negotiated with the family seamstress and Petra for something a bit subtler, and had ended up with an array of tunics in brilliant green patterns that at least didn’t make her feel as though she’d spun dizzily into a sideshow.

  This woman’s suit was some dark earthy color. It didn’t even bother to be crow’s wing black. Grace liked her instantly.

  “With my schedule, I almost couldn’t come,” the woman said. “I'm glad I did.”

  Titters began springing up around the room. Instead of the gentle murmur of small talk, these new conversations featured the hissed sibilants of gossip.

  Grace could hear her mother say, “Can we offer you--” before the volume resumed and Grace could hear nothing further.

  She slipped back against the wall to watch, fascinated, as her parents made deliberately animated conversation with the woman and everyone else gave them a wide berth.

  It came as a shock when the woman looked straight at her when her parents began to steer her into the next room. The eye contact pinned Grace to the wall for what couldn't have been more than a second or two, and then the woman winked before letting Grace's parents whisk her out of the room. Grace had a sudden wild impulse to follow her, but the crowd had closed behind them and was very g
ently moving away from the garden. She did not think they had all gotten a sudden craving for canapes.

  Instead, Grace escaped out one of the back exits. Something of note had happened after all.

  “Who was that woman?” Grace asked Petra, perching on the same stool she’d occupied earlier that evening. Petra had blown through the door smelling of other people’s cologne and twirled her cape onto a peg by the door before she’d noticed Grace was up and waiting for her. Grace had set aside her mug of cocoa and followed her upstairs, hoping she wasn’t being too obvious.

  Petra began tugging flowers out of her hair. “Which woman?”

  Grace tried for nonchalance. “Alexandra something? I forget exactly.”

  “The Ice Pretender?” Petra froze with her hair half down and turned to face Grace. She wore the same smile she’d worn when Grace had told her about the time William had spent an entire court meeting falling over his feet to impress a visiting dignitary from Myriara.

  Grace was pretty sure that she hadn’t heard anything about ice pretenders, and she’d been listening. She leaned in and settled her chin on her hand. “The what?”

  Leaning back with a smirk, Petra resumed pulling pins out of her hair. She let each one fall with a theatrical disapproving clink on the table. “Really, Grace, if you went to more events, you’d know who attended them.”

  “I go to enough to know I’ve never seen her before,” Grace said, forcing her hands to stillness. “Look, all I know is that no one but Mom and Dad went near her for a solid twenty minutes.”

  Petra’s eyes got very big. It put Grace in the mind of the time she’d dragged Petra out camping, and Petra had gamely tried her hand at telling ghost stories. “You saw Alessandra Lemieux, the Ice Pretender! Don't let her hear you say that, though. The last person who called her that in earshot got robbed the very next day. Call her Ms. Lemieux; it's the only safe thing.”

  Grace tucked her legs underneath her on the stool. “Why do they call her that, then?”

  Petra put the last pin down and shook out her hair. It tumbled in gleaming chestnut waves down her back as she leaned closer to Grace. “Well, because she's a little creepy. You can barely read her, but she can read you. And no one quite knows where all her money comes from. Some people say it's blackmail, and some say she just stole it all.”

  “So she really robbed the person who called her that?” Grace scooted forward, too, less conspiratorial and more incredulous. Her parents wouldn't greet a known thief so warmly.

  Petra settled back on her stool, reaching for her brush again. “Welllll, it was never proven. Actually, they say she was in Geneana that day, and couldn't possibly have done it. She says she can prove she couldn't have possibly done it. But no one ever solved it, so no one knows for sure.”

  “Wait, how'd she get the nickname before the woman got robbed?”

  “No one's really close to her, you know? And they had to call her something, and no one can figure out what her game is. What do you think?” Light was back in Petra’s eyes. Grace rarely liked to chat about social goings-on.

  “I think she looked nice,” said Grace absently, turning the new information over in her head.

  Petra dropped her brush with a clatter. “You think she's hot?”

  “No!” Grace said automatically, and then realized it wasn’t true. “Well, yes, but-- I'd like to get to know her.”

  “You have a crush on the Ice Pretender.” Petra flopped down on her bed, hair half-brushed. “Grace, you never have crushes.”

  Grace leaned back against the abandoned counter, grinning broadly. “Says the girl who has a different crush every fortnight.”

  Petra threw a pillow at Grace.

  Grace caught it before it hit her in the face. “Hey, you know it's true! I can list them off-- first it was the wineseller with the--”

  Petra threw another pillow. “I never had a crush on the Ice Pretender.”

  “What's wrong with--” Grace fished the pillow off the floor and weighed it as she fumbled with the name. “--with Ms. Lemieux?”

  “She's the most notorious citizen of Coura, for one! Grace, couldn't you have a normal crush, like on a cute girl from class?”

  “I remember when you had a crush on a cute guy from class. What was his name again? Tomdonvictordaveleonbill The Third?”

  Petra groaned and dug under her covers for another pillow. “I will never forgive you for scaring off Ezekiel when you called him that.”

  “Oh yes,” said Grace, preparing to dodge. “You had very nearly worked up the nerve to talk to him. I can see how calling him that completely changed his opinion of you.”

  Petra yelped and threw the pillow again.

  Jack and Nell hadn't registered for a booth, Grace found the next day after a brief wrangle with the city archivist's assistant. Neither had they sent their regrets.

  “Maybe it was a bad wine year,” Petra said as they walked to lunch.

  Grace said nothing, knowing from experience Petra could sense her agitation. She didn't want to be soothed.

  “I'm sure they're fine, Grace.” Sighing heavily, Petra pushed the door to the hall open. The noise of hundreds of people in conversation poured out.

  Grace remained unconvinced as they took their seats at the royal family’s table. She turned her attention to the stewed vegetables on her plate and ate in silence. The spice of the sauce made her eyes water. This proved useful: it blocked out any stray thoughts.

  Petra let Grace keep her silence for most of the meal before elbowing her very hard in the ribs.

  “Ow,” said Grace, not particularly bothered by Petra's elbow.

  “Petra!” exclaimed their mother.

  “Mom, Grace won't quit worrying,” Petra explained. “She thinks something awful happened to some of the wine sellers.”

  “Oh, honey,” their mother said. She reached across the table to rub Grace’s hand in a comforting gesture. “You know how the mountains are.”

  “I know Jack and Nell made it through the blizzard to get to the first day of market six years ago,” Grace said, feeling stupid about it. “They were the first ones here that year.”

  “You're probably just bored,” said their father. “But it's a good problem to have, isn't it? To be a little bored.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled, the way they had when Grace had smuggled a trio of frogs into a formal dinner. She had been young enough that the visitors didn’t hold the ensuing chaos against her. The mistake had been excused because of her youth, her inexperience.

  This time, Grace was not mistaken.

  She shoved her chair back hard, shaking her head. She didn't have words to deal with this. Suddenly, there were tears at the corner of her eyes that had nothing to do with sauce. Frustration bubbled on the edge of her consciousness like a stew pot over too hot a flame. She escaped the room before she could shout at anyone.

  Three steps down the hallway, Petra caught up with her. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought talking about it might help.”

  “It won't.” Grace didn't want to fight with Petra, who was trying.

  Petra made a frustrated gesture. “I just--” It encompassed everything that frustrated Grace about Coura. Everything that Petra understood intuitively and lay persistently just out of Grace’s grasp.

  Grace let Petra flutter for a moment while she looked for words. “I know. It doesn't change anything.”

  “Just-- stay safe.” Petra looked miserable. “Don't get yourself hurt looking for trouble.”

  Guilt descended on Grace. “Petra, you brat. Of course I'll be careful.” She grabbed Petra’s shoulder to ruffle her hair just enough to make her point, but not so much that Petra would have to take time fixing it.

  The next week passed in a haze of people who didn't know anything, hadn't heard anything, and didn't care. Grace felt like she'd never talked to so many people in such a short time in her life. The names and faces blurred together in her mind. When she tripped over a hole in a field because sh
e’d been too distracted to remember it was there, she knew she needed to change tactics.

  Disgruntled, she gave up. The next morning, she went looking for Derrick before practice.

  Predictably, she found him hunched over the workbench in his workshop. In the winter, he used it as his storefront for the rare customer. During the bazaar, he had a stall. He’d hired a half-retired wizened old woman to run it; she cackled and lectured potential customers about safety in between making sales. It had become a tradition, and five years ago when the woman who had run the stall decided she wanted to move to Picara, Derrick had held a tense week of interviews to find a suitable replacement. His stall and its cantankerous occupant provided excellent theater for passersby as well as turning a brisk trade. In all, it meant that Derrick’s workshop was usually deserted in the summer.

  Grace walked through the door and felt instantly comforted. As always, a staff rack in the shape of a tree twined its way up the far wall, dark branches casting atmospheric shadows over the plain walls. It was the only piece of decoration in the room. The only other point of interest was the workbench that housed a single bare rack that contained the serious metal tools of a master woodworker.

  Derrick didn't look up from the staff he was varnishing. “You've been busy.”

  “For all the good it's done.” Grace flopped onto his visitor’s chair. Derrick had spared no comfort in its construction, with the idea that its unforgiving wood seat would speed negotiations.