51. Paris
Hector really was a wonder when he put his mind toward a problem. I didn’t understand what drove a man to think like he did, but, well, he was older than me by a little less than a decade, and had seen more than I had. He’d been there for our father through the loss of his own mother, had been there for Helena and me at every step.
And now, from his sickbed, he ordered the rest of us around like a general. While I’d seen Brett step back to make room for his people before, it was even more surprising when Killian listened to him. He took to following orders as well as he gave them, and there was something about Nemedans that I didn’t fully understand yet, but I was eager to find out what allowed them to move through the world without their egos getting in the way.
Picnic baskets, Hector had demanded. He wanted us to pack our things into picnic baskets.
While I’d packed just about everything I could think to bring before ever going to Nemeda, I didn’t bother with packing anything this time. There’d be less space, and Hector and Helena needed every inch of it.
Hector thought they could make an excuse for one small trunk—a blanket for them to lie upon while enjoying their picnic, but it wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough.
And no matter how many times I told her that the Hawk Clan would look after us so long as we looked after them, Helena got a pinched, worried look whenever she considered all that she was leaving behind.
Hector’s picnic basket was filled with what papers might still be relevant on the presumption that our family lost everything. I wondered how Father would’ve felt about that, but he’d so often been at King Albany’s side that he’d seldom thought of the country estate.
No, that had been Hector’s concern, and it was his to give up.
I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to, that he could have everything, but it wasn’t true. And no matter how my guilt swirled, I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t the one denying him anything. I certainly wasn’t the person trying to kill him.
So we weren’t leaving in the middle of the night. No—the plan was for Helena to offer to show Killian the Urial countryside. They’d ride south, far enough that the snows melted, and bring Hector because he’d been so very ill that surely he could use the fresh air.
Despite the days of planning and Hector’s slow recovery, his breathing was still too shallow. He ate what I made, but I got the sense that he was putting on a show for me rather than indulging genuine hunger.
He’d found our father’s cane before getting out of bed, and when he shuffled around our apartments, he leaned heavily on it.
Still, it was heartening to see him out of bed, even if he was pushing too much, too fast, to try and get us on the road.
While Helena and Hector took Killian around the countryside, it would appear that Brett and I would stay behind, counting on whatever tales Tybalt spun about us to ensure the court would believe we’d wanted to enjoy the privacy of my family’s empty suite and that Helena and Hector would return.
It wouldn’t raise any eyebrows if we didn’t come out of the family suite. Gods, we’d hardly done that since returning to Nemeda anyway.
Meanwhile, we’d fly on ahead, scouting the way for danger and keeping an eye on the carriage until we reached the border. When the others booked inns for the night, they’d open the window and we’d slip inside.
This way, Hector hoped we’d have at least a day’s head start in case Albany did send riders after us. Killian almost looked excited by the prospect.
The morning we were to leave, Hector stayed behind as we made the last preparations. Though he said he didn’t want to make a show of being too well while moving around the castle, giving away that he’d stopped ingesting poison regularly, I thought it was just as much because he was exhausted and truly needed to conserve his energy.
Helena and Killian walked up with us to the top of the palace, where we meant to hide out for a while in bird form before taking flight when the coast was clear. No one in Urial would look at us and think we were anything but an oddity.
So far, I’d been too shy to reveal my feathered self to my siblings, but on the walkway around the edge of the palace roof, I had no choice but to show Helena, who was looking on, bright-eyed and eager ever since she’d seen Brett shift.
Even then, with so much else to worry about, I feared changing my form would startle her and she’d call the whole thing off.
I shouldn’t have worried. Helena was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.
She took my jacket when I handed it to her. “We’ll see you tonight,” I promised, “if not before.”
“It’s going to be fine,” she said.
I caught Brett’s eye, sucking in my cheeks nervously, but he nodded, and—and something about having him there was heartening. I loosened the ties of my shirt at my neck and transformed, fluttering to land on the railing nearby.
“Paris,” Helena breathed. She stared at me for a few seconds before reaching out to comb her fingers through my feathers. “You’re so beautiful.”
A pleased shiver ran through me. She didn’t hate me or think me odd or—or anything like I’d feared. When my sister looked at me now, even though she seemed much larger than she had before, her eyes were still full of the same affection I’d always known.
When she stroked my head, I preened, the feathers of my chest puffing out as I made a soft sound in my throat. I liked that.
Between my startling first shift, meeting the Nemedan chiefs to warn against the Eagle’s plotting, and the frantic note from my sister, I hadn’t had time to enjoy my new form. I hoped I might get to soon—to fly just for the sake of it and enjoy Brett there beside me.
“We’ll stay above you,” Brett promised as he shed his jacket and handed it off to Killian. “If there’s trouble on the road, you just have to hold them long enough for us to get there.”
“And you’ll come claw out our assailants’ eyes?” Killian asked, brow cocked.
I hooted, because if anyone threatened my family on the road, that was precisely what I intended to do.
“Whatever it takes,” Brett echoed.
Then he shifted too, and Helena gathered up our trousers. They’d go into one of the picnic baskets for when we landed, and gods, would I be glad to be back among Nemedans where they unfailingly provided a robe or some kind of easy option upon landing and shifting back to two legs.
Strange, how I’d only been there a couple of months, but I missed the place—missed Rosaline and Owen and Esmerelda and all the others—as if it was my home.