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  To Allen, the most supportive and lovely person I know

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen—”

  “Who cares if Saint Hart was beautiful, Cece? She was a warrior.”

  “Because queens just are beautiful. They have money and servants and all the honey they can drink and great big flowery hats—”

  “If your job is to kill magical beasts who are trying to eat you, would you take the time to put on a fancy hat?”

  “Back to the story, where our queen—who was not wearing an elegant chapeau, but had wild raven locks and perfectly tweezed eyebrows—”

  “And a sword black as night. Black as crow feathers and just as bright.”

  “Wait, are we rhyming now? I’m not good at rhyming, Evie.”

  “The Fel had been gobbling settlers down with their great crow beaks, stealing babies and eating all the … er … leeks.”

  “See, you aren’t any good at it either.”

  “Well, I don’t like leeks. But the saint-queen did, and she was angry there were no leeks for her egg croissants, so she took her great black sword and searched and searched until she found the Fel King.”

  “Because Fel are cowards. And very scared of swords.”

  “No, because Fel like to make deals. They have all the magic in the world, but it doesn’t work unless they make a deal with a human. Now, Saint Hart knew that Fel were tricky. No matter what kind of deal she made with the Fel King, she knew he would try to twist it so he got all the magic and she got nothing.”

  “But how could he do that? Everyone knows Fel can’t lie.”

  “Fel can’t lie, but if you aren’t careful, then you might use the wrong words. You might ask for all the stolen leeks back and then the Fel will snap and make all the leeks in the entire world appear right on top of your head and then you drown with that terrible leeky taste in your mouth.”

  “Or maybe you’d sprout leaks and all your insides would come out.”

  “I don’t know how particular they are about spelling. Well, Saint Hart was too smart to sprout leaks or drown in leeks or even to ask about a good recipe for egg croissants. She put her hartelismi sword to the Fel King’s gullet and said—”

  “Ouch, Evie! There’s no need to demonstrate!”

  “Saint Hart said, ‘This is my deal: You send your army of Fel back to the Old Forest where they belong. If your beasties come out to steal so much as a toenail clipping, I will slit your throat. You stay here doing magic for me and make sure your friends stay in the forest as old crows and I’ll let you live.’”

  “My pop’ll be after yours to buy me a new dress now that you’ve put a hole in this one. Ahem. The Fel King has been living in the shadows of the castle ever since, passed down like the most dangerous of heirlooms. In exchange for his life and his magic, the rest of the Fel keep their beaks to the Old Forest, looking for ways to wriggle out of their king’s deal. All the Fel banished to the Old Forest are shy of humans—worried they’ll pull the same trick Saint Hart did, using a sword to make sure she got what she wanted. Mostly, they take people by surprise, gobbling them up like fried potatoes before they can ask for any sort of exchange. Only the bravest go into the forest to seek them and their magic.”

  “And only the smartest come back out.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Evie pulled the bakery door shut behind her, a Fel mask hanging from her wrist like a rich lady’s handkerchief. It bobbed against the handle as she locked the door, the shiny black crow beak and feathers glinting evilly in the evening’s last light. It was perfect.

  She started toward the town square, where Mum and Pop were serving sweet buns, cinnamon twists, and, best of all, Pop’s famous raspberry tarts to all the people crowding Paline’s streets for Saint Hart’s Festival.

  Glancing up at the moon overhead, Evie began to run, untying the ribbons that held the mask to her wrist, to fasten it over her eyes and nose. She and her best friend, Cecily Miller, were due at the storytelling competition soon, and if she didn’t hurry, the judges would probably cross their names right off the list. Crowds of people swelled up around Evie as she scampered along the twisted streets. She waved at the shopkeepers shouting at passersby about flavored ice and play swords painted black to match Saint Hart’s, and, of course, crow masks. Their shops seemed to lean out over the street from behind their keepers as if they wished for a look at the festival as well.

  Dodging too-friendly elbows and ducking under a hat’s ostrich plume that was a particularly unfortunate shade of green, Evie pushed her way into the square. Saint Hart’s papier-mâché statue loomed from the center like a frosted cake in a swarm of ants, the saint-queen’s black sword held high above her head. Evie had always thought Saint Hart’s Day was a rather frolicky sort of holiday to be remembering Peltiv’s first saint-queen’s untimely demise, even if it had happened more than five hundred years ago, but celebrating was much more fun than wearing black and pretending to cry, so Evie had long decided not to bring her concern before the adules. It’d be a night to avoid them anyway, since all adules did was walk through the crowd and tell people they should be praying a bit more and laughing a bit less. She fancied adules thought the only things worth doing were growing vegetables, sitting through their boring chants in the temple, and praying. Usually when she argued with them, they only laughed and told her to carry on, so they weren’t so bad. Just a little boring.

  A hand latched on to Evie’s elbow, stopping her short. “Evie, is that you under those feathers?” Cecily Miller grabbed hold of the mask’s cruelly curved beak and pulled it away from Evie’s face. Cece’s freckles and auburn hair looked extra orange in the bonfire’s light. She pulled Evie out of harm’s way when a group of guards attempting a bit of Trouvani tumbling went by, much to the chagrin of the crowd. Evie wished they’d brought in a real troupe of traveling performers, but the trade guild had barred Trouvani from town earlier that year. A week before Evie’s twelfth birthday, to be precise, which had seemed more than a little rude at the time.

  “Did you bring it?” Cece whispered, once they were safely away from the flailing arms and mustaches.

  Evie pulled a bladder of raspberry vinegar from under her cloak, holding it up like a trophy. “A true account of Saint Hart needs at least a little fake blood. And when we all pretend to be Fel later for the battle against her, I was thinking we could splash it down the fronts of our dresses and … wait a second, where’s your mask?”

  Cece led Evie past the statue without answering, dodging a clot of guards sent from Reinstadt to investigate a band of robbers that had been turning carriages over on the road just outside of town. They were nothing like the Paline guards, far too straight-backed to do anything so silly as Trouvani tumbling. In fact, they seemed too stuck-up to even breathe.

  “I think dearest Helena Blackwell is about to sta
rt her story,” Cece informed Evie. “Harvey Valen told me she’s written a song to go with it.”

  “She’s going to sing?” Helena Blackwell sang like a dying frog, though her parents and the music tutor all spent so much time bowing to Helena it was unlikely she knew.

  “Yes, and she’s been boasting that her father smuggled her a hartelismi hatpin! Do you think the guard will arrest her while she’s standing up there? No one’s allowed hartelismi anything except the queen!”

  “I’d help them do it! Do you think they’d put her in a cell and everything?” Evie’s heart practically leapt into song as she looked around for the storytelling stage—until her eyes found the man hovering just behind Cece.

  Evie dug in her heels, pulling Cece to a stop. The man’s back was toward them, his coat a glittering purple and his hat so black and shiny it looked like a beetle’s wings.

  “Evie, what in Hart’s name—?” Cece tripped, barely managing to avoid overturning a table covered in cheese wheels.

  Evie swore (not out loud, of course) when the beetle-black hat turned in their direction. “Quick now, Cece!”

  She pulled her friend into the crowd, but there was no going quick during Saint Hart’s Festival. The whole square was stuffed pickle-jar tight, only instead of pickles there were big-hatted ladies and men with too many buttons.

  A boy in a guard uniform stood directly ahead in the crush of people. Evie grabbed hold of the back of his emerald tunic and shoved him between her and the man in the black hat.

  “Excuse me…?” The guard craned his neck around to get a look at them.

  “Yes, I’m so sorry.” Evie firmly pulled the boy back into place behind her. Most guards from Paline would have pushed her off with a laugh, and the ones from Reinstadt with a show of weapons. This guard, however, was young and pliant as runny pancake batter, no more than twelve, and far too green for the queen’s green. She didn’t know him, so that meant he’d come with the lot from Reinstadt.

  “Come along,” Evie instructed the guard. “You’ll be averting disaster, defending our great country Peltiv, keeping the peace, and all if you just follow us for a moment.”

  “I’m just a message runner. Max, if you please.” Max looked around, one hand going to the firearm stashed inside his coat, though Evie doubted he’d been given the powder and shot to go inside it. “What’s the problem? Robbers? Monsters? I don’t see anything.”

  “No problem, Max…” Cece fluttered her eyelashes, making Evie want to hurl.

  “You can’t see the danger because of that shag growing from your head.” Evie renewed her grip on the back of his uniform, nudging him to walk sideways down the long edge of the square toward the bakery pavilion while still shielding her from sight. “No, don’t run away, we’re almost there…”

  “Rude.” The guard smoothed his blond mane down over his forehead. “But you don’t like it? My cousin Reya said—”

  “I like it!” Cece offered.

  “I don’t.” Evie ducked behind Max once again as the man in the black hat paused about ten feet away. She didn’t have time for Dr. Cleat right now, not with Helena Blackwell about to embarrass herself in front of the whole town and a bladder of fake blood hidden under Evie’s cloak.

  Not to mention the Fel. Who could sit still for one of Dr. Cleat’s lectures when the monstrous creatures—the very ones Saint Hart had fought—were weak, gasping for breath on this magicless night, just waiting in the forest for Evie to find them?

  Find them and make a deal. Everyone knew a Fel would give you their magic if you made a deal with them. It was just a matter of making sure you got the good end of the deal, not the bad one.

  “Your hair would be fine if it looked slightly less like a haystack.” Evie talked fast, wishing Max’s feet would follow suit. “And if your cousin said otherwise, she was probably just trying to be nice. Like Cece here.”

  Cece shot Evie a dirty look.

  The crowds were especially thick by the bakery pavilion, and pulling Max and Cece through was a little like trying to thread a needle with a potato. The number of people wasn’t surprising, of course. Pop’s raspberry tarts were worth the bit of trampling it took to get them. And, even better than that, once they got to the stand, a rainbow’s worth of customers stood between Evie and that blasted witch doctor. Only one old lady in a fluffy pink gown had accused them of pickpocketing, which was practically a record.

  “Miss Evie!” Dr. Cleat tipped up his beetle-black hat, his hair so perfectly combed, the teeth had left marks in it, but he couldn’t push past the line to get to the tables. “I have to ask…”

  With one last drag, Evie pulled the guard and Cece under the ribbons that kept people away from the bakery stand’s tables of baked goods. The aroma of flour, cinnamon, and, of course, raspberries filled Evie’s nose.

  Pop looked up from his place at the front table, Mum peering around him with a scolding ready in her mouth, but it dissolved into a grin when she caught sight of Evie, Cece, and the messenger boy. Her teeth were a bit small, as if when she was a young girl, she’d decided that losing her first set would be irresponsible and had kept them instead. “Aren’t you two supposed to be up there?” She pointed toward Saint Hart’s statue just as a girl stepped up next to it, her dress so covered in lace and bows that she looked like a cupcake. “And who’s this you’ve kidnapped to make into meat pie?” Mum gave Max a pitying look as she handed off a raspberry tart to a customer. “You shouldn’t let Evie bully you like this.”

  Max had fallen to the side, his eyes level with a tray of raspberry tarts. “Why did you drag me in here, anyway?” he mumbled toward Evie.

  “Because there’s nothing better than an adult pretending to be your friend, to ruin a festival.” Evie transferred some of the breads from farther back to the front shelves, which had been almost sold through. “I thought maybe Max could protect us from the witch doctor, but it didn’t work,” she told her mum.

  Pop pulled back from the front table to gather some Tershan Twists for a customer with a scrubby beard and a cigar hanging unlit from his mouth. “Sterling Cleat isn’t a witch doctor, Evie. Just a normal one.” Pop’s smile was worth three suns at least and a plate of breakfast scones besides. “He went to school. Graduated younger than any doctor ever before, if you hear him tell it.”

  Evie looked up from helping Cece bag another order of tarts when Helena began singing from her perch by Saint Hart, the sound like a squirrel being squeezed down a funnel. “Dr. Cleat is after your raspberry tart recipe, Pop. He thinks if he asks enough, I’ll give it to him.”

  “He’s trying to steal something?” Max’s words were muffled, as if his mouth was full. When he turned around, it was with an arched inspector’s brow and a smudge of raspberry jam down his chin. “Like the robbers out in the forest?”

  “I wish.”

  “Don’t say that, Evie.” Her father sprinted by, grabbing two spice cakes. “I haven’t been able to get apricots in months because of those robbers.”

  “I do wish it.” Evie didn’t take her eyes off Helena’s squawking. “At least the robbers are interesting. Dr. Cleat couldn’t steal the queen’s crown if you gave him a map, a rope, and the gloves to do it.” When Sterling Cleat had first moved to Paline, Evie had been sure he was a pirate in disguise, or perhaps a banished prince. He lived in a big house with a million bookshelves and lots of dark nooks and crannies for monsters to hide. He had zero broken teeth, a beautiful purple coat that was perfect for hiding a firearm, and wasn’t the least bit interested in cows, barley, or ditch drainage, all subjects that inexplicably fascinated most other people in Paline. Mum even thought Dr. Cleat might be a little too good at what he did, fixing people and such. That’s why they called him witch doctor.

  But then Evie had met him, and it had been quite obvious his purple coat hid nothing more than a heart made of ink, dusty pages, and a hankering for raspberry tarts. Sterling Cleat, who everyone whispered must have come straight out of the Fel forest to
be so good at mending broken bones, was boring.

  The last time he’d come into the bakery, he’d taken off that beetle-black hat and sat Evie down with what he said was a treatise on Fel legends to help with accuracy in the stories she told with Cecily in the square. Evie didn’t even know what a treatise was, only that it involved a very large book with very small letters. Leave it to the witch doctor to take a subject as fabulously interesting as Fel and turn it dry as old fishbones. And that wasn’t the only subject Dr. Cleat had ruined. Evie thought maybe he hoped that if he talked long enough, Evie would give him the raspberry tart recipe just to escape. All those lovely bookshelves and he probably only took out the boring proofs and theories, not a single page about magic or monsters. Unless it was a painting of a monster’s monstrous parts dissected and analyzed.

  Actually, Evie would quite like that.

  Dr. Cleat fit into boring Paline the way Evie hoped she never would. With a bit of luck in the Old Forest later that night, she’d catch a Fel and then everything would be different. People with Fel went on adventures instead of staying at home to roll out dough for tarts.

  The moment Helena howled her last note about Saint Hart and the Fel King, Evie grabbed hold of Cece’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to go. We need to practice our story quick, before…” Evie trailed off, glancing at her parents. They didn’t know she and Cece meant to go out into the Old Forest after the festivities died down. Pop looked back at Evie, his mouth open to ask all the wrong questions, so Evie spoke before he could. “Where’s your mask for the battle later, Cece?”

  Cece ducked under the ribbons around the bakery stand. “They’re going to skip over us if we don’t run, Evie!”

  “Wait!” Evie waved to her parents and the messenger boy Max before ducking after her. “I have an idea to keep the guard from cheating this year during the fight!”