The Secret Prince Read Online Free Page B

Everyone still treated him with respect. Old men still doffed their caps as they passed. Little children still pointed excitedly. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.
    Henry waited until the omnibus had gone before putting on his cap and checking Rohan’s old pocket watch. There was plenty of time before the ten o’clock train to Knightley Academy, Avel-on-t’Hems, departed from platform three. With a sigh he picked up his suitcases, wondering for the fifth time that morning if he really
did
need quite so many books.
    It was old Mrs. Alabaster’s fault, really. She’d given him a massive parcel of dusty old mystery novels at Christmas, an unnecessary present that had made Henry feel guilty for getting her nothing in return. He couldn’t just leave the books behind in the flat for her to find, abandoned and unappreciated. And so Henry gritted his teeth against the weight of his suitcases as he staggered into the station.
    Hammersmith Cross Station, the main railway in the city, was a tremendous, arched thing that rather resembled an overfrosted wedding cake. Grandiosemoldings clung to the soaring ceiling, and the marble floor echoed horribly, turning the whole place into an overwhelmingly loud, crowded tunnel.
    Along the walls rows of brightly colored carts sold everything you could imagine, from tiny mechanical toys to garish souvenirs to newspaper cones of fresh-roasted chestnuts. Henry bought a cone of nuts and ate them absently, watching the crowd surge past. Despite the ache in his shoulders from his heavy suitcases, and despite the more than occasional curious glance in his direction, Henry couldn’t help but smile. In just a few hours he’d be back at Knightley Academy, sharing a triple room with his best friends, spending his evenings playing chess in the common room, and trying not to laugh over Professor Lingua’s abysmal Latin pronunciation in languages.
    Finally he was going
home
. Or at least the closest thing he had to one.
    Henry crumpled the newspaper cone into a ball, and his heart hammering excitedly. And then he caught sight of the headline crushed in his fist. FFLING AFFLIC IN NORDL MENTAL LUM .
    Henry smoothed out the page so that he could properly see the article, even though he already knew whatit said. The story had haunted him for two days, ever since he’d come across it over breakfast: During a routine inspection of a Nordlandic mental asylum, more than a dozen inmates were found to have had their tongues split down the middle, which had rendered them incapable of speech. There was no explanation for this procedure, and no record of it in the patients’ files. It was simply a mystery, and yet another troubling occurrence done under the terrifying leadership of Chancellor Mors.
    His throat suddenly dry, Henry tossed the newspaper page into the nearest rubbish bin. Just six months before, he’d dismissed all of these rumors as preposterous gossip from reporters desperate for a story. Six months ago he wouldn’t have believed it. But now, with what he knew of the Nordlands, with what he had seen during the Inter-School Tournament at the Partisan School, stories such as this one worried him deeply.
    “Not the wisest place to stand, son,” a man’s voice said kindly.
    Henry looked up, startled. A police knight winked at him before giving a salute, which Henry quickly returned.
    “No, sir. I don’t imagine it is,” Henry said.
    The police knight furrowed his brow, and with a sinking feeling Henry realized why. “I know you,” thepolice knight said. “You gave that guardian of yours quite a scare on Saturday night.” Henry’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
    When he’d returned home after Grandmother Winter’s party, it had been much later than he’d anticipated. And of course he’d forgotten to leave a note. He’d hoped that Professor Stratford wouldn’t worry, but Henry had found the professor frantically accosting a police knight outside the flat, insisting that