Burning Kingdoms

“Says you.”

“I thought it was a fine prayer,” Nimble says. He winks at his littlest sister and she grins.

Everyone wields utensils and begins helping themselves. Pen, Basil, Thomas, and I take a modest portion of everything, but we aren’t brave—or perhaps stupid—enough to try eating it.

“Your accent is lovely,” Gertrude says, forcing the words out all at once as though she’s been building the courage to speak. She’s the second oldest, with soft rosy cheeks, and hair that covers one eye as it falls over her shoulder in waves.

“Accent?” I say.

“Yes. You don’t know that word? It’s the way that you speak. Everything has an upward inflection. You all sound so inquisitive. I think it’s pretty.”

“Thank you,” Celeste says brightly. “Where we’re from, everyone speaks the same way. It hadn’t occurred to me there was any other way.”

“There are lots of ways to speak,” Nimble says. “Though King Ingram prefers to war with the one nation that speaks the same language we do.” He looks at Celeste. “You come from a political family. Does that seem smart to you?”

“That’s enough,” Jack Piper says, dabbing his lips with a cloth napkin. “Your depiction of our king is unwelcome in this home, Nimble. We’ve discussed this.”

Nimble’s gaze rolls from one side of his lenses to the other. The younger children are giggling soundlessly at their plates.

“Are you at war?” Celeste asks.

“The dinner table isn’t the place to discuss politics,” Jack Piper says. “Perhaps tomorrow, once you’ve all had a chance to rest.” He leans back so that he can see under the table. “And speaking of inappropriate, what have I told you about rolling your stockings, Gertrude?”

She blushes. “Yes, of course,” she says. “Sorry, Father.”

During the meal, Jack explains to us that this building is something called a hotel during the warm seasons. It’s winter now, he says, and so it’s closed for business. There’s something called a theme park nearby, and people will travel from all across the nation in a season he calls summer to visit it and catch a glimpse of the floating island. They have scopes here on the ground, too, though Internment’s position and altitude prevent them from seeing much besides the bottom of the city.

“It’s flattering to know you’ve taken such an interest in our humble city,” Celeste says. “I—we would all love to see this park.”

“Well, then I—we—will have to show it to you,” Nimble says, and the way he’s looking at her actually makes her blush.

After dinner, Basil and I find a moment alone in the hallway that holds my bedroom. We’re standing in something called the east wing. His room is in something called the west wing. So many words for one building.

His eyes meet mine, and at the same time we both blurt out, “Are you okay?”

He puts his hand on the wall by my head, and I feel so safe, so very safe in his shadow and in the smell of him, like home and bottled redolence and sunlight.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m okay. Are you?”

“Is that the truth?” he says.

“Can’t we just pretend that it is?” I say. “What else are we supposed to do?”

“Morgan—”

I put my finger to his lips. “Don’t. Please. I can’t be pitied right now.”

“All right,” he says.

I nod to the closed door beside us. “They’re making Pen and me share a room with the princess. Pen thinks she’ll kill us in our sleep.”

“I should sleep with you,” he says.

“You know we can’t change where they placed us,” I say. “It might insult them. They were kind enough to take us in at all.”

“You’re right,” he says. “And sooner or later they’ll come to collect on that kindness.”

“What do you suppose they want from us?” I say.

“If it’s a way up to Internment, they’ll soon be disappointed, won’t they?” He makes an effort at a smile. “I’ll see you in the morning, if the princess doesn’t kill you and Pen, and Judas doesn’t kill me.”

“We must survive if only to see what poor animal the Pipers cook for breakfast.” I rise on tiptoes to kiss him. “Good night.”

As I reach for the doorknob, he grabs my wrist. “I also think we should take an opportunity to get familiar with this kingdom,” he says. “In case we have to run.”

“Run.” I try not to laugh, but it’s so absurd. “Basil, where would we go?”

He seems worried, though. “Don’t you think it’s strange that they’ve built a theme park just so they can gaze at the ‘magical floating city’ and yet when the lot of us falls down from it, the king wants to keep us a secret?”

“It is strange,” I say. “But everything about this world is strange so far.”

“All I mean is, what’s to stop him from killing us all if he pleases? No one would be the wiser.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I say, and I feel a chill. “Oh, Basil, do you think that could happen?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “But we should keep that in mind.”

I nod. “We’ll familiarize ourselves with the city. Pen could even draw up a map, I should think.” I force myself to smile. “It will work out, Basil.”

He gives me the same sort of distracted smile. “Good night,” he says.

After I’ve washed up and changed into one of the many nightgowns hanging in the closet, I look for Alice and Lex. They’ll surely be together. When I get to the door at the end of the hallway and I knock, no one answers. There’s light coming from under the door, though. “Hello?” I say, and turn the knob. “Alice?”

“Quiet,” Judas says. “Close the door behind you.”

He’s knelt on the floor beside Amy, whose skin is red. Her hair is damp, and I recognize that dead stare in her eyes.

“I came in to check on her before everyone went to dinner, and I found her in the middle of a fit,” he says. “A bad one.”

“She’s been lying on the floor like that since dinner?” I touch her forehead, and she flinches and gasps, but there’s no real awareness about her.

“I’m afraid to move her,” he says. “Daphne would always say never to move her while her eyes are still open, to wait until she looks like she’s sleeping.”

Daphne aspired to be a medic before her murder, and I’m sure she knew how to care for her sister’s fits, but it doesn’t seem right to leave a sick child on the floor like this.

“I’ll get Lex,” I say.

“No.” He grabs my arm and pulls me back down. “She needs to be kept calm. She doesn’t like when anyone sees her like this; it makes her feel weak.”

“She’s ill, Judas. Look at her. She needs a doctor, and Lex is the closest we’ve got.”

He looks at Amy. Her lips twitch like she’s talking to one of her ghosts.

“She needs a doctor,” I repeat.

“You don’t understand,” he says. “You just don’t. If you want to help, bring a cold cloth from the water room and let’s try to break her fever.”

I do as he says and drench the green towel from the water room.

“Her parents hoped she’d grow out of this,” he says, dabbing at her cheeks and behind her neck. “It’s only gotten worse as she’s gotten older. And the pills and meetings with the specialist have caused more harm than good.” He looks at me. “Want to hear something crazy?”

“What?” I say.

“She’s got me believing in apparitions with all of this. She swears they talk to her.”

“I don’t think that’s crazy,” I say. “Our history book doesn’t account for the unexplained, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Her eyes have closed now. She’s surrendered to whatever dreams haunt that troubled mind of hers. I hope for all of this snow to be gone soon. I hope for a morning bright with sun. If she can see that the sunlight is the same whether we’re on Internment or the ground, it will surely help. It has to.

Pen catches up with me as I’m leaving the water room. “There you are,” she says. “You left me alone with Princess Fancy. It’s a wonder I didn’t kill her.” She leans closer to me. “What is it?” she says. “You look troubled.”

I tug her into the water room and close the door behind us. I tell her about Basil’s theory that Jack Piper and the king could be hiding us away in case he means to kill us.

Pen hardly seems surprised. “Yes, I’ve been thinking that as well,” she says, scrubbing her face at the sink with a cloth. “For all we know, these people have a history of killing outsiders. Or one another. Or anyone. It’s a strange thing to be in a world and not know a thing about its past.”

“So what should we do?” I ask.

“As you said, familiarize ourselves with this kingdom as best we can,” Pen says.

“Do you think you could draw a map?” I say.

“If they have a library, it likely already has a map of the kingdom. I could copy it and add my own notes,” she says.

“Jack Piper’s eldest daughter seems close to our age,” I say. “Maybe we can befriend her and gain some insight into the family.”

Pen shrugs. “We could. I doubt that she’ll be privy to her father’s politics—he seems annoyed with his children at best—but she could probably teach us a thing or two.”

She sits beside me on the edge of the tub. “I think we’d be wise to learn from her, but not to trust her,” she says. “We shouldn’t trust anyone in this world.”

3

There is sunlight come morning, but it’s not the same.

Pen stands at the curtains, parting them with her hand. Beyond the window there is nothing but white.

Celeste, still sleeping, turns away, muttering in protest at the light.

Pen nods from me to the window. “Come and see,” she whispers. “It’s like we’re inside an unfinished sketch.”

Even the water on the horizon is gray and white. It sparkles as it fades into the distance. There is no train framing this city. There is no limit. It could well go on forever, to a horizon it would take ten lifetimes to run to.

There’s a draft coming through the window frame, and my skin swells with little bumps.

“I can hardly stand to look at it,” Pen says excitedly.

“It’s beautiful,” I say. Pen looks at me, and I grin. She knows what I’m thinking. “You know we can’t,” I say. “We’ll freeze to death.”

She runs to the closet, a skip in her step, and she throws a heavy coat at me and takes one for herself. “What good is all that brave nonsense we’ve been feeding each other if we don’t act at least a little crazy?”

“What are you blathering about?” Celeste mumbles from under her blanket.

“Nothing,” Pen says. “I got lost trying to find the water room. Woman troubles.”

“Thank you for that charming announcement,” Celeste says.

We stand still until we’re sure she’s asleep, and then Pen opens the door, wincing as it creaks.

It’s still early and the hotel is silent. The soft floor helps to conceal our footfalls, but we move slowly anyway. “Would you look at these colorings?” Pen says. “The frames are taller than we are.”

I tug at the lapels of my coat, struggling to adjust to the weight on my shoulders. “Do you think they’re portraits of real people?” I say.

“Look at the colors,” Pen says. Her fingertips hover over the portrait of a woman whose shoulders are cloaked in fur, but Pen doesn’t dare to touch. “They’re so rich. If I had colors like this, I’d want a canvas this size to work with too.”

The next step creaks under my foot, startling us both, and we hurry the rest of the way to the door.

Overnight the snow has accumulated to knee height, but the cold is surprisingly bearable. Pen spreads her arms and falls forward into the white powder. When she emerges, her face is red and there are clumps of snow turning to water on her skin.

“Not as soft as you might’ve hoped,” she says, and pulls on my arm. I go toppling down beside her with a shriek.

“There’s so much of it,” I say. “When it melts, the whole world must be soggy underneath.”

“Our little clouds have been holding out on us,” Pen says. “Who knew?”

We make a game of chasing each other, bogged down by the weight around our ankles. We splash each other like it’s the water of an enchanted, glittering lake.

Pen kneels and tries to draw a floating city with her finger, but snow proves to be an unsatisfactory canvas.

I look at the sky, and all I see is more whiteness. I’ve never known the sky to be any color but blue.

And then, as though I willed it, I see a bit of blue in the sky. Moving.

“Pen!” I gasp.

“What? What is it?” It takes her a moment to see what I’m pointing to, and then she’s silent. We both stare at the thing, and turn our heads to follow as it flutters up and out of sight.

“Was that—”

“A bird.” My heart is in my throat.

“It was the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen,” Pen says.

“Do you think it will ever land?”

“Not if it has any sense.”

The moment is broken by a noise in the distance. Along the side of the building, a girl is attempting to scale a tree. We walk toward her until I can better see her wavy hair and the sharp seams in her brown gloves.

“Gertrude?” I say.

She drops from the foothold, a hand to her chest. “Goodness, you scared me half to death,” she says. She gives us a sheepish smile. “You can just call me Birdie. Everyone does.”

“Were you going to break into our bedroom?” Pen says.

Gertrude looks up. “Is that where you’re sleeping? Sorry, girls, that room has the strongest tree outside. You wouldn’t mind my traipsing through every now and again, would you? I’m kind of a night owl.”

“Well, we wouldn’t,” Pen says, “but who knows what Her Royal Stinky Highness will do from one day to the next? I wouldn’t let her catch you.”

Gertrude looks contemplatively at the window again. Her breath comes out in little clouds. She’s wearing a coat that seems too thin for this cold, though she has enough beads around her neck to constitute a scarf.

“Your princess is a wet blanket, huh?”

“That’s one way to put it,” I say.

“Once she senses a weak spot, she goes for the jugular,” Pen says. “Here’s a silly idea: Why don’t you use the door?”

“Father locks it,” she says.

“It isn’t locked now,” I say. “We’ve just opened it.”

“If you give us a heads up, we’ll make sure it’s unlocked when you want to sneak out,” Pen says. “That way you won’t have to sneak through the house or climb through our window and scare everyone senseless.”

“You’d do that?” Gertrude says.

“Back home, I used to sneak out all the time,” Pen says. “There was this little cavern in the woods. Remember, Morgan?”

Remember? How could I not? It was only last week and a lifetime ago. All I can do is nod. I suddenly feel that I’ll cry if I utter a word.

Gertrude smiles. It is a sincere, girlish smile, one that’s unaffected by her heavy eyeliner and blood-red lips. “Well, thanks,” she says. “I should get washed up before Father wakes us for breakfast. I must look like a ragamuffin.”

She’s a shy girl in a rebel’s garb. The ground is her home, but it’s still a big place, and I think she must be like Pen and me—trying to figure out this strange world as it reveals itself, bit by bit.

I think Pen was right, and that Gertrude Piper—Birdie—will have little insight into her father’s political dealings, but I would still like to get to know her.

After she’s gone inside, Pen looks at me. “What’s a night owl?” she says.

I shrug.

By the time we’re summoned for breakfast, Birdie is as fresh-faced and bright-eyed as her brothers and sisters. Not a drop of cosmetics on her face. After a night of no sleep, I’m not sure how she manages it, but no one suspects a thing, though I see Nimble elbow her as she takes her place beside him.

The plates are laid before us. Something yellow and fluffy, accompanied by little gray-brown cakes. “Eggs!” Annette says happily.

Pen can’t hide her skepticism. “The eggs of what?” she asks. We’ve never heard of eating something in egg form.

“Chickens,” Annette says.

“Chickens are birds,” Nimble says, watching to see our reaction.

I tuck my hands under the table. I was already having difficulty forcing an appetite, but now there’s no hope for this meal passing between my lips.

“We don’t eat a lot of plants,” he adds.

“Can it, Nim,” Birdie says under her breath. She clears her throat. “Where’s Father?”

“Otherwise engaged,” Nimble says. “He’s with a few of the king’s finest, trying to talk that crazy old man out of that ramshackle plane.”

“You should talk to that little girl—what’s her name?” Celeste says. “His granddaughter.”

“Amy,” Judas says. “And she hasn’t woken up yet. The trip exhausted her.”

“How exhausted could she be?” Celeste says. “We’re all recovered by now. Except for your brother, Morgan.”

At the mention of Lex, my hands turn to fists. She speaks so casually of people she doesn’t know at all. She doesn’t understand what it’s like for Amy and Lex. She doesn’t understand blindness or crippling fits or what it means to be anything but royalty.

“Is Amy all right?” Basil whispers to me.

I shake my head at my plate of strange food. I don’t know. “I’ll go and check on her,” I say.

“You have to ask to be excused first,” Annette says.

“May I be excused?”

“Yes. You may.”

When I open the door to Amy’s room, I find her standing at the window, her hair tangled from sleep.

“Here we are,” she says.

“Here we are. I went outside this morning. Didn’t realize how cold it truly was until I came back inside and the feeling started returning to my fingers.”

“It sounds wonderful,” she says. Her voice is subdued, though, and when she turns to face me, her eyes are cloudy.

“Would you like something to eat?” I say. “The food is strange, but the princess seems to like it. Pen has sort of been using her as a poison tester.”

Amy shakes her head. “My stomach is still recovering from the trip. I am getting restless, though.”

“Well, then, how would you like to go outside?” I say. “They could use your help talking the professor out of the bird.”

Her eyes brighten at that.

“And speaking of birds, I saw a real one today,” I say. “It flew straight across the sky and disappeared.”

“You didn’t,” she gasps.

“There are bound to be more. Maybe we’ll see one. Hurry and get dressed.”

“Will you come too?” she says.

“Sure, if you want.”

“And—could you tell Judas not to tag along?”

“I can talk to him, but—”

“If you want me to try and convince my grandfather to come out, those are my terms,” she says. “Let me get dressed.”

She shoos me from the room and closes the door.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” I mutter to the knob.

Judas doesn’t take kindly to being left out, but it’s enough of a relief to see Amy up and about that he concedes to her demands, though not without grabbing my arm at the door and warning that he will kill me if anything happens while she’s in my charge.

It isn’t the first time he’s threatened me in this way, but it is the first time I believe him. Now that his betrothed is dead, Amy is the only thing he has resembling family. Her frail health and stubborn bravery give him good reason to be concerned.

“I’ll guard her as if she were my own,” I say.

“If you had given birth to me when you were five,” Amy says snidely. Her way of reminding us that she isn’t a child.

“Don’t worry,” Nimble says. “I’m an old pro at driving in this weather.”

He drives slowly, glancing back at us in the mirror every now and again. “I couldn’t help noticing the tracks outside this morning,” he says.

“We’ve never seen snow before,” I say.

“Then this must be a real shock,” he says. “What do you get? Rain?”

“Rain?” I ask.

He laughs, turns the wheel against his open palms. “Oh boy.”

No matter how far we drive, we never seem to get any closer to the city in the distance. We do pass the field of strange machines I noticed when we landed, though. “What are all of those?” I say, nodding to the machines outside my window.

“Rides,” Nimble says. “That’s the theme park. Roller coasters and biplane rides to give you the sensation you’re flying higher than airplanes. For a penny you can get a look at the underside of the magical floating island through a telescope.”

“The magical floating island?” Amy says, scrunching her nose. “That’s what people call us?”

“What do you call it, then?”

Amy says “Internment” at the same time I say “Home.”

“Internment,” Nimble repeats several times, testing the word on his tongue. “As in ‘confined.’ Creepy.”

“It isn’t creepy at all,” I say.

“Maybe it is,” Amy says. “Not at first. You’d have to be there a while to see it.”

She’s quiet after that.

We pass what appears to be a sort of garden made of rocks, and Amy’s breath catches. Her chin snaps up attentively and her eyes are sharp.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you feel another fit coming on?”

She climbs onto her knees and watches through the back window as the garden gets smaller.

“That place gives me the heebie-jeebies too, kid,” Nimble says.

“What is it?” I say.

He raises his eyebrows at me in the mirror. “Where do you put your dead on Internment?”

Amy’s voice is small and fading when she says, “We burn them. Until they’re nothing and nowhere.”

I try to explain the tributary to Nimble, how we burn the bodies of our dead so that all the bad in them can fall away, while all the good becomes a mass of colors in the sky that can’t be seen by the living. I’ve believed it all my life, but now that I’m on the ground, it doesn’t make as much sense as it once did.

Down here, they bury their dead. Mark the spot with a stone, with dates and names. Leave flowers to remember.

It must be nice to have so much space to squander.

“Have you ever buried anyone?” Amy asks.

“Can’t say as I have,” Nimble says.

That must be nice, too.

“Here we are,” Nimble announces, stopping the car. The bird is several paces away, surrounded by men in coats who appear to be convening.

“Morning, boys,” Nimble says, and opens the door for Amy and me. “We all figured you wouldn’t have much luck talking him out, so I’ve brought someone to help. This here’s the old man’s granddaughter.”

After a brief discussion, Jack, who seems to be heading this unsuccessful operation, agrees to let Amy inside. “Go with her,” he tells Nimble.

“No,” Amy says. “It won’t do any good unless I go alone. He’s quite stubborn.”

The men all exchange glances. Jack hesitates. Amy nods to the red metal funnel that’s in his hands. “May I?” she says.

He’s so perplexed by her straightforwardness that he hands it to her. She holds the funnel near her mouth. “Grandpa, it’s me. Amy.” Her voice is magnified. “I’ve come to talk to you.”

She hands the funnel to Jack. “Thank you,” she says.

Nothing happens for a few seconds, and then there’s the unlatching of locks. Amy breezes past us and opens the door, disappearing into the darkness and then closing it behind her.

The men are all astonished. With a few words she’s managed to do what they’ve been trying to do all morning.

Nimble folds his arms. “She’s a real firecracker, isn’t she?”

I don’t know what that means, but it sounds apt. “She’s hard to stop …” My voice trails as I step back and look at the bird. Just as the ground looked like a patchwork quilt of land, the bird is a patchwork of metal in varying hues. It’s at least three stories high, it tilts to one side, and it stands on legs that are made of blades for burrowing through the soil. The wings are folded now, like a beetle that has fallen dead.

It doesn’t look like it would fly so much as hurtle through the sky and then destroy the ground it hit. But I am still astounded by the sight of it. Astounded that such a thing could be designed, assembled, welded, and created in secret, quite under the king’s nose. It was a refuge for us. It’s the embodiment of our rebellion, our liberation. It’s the thing my parents and Amy’s sister and countless others died for. It was nearly a lifetime in the making.