Cloaked

Cloaked by Alex Flinn Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Cloaked by Alex Flinn Read Free Book Online
Authors: Alex Flinn
being called a fool. She’s beautiful. To talk to her is bliss like no bliss I’ve ever felt. I need to tell her no, but I can’t. I can’t! If I say no, the adventure will end, and I don’t want it to. “Uhhhh . . .” I gesture toward the door. “We won’t get caught?”
    She shakes her head. “Do not worry. I take care of him.” She mimes swallowing a pill.
    “You drugged the guard?” It’s hot that she’s so ruthless.
    “Only one sleeping pill, crushed in his mashed turnips.” At my questioning look, she says, “Mashed turnips, zey are ze national dish of Aloria, very good for hiding. I once put a caterpillar in my governess’s when I was small. And ze pill, it is perfectly safe. I take zem myself, for it is hard to sleep since my bruzzer . . .” She looks down, sad. “But soon, you will find him, and I will sleep soundly once again. We shall sleep soundly togezzer.”
    She smiles, and it’s like standing out on the beach, feeling the sun on my face.
    The clouds roll in. I can’t help her.
    I clear my throat. “Listen, I need to . . .”
    “Wait!” She holds up her hand and starts across the floor. She opens the door to the toilet, then reaches behind it and takes out something like earbuds for an iPod. “Zis is ze magical earpiece I told you about, ze one which ze Alorian witch created. It will let you talk wiz ze animals—only ze animals zat once were human.”
    “Are there many of those?” I ask in spite of myself. She’s so pretty that it’s easy to forget she’s crazy. I wouldn’t mind being part of her world, with talking animals and enchanted frogs. It sounds pretty there.
    “More zan you would believe. Zey will help you find my bruzzer.”
    Like Snow White!
    “About that. I have to tell you—”
    “When you reach ze Keys, you will find ze right animals.”
    “How?” I shouldn’t ask. I’m not doing this. I’m not. I’m not.
    “If I knew more, I would already have found him!” She crosses the room again, her shoulders a hard line, and I wonder if I’m supposed to follow her. But she goes behind the bar. I figure she wants a drink, but instead, she pulls out a piece of green cloth. She walks back and hands it to me.
    “What’s this?” It’s velvet, so heavy I feel myself start to sink under its weight.
    “A cloak.”
    I’ve read enough books to know that a cloak is sort of a big cape, but needless to say, they’re not popular in Miami. “Why a cloak?”
    “Zis is a special cloak zat will transport you anywhere you want. You must only wish it.”
    “Wow.” She’s nuts, and she wants to marry me. What does that say about me?
    She nods. “It is an heirloom which has been many years in my family. It belonged to my great-grandmuzzer, who was a witch. She bewitched my great-grandfazzer to marry her, and zat is how she became queen from a commoner. From zen on, she did not need ze cloak, for she had means to go where she wished. But as a girl, I played wiz it, so I know it works.”
    I examine the cloth. It smells of outdoors, like a place you’ve been before but don’t remember. I wonder if Victoriana used it to get away.
    It’s just a piece of cloth.
    “Wherever you wish, it will go,” she says. “I only caution: Do not let others use it.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    She shrugs. “Smarter men zan you have been tricked.”
    I decide to play along. “Okay, how does it work?”
    “You wrap it around you, and zen—”
    There’s a knock on the door. I jump about a foot and come down on the marble floor in a skid. I hear the dull clunk as my head rams into the Roman tub. “Ow!”
    “Princess!”
    “Merde!” Victoriana’s waving her arms at me, gesturing toward the tub, whispering, “He is awake! Hide!” She answers the guard sweetly in French, but the pounding continues.
    “Princess!” A string of French words.
    I climb inside the tub. It’s as deep as a pond, and I lie at the bottom, pulling the cloak around me as if that will keep me

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