Page 24

SPECTACLE

T he evening progressed with more fine dining and music. I was on my fifth prepackaged piece of pretentious chocolate when a scream sliced through the ballroom. The orchestra stopped playing. Everyone stopped to stare. They were staring at Lavinia. She was the one who’d screamed.

“Guards!” the princess shouted, her eyes wide with terror. “Kill them!”

Two nearby guards exchanged confused looks.

“Don’t just stand there and do nothing!” she shouted at them. “Kill the spiders!”

The guards scanned the ballroom. They blinked.

“What spiders?” one of them asked.

“ Those spiders!” Lavinia said, pointing in front of her.

The other guard looked, then declared, “There’s nothing there.”

“What are you talking about?” Lavinia growled. “There are four enormous black spiders right there. And they’re coming right toward me. Get them! Kill them!” She ducked behind the guards.

The two men looked at each other again.

“They are there,” Lavinia insisted. “And there’s also a big, sparkly purple duck standing next to the punch bowl. And some bizarre armored beast that I’ve never seen before is rolling across the dance floor.”

Quiet laughter rippled through the crowd.

“I want what Princess Lavinia is drinking!” someone shouted. “I want to see sparkly creatures!”

More laughter followed that proclamation.

Lavinia looked at the glass in her hand. She quickly put it down on a standing table, then stumbled back. Her eyes swept the ballroom, narrowing to angry slits when she saw me.

“It was the outsider! Leda Pandora!” she shouted. “She put something in my drink to make me see things! Arrest her!”

“Hey, there, everyone. I’m Leda.” I gave the crowd a big wave. “I’m the one your lovely princess just accused without any evidence whatsoever.”

“It was you,” Lavinia hissed. “I know it was you.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Just exactly what do you think I did?”

“You worked me over with your vile magic,” she hissed.

Whispers simmered from the crowd.

“I assume the vile magic you’re referring to is my god and demon magic?” I asked.

“Yes!” Lavinia turned to address the crowd. “The gods and demons have attacked me. They’ve attacked us .” Her gaze snapped back to me. “This will mean war,” she said to me through tight lips.

I walked toward her, nice and easy and relaxed. “You certainly have an interesting imagination.”

Lavinia glowered at me. “This attack will not go unanswered. When I become Queen?—”

“I think you meant if you become Queen,” I cut her off.

Lavinia looked like she wanted to slowly drop me into a vat of acid and then dance circles around it.

“Yes, of course,” she said with a dainty flutter of her hand toward the other guests.

“ If I become Queen.” She smiled sweetly.

“Though I am confident any other reasonable choice for monarch would not hesitate to strike out against the fiends who dared to attack me.”

“And by fiends , you mean me?”

“You and your brethren.”

“Gods and demons?” I asked.

“Yes. You cannot stand that our kingdom does not fall under your domain. And it never will.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd gathered around us.

I waited for them to die down, then asked Lavinia, “How?”

“How?” She shook her head in confusion.

So I clarified. “How is it that your kingdom has never fallen to the gods’ or demons’ armies? All the neighboring worlds have.”

“Because we are strong,” Lavinia said proudly, standing tall, tapping her hand to her chest.

“You are indeed strong,” I agreed. “I’ve heard that neither the magic of gods nor of demons works on you.”

“That is true,” Lavinia said with an upward lift of her nose.

I continued, “In fact, I’ve heard that not even the magic of the Immortals, the most powerful magical beings to ever live, works on you.”

“Indeed,” she snapped. “So you must realize now how foolish it was of you to attack me.”

“Attack you with what?” I spread my arms and shrugged. “I thought my magic didn’t work on you.”

Lavinia’s smug smile died on her lips. Murmurs rose from the crowd.

I moved closer to the princess. “I am not responsible for this spectacle. You are.”

The murmurs grew louder, faster.

Lavinia bristled. “How dare you?—”

“You know what I think, Princess Lavinia?” I said with an indulgent smile. “I think the stress of the upcoming Games has gotten to you. You’ve lost your mind. You’ve cracked. You’ve gone totally and completely bananas, and now you’re seeing things that just simply are not there.”

“They’re there!” Lavinia insisted.

“And yet no one can see them but you.”

Lavinia’s mouth dropped.

I turned to address the crowd. “Or is anyone else here seeing giant purple ducks, big black spiders, and some dancing armored creature?”

The crowd answered in the negative.

I turned back to Lavinia. “Well, there you go. And that’s too bad. People who’ve lost their marbles can’t compete in the Princess Games to be the next monarch, can they?”

“You did this, Leda Pandora!” The accusation exploded out of her mouth, and she rushed toward me, reaching for my neck.

But before she could grab me, she stopped.

“Get it off of me!” Lavinia shrieked, frantically brushing her hand down her arm. “Get it off! Get it off!”

And that really was the cherry on the top of this spectacle. Guards moved in and seized her, carrying her away. She screamed all the way out of the ballroom.

I grabbed another glass and lifted it to Aspen. “Well, I’ll say this for your monarchy: you guys sure know how to party.”