Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Elowen stepped back, disgusted by the thought. But there was fear under her revulsion. Bertrand hadn’t said it in as many words, but she thought she understood. He was offering to save Theo, but only at a cost she never wanted to pay.
She couldn’t let Theo die. But she also couldn’t trust Bertrand. Who was to say he had a way to help Theo? She wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was making it up to manipulate her.
“You’ll get nothing from me,” she said, her lips numb with the fear that she was making the wrong choice.
She turned abruptly, not waiting to see his reaction to her rejection.
She hurried back to her guards, and the tension in her shoulders eased only once they were flanking her.
What did she do next? Her anxiety for Theo was stronger than ever.
But she couldn’t let Bertrand get what he wanted.
Everything in her told her that would be disastrous.
Had there been any truth to Bertrand’s words about Simeon?
Had he somehow manipulated Simeon into using magic against Theo?
He’d offered to speak to Simeon on her behalf about using magic to help Theo, likely believing she’d have no way to speak to Simeon without him.
But Sophia had somehow managed to talk to Simeon.
Maybe she could help Elowen do the same.
She’d reached the manor’s courtyard and was just mounting the horse a stable boy had been holding for her, when her friend rode into the yard. Sophia was pale and on edge, too distracted by her thoughts to notice her guest until she was hailed.
“Sophia!”
The other girl started, dismounting and hurrying to meet Elowen, who also strode forward so they met in the middle of the courtyard.
“Elowen! Have you been looking for me? I’m not staying, I just stopped by to change my clothes for something more appropriate for riding.”
“Where are you going?” Elowen asked.
“Just riding,” Sophia said in a voice that wasn’t natural.
“You mean avoiding Bertrand,” Elowen said bluntly, her voice lowered so as not to be overheard. “You’re right, he’s here. I’ve just seen him.”
“I need to be quick, then,” Sophia said, barely seeming aware of her agitated words. “I can’t let him corner me right now. I don’t want to face his anger or his questions.”
“And this is the same brother you thought I should marry?” Elowen said grimly.
Sophia lowered her eyes, her expression tortured.
“I’m sorry, Elowen,” she murmured. “I don’t think that anymore.
I…I wish I knew how to explain. I wish I understood it myself.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been taught to make excuses for him.
I really did convince myself that it would be good for everyone if… ”
She trailed off, taking a deep breath before looking back into Elowen’s eyes. There was steel in the round, gentle face.
“I’m not making excuses anymore. I don’t want to fight Bertrand, I know I’m not a match for him. But that doesn’t mean I have to help him.”
Elowen frowned. “Help him do what?”
A cheerful whistling announced the approach of a groom, and Sophia ushered Elowen toward the house. Elowen curtly told her guards to wait for her outside this time, then neither of the girls spoke again until they were in Sophia’s rooms with the door closed.
“Never mind my problems with Bertrand, they’re nothing to do with you,” Sophia said. “What did you want to speak to me about?”
“I need to see Simeon,” Elowen said at once. “I think he might know something about what’s going on with Theo.”
Her friend looked confused. “About the prince leaving? How would he know anything about that? He’s been locked in the dungeons since yesterday.”
Elowen searched her friend’s eyes. “Do you really not know why Theo left? Did we hide it better than I think, or have you just been distracted by Simeon’s situation?”
Sophia’s brows were drawn together in an alarmed question. “What do you mean? What don’t I know? I thought he left because the betrothal was sealed and he didn’t want to kick his heels here until a wedding date was set. I understand a lot of people have taken offense at that.”
“That’s not what happened at all,” Elowen said fiercely.
“Theo’s brother spirited him away because Theo is gravely ill.
It came on suddenly, after we drank the ceremonial betrothal toast, and both Prince Xavier and I suspect he was poisoned.
There’s no medical evidence of it, though, so no one else will believe me, and that made Prince Xavier suspicious enough to remove Theo from a community he believes might be trying to kill him. ”
Sophia’s face had frozen in shock as she listened, and for a long moment after this account, she stared at Elowen in silent horror.
“What is it?” Elowen demanded.
“You…you really think he was poisoned?” her friend whispered.
“Yes, I really do,” Elowen said. “And I’m sorry to grieve you, Sophia, but I can’t think of anyone more likely to do it than Bertrand. Maybe acting through Simeon, although I would hate to believe it of him.”
Sophia shook her head violently. “Simeon would never do it. But Bertrand…” She glanced nervously toward the closed door, then steeled herself. “Do you remember how Bertrand said that he discovered Simeon stole from him?”
Elowen nodded. “He was furious about it. More about that than the humiliation of Simeon’s treason, it seemed to me.”
Sophia swallowed. “Simeon didn’t steal from him,” she said. “I did.”
“What do you mean?” Elowen demanded.
“Bertrand only discovered the theft just before lunch, and he assumes Simeon took it before he got arrested. But I took it, not Simeon. And I did it today. I only just got clear before Bertrand returned, and that’s when he noticed.”
“You took what?” Elowen asked impatiently. “Sophia, what’s going on?”
Sophia drew a breath. “When I saw Simeon in the dungeons, it’s true that he told me to stay out of it, like I said.
At least, he told me not to try to advocate on his behalf.
But he did ask me to do one thing. I could tell he hated to ask me to involve myself, but it was clearly important enough that he needed me.
He said that he’d seen Bertrand with a small, black, leather bag, and that it was imperative that I get it and hide it somewhere Bertrand wouldn’t be able to find it.
There was no time to tell me why, the guards were coming around, and I had to get out of there. ”
“Coming around?” Elowen repeated, her eyebrows raised. “What exactly did you do to get into the dungeons, Sophia?”
“Never mind that,” Sophia said briskly. “The point is, I returned home immediately. I don’t know where Bertrand was, but he wasn’t at the manor. I searched his rooms and I found the leather bag.”
“What was in it?” Elowen demanded. “Or were you too circumspect to look?”
“Of course I looked,” Sophia said, exasperated. “I’m not completely spineless, Elowen.”
Elowen felt a smile flicker across her face, before memory of their circumstances banished it.
It was nice to see her friend coming back.
She hadn’t put it together before now how the timing of her betrothal had linked with Sophia’s increased timidity.
What kind of pressure had Bertrand been putting on her all that time?
“It had two small vials,” Sophia said. “One was empty, and one was full of liquid. They were both marked, but I didn’t recognize the words.
Plus there was a folded-up parchment with them.
It looked like complex magical instructions, but I couldn’t make much sense of them.
I wrote the words from the labels down, and I hid the rest. I didn’t know anything of sickness or accusations of poisoning.
I was worried about what he’d used the empty vial for, but I didn’t imagine something as bad as this. ”
Elowen’s heart was pounding by the end of this explanation.
“That must be the poison he used,” she said.
“Simeon didn’t know Bertrand had already used it.
He must have seen it and realized what it was, or at least that it was dangerous.
But he hadn’t done anything about it yet, and then he was arrested and it was too late.
” She frowned, trying to piece together the timeline.
“If Bertrand believes Simeon stole it, though, he must have used the contents of the vial before Simeon was arrested. He must have put it in Theo’s goblet hours before the feast, which I know for a fact was possible.
But Simeon didn’t know that, because it wasn’t really him who stole it, it was you, much later.
Unless you’ve told him, Simeon still has no way to know one vial was used. ”
“I haven’t spoken to him since I stole it,” Sophia said. “I’ve been lying low as much as possible, trying to avoid attention that might make Bertrand suspicious of me.”
Elowen held her friend’s gaze earnestly. “We should take the vials to my father at once!”
“Do you think so?” Sophia bit her lip. “We have no evidence of what they are. I’ve been to the library, and checked books on every language known on the Peninsula. I can’t make sense of the words.”
“We have to try,” Elowen insisted. “You’ll have to be bold, Sophia, and testify to my father that you found them in Bertrand’s room.”
“What this will mean for my family…” Sophia’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I know.” Elowen put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, Sophia, and I’m so sorry. But if he really did something to Theo…I can’t let Theo die, Sophia. I just can’t.”
Her friend searched Elowen’s face, her anguished expression softening slightly. Then she rose, moving with determined steps into her sleeping chamber. There was a shuffling, grinding sound, and a minute later she returned with a small leather bag gripped in her hand.
“Let’s go.”