Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

then I’ll get to talk to Desmiatomorrow—my true fate, my real life, is only a day away. Everything I’ve been reading about and studying for and daydreaming over is about to begin.
    Then I remember what made me rush to this corner so frantically.
    “Harper—it’s not safe for you to be out here on the streets,” I say. “There are these people who wander around grabbing men and boys and carrying them off to war.” I think about how the ragged boy was carried away, and how the well-dressed man in the cobbler’s shop didn’t seem to be at any risk. “They take away poor men and boys,” I add.
    “Yeah, I know,” Harper says sulkily. “They’re called press gangs.”
    I stare at him in shock.
    “You know about the press gangs?”
    “The messengers from Cortona, the ones who come out to our village to tell us who’s died in the war—they told me about the press gangs.” Harper smiles, a little grimly. “At first I thought they were talking about people who roam around carrying flatirons, but it’s ‘press’ because they ‘impress’ people into the war.”
    I’m a little stunned that Harper knew something about the kingdom that I, the true princess, was totally ignorant of. Then something else strikes me.
    “But, Harper—you knew this, and you—you were still willing to come to Cortona with me? And to sit out herealone, playing music, when at any moment some press gang could—”
    “What? You think if you’d been sitting here with me while I was playing love songs, you could have protected me from a press gang? You—big, bad Cecilia?”
    The words are teasing, but there’s a darker tone in his voice. And I
had
thought that. Almost. It wasn’t that I was big, bad Cecilia, but that I was the true princess, and a simple word from me should be able to stop any press gang.
    If they believed me.
    I’m still gasping at the risks Harper has taken—
is
taking—for me, without me even knowing it. Harper’s sitting down, pulling his harp onto his lap again, resignedly positioning his fingers on the strings.
    “Harper,
no,
” I say, tugging on his arm, as if I’m strong enough to pick him up. “You can’t stay here. We’ve got to get you out of the city. Just in case a press gang shows up—”
    “Cecilia, I
want
to be a soldier, remember?” he says brusquely.
    Staring into his eyes I think,
He’s lying.
And it’s so weird to think that, because Harper’s been saying he wants to be a soldier for years, for as long as I can remember. I’ve always believed him before. Why should I doubt him now?
    It’s different now. This time he’s lying.
I am so sure ofmyself. I just don’t understand what’s changed.
    “It’s not like I’m royalty or anything,” Harper adds, still in that harsh, unfamiliar voice. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”
    I want to say,
Of course it does,
or
Don’t you know that you matter to
me
?
But couldn’t he tell that from the way I flung myself at him just a few moments ago?
    I don’t know how I can feel so sure of myself and so confused, all at the same time. I draw in a shaky breath.
    “If you want to go off and join up and fight in the war tomorrow afternoon or—or the next day . . . if that’s what you really want, then that’s your choice,” I say. I have to struggle to keep my voice steady, because I really don’t want Harper to
ever
go off to the war. “It’s just, right now—”
    “I know, I know. Right now you need me,” Harper says, and now he sounds angry. “You need me to earn money for shoes, and you need me to teach you how to play a harp in one evening, and you need me to get you into the competition tomorrow, and—”
    “Harper, it’s not like that,” I say pleadingly.
    He just looks at me, and everything in his face says,
Yes, it is. Today you need me. But tomorrow afternoon or the day after tomorrow you’ll be a princess in your palace, and you can throw me out in the weeds like all the other peasants. I bet by next