Page 5 of Feathered Thief

Helena’s mind went blank. The boy she despised, he . . . helikedher?

“But girls and boys can’t be friends.” Ignoring his offer, she scrambled to her feet.

He frowned. “Who says?”

That stumped her. “Uh. Well. I mean . . . We . . . we like different things. I mean, we’re just . . . different.”

He shrugged. “I like how we’re different. You’re pretty, and I’m”— he indicated himself—“not.” He grinned, and Helena’s lips twitched without permission.

“We’re alike too,” he continued. “You like animals, you like to run fast, and you’re brave. I bet you’d be good at archery too. Anyway, life would be dull if we were exactly alike.”

How did he know all that about her? Every word he spoke went straight to her heart, which still pounded from the run, and some traitorous part of her observed that he had the thickest black lashes she’d ever seen.

Nothing would ever be the same. She knew it. And she liked it. She didn’t even mind when Czwarty and Twardo made mockingoohandahhnoises when she and Kazik walked past the trees they were climbing.

Hate had turned to love, and “plump” had turned to “stocky.”

Princess Helena adored brown eyes and freckles.

But their little idyll came to a quick end. The other girls must have reported on her as soon as they rejoined their parents in the castle. By the time she and Kazik arrived, the sky had already fallen. Still walking on clouds, Helena hardly cared even when her father practically dragged her off to their guest suite to scold his only child.

“Helena, you have shamed your name—ourname—with your wild ways. No proper young lady behaves in such fashion, let alone a royal princess! You may well have ruined not only your new gown but also your future. Oh! If only your mother were still with us . . .”

His anger and disappointment made her heart ache, especially when he brought up the mother she barely remembered, if at all. After her papa stormed out of her rooms, her oldnianiasighed. “Your Highness, you must learn to behave like a lady, not a child. Remember, your father is the grand duke’s top advisor, and you mustn’t do or say anything that might diminish His Grace’s goodwill toward us or our kingdom.”

“I don’t think one footrace will destroy Papa’s kingdom,” Helena grumbled after Niania left to order her bath. Which she badly needed. Her scraped chin and hands stung, and she felt bruised in unmentionable places.

Although her social circle had known each other for as long as Helena could remember, some of the other children—mostly the girls, but even Czwarty sometimes—spoke ill of Kazik’s father, the grand duke. They never said anything when Kazik was around, but Helena had heard them talk when he wasn’t. They also judged her father for being the grand duke’s advisor, and sometimes they made snide remarks right to her face.

Small wonder the friendships in her circle were strained.

But even if Kazik’s father was wicked, she knew Kazik wasn’t. He didn’t look down on her, as she’d always thought. He wanted to be her friend! He liked her.

She didn’t know why the knowledge filled her with such happiness, but it was real.

After that wonderfully disastrous race, Helena scarcely even glimpsed Kazik for the rest of her visit. Her eagle-eyed nanny hovered, and the parents and chaperones kept arranging proper activities for the young ladies to occupy their time. Even a picnic outing in the hills behind Mnisztwo Castle turned out dull, since only the youngest boys were allowed to join the party, and the older girls were expected to entertain them. Those three Plock Castle boys—ages five, seven, and eight—intimidated Helena, and she suspected their own sisters felt much the same.

Currently the Plock Castle girls were “not speaking” with the Chelm Castle sisters—and when they did speak, it was worse. Helena kept hoping for an opportunity to at least exchange smiles with Kazik, but since his birthday-party fiasco, the adults seemed determined to keep the older boys apart from the girls.

On the final morning of their holiday, Helena and King Ryszard waited in the castle’s entry hall for their coach to arrive. Sensing a presence behind her, she stiffened when a voice spoke inside her head. “Don’t turn around or speak,” it warned. “I really like you, Helena, so I made this for you.” A solid object pressed into her palm, and her fingers curled around it. She tipped her chin down and peered over her shoulder but saw no one.

“Please don’t forget me.”

Then, he was gone.

Magic! Her heart raced in excitement while on the outside she stood still, trying to look bored and impatient. She carefullyslipped whatever-it-was—a toy?—into the pocket of her kirtle.Kazik is a mage! He spoke to me, and no one else heard or saw him!

All during the long ride back to Castle Valga, Helena’s thoughts ran wild. Her father had once told her that countries throughout the known world agreed long ago that mages should never hold political positions, since magical power in a ruler could so easily become tyrannical and abusive. No royal was supposed to have magic. Did anyone else know about Kazik’s magic? Did his parents know? He could be in big trouble if anyone found out.

Her father had no magic, of course.

But a few years ago, Helena’sniania—who’d also been her mother’s nanny—had told her that her mother’s mother had been aburva. Helena knew this meant that her grandmother had possessed magic, but how powerful that family magic was, she didn’t know.

Throughout their long ride home to Castle Valga, questions rattled through her mind, one after another. Did her father know this secret? Should she tell him? Was Kazik the same kind of mage as her grandmother had been? What magic could he do? She now knew that he could make himself invisible! Did anyone else know that he had magic?

Did this mean that Kazik could never inherit the grand duchy from his father?

And what ifshehad magic? Even just a tiny bit. It would be so much fun . . . but then she couldn’t be queen someday. She probably ought to care, but she didn’t.

---