Fairy Tale

As he continues to wander, Charlie thinks that the problem with dogs is that they trust you unconditionally, and Radar “trusted a fool” (369). As dusk falls, he comes upon an overgrown park. At the center is a statue depicting a man and woman who look like royalty. Nearby statues of monarch butterflies are smashed and broken. Struck by an idea, Charlie climbs onto the statue’s pedestal and is able to figure out the general direction of the Lilimar gate.

Climbing down, he and Radar begin to sprint to the gate. As they cut through a graveyard, undead hands emerge from the ground and grab at them. They make a narrow escape, closing in on the gate just as the cloud of monarch butterflies rises again to fly out of the city. An army of night soldiers emerges from the palace. Up close, the soldiers are ghostly men with translucent flesh and eyes weeping beams of blue light. Charlie manages to open the gate and get Radar through but is apprehended by a night soldier, who grabs him by the throat. He loses Mr. Bowditch’s .45 in the struggle. Before he falls unconscious, Charlie yells at Radar to run to Claudia’s house.

Charlie wakes up in a dank dungeon with a prisoner named Hamey looming over him. Hamey is protecting Charlie from another prisoner named Iota, or “Eye,” who wants to kill him to prevent the arrival of a tournament called the “Fair One.” They are in “Deep Maleen,” a prison below the palace. The other prisoners, though ugly and malnourished, are “whole ones” like Charlie, unafflicted by the graying curse. Charlie is the 31st whole person in Deep Maleen. Once the night soldiers catch number 32, Flight Killer will announce the Fair One tournament and force the prisoners to fight to the death.

In the morning, the prisoners are marched into the palace, where they meet Kellin, also known as the Lord High. He is chief of the night soldiers but he doesn’t look like a ghostly apparition; he is a healthy, albeit older, man. Kellin invites Charlie into a parlor and serves him tea. He questions Charlie’s origins, and Charlie lies and says he comes from the city of Ullum and escaped the mass poisoning that took place there. Incensed at his deception, Kellin sends Charlie back to Deep Maleen.

Another night soldier named Aaron leads Charlie deeper below the palace, even deeper than Deep Maleen. He shows Charlie a torture room where gray-afflicted people are forced to walk on treadmills for 12 hours at a time, generating power for the castle.

Charlie is returned to his cell, where Hamey is lying on his pallet. He is covered in cuts and bruises from “playtime,” or abuse from the night soldiers. Hamey weakly tells Charlie that the Galliens used to rule Empis, and “in a way they still do…Flight Killer being who he is” (410). He explains that the Galliens were good-natured and relaxed rulers who procreated prolifically, resulting in many Empirians with at least a drop of royal blood in them. It’s this blood that protects the “whole ones” from the gray but makes them targets for Flight Killer.

Another prisoner named Jaya says that Flight Killer was once Elden Gallien, Leah’s only surviving brother. Charlie wonders if Leah would rather believe her brother dead than know what became of him.

Over the following days, Charlie gets to know his fellow prisoners. He learns shreds of information about Empis, including the fact that Hana has a giantess daughter named Red Molly, against whom the winner of the Fair One will have to square off. One day, Hamey hands him a tin cup to view his reflection, and he sees that his brown hair has turned blonde and his eyes lightened to hazel. Hamey asks if he is “the true prince” (419), a character prophesied to save Empis.

About a week later, the night soldiers return and escort the prisoners out of the dungeon for “playtime.”

Charlie and the other prisoners are led up to a huge, well-maintained playing field. The surrounding parapets are occupied by night soldiers and “well-dressed whole people” (428), who watch the prisoners engage in forced exercise. Then comes “playtime,” where the night soldiers force pairs of prisoners to fight with heavy sticks until one of them is on the ground. Afterward, in the locker room, Charlie washes the dirt from his hair to find that it’s now golden blond. When the other prisoners see his hair, they act deferential and call him “Prince Charlie.” A woman named Eris dirties Charlie’s hair with grease to disguise his transformation from Flight Killer.

The prisoners are marched back to Deep Maleen. Charlie asks Hamey if Flight Killer also goes by Gogmagog, but when he speaks the name, the floor of the prison rises and falls. Hamey hisses at him not to say it again, lest he “wake what sleeps in the Dark Well” (444).