“Excuse me. Princess, you never informed me that you didn’t possess magic,” Elias said. No one was paying attention to him.
My mind was spinning. I didn’t believe what they were saying, but if it was true that anting-antings don’t dissolve, then what else could have happened? I shifted uncomfortably. “You’re saying I made the amulet dissolve with magic?”
“Yes. Some encantos are alchemists, able to transform natural elements into something else,” Ayo piped up from where he was pouring tsokolate. “Are there any instances in your life when something like this happened?”
Nothing came to mind. I scanned my memories, searching for another time I’d done something like that. Maybe I wouldn’t have known, though, just like in this case.
Nix clapped her hands together. “I know!” she shouted excitedly. “Remember that day at school, in the cafeteria, when Amador drank the water? After you thought she tried to give you black rice?”
Lucas looked surprised. “Wait, Amador did what, now?”
“Except obviously it was the witch all along, not Amador,” Nix assured him. “Fortunada—I mean, Elowina must have sent us those tainted desserts.”
He only looked more pained at that.
Nix continued, “But the water burned her throat, remember? You were angry, and you stared at her. You made that happen.Youchanged the water.”
Everyone was staring at me now. “I guess I did?”
“If I had known...” Elias said. His eyes widened, and he exhaled a puff of air. “I suppose all’s well that ends well.”
Ayo smiled at me. “It appears you possess the same talent as your grandmother Queen Erlinda. She could also change matter. I never thought I’d see that ability again.”
“What else have you kept from me?” Elias said. He rubbed his face with his hands like he had a headache. So we finally came clean and told him everything we discovered about the beetles, the doll we found, and my father’s note.
Elias told us the note we had in our possession was a draft. A finished letter had been written, and Marikit had delivered it to Elias that very evening. In it, my father confessed to the agreement to surrender his firstborn to the mambabarang and exhorted Eliasto find my mother and tell her the truth about the situation. My father had communed with the spirits and spoken to his father, who warned him that his sister was out there, meaning my father harm. Before his own death, Temo, Lucas’s father, had spotted her in Biringan. He was the one who’d gotten the Court of Lambana to send her away. But the morning after my father sent the letter, before Elias could do anything, my father was found dead.
And so Elias kept everything to himself, because he didn’t know whom to trust, and he didn’t want to cause panic in the kingdoms. All he knew was that he had to fetch me and keep me safe until the coronation.
“Hey! You’re going to be crowned tomorrow!” Nix said, hugging me.
Elias looked pained. I felt kinda bad. He’d had no idea how close we came to Biringan having no queen to crown. Perhaps I had the mambabarang to thank for revealing my magic, after all.
“There’s one thing we need to do first,” I said.
***
The Biringan guardaccompanied us to the dungeons under the palace. Even without using the secret passageways, it was a dank, depressing place, with little light and no fresh air. “After this, no one is being held here any longer,” I announced.
The guard commander took out a set of jangly keys to open the last gate before the cells. “Respectfully, Princess, it’s a place for criminals, not a retreat.”
“There are more humane ways to treat prisoners, Commander. And may I remind you that this dungeon currently has exactly one, and she is innocent.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the commander said, bowing. She held the door open.
Althea was sitting on the floor in the last cell. She stood as we approached. When she saw me, she curtsied.
“Let her go,” I ordered.
37
I was justabout ready. From the private room above the sanctuary, I could see courtiers from all over the realm streaming into the Council of the Courts, decked out in their finest silks and linens, the men in warrior masks and draped in malong scarves. Those who didn’t fit congregated outside the doors, spilling down the gently sloped hillside to the streets below. The sky was pale blue and nearly cloudless, the perfect backdrop for the rainbow of flower arrangements and plush green trees lining all the walkways and roads, where arches wrapped in orchids and waling-waling flowers had been set up for everyone to walk through. There were hanging pots on every street post, spilling over with white and yellow and shades of purple and pink.
I’d finally found my power—now I just hoped I’d be able to harness it again, and prove I was the rightful ruler of Biringan.
Children from all four courts played together on the steps below the building, their parents’ rivalries forgotten, and peeked into the windows downstairs, waving purple flags and trying to get a glimpse of the activity happening inside. There was a sense of jubilation I hadn’t experienced here yet—or, really, anywhere before.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. They were all there for me, to watch me be crowned, when I would vow to be a just and fair ruler, do my best to ensure the safety of the realm, the secrecy of the realm, and to maintain peace throughout all four courts. I intended to do everything in my power to uphold those promises.
