Lee’s trials

A secret passage

*Thalia*

The note is so small it should not be able to change the air in a room.

It does.

Lee stands beside the balcony doors with the compass open in his hand. The address lies on the bed between us. Moonlight slips through a gap in the curtains and catches the faded blue ink.

27-14 36th Avenue, Astoria, Queens.

I know enough about New York to recognize Queens. I have been there once with my stepfather to help a community garden replace soil after somebody dumped construction waste behind the tool shed. It had taken three days, two borrowed trucks, and a woman called Mrs. Alvarez who carried pruning shears in her handbag.

It is not a place I would imagine an elven prince going missing.

"Say something," Lee says.

I look at the note again. "Your dad had surprisingly neat handwriting for a man leaving a mysterious message inside a compass."

His mouth does not move.

Right. Too soon for jokes.

I sit down on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the paper. "How old is this?"

"I don't know." His voice is quiet. "The compass was mine before he disappeared. He gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday."

"And he had already hidden this inside it."

"Or he put it there before he vanished." He swallows. "I carried it around for five years and never knew."

The hurt in his face is worse than anger. Anger would have somewhere to go. He looks as though every day since his father disappeared has rearranged itself behind his eyes, each memory suddenly carrying a question he failed to ask.

I hold out my hand.

After a second, he gives me the compass.

It is heavier than it looks. The brass cover bears a shallow engraving of a hawk in flight, its wings worn almost smooth from Lee's thumb. Beneath the glass, the needle points toward the balcony, west beyond the river and the dark sweep of forest.

"Trust no one who wears the crown," I read softly.

Lee closes his eyes.

"That could mean Fileas," I say.

"It could mean Grandfather."

I glance toward the door. Somewhere beyond it, servants are moving through the west bough with carefully quiet feet. Fealor lies ill two wings away. The thought of him arranging a message for Pericles, knowing something terrible might happen and saying nothing, makes the roots under the floor feel unsettled.

"It could mean both," I say.

"That is not comforting."

"I wasn't aiming for comfort."

"No. You usually aim directly at the bruise."

I set the compass on the bed. "Do you think your grandfather knew your father might be alive?"

Lee shakes his head, but it is not a real answer. "If he did, why let everyone believe he was dead?"

"Why let you believe it?"

His jaw tightens.

We sit with that for a moment.

Outside, rain begins. It is soft at first, ticking against the leaves beyond the glass. Then it thickens, turning the river below into a moving sheet of black silver.

Lee walks to the little table by the fireplace and picks up the untouched tray from earlier. He removes the lid from the soup, stares at it, then puts it back.

"You need food," I say.

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten since a train sandwich."

"Which was apparently not food."

"You have a king-sized emotional catastrophe happening, and you are quoting your grandfather at me."

"I contain multitudes."

"You will contain soup. Eat it."

He looks at me over his shoulder. For a moment, I see the version of him I know at Yggdrasil. The young man who charms stern librarians into extending deadlines and remembers everybody's preferred tea. Then his face collapses back into exhaustion.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he says.

The honesty stops me.

Lee is always doing something. He smooths over arguments before they grow teeth. He makes plans. He carries extra bandages, snacks, and the names of people who might need encouragement. When we first met, I assumed his cheerfulness came naturally. It took months to notice how hard he worked at it.

I get up and cross the room.

"You don't have to know tonight," I say.

"We have an address."

"Yes."

"A possible lead."

I nod again, "Yes."

"And Fileas is regent now." His gaze flicks toward the door.

"If he finds out about this, he'll take it," Lee says. "He'll call it evidence. He'll say the council needs to verify it. Maybe he'll send guards. Maybe he'll send someone from the archives who takes six weeks to authenticate the paper while my father is sitting in Queens waiting for…"

His breath catches.

Waiting for what?

Waiting in a hospital. Waiting in a cell. Waiting in an apartment above a laundromat with no idea who he is.

I take his hands. They are cold.

"Then we go before he finds it."

He stares at me.

"We can't just leave."

"Why not?"

He sighs, "Because my grandfather is ill."

"I know."

"Because Fileas will notice."

I feel like I am repeating myself a lot when I say; "I know."

"Because this could be a trap."

"I know that too."

His fingers tighten around mine. "Thalia."

"What?"

"If we go, I'm leaving you in the middle of this."

The room grows very quiet.

There it is again. Lee deciding alone what danger I can bear. He has dressed it in concern this time, which almost makes it worse.

"You mean you'd leave me here," I say.

His expression changes immediately. "No. I mean, I don't want you dragged into something that might be dangerous."

"I'm already dragged into it. Your grandfather collapsed on a staircase, your uncle stared at me like I'd grown mold in the royal carpet, and we just found a warning about crowns in your dead-maybe-not-dead father's compass."

"He isn't dead."

The force in his voice startles us both.

I soften. "I hope you're right."

"I know you do."

"Then stop talking as if I'm some potted fern you need to leave by a window while you go save everybody."

A small laugh escapes him, then breaks apart halfway through.

"You would be a very alarming potted fern."

"I'd poison the curtains."

He lowers his head until his forehead rests against mine.

For a few breaths, neither of us speaks. Rain whispers against the balcony doors. His curls brush my temple. He smells like cold air, old wool, and the cedar soap from the washroom down the hall.

"I don't want to lose you in this place," he says.

The words are barely there.

Something in my chest pulls tight. I want to say I am not going anywhere. I want to promise him that his family cannot touch us, that New York will be simple, that his father is waiting at the address with his memory intact and a suitcase packed.

Promises like that are cheap when you cannot keep them.

"You won't lose me because you tell me the truth," I say instead.

He shuts his eyes.

"I should have told you about the compass," he says.

"Yes."

"I found it behaving oddly once before."

I lean back enough to look at him. "When?"

"Last winter. After a field lecture at Yggdrasil, near the old rail line. It swung west for a few minutes." Shame colors his face. "I thought it was a magical disturbance. Or I thought I wanted it to be."

"So you ignored it."

"I put it away."

"Why?"

He lets go of one of my hands and rubs at the back of his neck. "Because if it meant he was alive, I had to do something. And if it meant nothing, I had to admit I was still waiting for him."

There are people who make grief loud. They break plates, punch walls, howl in the woods. Lee has made his grief useful instead. He has tucked it behind good grades and easy smiles. He has let everyone praise him for being so brave while he quietly starves the hope out of himself.

I touch his cheek.

"You were fifteen," I say.

"I'm twenty-one now."

"Then be twenty-one now. We have an address."

His eyes meet mine.

"Will you come with me?"

I make a show of considering it. "Queens has excellent food. And I hear tha princes are very lost without dryads."

His smile returns, fragile but real.

Then someone knocks hard on the door.

Lee moves away from me at once. The change is so quick I feel it like a draft.

"Who is it?" he calls.

"Lady Maplebloom?" A young woman's voice answers. "It is Nessa."

Lee looks at the compass and the note on the bed.

I snatch both up and shove them inside the inner pocket of my jacket. It is not graceful, but it is fast.

"Come in," I say.

Nessa slips through the door holding a silver tray. She is young, perhaps a few years older than Lee, with pale hair braided over one shoulder. Her eyes flick between us, then down to the bed where the note was a second ago.

"I brought fresh tea," she says.

"We still have tea," Lee says.

"Yes, Your Highness. This is newer tea."

He looks as if he might laugh. He does not.

Nessa sets the tray down. Her hands shake slightly as she arranges the cups.

"Is there something wrong?" I ask.

"No, my lady."

"Nessa."

She goes still.

I have only known her name for a few hours. That is enough to hear the fear in the way she says, "The Regent has ordered the west bough watched."

Lee's posture hardens.

"What does that mean?" he asks.

"It means two guards have been posted at the stairwell. They are saying it is for your protection."

"Against what?"

Nessa looks toward the door. "I was not told."

"Did Fileas give the order himself?" Lee asks.

"Yes."

The rain pounds harder against the balcony now.

Lee walks to the fireplace and braces one hand against the mantel. "Of course he did."

Nessa's gaze drops to the floor. "There is more."

I wait.

She reaches inside the sleeve of her plain brown dress and takes out a folded square of parchment. It has been sealed with blue wax, but the seal is broken.

"I was told to bring this to you in the morning," she says. "I thought you should see it now."

Lee takes it.

The parchment bears the royal archive mark at the top.

By order of Regent Fileas Swiftarrow, all materials concerning the disappearance of Prince Pericles Swiftarrow are to be transferred immediately to the restricted collection pending review.

Lee reads it twice.

His face empties.

"When was this written?" he asks.

"An hour ago, perhaps. The archivists have already begun moving the search records."

"And you brought this to me because?"

Nessa twists her fingers together. "Prince Pericles was kind to my father. When my brother was sick, he paid for a healer. He said no one should have to beg at a palace door for medicine."

Her voice wavers on the last word.

Lee looks at her.

For a moment, he is still the prince she remembers. His shoulders ease. His voice gentles.

"Thank you," he says.

Nessa nods, fast and nervous. "There is a service passage behind the old music room. It leads down to the river landing. The guards at the stairwell do not know it exists."

I stare at her.

She glances at me, then back to Lee. "My grandmother used it when she worked for Queen Elowen. She used to bring contraband pastries to the royal children."

"Contraband pastries?" Lee asks.

"The kitchen had rules."

"Terrifying."

Nessa's mouth almost smiles.

Lee folds the order and slips it into his coat pocket. "If we leave through that passage, will you be blamed?"

"I will say I brought tea and found your rooms empty. It will be true enough."

"No." He shakes his head. "Fileas will know someone helped."

"He knows everybody helped somebody eventually," Nessa says. "That is why everyone is frightened of him."

The words land harder than she seems to expect.

She looks toward the door again. "You should go before the archive wards are set. If you need anything from those records, now is the time."

Lee's gaze goes to me.

The option has narrowed. We can sneak out to the river and run for New York with a single address, or we can risk the archives while Fileas locks away the only history that might tell us why Pericles vanished.

I touch the pocket where the compass rests.

"We go to the archives," I say.

Lee hesitates.

"If your father left that note," I continue, "he expected you to need more than an address. We find whatever Fileas is trying to bury, then we leave."

Nessa gives a tight nod. "The service passage also opens into the lower gallery. From there, you can reach the archive stairs without crossing the main hall."

Lee looks at the tray of tea, then at the rain-black window, then at the door.

His eyes settle on me.

"Right, then," he says.

The words are light, but his hand finds mine beneath the edge of the table.

"Let's rob my family's archives."