Aleia crept down the hall toward the banquet room. She had to be especially quiet, because of all of the courtiers staying at the palace. If they saw her, they were bound to wonder what in the world she was doing wearing pants and with all those weapons! Aleia nearly laughed, thinking about what their reactions might be.
When she reached the banquet door she entered quietly and heard Raoul and Josh arguing about something or other.
"Strawberries are so much better than blueberries!" Josh was saying.
"I disagree," she heard Raoul say.
"And raspberries are the best of them all," Aleia called to them, with one raised brow. "But, gentleman, is this really necessary talk?"
They both looked rather sheepish. "We were just waiting for you," Josh offered.
She smirked. "I see that. Well, then, let's begin."
They all walked over to the spinning wheel.
"It looks...old," Josh remarked.
Aleia glanced at him.
Raoul bent down to set it upright for a better look.
"It's cedar wood," Raoul said. "It doesn't look that old."
"What? It looks ancient!" Josh replied.
Both Josh and Aleia bent down to look at it closely.
"It looks like someone tried to make it look old, but see these marks? They don't look natural. Like someone carved them in themselves," Raoul said.
"It does appear that way," Aleia agreed with him.
"Yeah, but other than that there's not anything remarkable about it. It's just a regular spinning wheel."
"Aleia, touch it," Raoul said, after a moment.
"Why?" She asked, sharply. She certainly did not think she should be the one to be touching any spinning wheels anytime soon.
"Remember the sorcerer-assassin's rope? Maybe if you touch this it will disappear as well."
Aleia frowned, but reluctantly placed her hand on the wood. Nothing happened.
"Good, so its just a plain spinning wheel. No magic involved. Whoever put it up there must have just wanted to scare you."
They all stared at it a bit longer, then Aleia started to look at the ceiling.
"How did it just fall through? It's not that heavy to just fall through and I'm sure it wasn't there before, I've been in almost every room in the palace."
"We can go and see," Raoul said.
Aleia nodded and they walked out the door, around the corner, and up the stairs to the room above the banquet hall. It was dark; it had obviously been used as a storage room. Raoul used got out his lighter to set the candles burning. It was still a bit dimly lit, but they could see alright.
The first thing they all went to examine was the huge hole in the middle of the floor. It had been tampered with. Boards around the area had been ripped up and hammered through. When the spinning wheel was set on top, it would only have been a matter of time before it fell through.
"Who did it?" Aleia asked. "Wouldn't somebody have heard them?"
"You would think so," Raoul said.
They puzzled over it a little longer before looking at the rest of the things around the room. When Aleia happened to look at the door, there was a note nailed to it. They hadn't noticed before since it had been so dark.
"Hey, what's that?"
Josh and Raoul turned to look.
"That wasn't there when we were here before," Josh said.
"What? You were already here?"
"We came this way," Raoul explained. "Josh wanted to look at the hole, and then we jumped through it to get to the banquet hall."
Aleia raised her eyebrows. "You jumped through it!"
"His idea," Raoul said, pointing to Josh, who grinned.
Aleia looked at him, shook her head, and went to get the note from the door. It read—
Two children, one rule. Half a carnival, with ease.
It was the same handwriting as the other note they had found in the duke's chambers. Aleia handed it to Raoul after she read it, who in turn handed it to Josh.
"I don't understand what it means," Aleia said.
"You're not alone," Josh said.
Raoul shook his head. "I think someone must be leaving these—riddles—for us. I don't know why, or who, but I think if we did understand them, something would be found out."
Josh and Aleia nodded, but said nothing.
"So, lets finish looking through this stuff, and then we'll go and try to figure this note out."
"What about the first note?" Josh asked.
"Aleia was probably right about it having something to do with two spells, I couldn't get anything else out of it when I studied it."
The room was gone over quickly and they retreated to Aleia's old apartments. They sat down at the table with paper and pen, to brainstorm what the note could mean.
"Last time, it wasn't actually about the words, it was about what the words were. This could be similar or it could be different," Raoul stated.
"Nonsensical phrase?" Josh said after a moment.
Aleia suppressed a laugh. "That doesn't really have a double meaning, Josh."
She soon turned her attention back to the note. "I think it must be some sort of play on the words, I can't make out what it is, though. Two children...I don't think there's anything odd about that part, unless it's supposed to be to children. Like, to children, one rule is...something."
"Half a carnival, with ease? That doesn't make any sense," Josh said.
Raoul wrote down Aleia's observations.
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe—maybe it's the other kind of rule, like ruling a country. And the second sentence...well, another word for a carnival is a fair. It could have something to do with the one rule being fair, unless it is the other kind of rule."
"Fair with ease," Josh pondered. "Maybe it actually means e's, like the letter. And you add e's onto fair."
"Fair—ee? Fair—ease?" Aleia tried to make sense of it. The way it sounded instantly brought her mind to fairies and Morwenna. "Perhaps they're talking about the magical sort of fairies, then."
"You mean Morwenna?" Raoul asked, looking up from the paper and into her eyes.
She shrugged.
"It doesn't really fit with the rest of it," Josh mentioned.
"Unless we just don't understand the rest of it," Aleia said.
The huge palace clock was heard, striking midnight. "I should go now," Aleia said, standing up from the table.
Josh and Raoul stood up.
"If I can find out anything else about this, I'll contact you immediately," Raoul said.
Aleia nodded. "Alright. Good-night."
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Hmm...did that turn out alright? When I was writing it, it didn't seem as good as I had intended it to be, but hopefully that was just me...
