The Severance Game, page 3
While the dancing may have been an enjoyable spectacle to observe, and Marie seemed nice, the aroma won out. I bid goodbye to the princess and headed toward the food. On my journey to the snack table, however, I encountered two obstacles.
The first occurred about halfway there when I had to quickly sidestep to evade a couple in mid tango. In my haste I bumped into another one of my new peers. Alas, unlike Jason, I instantly disliked this boy.
“You should watch where you’re going,” the boy said condescendingly. “A small princess like you could get trampled if not careful.”
I glared at him. “Dude—”
“Chance.”
“Chance,” I continued. “We’re basically the same height.”
“Yes, but princesses are so much more fragile. You’re damsels. Besides, I am in the middle of a growth spurt.”
“I hope for your sake it’s a big one. You might look disproportionate if that big head of yours doesn’t get a matching set of shoulders.”
Chance eyed me like a boxer sizing up an opponent, but also like a dog meeting a raccoon for the first time—with careful consideration. I eyed him too. But my version of it was like a mongoose observing a proud snake—amused and insulted, for the snake had no idea what I was capable of.
I noted that for a ten-year-old, Chance had a lot of confidence. It practically radiated from him. And he was cute, I guess. (Again, for a ten-year-old.) But the boy had a smugness in his eyes that made me certain that if I’d ever run into him on a playground growing up, I would have surely shoved him in the mud.
“Pay no mind to her, Prince Chance.”
A surprisingly stealthy Mauvrey slipped next to us. Her arms crossed, she bumped Chance’s shoulder playfully. “She is hardly worth the attention of our kind.”
“You’re so right, Mauvrey,” I replied, unfazed. “Allow me to direct you to something of interest that’s more on your level.” I tore a few sparkly beads from the bodice of my dress and tossed them across the floor like marbles. “Go get the shiny, Mauvrey. Go on, go get it girl.”
Mauvrey narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t retort. She simply grabbed Chance by the arm and led him in the other direction. I was sure I would pay for my snarky comment in some way later. Maybe Mauvrey would plant peanut butter in my shoes or use her perfect vocal chords to persuade the mockingbirds outside our room to mock me. For now, though, she’d been foiled. And that was good enough for me. After all, I had bigger fish to fry, and by that I meant eating the fancy, bacon-wrapped fish sticks arranged in towers at the snack table.
Unfortunately, that was where I encountered the second obstacle between me and my quest for treats: my height. The fish stick towers, modeled to look like the skyscrapers of Century City, were on top of a two-foot-tall display stand at the back of the table close to the wall. Even on my tippy toes I couldn’t quite reach it.
There were plenty of other snacks within reach. In fact, pretty much all others were. But I was hardly the type to let things go. Once I got an idea in my head, I would follow that path no matter how dangerous or potentially problematic it could be. It was not the wisest way, but it was my way. And most of the time that kind of cement-headed persistence tended to yield fruitful results. Right now, though, it was just making me feel stupid.
I gripped the edge of the table with my hands and boosted myself up. Then I balanced my weight on one hand while I outstretched the other.
Almost . . . Almost . . .
“Here, let me help you with that.”
Startled, I looked up to see an older girl, about fourteen and fairly tall, reach past me and grab a fish stick. I released my grip on the table and landed on the ground just as she handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.” The girl shrugged, her impressively curly, chestnut brown hair bouncing off her shoulders. “When I was younger I had the same kind of face-off with a fondue fountain. Needless to say it did not end well.”
I opened my mouth to respond but was cut off.
“Ashlyn!”
An elegant girl with tan skin that glowed like bronze and dark hair pulled into a regal bun, scurried over. Her pale yellow dress matched the canary diamond earrings hanging from her ears. When she reached us she excitedly grabbed onto the arm of the girl who’d just been helping me.
“Come on,” she said. “Prince Daryl is looking for you. And you know if you do not swoop in now, one of the other princesses will snatch him up.”
“Right.” The girl (Ashlyn, I guess) nodded. “Go time then.”
She pushed some loose curls out of her face, adjusted the lift of her strapless bra with a subtle pulling motion, and then gave me a nod. “Good luck, little duck. Try to keep out of trouble.”
As she and her friend rushed off, I ate my fish stick and wondered why people were always telling me that. I guess while Chance radiated confidence and Jason emitted amicability, I must’ve given off an aura of mischief.
I’m not sure if that’s something to lament or embrace, but I guess I’ll roll with it.
After a few minutes of dawdling by the snack table I got bored and decided to try and find some place where I might have more fun. I was on the other side of the ballroom now, pretty far from most of the other kids in my year and surrounded on all sides by our bigger, more majestic counterparts.
I knew my older brother Alex was somewhere in that mess, but I didn’t look for him. My mom and I had traveled to school separately as he’d planned to meet up with some friends along the way. Besides that, I’d long promised myself that I wouldn’t bother him when we got here. He and I were close, but he had a good thing going at school. At Lord Channing’s he was popular—royal, handsome, heroic—and he didn’t need a ten-year-old kid sister cramping his style. He would’ve never actually said this to me, of course, but I was realistic enough to know it was true.
With no one to talk to and nothing to do, I found my way to the stage at the front of the room. The forty-piece orchestra was playing animatedly, framed by heavy, light pink curtains.
There was a door ajar that led to the backstage area. I subtly slipped through it. Sixteen steps later, I found myself surrounded by a myriad of pulleys and levers that controlled the curtains and lighting equipment.
I peered onto the stage. I was just behind the orchestra, which was elevated on platforms facing outward. Spotlights in assorted pastel colors rotated around the musical ensemble, reflecting off the instruments and mimicking the rhythm of the songs. They were so bright and spellbinding that the tiny particles of lint dancing in the air looked like magic dust.
Only Lady Agnue’s could manage such a trick of the light, I thought, and make something so bland and inconsequential resemble something so inexhaustibly sparkly.
I was surprised that there was no one back here monitoring the equipment. But on further inspection I realized that all the lights were on timers. And the curtain ropes did not need supervision. They were secured in place—tightly wound and held by a sturdy padlock to keep their knots fortified.
The orchestra had its back to me. The side area I stood in led to some curtained-off corridors, which likely ran to a greenroom. I knew there would be no performers or professors back there now as the ball was midway through. Other than the random cricket I saw perched on one of the control boards, I was completely alone.
As such, in the cover of the secluded alcove I finally felt comfortable letting myself feel like myself. And what that meant was drawing out my wand.
A few years ago, my godmother (my mother’s Fairy Godmother, Emma) had gifted it to me on my birthday. Since then I had become attached to it in the way most girls grew fond of their dolls.
It was about a foot long and off-white. In dark spaces it gave off a silvery glow, but the luminescence of the stage area was so bright that the effect was counteracted for the time being.
I’d never really had a proper place to store the wand. (Emma hadn’t exactly included a carrying case in the gift bag.) And since I’d always been dead set on preventing anybody—my parents, my brothers, my teachers—from finding out about it, I had a tendency to keep it shoved in my boot.
I lifted the hem of my gown, exposing the inappropriate footwear I had on beneath it.
Despite my mother’s famous origin story and the laws of society that dictated I would eventually have to master walking in high-heeled shoes, I loved nothing more than wearing one of my many pairs of boots.
It went without saying that my mother was not a fan of this proclivity, even after I pointed out that if she had been wearing boots the night of her famous ball she could’ve gotten away a lot faster and not twisted her ankle in the process (an unfortunate truth so often left out of her fairytale’s retellings).
However, regardless of her disapproval, she had allowed me to pack a few pairs for school. And as I was already going to be on my toes figuratively tonight, I’d opted to secretly wear a pair beneath my dress.
So far it had proven to be an inspired choice. Nobody was the wiser and I had a place to keep my wand for the evening.
I knew I couldn’t very well store the precious thing in my boot forever. If I kept it there for more than an hour it seriously started to press into my calf, causing me to walk with a limp. But it had been worth the irritation tonight. I wasn’t relaxed enough at school yet to feel comfortable leaving it in my room, even if it was hidden. Moreover, messing around with it had a calming effect on me. After the stressful day I’d had that was definitely something I needed.
I twirled my wand between my fingers with ease. Then I smiled and let out a whisper.
“Knife.”
The moment the word escaped my lips, or rather the moment the thought escaped my brain, the wand changed in my hand. The bottom part of it thickened and formed a leather grip. The top widened and sharpened—morphing into a glistening, unbreakable blade (the likes of which no kid my age should’ve been allowed to handle). When it had fully transformed I twirled the knife with just as much effortlessness.
My Fairy-Godmother-issue magic wand was enchanted to turn into whatever weapon I willed it into. It made for a very intriguing, adaptable toy to say the least. Though I wished I had more use for it.
I’d always wanted to be good at combat like the heroes at Lord Channing’s, or even some of the grittier common female protagonists at Lady Agnue’s. However, that was a hard undertaking when you were a princess.
My mother and father would’ve sooner invited the Wicked Witch of the West to stay in one of our guestrooms than let their little girl train for combat. They loved me and wanted me to be happy and everything, but fighting was just not a princess thing, despite some of the scuffles I’d gotten into during play dates as a toddler that suggested otherwise.
My brother Alex had secretly been giving me lessons in combat and fighting when he was home from school for the summer. As a result, I had picked up a bit of skill and know-how over the last few years. But I knew this small amount of practice was not going to turn me into any kind of hero. It definitely wasn’t going to be enough to feed the desire I had to grow beyond my damsel princess archetype.
I had hoped that at school I might occasionally get some more intensive combat training, but without a partner I didn’t know how I would ever improve on a practical level.
Then again, it wasn’t as if I could use my wand even if I did find somebody to spar with.
Only Fairy Godmothers were supposed to have wands (powerful magic like theirs required sturdy conductors), and really, the magical items were supposed to be useless without a Godmother’s magic. My having one was definitely not above board. I didn’t know how Emma had managed to acquire the wand or, more importantly, how it functioned for me, but I did know that if anyone ever caught me with it, it would be as good as confiscated.
With two new roommates, a school full of protagonists, and an army of teachers who would be watching me with the intensity of a hundred female hawks, I didn’t know when I’d get to use my wand. This might well have been my last moments with the thing for a very long while. Hence my decision to take it out of my boot.
The knife glided through my fingers. I tossed it into the air with flourish like I’d been practicing. It spun three times before I reached out and caught it perfectly by the grip.
On guard! I thought as I pointed the weapon at the cricket on the control board.
The cricket chirped but did not seem impressed. Luckily for me, I did not care. For the next several minutes as the orchestra played on, I continued my game. The music became the soundtrack to which I fought imaginary enemies—transforming my wand between a knife, a sword, an axe, and a shield.
My mind whirred with scenarios. I had a knack for quick thinking and creativity, so there was no shortage of fight scenes that ran through my head. I was in the middle of fantasizing about wielding an axe against a lizard monster when suddenly the game altered in a way I never anticipated.
“What are you doing?”
I was so surprised by the voice that I leapt out of my skin and—in the process—let go of my axe. Time seemed to move in slow motion in the moments that followed.
My axe flew from my hand with such force that its unforgivably sharp blade chopped through several of the curtain ropes on the control board. I turned and found my new roommate, Snow White Jr., standing behind me—Madame Lisbon’s checklist in her left hand and a small, sparkly purse in her right. She and I blinked at one another for a second before our attention shot upwards.
The ropes were unraveling and there wasn’t time to stop them. Seconds later, pounds of pink curtains were cascading on top of the orchestra, followed by screams and crashing symbols. The cellists’ chairs toppled off the stage. Flutists took each other down like dominos.
One of the swinging curtain ropes flung a cluster of hooks at a sector of stage lights, knocking them out of their intended vectors. And as if the universe’s premier planners had orchestrated this embarrassment for an exhibition of their finest work, one of the spotlights was redirected to the backstage area—directly at me.
With many overhead curtains having knocked down orchestra members, and several side curtains that had been previously shielding me on the ground too, a perfect window of visibility was created. It was narrow. But it was enough.
I held up my hand to shield myself from the blinding glare. In doing so I caught a glimpse of the last person I wanted to see.
Lady Agnue.
She was across the ballroom, dark brown hair in a tight bun and wearing a blood-red dress with long sleeves and elegant ruching. The crowds separating us were thick and disorderly. Nevertheless, even if it was just for a second, it was unmistakable that she saw me too.
“Crisanta Knight!”
I dashed back into the shadows where Snow White Jr. was still concealed. Without thinking I grabbed my axe from the ground, transformed it back into a wand in mid-run, slid down the banister of the stairs, stuffed the wand in my boot, and slipped out the door.
My boots and natural quickness allowed me to merge back into the ballroom crowds without drawing much attention to myself. Some people may have heard Lady Agnue call out my name, but I had moved with such swiftness that I doubted that more than a few had seen me slide out the door.
In that continued gait of stealth I inconspicuously but hurriedly darted in and out of the gown-clogged sections of the dance floor. The poofy dresses, combined with the confusion and sheer number of students in the room, were my allies as I maneuvered across the area. But I knew their concealment wouldn’t last forever, because that’s when I heard Lady Agnue’s voice.
She was talking to a teacher about fifteen feet away. I could just barely hear her over the other students, and I could just barely evade her line of sight as I hid in the shadow of a tall prince with red hair and big coattails.
“When you find her, bring her to me,” the headmistress snapped. “I do not care who her mother is, she will be made an example of.”
I felt myself gulp as I slowly backed up.
“Crisa,” someone whispered from behind.
I spun around, panicked. Thankfully it was just Jason standing next to the snack tables. He’d picked up the edge of one of the floor-length, deep purple tablecloths and was gesturing underneath it. “Hide,” he said.
I zipped over to him. The two of us ducked beneath the tablecloth. I scooted toward the wall on the other side of the table, but Jason stayed on his hands and knees.
“I’m gonna go draw some attention on the other side of the ballroom,” he said. “Buy you time to think of a plan.”
“I already have a plan,” I responded. “Dig a hole through the floor, escape on wild Pegasi, and live a long and healthy life as a traveling acrobat.”
“I meant more along the lines of a story you can tell Lady Agnue to lessen whatever punishment she’s plotting.”
“Yeah, I know. My plan just sounds so much more feasible.” I knocked my head against the wall with a groan. Eventually I sighed. “All right. I’ll think of something. I always do.”
“Good. So like I said, I’ll go buy you time.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I protested. “You’re not in any trouble and you haven’t done anything.”
Jason smiled at me. It was a goofy, sympathetic, boyish smile. “I know,” he said. “And neither is how I want to end my first day.”
He scooched toward the tablecloth’s draping barricade.
“Jason . . .”
He paused and looked back at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Crisa. I am. You’ve been dealt a bad hand. What kind of person would I be if I just let you crash and burn?”
“An unscathed one,” I replied.
He shook his head of unruly blond hair. “A selfish one,” he corrected. “I may not know anything about being a hero or a protagonist yet, but I’m smart enough to know that neither would turn their back on a friend.”
Jason ducked beneath the tablecloth and disappeared before I could fully appreciate the statement.
