21. Chapter 21
Fitz
T he sun had set an hour ago. Music carried faintly down the halls. The ball had started without me. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to do my duty.
“Where are you?” I whispered into the night. “Why would you leave me?” My grip tightened on the letter she’d left. If it was meant to be a source of comfort, she’d failed horribly. Instead, I felt as though she’d torn my heart out and took it with her. I loved her. I needed her. But where was she? Why would she leave without so much as a goodbye?
Sincerely, Michaela.
Her words banged around my head like a toddler with a drum set. Never once had she signed a letter that way, and I couldn’t let it go. Was it a message? If so, what was I supposed to see?
I ignored the knock at my door. Whoever it was, it wasn’t her.
Of course, Bishop had never been one to wait for permission.
“Heard it’s the big night, Cousin.” He came in as if the world hadn’t collapsed around me. “Not quite the girl you wanted, but marriage was the goal and at least you’re getting that. Relief for me, really.”
“Who says I’m going through with it?” I barely muttered the words, but Bishop didn’t miss a beat.
“Of course you are. Don’t be barmy. It’s who you are.” He clapped his hands together once. “You’ll pout. You’ll feel your duty, and then you’ll shape up at the last moment and do what’s expected of you.”
“You’re so sure, are you?” I shook my head, knowing it wasn’t that simple.
“Absolutely.” He joined me on the balcony, content to watch the night for a moment before he spoke. “Remember when we were kids? They had that parade of royalty. They gussied us up and told us we had to greet all those dignitaries, and you and I, we just wanted to go down to the pond and find pollywogs, right?”
I definitely remembered. I threw a fit that rivaled most natural disasters. The clothes, the hair, the waving and bowing and playing the part, I wanted nothing of it. I wanted to be a normal boy for once and I made it known to anyone who was within the sound of my voice.
“But what happened, Leo? Where were you when the time came?”
My gaze dropped to my feet. I played the game. I did my duty. The clothes, the hair, everything to fulfill the standard I’d been born into. Fit or not, by the end, I did what was expected.
“That wasn’t the only time either.” Bishop nudged me. “Last year of school, you took that troll to the spring ball because her father was considering trade relations with Nolcovia.”
“She wasn’t that bad,” I interjected.
“She had a pig nose and she called you her teeny tiny prince all night while she groped you every chance she got.”
I tipped my head as I considered it. “But we got the trade, didn’t we?”
“And university? And girlfriends? And where you spend your summers and your winters. It all comes back to the same thing.” He waited like he thought I might say it. “Duty. You can’t help it, Leo. You’re bound to it. And thank heavens you are, because it gives me freedom.”
“And what if I don’t? What if it falls to you… tonight? Are you prepared, Cousin?”
He shrugged. “Sadie seems like a decent gal. Maybe I can give her a separate wing of the palace. Just because we’d be married, doesn’t mean I’d have to see her, right?”
My shoulders slumped. I couldn’t get after him for that answer, not when I’d had the thought only ten minutes ago. But it wasn’t fair. Sadira deserved better.
“She’s not bad. You know that. Over time, I could develop real feelings, deeper than what I have now.” I kicked at the ground, softly scraping my black dress boots against the concrete. “But she’s not…”
“Her,” Bishop finished for me. “I know.”
I closed my eyes and let the frigid air slip over me. If only it could freeze my heart as well. Maybe it would save me from this pain.
“You saw her,” I tried to keep my emotions stable, “would she really leave me?”
Bishop groaned as if I’d asked him the one question he didn’t want to answer. “I dunno. She was freaked out. Fixated on your mother and how she might poison everyone. She was determined to track down some crates to prove that she’d been smuggling in something serious, but we checked the cellar, at least we started to.”
“What do you mean?” My heart sparked to life, jolted by some unknown meaning in his words. “Did she give up?”
“No,” Bishop became evasive, “she was determined to see it through. We argued and I left.”
“You left her alone?” The news quickened my pulse. “Could she still be there?”
“No, I sent Kabir earlier. He said the cellar was empty.”
It wasn’t good enough. I needed to see it myself. With long strides, I started for the door. Bishop’s hand gripped my arm and halted my steps.
“Where do you think you’re going? You have a ball to attend. A bride to marry!”
“Not until I know where she is. There must be a clue down there. If she was abducted from the cellar, perhaps she put up a fight. Maybe she left a message.”
“She did.” Bishop motioned to the crumpled note tucked into my fist. “But you’re choosing not to believe it.”
“I’m choosing to believe in her ,” I corrected him. Once more, I started for the doors.
“Fine!” Bishop called after me. “I’ll look myself. But you have to get to the ball. You can’t delay another moment. The wedding will be tonight, no matter what. Understand?”
Duty. It had forced my hand every day of my life. As much as I hated to admit it, I would do the same again tonight. The country needed a king, and I had to have a queen.
“I understand,” I conceded. My grip locked around the handle on the door, and I pulled it open, but not for me. “So, I suggest you find my bride before time runs out, or you will be facing your own duty tonight, Cousin.”
Michaela
Breath rushed into my lungs all at once. My skin grated against the rough stones as I twisted my face to see better. Aching limbs groaned in pain. I blinked as I tried to bring the world back into focus. Tiny lights danced in the darkness, like fireflies in the summer air. But the frigid temperatures told me I had to be wrong.
This wasn’t summer.
I was nowhere near home.
When I swallowed, an acrid taste filled my mouth. My lips tipped downward as I frowned. What had caused such a—
The blue-tinged smoke rose up in my memory.
Sadie.
The vial .
Fitz.
Each new thought brought on a surge of panic and urgency. I pushed my palms against the stones to right my body and my memories began to return. When she threw the vial, I remembered crawling, but blindly. I blinked hard, trying to force my eyes to adjust. The breeze caught my hair and pushed it away from my face, like a friend trying to help me wake up. My palms rested on stone blocks, but my rib cage leaned over the top of them, pushing my head through the open archway into the night’s cold air. I must have managed to crawl to the window and shove my head outside the tower far enough that I didn’t breathe in all of the smoke that had filled the room.
Sadie had promised I wouldn’t wake up until it was too late, but if I didn’t inhale as much as she had planned, maybe I hadn’t missed my shot.
That was a pipe dream if there ever was one. Even if I wasn’t too late, it’s not like I had a way out. My hair barely hit my shoulders, I couldn’t plan some Rapunzel repelling act or anything. As my eyes continued to adjust, my predicament only worsened. The tower was isolated, likely used as a watchpoint at some point. From the window where I’d jammed myself, the drop had to be sixty to seventy feet until I hit something solid. Even if I jumped out far enough to reach the neighboring roofs, they all slanted at steep angles that would leave me careening to my death below.
Laughter floated on the wind like petals I could pluck from the air. I forced my feet beneath me and stumbled to another archway that acted as a window. From the new vantage point, I could see the edge of the entryway where cars were arriving for the ball. I wasn’t too late at all. If only I could get someone’s attention.
Cupping my hands around my mouth, I drew in a deep breath. “Hey! Up here! Help me!” But it was as if my cries for help evaporated in the atmosphere. No one so much as twitched at the sound of my voice. “Hey!” I tried again. “Please! Help me! I’m in the tower!”
Nothing. Sadie had chosen my prison well.
Utterly hopeless.
I drew in a breath to try to yell again, but it seeped out without a sound. I couldn’t get free. Sadie had made sure of it.
No escape.
No rescue.
Just stuck.
I rubbed my hands over my arms, trying to warm myself up. Shivers ran up my spine, a reminder that I was exposed in this stone prison. The temperature would keep dropping. Would I make it through the night if the temperature went below freezing? The chills that ran through me had more to do with fear than anything else.
Defeated, I leaned into the window to watch everyone as they arrived for the ball. My dress was killer. I’d been saving it through the whole competition for a special night. Full ballgown, pale-blue shade with a chiffon overlay that sparkled in low light. I’d fashioned small butterflies from delicate fabric and fastened them to the bodice. I thought I looked like a fairy princess when I wore it, and I longed to see Fitz’s reaction as I entered the ballroom.
Instead, I was literally freezing to death in the tower he’d teased me about.
Oh, the irony.
My eyes adjusted to the dark, but it didn’t make the drop any less dangerous or the roofs less inclined. The same deadly consequences were waiting for me, only now I could see them clearly. I leaned forward and stared over the edge. On this side of the tower, it was easy to see just how fatal the drop would be because lights illuminated the stone exterior. But the new light cast a soft glow over something I hadn’t seen on the other side.
A ledge.
It only extended out about eighteen inches. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure it was actually a ledge and not a decorative piece of stonework, but I couldn’t help but lean out as far as I could to see where it went. From my vantage point, it looked like it went out another fifteen feet before it disappeared behind the curve of the tower.
“It’s stupid,” I said aloud to myself, trying to talk my reckless brain out of a thought that hadn’t even fully materialized yet. “You’ll be killed.”
I scoffed at myself. “As opposed to freezing to death anyway?”
My rational side didn’t have much of a retort. I considered the idea. Maybe I could follow the ledge, carefully inching my way to… that was the problem… to what? What was the plan? If I got on that ledge, falling was definitely a risk and there was nothing to catch me or break my descent. It was a suicide mission.
But staying in the tower was too.
Fitz needed me.
Sadie was going to convince him to marry her. I needed to tell him what she was up to. I had to figure out who she was working with. And I couldn’t do any of that if I stayed in the tower.
Before I could talk myself out of it again, I pulled myself into the arched open window.