Free Burning Kingdoms by Lauren DeStefano

sea.
    Celeste gasps, palming the glass as we pass a storefront full of fur coats. “What animals do you suppose have such pelts?”
    Nimble looks back at her. “You like fur?”
    “Not just fur. Any part of an animal is useful to me if I can kill it myself,” she says. “My brother would carve charms for me from the bones.”
    She says this as though it’s a perfectly normal thing.
    “Waste not, want not, eh?” Nimble says.
    She smiles and tugs at a bit of her hair.
    The city is arranged like some sort of giant, scaly, sleeping creature. The buildings rise and then sink in height, and then they dwindle until there is nothing but a field of snow that goes on for ages. How frightening, all that nothingness. I feel that if I should leave the car, it would swallow me whole, and I’d become nothing.
    Jack and Nimble are talking about the banks. Celeste says nothing, but I can tell that she’s listening, absorbing every bit about it that she can. Money seems to be the apex of the way things are run down here, while on Internment it’s hardly a thing to worry about; as long as we have jobs, we’re outfitted with an apartment, and a few pages a week to buy food and whatever frivolous things we like. The idea of anyone being without that much reflects horribly on this king, and I haven’t even met him yet.
    There is another city on the horizon now, its reflection in the surrounding water like a jealous twin.
    “Is this the capital of Havalais?” I ask.
    Nimble chuckles. “This is the king’s castle,” he says.
    If Pen thought the hotel too grandiose, this would have her absolutely livid. What could possibly fill all those rooms? A king could live his entire life in that place and still not have time to look from all its windows.
    I pretend that it is a city. I pretend the water is the sky and that we are going home.
    “This is lovely,” Celeste says. I think she means to pretend that as royalty she wasn’t raised in an archaic clock tower. But in our world, castles are a fantasy, perhaps even a myth. We are witnessing something beyond what we’ve been taught to imagine. She and I have that much in common.
    We drive through a series of gates, and as we cross the bridge that separates the king’s castle from its kingdom, men emerge from doors as big as an apartment itself and direct Jack where to park. Celeste waves to one of them, and he catches her gaze but doesn’t acknowledge her. The king’s men are stoic.
    It takes five men to show us to the doors, two men to open those doors, and four to take our coats. We’re led down a pathway of patterned carpets, past portraits and flowers and wallpaper whose flowers and swirls glimmer where the sunlight touches them.
    “His Majesty will see you in a moment,” one of the men says, with the most rigid of bows. “Please seat yourselves.”
    I’m not certain why Celeste feels so strongly that we should be friends, but she keeps playing the part rather dutifully, sitting close beside me on the paisley sofa, straightening my skirt hem. I think of what Birdie said about these clothes belonging to her mother. Surely Jack Piper recognizes them, but he gives no indication. Maybe the women really do stick around only long enough to lay eggs.
    “What are you smirking about?” Celeste asks.
    I clear my throat. “Nothing.”
    “Don’t be nervous,” Nimble says. “King Ingram is informal. You won’t have to curtsy or anything.”
    I wonder at their definition of “informal” down here. King Furlow wouldn’t have expected a curtsy either. And while this castle is sprawling, it seems silly that I once fantasized about ever visiting one. It’s unreasonably large, and soulless inside. Maybe I’d hoped for something magical or historic, but all I see is greed. I’d much prefer the clock tower, which was laid stone by stone hundreds of years ago, not only for the king and queen, but for our entire city.
    My parents died trying to reach the ground, and my brother and Amy