CHAPTER NINE: ADDICTION

The princess didn't know where Reed was. He wasn't in his bedroom, and he wasn't in the art room. She doubted he had gone downstairs—he didn't like to interact with the royal staff. He was very reclusive.

She went out to one of the courtyards, and sure enough he was lying on the ground next to blossoming fyroles, strung out on their hallucinogenic petals. She walked over to him and got down on her knees.

"Reed?" she said, and nudged him. He responded with a bothered moan.

"Melinda."

"How long have you been here?"

He laughed at a joke in his head, then gave her what passed as an answer. "A while."

She frowned. "Can you please snap out of it?"

Smiling, he rolled over. He was miles away mentally.

With a sigh, the princess reached down and grabbed his hands, then started a long haul back to the art room She dragged him through the gray corridors of the castle, up uneven stairs and over jagged bricks. If Reed had been lucid, the dragging would have had him writhing in pain. But with him under the influence of drugs, he wouldn't feel the bruises until later.

It was humiliating. Royal servants stopped multiple times to ask the princess what she was doing, if she needed help, and if the king knew what she was up to. She felt like it was a sort of punishment—she was the reason Reed was staying at the castle in the first place. And now she was responsible for him, and that meant dragging his limp body through the building as he came down from his high at a snail's pace.

They reached the art room after half an hour of sweat and flustered embarrassment. Reed was still out of his mind, although he had formed some loosely coherent sentences during the last leg of the journey. "I ate it," was the first phrase the princess heard him utter, followed later by "Can I be the dog?" The climax, though, was when he asked "Where are you taking me?" only to follow it up with a burst of laughter and more rambling. He must have eaten a sizeable amount of fyroles to be that loopy.

In the art room, the princess dragged Reed twenty final steps over to the print station. She laid him down on the ground next to it, and then was done. She stepped over to the countertop covered in mosaic tiles and unmixed grout, then began to make art. An hour into her work, she heard Reed shuffle to his feet and the wooping of his print gun began. She did not bother to turn around and look at him though. She continued her mosaic.

The two of them worked without speaking for the rest of the day. Princess Valance's mosaic was a print gun on a circular frame—a gift for Reed. She didn't give it to him when it was finished though. She still refused to turn around. Instead, the princess made noise with her hands until Reed was finished with his print. Moving tiles around, shaking the grout bag, banging on the countertop—she did all this to make herself sound occupied.

Later, a long time after his trip ended, Reed finally spoke. "You're angry with me, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Is it because I used the fyroles?"

"No. It's because you used so much of them, and I had to drag you up here."

"They won't kill me though."

"You don't know that. I don't know that either. The problem is one of the servants could find you, and my father might get angry that you're high in a courtyard." She spun around and looked at him. "And you know what happens when he gets angry."

"You're right." He reached over and grabbed the plate he had been printing on. It was small, the size of a wall painting. "I made you something," he said and offered the plate to her.

It was a portrait. A portrait of her. Princess Valance looked down at the plate and felt like she was looking into a spotty mirror. Her skin was made of countless tanned letters, while her eyes were comprised of colored ones dotted by glimmering white asterisks.

"Damn," she whispered. "You're good at this."

"Years of practice."

She set the plate down to retrieve her mosaic and handed it to him. "I made you something too."

"It's a print gun," he said. "I like it."

"I like yours too."

"Are you still mad at me?"

"No. But don't do the fyroles again unless I'm with you."

They were being watched. Wolfe, the king's talented hunter, sat in a tower at the other end of the castle. With a pair of binoculars, he could see Princess Valance and Reed making a mess of the art room—scattering tiles across the countertop and accidentally printing the table.

He put the binoculars down and produced a handheld radio. "Your Majesty," he said as it clicked.

King Valance, somewhere else in the castle, had a matching radio. He pulled his out and replied. "Go ahead Wolfe."

"They're making art again."

The king sighed. "That's all they ever do, besides eating those damn flowers. What does the art looks like?"

"The boy made a portrait of the princess. She made a very bad mosaic of a print gun."

"Gifts for each other?"

"Yes."

"How is she acting?"

Wolfe picked the binoculars back up and watched. In the distance, he could see Princess Valance looking at the portrait with a blinding smile. She hugged Reed.

"She's smiling, and touching him."

"Good."

"Do you . . . want me to stop it?" He frowned in revulsion. "I wouldn't be surprised if they kissed."

"Why would I do that? Let them be, Wolfe."

"Yes sir."

King Valance put his radio away. If his daughter fancied Reed, then so be it. The king was operating with a hands-off approach to the princess, at least for now.

• • •

Wolfe continued to watch them well into the evening, when the princess took the boy out into the flower fields behind the castle. The two of them lay down in the grass, surrounded by floral scents drifting in the breeze, and watched the sky change colors as the sun dove away. It started out blue, but as the evening progressed, it became orange spillage.

"Melinda, mind if I ask you a personal question?" said Reed.

"I don't guarantee an answer."

He breathed deep. "Did you know your mom?"

"For a little while, when I was younger."

"What was she like?"

The princess could have told him that she remembered vague feelings of tenderness and love to spare, but she decided that would not do the deceased queen justice. So she told him a story.

"One time I remember playing outside—in this very field—and scuffing my dress. I went inside, dreading whatever punishment my parents had in store for me, and found my mother. She took one look at the scuff and smiled, and then she took me up to her room and cleaned it right off. My knee was also cut, but I didn't tell her that. She still knew to lift the dress and kiss my knee though."

"She sounds like she was a great woman."

"She was," said the princess. "Do you remember your mother?"

"Yeah, she didn't pass away very long ago. She was a baker, and made my family most of our money. I still remember her bread. It was good, warm bread. Not like what my dad makes." He stopped to correct himself. "Made."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I hate my father for what he did."

"I don't."

She sat up and looked over. "What do you mean?"

"The fyroles have made me feel better about the whole thing. I don't even think about it anymore."

"How can you just not think about it?"

"Jeez Melinda. You don't have to snap at me. The fyroles helped, okay?"

"I don't understand how you can forget about it so easily."

"I never said it was easy. The fyroles haven't helped you at all?"

"They've helped with some stuff, but not this."

Reed shrugged. "Well, just try to keep your mind off it. Look at the clouds and the flowers. Ignore your dad."

She took his advice and watched the clouds. They floated by without a care in the world. In that moment, when all outside problems fell away from her mind, she was left with one thought. She liked Reed a lot.

• • •

With zero emotion on his face, King Valance watched them lay in the flower fields from a window. He didn't know what they were discussing, and having dismissed Wolfe for the day half an hour ago, he never would. If he had to guess, he figured they must be talking about art. That's all they cared about anymore—art.

The only piece of art the king treasured was a high quality print he commissioned years ago. It was a portrait of his late wife Melinda which, unlike Reed's scrambling of letters resembling a face, looked exactly like her.

The king approached the picture and picked it up. He held it close to him and reminisced about how happy he was when she was around. Since he lost her, every waking moment of the king's life could be defined as utter loneliness. He felt empty.

After setting the picture down, he stepped back to the window. His daughter was still out in the field with the boy. The king wondered what life would have been like if his wife and son hadn't died in childbirth. He knew the world wouldn't be as bleak as it was, and that the princess wouldn't be so disobedient. He also knew he wouldn't be fostering Reed, in fact, he would never have laid eyes on the boy.

The king's previously blank expression molded into one of sorrow, for he knew the world had more pain in store—but not just for him.