Jackie Jester had one week to invent the greatest April Fool's prank the kingdom had ever seen, and his head was empty. Every jester before him left a legend behind. One flooded the throne room with soap bubbles. One dyed the king's beard green. Jackie had a wall of scribbled ideas in his tower room, and every one of them was crossed out. His big day was coming, and he had nothing. He paced under the castle's tall towers, where red and blue banners snapped in the wind. Servants hurried past with buckets and baskets. Nobody looked at him. That was the problem. A jester with no signature prank was just a man in a striped hat. Forgettable. Jackie could not stand the thought of being forgettable. He watched the workers haul barrels through the great front gate. Flour barrels. Dozens of them, stacked for the spring baking. An idea sparked. What if he tipped one over? A little cloud of flour, a little laugh. He tried it. He tilted a single barrel near the gate and let a scoop spill on a passing guard. The guard sneezed, brushed his shoulder, and walked on. No one laughed. No one even turned. Jackie stared at the small white smear on the stones. Too small. A prank that size would vanish by supper. He needed something that filled the whole castle. Something the king himself could not ignore. He looked up. The towers rose high above the courtyard. The battlements wrapped the walls like a stone crown. And below them sat the barrels, forty at least, each packed with fine white flour. Jackie's chest tightened. If one scoop did nothing, then forty barrels dumped from the highest tower would bury the courtyard in a snowstorm. On April Fool's morning. In front of everyone. He spent the next hour testing his plan. He hauled one barrel up the tower stairs, panting at each landing. At the top he leaned over the battlement and poured. The flour fell in a long white ribbon and burst across the stones below. Guards shouted. A cook shrieked. Three servants froze and pointed up at him. Jackie laughed so hard he nearly dropped the barrel. It worked. It truly worked. He had his signature prank at last. He would need every barrel, a night of hauling, and the highest tower ready by dawn on the first of April. But as Jackie leaned over the wall, grinning, he saw who stood in the ruined flour below. Not a cook. Not a guard. A tall figure in a fur-trimmed cloak, brushing white powder from his sleeve, staring up with a face like stone. The one man Jackie could not afford to anger. His plan was set. His target had just changed.