Kingdom Keepers: Next Generation

Chapter 8: Royalty

Sofia Whitman

To say this was the oddest experience I'd ever had would be an understatement. Yet with everything that has happened in the past few days, I had no doubt that it would only get weirder.

It didn't take long to arrive at the castle from Beauty and the Beast. Prince Charming left his horse outside, chewing on some grass, as he escorted us inside.

The place was huge, as it normally functioned as the restaurant Be Our Guest. We quickly spotted the boys, talking with Belle and Adam themselves. They weren't dressed exactly like their cartoon personas, unlike Charming, but instead were in more modern styles of what they originally wore.

"Sof, Emma!" Lucas greeted with a relieved hug.

"What happened to you?"

"We got totally ambushed as we came over."

"We didn't get 'ambushed'-" Eli cut in.

"What would you call it then?"

There was a brief pause. "A momentary distraction..."

"Ok, well," I said, wanting to laugh, "We also had a momentary distraction."

"You okay, Em?" Eli said, now distracted.

Lucas and I both turned. When a moment ago she was standing right behind us, Emma was now staring off through a window, about 20 feet away. She was still ghostly pale, and when Eli called to her, she blinked away the glassy look to her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said, quietly.

"Don't worry about Lady Tremaine," Prince Charming's voice echoed around the room, "She holds no power anymore."

Both Lucas and Eli raised their eyebrows at the mention of the villain. They began telling of how they were also cornered, but by Gaston. Alex was otherwise occupied by the expanse of the vast ballroom. His attention span is particularly horrible. That was, until Eli mentioned how Gaston was only interested in Lucas, and giving up his so-called 'magic'.

"Lady Tremaine said the same thing to Sofia and I!" Emma said, also joining the conversation.

"Okay, so what do you all have in common?" Alex questioned in his socratic mode.

"Uh-" I fished around in my brain, "We're cousins..."

Lucas' eyes widened at the revelation. A new wave of confusion came over me. If our powers had something to do with genetics, then someone else in our family had to have them, too. Lucas and I had always assumed they were a one-off twin thing, but if the Overtakers assumed the three of us could have powers, this might be a whole different scenario.

"So, this is about our parents." Emma concluded.

"Who are your parents?" Prince Adam cut it.

The three of them had been listening quietly to the stories for the past few minutes, after Charming had finished telling them of Lady Tremaine. None of us had noticed them really, a fact we now all become regrettably aware of.

"Um..." Lucas started to say, clearly thinking hard of how to explain.

Luckily, he didn't have to. At that moment, Cogsworth and Lumiere, the clock and candelabra cartoon characters come to life, entered.

"The Keepers are here to speak with you, my lord." Cogsworth said.

Panic rose in my chest. I could see it also affected the rest of my friends, who couldn't keep the shock off of their faces.

"We really must be going," Lucas finished swiftly.

"Oh? But you just got here?"

"Yes, well, we have school in the morning, and it's getting rather late." Lucas fumbled for excuses.