The Strings in the Shadows

In the Kingdom of Larendi, four teenagers (three of them royal, one a castle kitchen boy) haphazardly embark on a Help-I-Don't-Want-To-Get-Married-In-Two-Weeks get away journey. Crown Prince Edward is turning nineteen, the elegible age of marriage for men, and he uncharacteristicly has an attack of nerves. With the help of his cousins, Luke and Kaira Wellington, who also happen to be his bodyguard/assassins, Ed's problems seemingly begin to diminish.
Kaira's just begin. She is fasinated by the Mechaniks Guild, and wants become an engineer herself, but inwardly struggles between duty to the Crown, and duty to herself. A struggle which escalates when she and the kitchen boy Jack find a relic of the founder of the Mechaniks Guild. Not to mention her father would literally kill her if he found out.
Luke, the practical jokester and elder brother of Kaira, was happy as a Shadow (a royal Assassin) until he unearths some secrets about his family.
Jack is bored. All of his life he has slaved under his mother, dreaming of adventureand damsels in distress. After a heart-stopping meeting with the Lady Kaira, he gets swept off his feet, his life changed forever by three nobles with royal green eyes.
What starts as a light-natured walk around the Kingdom turns into a series of dark events and evil secrets. As their journey takes them deeper down roads never traveled, the group discovers a plot for the throne, and races homeward.
But will they get there in time?