Free Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

him with his eyes shut.
    “Soldier style,” he murmurs, still more than half asleep. “In case of attack . . .”
    I think I see his point. If some enemy attacked us, and we had no time to prepare, Harper could strike back instantly in the area facing away from me, and I couldstrike back in the area facing away from him. Those few extra seconds could save our lives.
    Thinking about things like that makes my stomach queasy.
    “I slept too long,” I complain. “Shouldn’t we get back on the road?”
    “All right,” Harper says, scrambling up. “If you think that’s best.”
    I glance over at him suspiciously, but he doesn’t seem to be making fun of me. He offers me a hand to pull me up, and this is strange too. Only yesterday he would have gleefully pushed me into a mud puddle, and today he’s trying to help me up from perfectly dry ground? It doesn’t matter—I’m already on my feet.
    “How many days do you think it will take to get to Cortona?” I ask as we head back to the path.
    “Three or four,” Harper says. “I know because of the messengers who come out to say who’s died in the war. . . .”
    I think about what a strange life Harper’s had—almost as strange as mine. All the new war widows in the village always go straight to Mrs. Sutton’s cottage, where the sobs and wails mix with the mournful harp music. I guess Harper must try to distract himself by talking about other things with the messengers.
    “And what do the messengers say about . . . Desmia?” I ask.
    Harper gives me a sidelong glance.
    “They say every day at noon she comes out onto a balcony in the castle and waves to the crowd below,” Harper says. “But that’s the only time anyone ever sees her. And she always wears a veil, and the balcony’s so far away . . . nobody’s really sure what she looks like.”
    Hmm,
I think.
That could help me.
Maybe we could simply trade places—completely swap lives—and the people outside the castle would never have to know.
    But do I really want to spend the rest of my life being called Desmia? When I’m ruling so wisely and well, do I want Desmia to get all the credit?
    My head starts to ache thinking about the complications.
    This will work,
I tell myself fiercely.
    But as we walk on, no brilliant plans or strategies present themselves to me. Harper is strangely quiet as we walk. He doesn’t once ask me to take my turn carrying his harp, and when I finally offer, he just shakes his head and mutters, “Nah, that’s okay. I’m used to it.”
    The first time someone comes toward us on the path—a tinker with an empty cart—Harper and I both stiffen. “Stay behind me,” Harper murmurs. I slip into position, keeping my head down, following in Harper’s footsteps, so that he’s always between me and the tinker. And then the tinker’s past us.
    “He didn’t even look our way,” Harper marvels. “Didn’t even say hello.”
    No one else that we pass—a sheepherder, a farmer with a hay wagon, a tailor with a bag of samples—pays any attention to us either. Then we come to another village.
    This one has a fence ringing its outskirts.
    “Good grief and curdled codswallop—why would they have that?” I ask Harper.
    “Protection,” he says briefly, and steps up to a guard station by the gate.
    “We’re just passing through on our way north,” he says. “Request permission to enter?”
    The guard, a burly man with a gruff face, glares at us.
    “Permission denied,” he growls. “Couple of pickpockets, I’d wager. You can walk around the outside, you can.”
    The way he’s looking at us, I want so badly to say,
If you knew who I am, you’d let us in! You’d roll out the red carpet! You’d bow! You’d treat us with respect!
I clear my throat and open my mouth. Harper flashes me a worried look.
    “What’s the name of your village, pray tell?” I ask in my haughtiest voice.
    “Spurg,” the guard mutters. “Now go. Get out of here. We don’t want you in