Chapter 28 #2
“Seemingly just in time,” Maddox said, stepping over the mess to join me.
“I don’t even know who that is,” I said. “He r-really wanted me dead.”
Maddox knelt beside me. “He may be a comrade of Prilla Lewis.”
“R-really?” My teeth were chattering, not from the cold, but from strange tremors racking my body. “The Crown p-people seem to prefer less violent approaches.”
Maddox seemed to hesitate before he wrapped his arm around me. I turned and buried my face into his shoulder as he rubbed circles into my back.
“You’re alright. You’re alive,” he said reassuringly.
I sucked in a shuddering breath as I gathered myself. Maddox’s arm fell away as I sat up and swallowed the sob threatening to escape my throat. This was no time for crying. Certainly not in front of Maddox and some random murderous man, even if the latter was knocked out.
“How did you find me?” I finally asked when I calmed.
“I asked around. Have you and Edmund checked in with the crown prince yet?”
The whinny of horses drew my attention. The carriage I’d thought was empty was clip-clopping away. There was the flash of golden wheel spokes before it disappeared around a corner. Someone had been inside. Someone who had just seen all this without bothering to help.
“I was just on my way to the palace,” I said faintly. I patted my pockets, my hand closing over the crumpled newspaper I had taken from the inn. “I was going to alert His Highness about this.”
Maddox took the newspaper and brought it toward the flickering street lamp. His eyes widened as he read the article through. “This is serious.” His brows furrowed. “Where’s Edmund?”
I pinched my lips. “Don’t know.”
He gave me an incredulous look. “Didn’t you insist on leaving with him? Did he turn in his report yet?”
“I don’t know.”
Maddox frowned. “Something happened between you two.”
I bent and shoveled my things back into my satchel, avoiding touching the unconscious man. “We should hurry to the palace before this man wakes up.”
“Right. Do you have any rope?”
Maddox and I left the man tied up against a lamp post with strips of muslin.
I hated to waste precious fabric, but I didn’t have rope, and Maddox said he couldn’t risk the man running away before he alerted the city guards to detain him.
As we continued down the street, Maddox caught me up on the past day in Witch Village.
The sky had been successfully relit by a weather witch apprentice, but he hadn’t been able to find Prilla Lewis.
“It was like she disappeared into the sky!” Maddox exclaimed.
His statement was perhaps more accurate than he knew. I recalled the length of rope that seemed to come down from nowhere. Prilla Lewis must have entered the village that way. Had she also used it as a means of escape?
I had a feeling Maddox was keeping details from me, like how Ma had been angry, and Christabella silent and withdrawn.
I had left them without a word again. For a moment, I wondered what would’ve happened if that man had succeeded in killing me.
My family would’ve been left in ignorance until someone told them.
I shook the morbid thought out of my head.
Something crunched beneath my feet, nearly twisting my ankle. I bent down. A pair of cracked spectacles with golden rims lay crumpled on the cobblestone.
Maddox’s eyes alighted on the frames with a strange expression. He picked it up. “A carriage just passed through here, right?”
I nodded slowly. It was the carriage I had thought was empty. It seemed to have gone the same way we were going.
He shook off the broken pieces of glass and tucked the spectacles into his pocket.
“Why are you keeping that?” I asked.
“I guess we’ll see.” Maddox gestured to the road. “Let’s go.”
***
WE ENTERED THE PALACE near midnight, though I wasn’t tired at all—the encounter made me jittery with adrenaline, and I had yet to recover a proper sleeping schedule after being on Witch Village time.
The palace guards let us in when Maddox showed his badge and I showed my Witch Committee pin.
The halls were empty save for an occasional servant dusting the gilded picture frames along the damask wallpaper.
We headed straight to the crown prince’s study, as we figured he’d still be awake working. We were right.
Crown Prince Bennett sat behind his desk, a deep furrow between his brows, bent over a pile of reports. At our entrance, he looked up, his expression surprised.
I curtsied quickly and Maddox bowed. “Your Highness.”
“Giselle, Maddox,” the crown prince said. “Did something happen?”
“Yes. Aboveground, and in the village.” I quickly summarized the situation with the weather and Prilla Lewis, then I offered the newspaper I had acquired from the inn.
Crown Prince Bennett read the article in silence. “Another resistance.” He heaved a sigh. “How did they know about the emissary visit?”
“We didn’t tell any outsiders,” Maddox said. “I have a theory that this group who calls themselves The Crown—apologies, Your Highness—has connections inside the palace.”
The crown prince nodded gravely, seeming to contemplate this. “Do you have any suspects?”
Maddox withdrew the crumpled pair of spectacles from his pocket.
“This tumbled out of a carriage that preceded us. It was parked close by when Giselle was attacked.” He paused at the crown prince’s incredulous look and quickly summarized what had happened to me only minutes ago.
“The wheel spokes were gilded, just like the palace carriages meant for courtiers and royal staff to use.”
I widened my eyes. I hadn’t even noticed such a detail. Ulysses, the royal steward, had come to me in a similar vehicle when I’d accepted the emissary assignment. The glasses in Maddox’s hand gleamed in the candlelight, and I suddenly recalled who had worn similar frames.
“Sir Archibald of the King’s Council,” I breathed.
Maddox nodded.
Crown Prince Bennett pressed his fingertips together. “This is a serious accusation. If this turns out to be untrue, Sir Archibald has every right to petition both of you to be removed from your positions.”
I huffed. Being removed from the Witch Committee was nothing. I hadn’t even wanted to rejoin in the first place! As for Maddox, I had a feeling he wasn’t all too attached to being a guard.
“We are accusing him,” I said stubbornly.
Maddox nodded.
“You barely have any evidence,” the crown prince said, his brows furrowed.
“Then we’ll find more,” Maddox said. “You believe us, don’t you, Your Highness?”
After a moment’s pause, Crown Prince Bennett nodded almost imperceptibly. I figured he didn’t wish to show bias, even in private. “I will have to question Sir Archibald myself at a later date. But for now, the priority is publishing Mr. Edmund de Clare’s report of the village.”
“You received it?” I asked.
“He sent it in this evening. I’ve yet to read it, but as he was in capable hands, I trust it is good.” He gave me a generous smile. “The sooner we make his personal experience public, the sooner falsehoods such as these”—he held up the newspaper article—“can be dispelled.”
My gut churned at the undeserved praise, wondering at the contents of Edmund’s report. Would his personal experiences be any better than the falsehoods? Would any emissary have moved the needle on humans’ view on witches at all?
“When will Sir Archibald be questioned, Your Highness?” Maddox asked.
“After I work through this case about the missing treasury funds.” Crown Prince Bennett gestured to the mess of papers on his desk.
“I’ve looked through the records this year and it isn’t adding up.
It’s taking precedence over everything else at the moment; I may have to call for an investigation.
My father will want that to take priority over all other cases, so I cannot say.
The two of you should go back and rest. We’ll meet in the throne room tomorrow. ”
A clear dismissal. He probably wanted to get back to his paperwork.
After taking our leave, Maddox and I walked back out of the palace gates, him leading a speckled gray horse he had borrowed from the palace stables, its hooves clip-clopping on the silent road.
I was suddenly exhausted, as if all my energy had spilled to the floor like an overturned box of pins—and I was in no mood to pick it up.
“Come. I’ll take you back to your boarding house.” Maddox mounted the horse with ease and held out a hand. The lamplight along the street set his blond hair aglow.
“I can go back myself,” I said.
“After almost getting killed? You can’t be serious.”
I withdrew the talisman I finally found buried deep in my satchel. “I have coercion magic, don’t I?”
I half-expected Maddox to withdraw in fear or disgust, but he merely said, “Why didn’t you use it, then? It would’ve protected you.”
“It would have,” I said bitterly. If only I had kept this within reach, that scuffle with the assassin could’ve ended in less than a minute. Why hadn’t I used it? Why had I refused to make use of the magic that made me valuable to everyone else aboveground?
“You shouldn’t be afraid of it, you know,” Maddox said after a moment of silence.
“It’s like a sword.” He patted the weapon hanging from his belt.
“When I first got this thing, I was scared witless. I thought one wrong move would kill my training partners one after the other,” he said with a laugh.
“But when I learned to use it, to control it, it wasn’t so scary anymore.
I had a choice. To use it, or not to use it. ”
I looked up at him. How I used or didn’t use my coercion magic had never been my choice. I had made a mistake as a child and Ma had forced me to hide it like it was something shameful. Yet, that very point of shame had become the reason why I’d been accepted onto the Witch Committee.
I doubted Maddox had ever been shamed out of using a sword, then had all his worth suddenly put on it.
He was trying to be helpful, but years of conditioning was difficult to shake off.
I had grown afraid of my hypnosis, convinced that if I used it, I would become wicked, even if I knew it wasn’t true.
It was all too much to explain to him, so I only nodded.
With some effort, I climbed up and settled on the saddle behind him. We rode in silence, the horse’s steady rhythm almost lulling me to sleep.