Lost Destinies

↳ 18: Mirror, Mirror, How Impressive Are Thy Rhyming Skills

"It's high time we all had breakfast, isn't it?" the Writer said, checking his watch. Claude was eyeing it with the same look Minerva had cast toward the receptionist's lipstick just the other day. Apparently no one could go even one day without ogling valuables around here. "Let us carry this conversation to the dining floor."

Sicilienne brushed briskly past Claude, whose jaw tightened. Lindsay's eyes were lingering on her sister's story, consumed by some devastating memory Ramona would never hear. Minerva hesitated before touching her arm lightly and gesturing for her to follow everyone else. Ramona watched her pry her gaze from it with considerable effort.

Ramona herself was the last to leave, taking one last sweeping glance of the library and soaking up its pulsing energy—the books almost felt alive.

But that was silly. As silly as the existence of something like a Writer.

Moments later, everyone was seated around an oval table, Sicilienne glimmering in her cloudy dress at one end of it. Ramona and the others, in mainly peasant fashion, casual gothic, and lumberjack chic, were outshined terribly by this odd, well-read teenager. She wasn't sure if Sicilienne had developed a tasteful sense of style from Claude, who had managed to piece together expensive-looking outfits on a pickpocket's budget for years, or vice versa. Regardless, her time as the Writer's sole apprentice had clearly given her access to privileges the thieves either had never known or certainly didn't anymore. Hailing from one of the dullest, poorest areas in all of Villagetown, Ramona couldn't ever think of a time when she'd worn anything other than stylized rags.

The Writer disappeared into the kitchen to prepare the tea and Sicilienne went with him before coming back to set down empty cups and a stack of plates. Ramona turned over a small gold fork and suddenly understood Claude's constant urge to palm everything in sight. She was calculating immediately what she could buy with a collection of these forks—

Sicilienne dropped a red leather-bound book on the desk rather forcefully. The gilded apple was unmistakable. "Allow me to give you a short history lesson, as some of us—" she glared at Claude, who shifted uncomfortably even though the glare of a dainty seventeen-year-old wasn't all that intimidating— "have never quite grasped the concept of destiny."

"Give me a break," Claude muttered irritatedly under his breath.

Sicilienne seemed more confident now, like she'd recited this a hundred times and knew it by heart. "Let us start with once upon a time. A maiden called Rapunzel is rescued from her tower, but she and the prince who saved her go missing in the Bloodflower Desert. The search parties don't find them until early the next year. Rapunzel and her prince Valor marry and move into the castle with their infant twin sons. Rapunzel won't become queen of Tower Kingdom until the existing king steps down voluntarily due to a desire to retire in his old age—when she's twenty-five. But before that, the prince who has just inherited the throne from his passing father in Water Kingdom is faced with potential war with the mermaids and clueless as to how to react. Luckily for him the woman who catches his eye is in fact one of the six princesses due to inherit the throne of the mermaid monarchy. He marries her that very year, bringing the beachside kingdom and its connecting ocean together once and for all, and dubbing the sea 'Royal Ocean'."

Though the basic history of the last decade was mostly common knowledge thanks to numerous royal gossip outlets and gigantic posters with the members of the Royal Alliance's faces on them, it wasn't as though any of the thieves had studied it vigorously. Politics wasn't Ramona's style, Claude had had bigger problems on his hands than celebrity news, Penny had been terribly behind on keeping up with the numerous political leaders in Rose alone when she worked in kingdom management, Lindsay preferred spite over education, Bear had been living in a forest his whole life, and Minerva hadn't quite been old enough to care. Ramona'd heard various versions of these stories over the years. For one thing, she'd assumed Prince Valor's father was dead, but maybe it was one of the other kings who had contracted the stardust plague. She also didn't know much about the geopolitical status of mermaids, and didn't ever intend to.