Chapter Forty
I STOOD OUTSIDE MY PAVILION, WATCHING the drones put on a show.
I didn’t know why they’d suddenly appeared over the wall or why so many of them clustered in one spot. Whatever the reason, I’d heard a soft popping sound while getting a midnight snack and came out to investigate.
Shivering in the cooler evening, I rubbed my arms as the twinkling lights on the drones danced like comets. I counted ten, weaving around each other, almost forming patterns.
If I let my eyes go hazy, I could almost imagine it was a lightshow like the one I’d witnessed in Hong Kong on New Year’s a few years ago. Back then, there’d been thousands of flying machines, all programmed to spiral and combine, transforming into a sinuous dragon in the sky.
Watching them had been calming. But tonight, these felt...oppressive.
Their lights were too bright, too...hunting. Their movements too fierce and threatening.
My floor-length white satin nightgown couldn’t protect me from an icy chill. Not because of the cutting breeze, but because the longer I watched them, the more I felt something was dreadfully wrong.
Were some of the girls in trouble?
Was Laura okay?
Lucien?
My feet moved to go. To dash across the grounds to see why those nasty drones hovered like murderous sentries but...my temples throbbed.
Even if I did race over there...what could I do?
What if something really bad had happened?
I barely stomached seeing the lumpy body bags being carried out of Lucien’s palace without passing out. Let alone seeing a girl bleeding and glassy-eyed—no matter how heartless she was.
“Best just to stay here,” I whispered. “Go back to bed. This isn’t your fight.”
Call me weak or useless, but I knew my limits.
My heart squeezed as I turned to leave, but I looked over my shoulder.
My thoughts filled with Lucien. Of the way he’d kissed me so violently, so hungrily. Of the way I’d been too shocked, too overcome to kiss him back.
He wouldn’t pay for that, would he?
Those drones weren’t for him, were they?
I turned to face them again, a gush of nausea working through my system.
What if he was hurt?
What if they’d done something to him—
The drones suddenly shot upward and vanished over the wall, taking their lightshow with them. The sky seemed darker and domineering with them gone, an aura of cruelty clinging to the breeze.
I shuddered and stared at the faint stars above.
I couldn’t shed the feeling that something bad had happened to Lucien, even though common sense told me to calm the hell down.
Turning my back on the repressive night, I entered my pavilion’s courtyard and stood next to the quietly singing stream.
Ugh, who was I kidding?
I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep now.
I should go and check on him.
I could sneak into his palace, creep into his bedroom, and—
He’d kill me for thinking I was there to sleep with him.
Ugh, forget it.
My shoulders slouched as I shuffled to bed.
I’d only make things worse.
He’s fine.
I’m sure he’s fine.
If I repeated it enough, hopefully I would eventually believe it.