Chapter Thirteen
Nettle keeps her blade against the small of my back until the citadel gates come into view. Godfrey nods in greeting, but the grip on his sword belt is tighter than usual. He knows something is in the air, something in the forest that has his guards on high alert.
“Try to run and there’ll be a knife in your back,” Nettle says into my ear, then shoves me toward the fountain.
“Where do you expect me to run?” I bite back. She’s acting like she caught me in the middle of a crime. Surely she doesn’t have any evidence I was with Will. Hopefully.
By now the sun is dipping below the horizon and candles are being lit as stores close up for the evening.
I should be doing the same. I should be potting the flowers in my basket and tending to them.
Instead, Nettle marches me to the castle without any detours, right over the drawbridge and into the entrance hall.
“Not so polished and perfect now, are you?” she says.
“You sound jealous.”
She scoffs. “No, I find you nauseatingly sweet. It’s about time I caught you messing up. Move.”
I’m guided left into the Grand Hall, usually reserved for important ceremonies and petitions.
In fact, it’s where Card and Bash’s wedding will be held in a few weeks, although there’s no sign of preparations yet.
The spacious stone hall is empty as we barge in, nothing but floating dust and two thrones on a raised dais at the far end, on which the king and queen sit in thick robes that suggest they were getting ready for bed before—well, before they caught wind of whatever caused Merit to collapse at my feet.
Queen Fern shoots to her feet, and the blanket on her lap crumples to the floor.
“Nettle! Is there any news?” she cries.
“Your Majesty,” Nettle says, and curtsies. Her hand on my shoulder forces me to do the same, as if she thinks I wouldn’t have shown them respect without her assistance. “I found Felicity in the forest near the site of the attack.”
The acute relief on Queen Fern’s face has my stomach sinking.
She thinks I have answers. She thinks that my curse will put her mind at ease once again.
I’m her remedy to any worry—except this time, I have nothing to give her.
Nothing I’m willing to give anyway. Not until I learn what truly happened.
Pigeon didn’t tell me her plan earlier, so if she was involved, I’ll have some degree of control over my words because I don’t know the details.
I truly do not know what caused Merit to be injured.
If Pigeon wanted this violence, then I need time to decide what to say.
Now is not the right time to open my mouth without thinking it through, not with emotions running so high.
King Garland’s dark eyebrows pinch together as he regards me.
His wide jaw and built shoulders would be intimidating were it not for the sickly green cast to his skin.
From the sheen of feverish sweat on his forehead, to the ever-present tremor in the fingers that rest on the arms of his golden throne, I can tell that the rumors of his worsening illness hold some truth.
I haven’t seen him out in the town since before Simon’s passing, and even then, he was becoming more and more of a recluse as the months went by.
We’ve never been well acquainted, certainly not on the level I have been with the queen, and perhaps the stories about his failing memory are also accurate, as he doesn’t recognize my face right away.
“Speak,” the king commands. “What did you see? Miss…?”
“My dear, this is Felicity Farrow, Lilibeth’s daughter,” the queen says, with a warmth I don’t expect.
I’d never considered after all our “chats” that she’d actually have any sort of fondness for me, that her niceties weren’t just faked to keep me on her side.
I figured I was a tool to her. A balm. As necessary as the foxgloves that fill her room.
Except now I know from Ruth that the queen was once friends with my mother.
I wonder if that helped or hindered any true affection.
“I gather that what I’ll hear will be the truth of it,” the king says.
“Of course,” the queen assures him. “Felicity, please. What happened?”
My first tactical choice is to move my hands behind my back, holding my basket there to hopefully hide any remaining stains of Merit’s blood.
Okay, I can do this.
“I don’t know what happened,” I say.
Nettle tuts. “You were running away from something.”
Okay. I was. How can I word this?
“I was walking home.” True.
“Then?” the queen presses.
“I heard shouts in the forest.” Also true. I heard Tarin and Howell looking for Merit. “It scared me.” Also true. “I ran and tripped. That’s when Nettle found me.”
I hold the queen’s gaze so she doesn’t know just how much I omitted.
“Before that—” the king says, then coughs into a handkerchief produced from his sleeve. The empty hall is silent while his short barks turn to wheezes, then deep breaths, before the king speaks once more. “Did you see anyone? Hear anything? What were you doing in the forest?”
I bite down on my tongue. Okay. Okay. This is exactly what Will wanted to avoid. His spell was supposed to save me from this interrogation. Was he able to get away safely? I shouldn’t have left him. Merit was bleeding and I should have tried to help more. I should have—
“Felicity, please,” Queen Fern says, her pitch rising. She’s tiptoeing toward a hysteria I’m familiar with, and I can’t get distracted by Will here.
“I bought some flowers up north,” I start with. “Like I said, I was walking home. I took the coastal road—”
“Why would you take that route when the forest is quicker?” Nettle butts in.
“I—uh— There are hawthorn blossoms that way,” I say, which is not exactly the reason why, but is still a fact in itself. Thankfully, the branch of blossoms is still sticking out of my basket to back my story up. “I heard shouts. I ran.”
Short. Sweet.
“I asked if you saw anyone in the forest,” the king says in a tone that implies he’s not happy he’s having to repeat himself.
Ooh, in the forest. Will wasn’t in the forest. He was outside on the road, as was Merit.
Hmm, however, before that I met Pigeon and Tansy inside the forest, so I’ll have to stick to talking about the homeward journey.
Also, I didn’t see any guards, I only heard them.
Gods, how will my curse allow me to answer here?
“On my way home…” I say, and swallow. If my throat closes up, if I choke on my words, they’ll know I’m trying to lie. “I saw no one but Nettle in the forest.”
I exhale. Thank the gods.
My relief is short-lived.
“Then,” Nettle says, and grabs one of my wrists to hold my hand up to the royals, “why are you covered in bloodstains?”
I yank out of her grasp and take a step back.
“I fell.”
“And you saw no one? How convenient,” Nettle drawls.
Before she can push me further, the doors behind us swing open.
“What’s going on?” Bastion asks, marching into the hall with Card behind him, both in clothes that look hastily thrown on.
Card’s collarbone is on show and has the burgundy tinge of a fresh love bite, but either he doesn’t care, or they got ready in such a rush it slipped his mind to cover up in front of his future in-laws. I’d probably guess the former.
Bash strides toward the thrones and eyes me strangely, as if it’s unusual to find me here. It is, I suppose. This is not the time or place for florists.
“Merit’s company was ambushed on their way back from Dreah,” the king says.
Card reaches my side and nudges our elbows together. It’s a comfort, a solidarity I need to keep myself together.
“And? Where is he?” Bastion asks.
“The captain set out with a search party but they’ve yet to return.”
“Why are the girls here?”
“Nettle found Miss Farrow near the explosion site just north of here.”
Bash whips to me and places his hands on his hips. He presses his lips together like it’ll stop his emotions from bursting out. I know that look. It’s actually not too dissimilar from the way he looks when someone brings up Will.
“Fliss? Why didn’t you tell us you were going north today? We could have come with you,” Bash says.
Both Card and Bash look at me expectantly. Oh, I was just meeting your worst enemy for a cute day trip to buy flowers and eat soup and learn sorcery and have the most agonizing almost-kiss moment. Luckily, I don’t have to say any of that. I have a suitably truthful answer.
“I bought you a wedding present,” I whisper and motion to my basket, the sprig of hawthorn a sad reminder of how my day was going before this.
Bash does that thing that only happens around Card. His temper thaws, and the rigid chains keeping his shoulders tight loosen their grip. He softens.
“Are you okay?” Bastion asks me.
Am I?
“I don’t know…”
My answer is drowned out by the arrival of grinding metal footsteps.
Ava leads a group of guards into the Grand Hall, including Tarin and Howell who I heard in the forest. In Howell’s arms, Merit lies as unconscious as I last saw him.
I immediately eye his leg and clasp a hand to my mouth to hide the shock.
The slice in his thigh, the one that stained my hands and threatened his life, is completely healed over.
Merely a simple red line on an otherwise unharmed prince.
His trousers are still ripped and soaked through, but— Gods, Will.
You healed him. You used what little time you had before the guards arrived to save him instead of saving yourself and I can’t tell anyone.
“Oh! My baby!” the queen cries, flying past Bash, Card, and me to take Merit’s face in her hands. She pushes his black hair back anxiously. “Is he okay? What happened?”
“Your Majesty,” Ava says, and beginning her formal salute by forming a fist over her heart where—