TOWER, TOWER - [Part XXI]

There is an immediate flurry of activity following the first tormented cries of the Marquis. The physicians who have come at Peppermint Butler's behest rush in to subdue the flailing child. Princess Bubblegum must help to cradle him as he passes chokingly from lucidity into a fit of full-blown hysteria—must pry his desperately clutching hand from hers too, watching as her staff collect him and carry him off. His reedy screams echo in the atrium long after he has been spirited down the corridors toward the infirmary: "She killed my family! She killed my family! She killed my family!"

When he is gone, both in body and in voice, all eyes in the room shift slowly to Marceline.

Pinned by the gazes of aggrieved pistachios, mint-chew housekeepers, banana split guards, Peppermint Butler, and the monarch of the kingdom especially, the knight blinks. She tips her head, her hair spilling down over her shoulder in a barbed, spiny cascade—folds her palm gently over the blunt head of her axe. She leans on the weapon. In the brazen torchlight her face is almost stern.

She addresses the assembly.

"It should go without saying that the boy is mistaken. I have killed no one." She pauses. Her cheek bunches under her teeth as she chews its inside, considering. Quietly she amends, "Recently."

Mutinous whispers thread through the crowd. In her periphery Bubblegum notes Peppermint Butler's small but fearsome scowl, coupled with it the anxious frowns and shivering spears of her often mild-mannered sentries. Not a single member of the Nut refugee party looks appeased by Marceline's assurance. One woman in particular, a tear-smudged cashew, spends a long, lingering moment examining the knight from top to toe. Finally she croaks, "What are you?" She jabs at Marceline's feet.

Every gaze in the room drops. Bubblegum's heart sinks when she—and by rote, her entire company—realizes that Marceline is not standing on the atrium's floor, but hovering over it. Across the thick tiles her shadow bobs gently.

"What are you?" repeats the cashew, her tone rising to a shriek. She stumbles backward into Bubblegum's knees. "What are you? Princess!" Clearly no more than a flicker from panic, the frightened Nut demands of the monarch, "What is she?"

It is Bubblegum's turn to receive the room's full attention and she does: suddenly everyone is looking at her, the cashew and Peppermint Butler and an almond at the fore of the Nut contingent and Marceline. Marceline, with her cautious, expectant face and her eyes red as apples, her eyes that just minutes ago were burning at Bubblegum in the darkness of her bedchamber—

The princess finds herself unable to speak.

How much time she passes in her silence Bubblegum doesn't know, but at last Marceline turns her face aside, closes her eyes, and reaches up to unbutton her tunic's high collar. Thumbing it open, she presents her pocked neck to the watching congress and suggests, "Let our princess not continue to struggle over the most politically correct term." And then, "I am a vampire."

She opens her mouth next, displaying her array of needled teeth for the room to see.

The guards rattle their spears. Horrified expressions and epithets the same ripple through the crowd. No small number of the castle staff rush for the doors, and the cashew woman drives a sharp, unwitting foot down into Bubblegum's ankle as she shrinks back from Marceline and shrieks, "A monster!"

Wrappers and shells alike jostle in the turmoil. A housekeeper faints dead away and Peppermint Butler glowers and Marceline, caught in the middle of it all, drops to the floor to stand in solid, immovable silence. She doesn't again look to Bubblegum.

"Enough," the princess forces out. Her voice cracks and she tries again, scowling across the atrium at her calamitous people, "ENOUGH!"

So great is the princess's gentle reputation that the sound of her shout stops the riot. Peppermint Butler wheels about to stare—the guards stiffen in surprise and even the Nut People, sensing the monarch's flare of temper, huddle together in temporary quiet.

Sweeping an arm in her knight's direction, Bubblegum determines fiercely, "Marceline is not a monster. Marceline is my champion, nothing less, and anyone who questions her also questions me. Is that abundantly clear to all who are assembled here now?"

For a moment there is no contest, but then a refugee hedges, "The Marquis said—"

"The Marquis," interrupts the princess, "is a child and grievously injured too. Each of those things alone can potentially skew perception—together they certainly do." Helping the trembling cashew woman to her feet, she continues, "Marceline is correct—it should go without saying that he is mistaken. The Duke or the Duchess did not die by Marceline's hand."

"Maybe by her axe instead, then?" ventures a stubborn walnut man.

Bubblegum glances to the knee-high aggressor. She holds his gaze sternly until he flinches and finds fascination in his feet. "We will," she murmurs, loud enough again so everyone will hear, "endeavor to find out what happened to the Duke and Duchess. In the meantime and for as long as necessary, you will find safe harbor here. Provided"—she stresses this—"you respect my rule and Marceline's guardianship. Criticism is expected. Conspiracy, however, will not be tolerated. From any source. From anyone."

She looks across the atrium at both the refugees and her own people. A few heads duck sheepishly. On many faces, though, there is still fear. Suspicion. Even Bubblegum finds herself thinking of Lemongrab, his peel and his stiff, stricken face and his wounds, left by a weapon perhaps the same size and shape as—

Forcing a smile, Bubblegum bids the room goodnight and turns to ascend the stairs again. Marceline follows.

As they turn the corner and move together down the corridor, the vampire clears her throat and begins, "Princess, listen—" From the corner of her eye Bubblegum sees Marceline reach for her.

Instinctively she twitches her hand away.