James sat in Amber's room, bored out of his mind. Amber had insisted that he help her sort out more dresses to give to Ivy, but so far, they hadn't found any that would come even close to fitting the littler girl.
"Do you even have any clothes that would fit her?" the prince asked. "I mean, she's really skinny and sort of bony. She's also three years younger than us. She's a little tall for her age, but not tall enough for your dresses. Plus, she told me just yesterday that its tradition for close relatives of the dead to wear black clothing for a pretty long time afterwards and she was pretty torn up about not being able to completely do the funeral rites. Trying to get her to wear anything else might upset her."
Amber gave a small sigh. "Alright, fine. We'll go through some of my old jewelry instead. There's nothing about her wearing different jewelry, right?"
"Not that I know of, but do you really want to..." James's voice faded out as Amber grabbed a bunch of jewelry and started sorting it out into two piles.
"I think she'll look good in deep red rubies, but other gemstones will work well too. Maybe purple sapphires. Emeralds would probably go nice with her eyes. I think I have something like that in here."
James sighed. "Alright, I'm going to go on a walk." He got up to leave, but Sofia ran into the room.
"Amber, James, we have a problem."
As Sofia threw a pile of newspapers onto Amber's bed, James looked at Amber and the two exchanged looks of confusion.
Amber walked over and plucked a newspaper from the pile. After a few seconds of reading it, she looked back up. She looked annoyed and maybe even angry. "Oh, the papers are at it again with their conspiracy theories!"
"What?!"
"Yeah!" Amber spread the papers out on the sheets. "Just listen to these headlines! 'King Roland's Illegitimate Child'?! 'Princess Sofia's Lost Sibling'?! 'Is Prince James In An Arranged Marriage'?! 'Does Princess Amber Have A Handmaiden, Or Is It Something More'?! Ew, I'm not even going to read this next one out loud."
Sofia nodded. "I went to ask Ruby if I could borrow a cookbook that we don't have, but when I got there, she, Jade, and Lucinda handed me all these newspapers. They had tried to burn as many as they could, but almost the whole village had read them by the time I got there! Then when I got home, mom and dad had already left to go get a gift for Ivy!"
James picked up one of the newspapers. "Hey, this one doesn't look too bad. 'The Mysterious Guest Of The Royals Of Enchancia'."
"Really? What does it say?"
"Unless you live under a rock," James read, "you've likely heard the news of the girl residing in the Enchancia Castle with the Royal Family. I've been asked by many readers to find the truth behind the gossip, so I've interviewed a few people. It's been hard, however, since many of the people working at the castle awkwardly denied comment. I kept digging, though, dear readers, and I've found a bit of information.
First of all, her arrival seems to have happened about a month ago. An anonymous source says of this time period, "I went to the castle to fix the oven and everything went as expected. I came back a week later to see how it was working, and lo and behold, there was a kid in all black hiding in the shadows! She didn't look evil or creepy, she seemed more scared than anything. It was like she wanted to leave but was too afraid to move. After a bit of me checking the oven and trying to ignore her, the Royal Sorcerer came into the room. He must have been looking for her, because he very quickly rushed her out of the kitchens. The Head Baker apologized when I told him about what happened, but he wouldn't explain."
Another person, a man who had requested an audience with the king, states, "It was the strangest thing. I was speaking to the King about a suspected break-in and theft on my farm when this tired, kind of malnourished-looking little girl walked into the room. When she noticed me, her eyes went kind of wide and she froze. After a few seconds, there was a loud bang. The girl let out an earsplitting screech of terror and ran off. I asked the King who she was and he simply said that it wasn't his place to speak of it."
A lot of strange things are going on in the palace. Many of the people I've talked to, despite not knowing much about the girl herself, have reported seeing strange magical activity. Animals flocking to the palace grounds, plants dying one day and flourishing the next, and even strange light going from one window of the castle to the next in the middle of the night. These signs point to the girl maybe even being otherworldly, or maybe the Royal Sorcerer-" James stopped and looked up. "I'm not saying the last bit of that paragraph in front of Sofia."
Sofia and Amber nodded in unison.
"You should probably start reading again at the next paragraph," Amber suggested.
James kept reading. "So, what do you think, readers? Who is this girl? A visiting royal from another kingdom? A servant in training? A very shy ghost or demon? Is there possibly an arranged marriage happening in the future between this girl and our beloved young prince?Maybe even with one of our princesses?! Now THAT would be a story! Whatever this girl is, she's a mystery that I, for one, am determined to solve!"
Amber and Sofia looked completely speechless. Then there was a knock at the door and James lunged to open it.
"Ow!" A familiar, slightly grumpy voice gave a yelp of pain.
"Oh, hey, Cedric," James sighed. "I thought you might have been Ivy."
The sorcerer rolled his eyes, rubbing his cheek. "And your ingenious plan was to break her nose. You're lucky I heard something and looked to the left just as you opened the door. Can you ask your twin if I have permission to come in?"
"You can enter, Cedric."
Cedric gave a sigh of relief and walked into the room. "Ivy decided to take a nap, so I thought I would supervise you three and keep your plans from getting too...ambitious." His eyes drifted to the newspapers. "Oh. Where did these come from?"
"Sofia's friends from the village," James explained. "It's just a bunch of conspiracy theories about Ivy. Some are so stupid they're funny, others are ones that I'm not describing in front of Sof. Just read some and you'll see."
Cedric sat on the floor and took a few of the newspapers. After a few moments, he groaned. "Oh, this is going to be torture. 'Queen Miranda's Hidden Daughter'? Is that really the best they could do? And this one! 'The Castle Steward's Little Granddaughter'! They're even pinning this on Baileywick! Not only is this all offensive, its incredibly unoriginal! A secret child is the most unoriginal royal scandal I've ever seen, and its rarely ever true!"
"Right?!" James handed him the newspaper he had read out loud. "Here, read this paragraph."
Cedric looked curious as he took the paper. Instead of just reading the paragraph James had pointed out, he started at the very beginning.
"Well, of course we're denying comment!" He growled. "There's so many things wrong with just telling them about it! Ivy is dealing with things right now! We can't just spend hours spilling all of her darkest secrets that she shared with us!"
"Just keep reading," Amber sighed. "It gets worse."
For a minute or two, Cedric just sat there and read. Then all the blood drained from his face, which had twisted into an expression of complete mortified horror.
"Er..." James waived a hand in front of Cedric's face. "Are you alright?"
Sofia looked worried too. "You're looking really pale. Is what they said about you really that bad?"
"Erm...no, not exactly..." Cedric replied. "There are just...non-child-appropriate implications. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to destroy this." With that, he went to the window, threw it open, ripped up the parchment, and threw it out."
James snickered. "We have three more copies."