“Oh, but why stop there?” said the King. “If you are so devoted to eating meals away from the table, then you may have them in your room for the rest of your lives.”
“Excellent,” said Azalea.
“Excellent,” said the King.
It wasn’t exactly a glare that Azalea and the King locked on each other, but their eyes met with such intensity that it smoldered. Azalea finally broke, unclenching her fingers from her stinging palms. She stood and made to gather the loaves and stack the bowls.
From down the hall, the echo of light feet and cheery, tiny voices reverberated into the nook.
“…but I really don’t know if we can make them last another day,” Flora’s voice was saying. “I mean, look at this hole!”
Blood drained from Azalea’s face as Flora and Goldenrod appeared at the glass doors, beaming…
…and holding the basket of slippers. Flora was holding up Hollyhock’s small green slipper.
They froze at the scene before them.
“Oh!” cried Goldenrod.
The King’s eyes fell on the twins, then on the basket, a jumbled mess of dance slippers. His eyebrows rose.
“Run,” said Bramble.
The girls scattered.
In a flurry of overturned chairs and crinolines, girls fled down the hall. Azalea ran after, trying to catch up to them. Hollyhock had flown to the kitchen, Delphinium down the side hall, Eve up the servants’ staircase in a flicker of black skirts. Clover, pale as death and near tears, clutched Lily, unmoving. Azalea caught up to the twins, fleeing to the entrance hall, Bramble taking the slippers from them at a run.
“Never fear, young chicks!” said Bramble, pulling the basket into the crook of her arm. “Hide in the gallery for now, beneath the north exhibit. I’ll come and fetch you in a minute. If I don’t come back—don’t slow me down!”
This last part she directed at Azalea, who had grabbed her arm.
“What are you, mad?” said Azalea. “Now he’ll really know we’ve been up to something!”
“Who cares?” said Bramble, yanking her arm away from Azalea. “I can’t stand him!”
A firm, solid hand grasped Azalea’s wrist.
“Into the conservatory, young ladies,” said the King. “Now.”
Bramble broke free, gripping the basket with both hands. She bounded in an arc about the newel post and leaped up the stairs.
“Miss Bramble!” said the King.
“Down with tyranny!” Bramble cried. “Aristocracy! Autocracy! Monocracy! Other ocracy things! You are outnumbered, sir! Surrender!”
Sucking in his cheeks, the King did not chase after Bramble, but instead militarily escorted Azalea and the chin-wobbling twins to the conservatory, which was what the King called the nook. Clover, Lily, and all the rest except Bramble stood in a line against the rosebush ledge, cheeks flushed, hands clasped, eyes down.
The King disappeared; several minutes later, a loud crash came from the kitchen, followed by the clatter of spoons scattering across the floor, then a falling lid, ending the chaos with a wah-wah-wa-wa-wawawawawathunk.
In a moment the King returned, firm hand clenched on Bramble’s shoulders, guiding her into the nook, the other holding the basket. He had a spoon-sized welt across his cheek. Bramble’s lips were so thin Azalea couldn’t see them.
The King closed the folding glass doors and set the basket on the table. The twins hiccupped as the King examined the mess; tattered, jumbled, patched beyond recognition. He lifted a used-to-be-red slipper, and the ribbon fell off.
“Well,” he said, after a long, long moment. “Well.”
He set the slipper down, sucked in his cheeks, clasped his hands behind his back. He took in air to say something, then exhaled. He picked up a slipper from the basket, and put it back.
“I am heartily disappointed in you all,” he said quietly. “Heartily disappointed.”
None of the girls could even raise their eyes to meet his. Eve plucked a leaf from the wilting rosebushes in the ledge, shredding it into minuscule bits, and Ivy didn’t even eat a bit of the cinnamon bread she had snuck from the table.
“Please don’t be cross with them,” said Azalea. “It was my fault in the first place.”
The King sighed.
“And I expect you wear every pair out each night, Miss Azalea? Nonsense.” He folded his arms. “So this is why you are behind your time every day. Dancing at night, in mourning, when it is strictly forbidden. You all know it is not allowed!”
“No one hears us,” said Hollyhock, twining the end of her apron string around her eight-year-old hand. “They can’t hear a peep.”
“No, I expect they probably can’t,” said the King. “If there was enough floor to dance in your room, which there is not, it would most certainly make a grand racket, would it not? So. If you cannot be heard from your room, then, where could you be dancing? Hmm? There are no secrets and underhanded dealings in this household, young ladies. If you are harboring a secret, then I will be told at once.”
A strange sensation of cold, tingly prickles passed through Azalea. She cringed, feeling the wash and needles of it to her fingertips, and looked at the other girls. Eve was shaking her hand, as though trying to shake off the feeling. Hollyhock wiped her hands on her skirts. Bramble cast a glance at Azalea, one thin eyebrow arched. They had obviously felt it, too.
“We…can’t tell you,” said Flora, to the floor.