Chapter 10
I should have gone straight back to my room.
That had been the plan, anyway.
It was a simple plan. Elegant, even. It required only three things: avoiding important people, avoiding alterations to the plot, and avoiding any situation involving bananas.
Given my recent performance, I was already failing two of those objectives.
The third felt increasingly fragile.
Unfortunately, plans and reality had developed a strained relationship ever since I arrived in this world.
As I turned a corner, still occupied with the postmortem of my increasingly questionable decision-making, I walked directly into someone.
The collision wasn't hard. More of a startled tangle of fabric and mutual surprise.
I stepped back immediately.
"I'm so sorr-"
The apology died halfway through.
I recognized her at once.
Not because we had met before, but because the original author had spent nearly two pages describing her appearance with the dedication of someone being paid by the adjective.
Lysenne Eryndor.
The princess.
At this point, I was beginning to suspect the universe had mistaken my avoidance strategy for a scavenger hunt.
I lowered my gaze immediately.
"My apologies, Your Highness," I said, already stepping aside. "I wasn't paying attention."
My intention was to leave before destiny could file another complaint.
I had almost succeeded.
"Wait."
Naturally, my luck chose that exact moment to remain consistent.
I stopped and turned back.
The princess was studying me with polite interest, the kind that seemed harmless until you remembered that every major disaster in fiction began with someone taking an interest.
"Do I know you?" she asked. "I don't think I've seen you before."
Excellent question.
Unfortunately, I was the worst possible person to answer it.
"No, Your Highness," I replied, keeping my tone respectful and deliberately unremarkable. "I'm an apprentice. I was brought in for training, but I'll be leaving soon."
That statement contained more truth than I was comfortable with.
Ideally, I would be gone before anyone learned my name.
Realistically, I would probably trip over another member of the royal family before dinner.
She studied me for a few moments longer, her expression thoughtful rather than suspicious.
Unfortunately, that made the situation considerably worse.
Wariness I could handle. Indifference would have been ideal. Thoughtful interest, however, was the sort of thing that led to conversations, and conversations had an alarming tendency to create relationships.
"I see," she said softly.
I inclined my head in what I hoped was the universal gesture for please forget I exist, then took my leave before fate could introduce another complication.
As I walked away, I had the distinct feeling she was still watching me.
That wasn't unusual. People tended to look at unfamiliar faces.
What concerned me more was the inevitable chain reaction that would follow.
By tomorrow, several servants would be discussing the strange apprentice nobody seemed to know. By the day after, someone would have invented a dramatic backstory. By the end of the week, I would probably have been secretly engaged to a duke.
Human beings were astonishingly efficient at manufacturing information when none was available.
The truth, meanwhile, was considerably less interesting.
I was nobody.
Just a girl who had been granted shelter by a kind king and quietly tucked into a corner of the palace where nobody was supposed to pay attention to her.
The arrangement was convenient.
It was safe.
Most importantly, it was temporary.
I didn't stop walking until I reached my room.
The moment the door closed behind me, I turned around and pointed at absolutely nothing.
"No."
Running a hand through my hair, I began pacing.
"No, no, no. This is not happening."
Things were supposed to be improving.
I was supposed to be becoming less relevant.
Less visible.
Less involved.
Instead, I appeared to be networking.
I stopped in the middle of the room and stared at the wall.
Over the course of a few days, I had somehow managed to encounter an alarming percentage of the main character list despite actively trying not to.
At this point, I was one accidental hallway collision away from completing the collection.
"I am collecting problems," I informed the wall.
The wall, as always, declined to comment.
The situation had progressed well beyond survival.
Survival involved staying away from the plot.
I, meanwhile, seemed to be circling it with the determination of a moth approaching a lantern.
That needed to stop, preferably immediately.
Later that night, disaster arrived in its preferred form: information I was never meant to hear.
I hadn't intended to linger near the corridor. I certainly hadn't intended to spend several minutes standing behind a pillar in a manner that would have looked suspicious to anyone except the people who actually belonged there.
Unfortunately, palace architecture had one critical flaw.
It carried sound.
Secrets, in particular, seemed to travel remarkably well.
"...tomorrow night," one of the guards was saying, his voice lowered to what he probably believed was a discreet volume, "the carriage will leave with the others."
"His Majesty was very clear," another replied. "No attention. No mistakes. She is to be moved quietly."
I stopped breathing for a second.
Moved?
Martha's voice followed, calm and steady as ever.
"And she will be with the others?"
"Yes. Listed among them. No one will question it. A charity relocation, as usual."
There was a brief silence.
Then one of the guards spoke again, softer this time.
"She is not to be seen again."
That was an impressively efficient sentence.
Absolutely devastating.
I didn't stay to hear the rest.
There are moments in life when additional information serves no practical purpose, and this was one of them.
I already understood the situation.
Someone had looked at my future, filled out the necessary paperwork, and scheduled my disappearance.
Quietly.
Neatly.
With what sounded like admirable administrative competence.
I made it back to my room before the full implications settled in.
Closing the door behind me, I stood there for a moment.
"So this is how it ends."
I had expected something more dramatic.
A conspiracy, perhaps.
An assassination attempt.
At the very least, a villain with a speech prepared.
Instead, I was being processed.
The insult of it almost outweighed the panic.
Leaning against the door, I rubbed a hand over my face.
"They weren't protecting me," I murmured.
The realization felt embarrassingly obvious now.
"They were making sure nobody could find me."
To be fair, it was an excellent plan.
From their perspective.
From mine, it was significantly less appealing.
Pushing away from the door, I forced myself to think.
Tomorrow night.
A carriage.
A relocation.
The conclusion was straightforward.
If I stayed, I would leave the palace exactly as intended.
I simply wouldn't have any say in where I ended up afterward.
That was the part I objected to.
Crossing the room, I picked up the small bundle I had never fully unpacked.
Apparently, some part of me had always suspected this arrangement came with an expiration date.
"If I get into that carriage," I said aloud, "I go where they choose, live where they choose, and disappear according to someone else's schedule."
I considered that for a moment.
Then I shook my head.
"No."
The answer arrived with surprising certainty.
"No, absolutely not."
I had worked far too hard avoiding the plot to let someone else decide how I vanished from it.
If I was going to disappear, I intended to do it properly.
I would choose the destination.
I would choose the timing.
And, most importantly, I would choose a method that didn't involve cooperating.
A plan began to take shape.
Slowly at first.
Then all at once.