CHAPTER 34
Axel
I
don’t like being left behind.” Folding her arms, Katy scowled as Axel swung himself into the saddle. “I’m not a delicate, fainting creature.”
Helena smirked. “No, but my little niece or nephew is, so you won’t be riding.
Especially not into danger.” She turned a disgruntled expression on Axel as she adjusted the position of the quiver on her hip.
“Although I should like to know why you let her walk into it last night, and no one told me anything.”
Straightening his cloak where it had bunched under the strap of his bow sheath, Axel lifted his eyes to the sky and heaved a dramatic sigh.
“For the last time, Helena, that was not my call.” He dropped his head so he could look at his sister and raised an eyebrow.
“Besides, if you had known, you would have grabbed your bow and dashed off to confront Lord Ulrich yourself. Not only would we have lost the element of surprise, he might have had you as a hostage.”
She snorted. “You mean like you were?”
“I was not a hostage,” he loftily replied. “I was simply biding my time until the correct moment to free myself and conduct a counterattack.”
“With a dagger at your throat.”
Axel rested his bandaged hand in his lap. “I will admit that the encounter did not go entirely to plan. But your presence would not have improved the situation.”
“Yet I’m allowed to tag along now?” she challenged.
A different voice cut in. “You, I understand.” Slouched on the back of another horse, Tobias slowly joined them, his dark hair fluttering in the breeze. “Why am I here?”
Axel tugged on his horse’s reins to keep it still. “I am entering the city armed and accompanied by a squad of guards. You’re helping sell the story that it’s because I am embarking on a hunt. Dropping by the theater to discuss its ghost problems is merely a waypoint.”
“But I don’t hunt,” Tobias protested calmly.
“Not often, but you do.” Frowning, Axel added, “Besides, I am not willing to entrust the truth to the other nobles.”
Helena turned to him. “Tobias, surely you agree with me. Aren’t you upset to be just now learning of this? All these things that he’s hidden for the years that you’ve been friends?”
Tilting his head, Tobias shifted his half-lidded eyes in her direction. “Being upset sounds exhausting. As does carrying the weight of this for years.”
“I will never understand what she sees in you,” Helena sighed, shaking her head.
Leaving them to their squabbles, Axel patted the dagger hidden at his waist, then leaned down to verify that he had a knife in each boot. He didn’t exactly expect trouble, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Especially since his father was coming this time, and the king and crown prince together would be a bigger lure. Not that Fabian needed to use ruffians if he wanted to harm or capture either of them. He had made that clear a few hours earlier.
When Father finally arrived with the rest of the guards, Axel leaned over and dropped a kiss on Katy’s forehead. She gave him a wan smile in return. “Be safe.”
“As both you and our yet-to-debut little one await me, you may be sure I will.” He winked. “And if all goes well, I shall return with our freedom.”
~
Axel strode up the theater steps with Father at his side, Bertram and one of Father’s guards trailing behind.
A tiny part of him wished for Otto as well; Katy’s cousin was a good friend, almost a pseudo-brother.
However, Axel had ordered Otto home to rest and recuperate after his ordeal the night before.
Otto had argued that he had less recovering to do than the prince, since Axel had been injured and Otto merely enchanted.
But Axel held firm: the psychological impact of knowing how close he had come to seriously injuring his friend and prince had to be at least as destructive as Axel’s physical injuries.
Besides, when faced with Axel’s burns, one of the nurses had very nervously confessed to being a magic-user. She had used her ability to accelerate the healing. It would still hurt if he had to fight with it, but at least he’d have the ability.
“Where do you suggest we look?” Father asked roughly. “Since you know this woman so well.”
Hiding his wince, Axel replied, “I have not seen her since the fire. However, given the cast is on stage rehearsing, I would expect to find her in one of the practice rooms downstairs.”
Father waved a hand forward in invitation, so Axel led them through the entryway and to the back hall. The stairwell was as poorly lit as ever, but he strode confidently ahead.
Even if he did feel a shiver down his spine as he stepped into the shadows that Lotti loved. He couldn’t erase the possibility from his mind that she might be in league with his enemy.
Their footsteps echoed down the hallway, giving the impression that the basement was devoid of life apart from them. But Lotti moved so silently, he likely wouldn’t hear her if she were in the patch of darkness three feet away.
“Lotti?” he called as they passed the dressing rooms and entered the passageway with the practice rooms. “Are you down here?”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Bertram edge closer instead of hanging back the usual half step. The guard’s fingers drummed against the pommel of his sword.
“Lotti?”
Was it possible Fabian had lied to him? But why do that when there was no consequence to failure?
“Axel,” Father muttered. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here.”
“She likes to make a grand entrance sometimes,” Axel murmured back. “Especially if she’s irritated with me. Of course, that assumes Fabian was telling the truth.”
The shadows shifted in a nearby doorway. “He was.”
Father jumped at the unexpected addition to their conversation. Bertram’s hand wrapped around Axel’s upper arm, but Axel focused on the doorway, watching for the small variations that he had once been skilled at spotting. “Hello, Lotti. I looked for you after the fire.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you let me know you were all right?” Keeping the frustration out of his voice, he shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned his weight onto his back leg. “I’ve worried about you for more than five years. I was afraid you failed to escape.”
Instead of answering, she lifted a single pale hand and beckoned to him. “You wish to speak to me about a bargain. Come, we will discuss it.”
Axel stepped forward confidently, but with his hands still in his pockets; he had a small knife in the right one, and it put him closer to his waist dagger. Father hesitated a moment, then joined him, the guards crowding close behind.
A ripple passed through the shadows before a palm once again pierced the edge of the darkness. “Only the prince. I will treat with no one but my student.”
To Axel’s surprise, Father stopped and took a step back. He waved to Bertram. “Stand down.”
“Father?”
The king turned his back to Lotti, his hazel eyes heavy in the low light. “Do you trust her, son?” he said in a voice that wouldn’t carry.
“I—”
Five and a half years ago, he would have immediately answered in the affirmative. But she had hidden away, even knowing he was looking for her, and now Fabian had wrapped her into this bargain. “I used to.”
“I cannot lose you.” A note of anguish entered Father’s voice. “But neither can I ask you to forego your only chance to save your child – my grandchild – from Fabian. If she demands that you go alone, what am I to do?”
His father had refused to “bow to coercion” when faced with the note-writer’s threats before the fire, but now he bent before the weight of Fabian’s deal.
Axel felt his own back straighten as he watched.
He and those he cared about had been in danger too many times in the last half year.
He was tired of the pressure from the council, the worries that one of his own noblemen conspired against him, and the unknown regarding Fabian and his plans.
He was tired of feeling helpless against a foe he couldn’t find to fight.
Axel turned to Lotti, the steel in his muscles infusing his eyes and voice. “No.”
Her hand dipped. “No? You do not wish to learn Fabian’s magical name?”
Casually pulling the knife from his pocket, he rolled the blade between his fingers. “Yes, I want his name. But you must want something as well, or you wouldn’t be willing to bargain for it. My companions stay.”
Father’s eyes widened, but Axel kept his focus on the pocket of shadow where Lotti stood. His knife wobbled, and he quickly clamped down on it, resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder. Was someone else lurking in the darkness?
“No guards,” she finally said. “Only the king may come.”
While he would prefer to have Bertram’s solid presence at his back, Axel decided to accept the compromise. “You promise that we will be safe?”
The shadows shifted, and then a candle flared to life beyond the open door. “You are in no danger. I have no desire to hurt either of you.”
“Your Highness, I really must protest—”
Shaking the arm that Bertram held – he didn’t want to pry it off with his injured hand – Axel quietly replied, “I trust her this far. I have been in her power countless times when I bore not a single weapon to defend myself. She has never harmed me.”
First time for everything. Otto’s words before the attack echoed in his mind, but he maintained his firm stare. This was a risk he had to take.
From what he could see in the dim light, Bertram agreed with Otto, but the guard gave a reluctant nod and released his arm.
As soon as Axel and his father cleared the doorway, the latch caught with a soft click.
The room was small, and it had only a single music stand, a tiny table with a pitch pipe and a book in the center, and a candelabra against one wall.
Axel took a step forward to light the rest of the candles, but Lotti’s voice stopped him. “Leave it.”
The single candle had banished most of the shadows in the small space. For once, he could see her entire outline as she folded herself into the darkest corner. Why hadn’t she chosen a larger room?