Chapter Seven
“Why bother considering marriage?” Angelica demanded as she reclaimed the whole couch. “We’re all related in some way or another, and I will not marry my cousin.” A deep shudder shook her body, and she quickly picked up her cup to drown her revulsion with tea.
“Neither of us are related to you,” Delilah piped up as she filled her plate with sweets, taking after Kit with her appetite. She plopped onto a couch and stuffed a whole miniature tart into her mouth, puffing out her cheeks like a squirrel.
Would she be insulted if I compared her to a rodent? I’d keep that in mind for the next time she got on my nerves.
Angelica frowned as she raked scathing blue eyes over first Delilah, then me, evidently dissatisfied with the available options.
“That can’t be right,” Fitz said, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Is it? We should consult the family tree.” He searched through the pile of books, undoing any cleaning he’d accomplished for our visit, until he found a rolled-up piece of parchment hidden between two of them.
Then he began unloading the tea cart onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” Angelica shrieked. “I’m still eating that!”
“I need somewhere to spread it out.”
“Then use one of the tables.” She pointed imperiously at a nearby side table.
Fitz frowned as he examined it. “It’s not big enough.”
“There are at least six other tables to choose from.”
“But the tea service is the most convenient—”
Maximus picked up a table near the wall and carried it to the center of the sitting room. He set it down so gently it didn’t even make a sound.
Fitz blinked owlishly for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Maximus.” He flicked the scroll open, expanding it into a long and complicated family tree.
Using random books, he held down each corner so we could examine it.
“Two of my great-uncles participated in the first generation of the Kingdom Defense Spell. The first married your great-aunt”—he pointed at me—“the second married your grandmother”—he pointed at Delilah.
“You and I are technically related, though it is a few generations removed at this point. Then your great-aunt”—he pointed at Angelica—“married his grandfather—” he pointed at Maximus. “So, you two are related.
“Moving on to the second generation. My mother married your uncle—” he pointed again at Angelica—“so we are cousins. My aunt married your uncle”—he pointed again at Maximus—“so I don’t think either of us are related by blood.
Then your fathers married each other”—he pointed at me—“which should mean you and Delilah are only related to me. In fact, since you’re Brendon’s son, you aren’t even related to each other. ”
“My head hurts,” Delilah muttered, speaking for all of us.
I glanced at Maximus, whose height and muscled physique matched the picture of an ideal royal champion. He’d probably be the easiest to convince to go questing. “What do you think of all this?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression difficult to read. “There aren’t enough of us.”
What type of weapon does Maximus wield? Some sort of hammer? Though with the length of his arms, a sword would be useful. No one could get in reach of him. Busy mentally measuring his biceps, it took me a moment to register his words. “What?”
“Our families only sent one child each. There aren’t enough of us to fulfill the obligation through marriage.”
I looked around the room, only then realizing the problem. I cleared my throat, drawing the others’ attention to me. “Does anyone have unmarried siblings?”
“My older brothers are married,” Maximus replied.
Fitz shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Both of my older sisters are engaged.”
Angelica frowned. “I didn’t know Gen and Gwen had gotten engaged.”
“It’s recent,” he replied, deadpan.
“How recent?”
“Well, my parents asked which of us would like to attend the meeting, and within a day they both produced fiancés.”
I snorted, then covered it up with a cough.
Fitz sighed. “I’m only ten months younger than them, but they’ve always done this. Anytime the toys needed to be cleaned up, they’d suddenly remember some pressing assignment to complete.”
Cough, cough, cough—“Sorry, sorry,” I wheezed, waving for him to continue.
Something cool touched my hand and I looked down to see that sometime during my fake coughing fit, Maximus had fetched me a glass of water. He silently waited for me to take it.
All that acting had irritated my throat, so I drank it gladly. “Thanks.”
“I’m an only child,” Angelica said, flipping her golden curls over her shoulder. “Once my parents had me, they knew they’d created perfection, so why bother trying for more?”
“Trey and I are only children too!” Delilah piped up, bouncing in her seat and sloshing tea onto the furniture.
Angelica’s delicate nose scrunched up. “Your parents both have such unusual marriages. I’m surprised they had any children at all.” She tapped the edge of her teacup thoughtfully. “How did they have children? I know you were out of wedlock,” she said, pointing an incriminating finger at me.
New drinking game—take a shot every time someone points. Actually, no, bad idea. Someone might die of alcohol poisoning.
“But what about you?” she continued, frowning at Delilah. “How do two women have a baby? Did you simply show up on their doorstep one day?”
“Ha ha, ha ha, what a crazy random thing to say!” Delilah practically shouted in her eagerness to dismiss Angelica’s hypothesis. “Of course my parents are my parents!”
I frowned, then started doing the math. Aunt Franny and Kit had married later than my parents, who had recently celebrated their seventeenth anniversary, but Delilah was already eighteen …
Maybe she was Kit’s daughter prior to marriage?
Which would technically not make her royalty—exactly like me.
Are her parents hoping the spell doesn’t care about technicalities?
Since Delilah was acting as suspicious as humanly possible, I spoke up to draw attention away from her. “Maximus has a good point. There are five of us, which is an awkward number for marriage. Unless three of us are willing to experiment, our best bet is the quest.”
Angelica pursed her lips. “I don’t want to marry any of you, let alone two of you.”
“You forgot to add ‘no offense,’” Delilah said.
“No, I didn’t.”
Delilah’s lips pulled back to expose normal incisors, and I could practically see her hackles rising. “Maybe none of us want to marry you either.”
“As previously stated, I am her cousin, so I can’t,” Fitz said. “You and Trey are the only ones not related to her.”
“Again,” I raised my voice, “marriage is not the only option, and it sounds like it’s more of a clusterfuck than it’s worth.”
Angelica grimaced. “Must you swear?”
If it means you’ll refuse to marry me so we can direct our attention to the quest. “Fuck yes.”
A quiet snort came from beside me. When I glanced at Maximus, his expression was carefully blank. Maybe I’d heard wrong.
“A quest would change things up,” Fitz said. “However, it could be a great deal more dangerous. How many of us are heirs to the throne?”
Angelica and Delilah raised their hands. After a moment, Delilah looked at me pointedly, then at my hand, then raised hers higher.
“My grandparents haven’t abdicated yet, so my father is officially the heir,” I explained.
“I’m counting you anyway,” Fitz said, scribbling my name in his notes. “One of the reasons our great-grandparents chose marriage as a condition for the spell was because of how dangerous quests are. If any of you three die, a whole kingdom’s future is thrown into turmoil.”
“If I am forced to marry Angelica, two kingdoms’ futures will be in turmoil because I will rip out her throat and then I will be hanged for treason,” Delilah said.
Angelica reared back as far away from Delilah as she could, one delicate hand covering her throat. “You’re an uncouth, uncivilized little beast.”
Delilah leaned on the table separating them, dull teeth on full display. Any second now, she would get on all fours and start hissing. We didn’t need to add her feline-delusions into the mix.
“Would you rather marry Delilah or sic her on an evil mage?” I asked.
The other three royals looked at Delilah, who was honestly acting only half as weird as she usually did, and all came to the same conclusion.
“What does the quest involve?” Maximus asked.
“We have to defeat a ‘great and terrible evil,’” I explained, putting air quotes around the words.
“But the Desolated Lands don’t have any great and terrible evils,” Angelica insisted.
“Then we leave the Desolated Lands.” Everyone fell quiet. I frowned and looked at each of them, noticing how they flinched away from my gaze. Even Maximus’ hazel eyes were pinned somewhere on my left shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
“No one has left the Desolated Lands in decades,” Fitz explained. “At least, no one in my family.”
The other three nodded in agreement, and Angelica said, “It’s not safe out there. That’s the whole reason we have the Kingdom Defense Spell.”
“It’s not that bad,” I muttered.
Four pairs of eyes locked on me.
Delilah finally broke the silence. “You’ve been outside the boundary?”
Of course I had—I was born out there. But if they learned that, they might start to untangle the threads of my false past. I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant as I explained, “Before I came to live with my father. The world outside our borders isn’t all fire and brimstone.
It’s normal, with normal businesses and normal families, who are sometimes plagued by evil. ”
The world won’t end if the spell ends. I had to keep telling myself that if I wanted to finish this mission.
“I’d like to see it,” Maximus said.
Now everyone turned to stare at him. After a thoughtful moment, Fitz said, “I’ve read several books published outside the boundary. If they have publishing houses, it can’t be that bad.”
“My mother’s favorite romance author is from outside!” Delilah exclaimed, bouncing once more in excitement.
Angelica straightened and replied primly, “A queen is well versed in the ways of the world. Venturing out into it will only make me a better ruler.”
We’d pretty much nixed the marriage idea, but I had to ask anyway. “All in favor of going on a quest?” I raised my hand in the air.
As I expected, Maximus’ joined me first. Slowly, the other three followed, until we all agreed.
“How do we figure out which quest to go on?” Delilah asked.
Fitz jumped out of his seat. “I’ve been collecting quest pamphlets!” He ran around the room, gathering up several thin booklets. Once Fitz had his arms full of pamphlets, he passed them out to the rest of us.
I received a few copies of The Daily Magical, The Adventurers’ Weekly Guide to Main Quests and Side Quests, and Monster Slayers Wanted. I opened a copy of The Daily Magical and idly flipped through it.
“Outside our lands, they print these for people looking to gain experience or earn money,” Fitz explained.
“People take out ads with the problems they’re experiencing—everything from minor monstrosities to full-fledged evil mage invasions—and any associated rewards for completion.
When someone fulfills the quest, their adventure is printed in the next issue. ”
Delilah perked up at the last part. “You mean these are real-life adventure novels?”
“A ‘real-life novel’ is an oxymoron, but yes, essentially.”
She giggled in delight and wriggled deeper into her seat, settling in for a good read.
I stared down at the pamphlets. Would the Lord of Grimnight be featured in something like this? If not, how would I suggest him for our quest? Maybe I don’t. Maybe we can go on a real quest, and they’ll never have to face him or find out who I am.
Whether I led them straight to the Lord of Grimnight or not didn’t matter. My presence alone meant the Kingdom Defense Spell would fall. Venturing off on some other quest would only delay the inevitable.
But dammit, I’d cling to the delay as long as possible.