Elowina’s hand flung out once again, and Lucas fell to the floor. I watched him struggle, writhing, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. I wanted to run at him. To help. He started coughing. Retching.
To my horror, something even worse happened then.
Beetles.
A swarm of black beetles crawled out of his mouth.
This time, I did scream. I looked at Nix—she was on the floor now, too, squirming, clutching her stomach—then back to Elowina, the traitorous witch, the mambabarang. Her hand was lifted in our direction, pointed at us. She was concentrating hard. She looked very, very angry.
Then I realized why. It was because I wasn’t reacting. I was calm; I wasn’t panicked or fearful. I stood my ground.
Some others started to notice, too. Their eyes pinned on me.
“Do you know who I am, Princess?” she barked. She began strolling from table to table, idly picking things up and putting them down, curling her finger around a ringlet of one woman’s hair. “Of course you don’t, because you’re not from here. You’re a pretender. But everyone else here knows who I am, even though they tried to erase me from the history books. Isn’t that right, Elias?”
Elias was paralyzed like the rest of us; he couldn’t speak.
But she was wrong.
I knew who she was.
I knew I had seen those jewels before. In the portrait of King Paolo and his sister.It was a gift from her brother,she’d said, when I complimented her on the pearl-and-diamond bracelet.
The jeweled clips. The brooch. The ring.
They were royal jewels.
“Hello, Auntie,” I said coolly. “Or should I say, Grand-Auntie?”
“Ah, so you do know who I am,” Elowina said with a smile of satisfaction. “It was my book you and your little friends were reading, was it not?”
I tried to keep all emotion off my face. I didn’t want to give her anything, not even the smallest flash of surprise or recognition. That was what she wanted—a reaction. Empty and blank would confuse her.
“Why did you do it?” was all I said. In truth, it was all I wanted to know. This woman had destroyed any chance of a normal family life I could have had; she had been the cause of my parents’ painful separation and eighteen years of a life on the run. My own kin.
“Jun wasn’t supposed to have children,” she spit.
I felt my knees weaken. “You are the Babaeng Pinuno of the Kalahok ng Mambabarang. You made him sign that agreement. He didn’t know it was his own aunt who demanded it.”
She cackled. “It was the only way to stop the war.”
“That you started.”
“You’re mistaken, Princess. War is what we do here in Biringan. The kingdoms have always been in opposition to one another. The truce barely holds. It barely holds now. All I did was seize an opportunity.”
“But why?”
She sneered. “Your father was a fool to marry your mother. He sullied the bloodline by marrying that human whore. For that, I would never forgive him. I am the last full-blooded encanto with a claim to the throne. And I intend to take what’s rightfully mine.”She kicked over a chair, laughing when the man nearest to it flinched and covered his head to avoid being hit.
She spun around again and narrowed her eyes at me, then started up another rant, directed to me but also everyone else in the room. “I am the last of the true line of Queen Felicidad. The princess will surrender the crown and pledge loyalty to me. Or else she will be responsible for the deaths of each and every one of you. And lastly, her own.” She reached out then, and as if on cue, thousands of black beetles came out of the walls.
So many screamed. The rest cowered in terror.
I stood there, silent, with my shoulders pushed back, projecting confidence; all the while, my brain was swirling, still trying to come up with a plan. Lucas lay unconscious on the floor. Elias was paralyzed. Nix was knocked out cold.
I was going to have to do this alone. I reached up and put my hand over the anting-anting amulet hiding beneath my gown.
35
