5. Angélique
5
Angélique
E lhyor…
“I’m to kill the dragon?”
Weirdly, that’s the only thing that reached my mind. I don’t think about the fact that, in less than a week, I’ll be free from Versailles or that I’ll have to go through at least part of my wedding night before I have to do the killing. I only think about who I have to kill.
The dragon.
I’ve never seen him—how could I have, with him being the guardian of Notre Dame while I’m stuck at the Palace—but he’s said to be a force to be reckoned with.
And he has Notre Dame.
That’s when it strikes me. Notre Dame is the biggest religious building of Paris and the shape-shifters might not be religious—like, at all—but appearances are more important than anything, and if the archangels want to keep the human citizens of the world under their thumb, they can’t live in a city and not have the biggest and most beautiful religious building of the city as their property.
“Five.”
Oh, shit. Did I ask that question out loud?
“Planning your escape must be the first thing you do when you arrive,” he continues, without even addressing my question.
I guess he thinks my question was dumb, but I’ve got so many more questions, and I’m now scared to ask any. Maybe Ari?l will answer some of them when my father is gone.
I have five days to come to terms with the fact that life as I know it ends.
There’s an awful silence in the room and I wonder if, once again, I’ve done something wrong.
I’m still sitting on an imaginary chair, even if my thighs are burning and I’m feeling like all the eating I’ve done is going to be for nothing because my abs have started to contract in spasms, even if, on the outside, I look calm and collected.
My hands are back on the sides of my cutlery, and I didn’t mess with the order of the spoons, forks, and knives.
My face is the perfect mix of aloofness and softness one can only bring with a subdued smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.
No, I don’t see what I did wrong.
My father didn’t ask a question I could have missed by zoning out, because for once, I did not zone out.
“You’ll train until Friday evening. No training on Saturday morning. You’ll get your haircut instead, and then you’ll walk there,” my father finally says when he breaks the silence.
Well, at least it wasn’t about something I did.
Then I register what he just said.
I’m supposed to walk there.
“But it’s eighteen kilometers!” I exclaim.
“Six,” my father seethes on a breath.
This, ladies and gents, is why I try to keep my mouth shut most of the time. I could have just asked if I could use the metropolitan that runs under the city. It’s old and a little wonky, but it still works. I could even have asked if I could use one of the flying taxis—not even one of his own cars—to get there, even though I doubt he would authorize that.
But no, all I saw in my mind was the distance I was sure he would make me walk.
I don’t have any money of my own, and even using the old metropolitan makes money necessary.
It used to be easy to pass the tourniquets without paying—or so I heard one of the human servants say—but all the doors turned automatic, and there’s no way to jump above them now.
“You can walk, or you can fly there,” Micha?l answers in a cold voice.
I can’t fly.
I’ve been forbidden to show my wings since the first day I shifted. I’m pretty sure, after so long keeping them hidden, I wouldn’t even know how to use them.
And he perfectly well knows that.
I clamp my mouth shut unless I’m going to say something again, and I know for a fact it’s going to get me to ten.
I don’t know if it’s the announcement of my impending wedding, the fact I’ve been sitting on nothing but thin air for the past twenty minutes, or if I’m just on the bad part of my menstrual cycle, but I can’t recall being so bad at keeping my thoughts—and mouth—in check in ages.
I’m not usually so bold or easily outraged, and I need to just bow my head and let everything unfold under my eyes, or my back will be bloody on my wedding night.
Not that I really care about my wedding night per se, but I don’t know how a dragon would react to being handed damaged goods.