26. Duchess-heir, Unsupervised #2
He hits the accelerator as I deadpan, “Yes, actually. My fragile heart clung to that hope.” The way he bites the inside of his cheek isn’t enough to deaden his obvious amusement. “This is kidnapping; it’s a crime.”
“The real crime was you thinking I’d believe a lie that thin. If your little panic hadn’t given you away, the way you couldn’t meet my eyes would’ve. Next time, just tell me you need out,” he quips, and I swallow my argument. “All you had to do was ask.”
The feeling of illegality in this vehicle heightens once we’re on the main road, a blur of cars rushing past us.
There are people everywhere. Actual people.
This isn’t a quick trip to the lake before sunrise; this is heading into literal gallivanting territory.
Thunder echoes the loud crack my composure gives.
No Philip, no security detail, nobody to filter this outing, and, oh God, a child just waved at me at a red light.
I sink lower in my seat. What if people recognise us?
I barely know how to exist without permission, and here’s Eric making me walk the plank right into his version of freedom.
No more training wheels. No controlled space.
Every headlight is a camera flash, and every muffled voice is a new headline.
Duchess-heir seen gallivanting, bare-faced and stupid, accompanied by exiled prince.
Stop it. Breathe. You’re fine. Everybody’s fine.
But how can I be fine if I don’t even have my gloves?
I’m going to accidentally touch somebody’s hand and drown in their worst memory.
I’ve got no hearth-ash on my person, and Redford’s wards don’t extend beyond its lines.
Holy fuck, Gran’s going to astral project onto the bonnet and punch me through the windscreen for putting myself at risk this close to the Reaping.
Eric glances over. “Is this your first day on Earth? Calm down.”
“ Yes , Eric,” I say on an unsteady breath. “My egg was incubated under lock and key for the past twenty-one years, and I only hatched this morning. Forgive me for being unfamiliar with fugitive joyrides.”
The bastard remains maddeningly at ease and has the audacity to chuckle at me like I’m something adorable. “Have you always been this insufferable? I feel misled.”
One hand shifts the gearstick, and the other rests lazily on the wheel as he merges into the next lane. Seems we’re headed straight into Lanorythe.
“Says the man who literally tricked me with benevolence.” He laughs— actually laughs —at that, the sound rough and unguarded.
Freedom appears to have stripped him of whatever stale and aloof persona he wears like a second skin.
The beauty of his delight is nearly blinding. “Why are we even headed into the city?”
“Because,” he answers, voice low, “I want to see what you do unsupervised. When there’s nobody around to feed you lines and tell you what to do. In simpler terms, I want to see the ghost girl come alive.”
Too specific.
Too close to Percy telling me to unbury myself.
Rain drowns out the deafening pulse in my throat, yet he glimpses me from the corner of his eye anyway.
Like he can hear it. Like he can see the handprint his words have left there.
Since the lake spat me out, the tabloids have referred to me as my family’s ghost more times than they’ve called me by my name.
He says it differently from the way they say it on the SRS podcast, though.
Or the way the Assembly does when they discuss my future.
There’s no derision or pity, but rather mourning.
As though he grieves the girl pretending to be dead.
This is worse than him knocking on my glass coffin because now he’s calling my name, and that girl is breathing for the first time in years, pushing that lid aside without any argument.
I want to ask him whether he knows he’s performing necromancy without even realising, but I lose confidence halfway through the thought.
“As far as I can tell, ghosts don’t come to life. They haunt.”
And with his next words, that confidence comes running back, and my plans for the evening are sealed.
“Haunt me, then.”
“ O kay, so Bertie’s willing to cover for us. If Philip comes calling, we’re currently having supper at Battenwen Manor,” I inform Eric, peeling the flimsy lid from my cheese sauce container so I can begin dipping my chicken strips.
If I wasn’t starving, I’d be pissed about my drenched coat and the way my hair drips down the back of my neck. Alas, sacrifices had to be made, and I remind my companion of exactly what we’re supposed to say when Philip inevitably interrogates us.
But Eric isn’t listening.
He’s too busy unpacking his order, setting aside the brown paper bag.
Once his crap is stashed on the dashboard, he turns to his meal.
What’s left is a foiled shape that looks suspiciously avian, and when he unwraps it, a glistening rotisserie chicken sits steaming in his lap.
Rich, buttery herbs dance on the breeze coming through the aircon.
The rain continues to drum on the roof, and the cafe’s glowing sign reflects neon green onto his flabbergasted expression.
I blink at him as he just… stares . Like it offended him. “Did you—” I choke on a chip. “—did you order a whole bird on purpose?”
He frowns at it, an adorable crease appearing between his brows. “I thought it was like a leg or something. And that it came with sides. Chips, salad, anything.” Oh, he’s genuinely aggrieved by the sight of the bird. “There was a picture of it; naturally, I assumed it was all part of the meal.”
“That was a picture of the combo, which you clearly didn’t pick.” He turns his glare to me. “You have to say ‘combo’.”
“I don’t speak drive-through. Why didn’t you tell me before I ordered?”
I jab my thumb towards the outdoor seating area, which has a sorry excuse for a roof with more holes than the SRS thesis on my supposedly demonic family.
“Because I was out there being waterboarded by God, trying to make sure we don’t get in trouble.
All you had to do was read the menu. How are you this removed from reality? ”
“Says the duchess-heir?—”
“—who at least knows the difference between a meal and livestock acquisition.”
Marzod’s exiled prince just sits there, coming to terms with the chaos in a world he’s evidently unfamiliar with. Maybe I shouldn’t have left him alone with the intercom. “Why is lone chicken even an option?”
“So princes can learn humility. Now, please , put your poultry away. We’ll share my strips.”
He swallows a no-doubt acidic retort and gives in with a reluctant sigh.
The bird slides back into the bag but unfortunately doesn’t take its scent with it.
We eat the equivalent of a kiddies’ meal whilst the car breathes Sunday roast. There’s something weirdly intimate about watching him reach into my lap for another serving of chips, long fingers tearing into his crumbed chicken.
I hand him a packet of chilli sauce, and he tears it open with his teeth.
“Right,” I say, pointing a chip at him. “Fun fact about you that not even your Wikipedia page knows. Go .”
Without even a moment of hesitation, he swallows and then says, “I know Morse.”
I squint at him. “No, you don’t.”
“I do,” he murmurs with a smirk before biting into another strip.
“Kairos and I got bored one summer, found an old handbook on Morse code and just went ballistic, I suppose.” His smirk turns into a fond smile with the next bit.
“We used to send the rudest messages during supper, tapping on the underside of the table. Henrik complained about being left out so we taught him too.”
It’s… stupidly, unhealthily sweet. I imagine three little boys in ironed suits at the dinner table, tapping to communicate while the conversation floats over everyone else’s heads. My smile mirrors his when I ask, “You still remember it?”
“All of it,” he admits. “My brain has trouble forgetting even the smallest thing connected to my brothers.” Oh . A piece of wiring gets exposed for a moment, and I catch a glimpse of something sentimental.
Little relics of his brothers, filed safely away.
“Is that what you’re doing when you do the—ah, the, um, the tapping thing?
” By God, if that’s not the most awkward sentence to ever leave my mouth.
He goes still, and a small wave of tension seemingly radiates from him, or maybe it’s just too hot in the car.
“Sorry,” I add more softly. “I just couldn’t help but notice. ”
“It’s fine,” he cuts in with a chuckle, but I notice his fingers are oddly positioned around his drink, muscles in his arms bunched as though he’s holding himself still by force. I tell myself to let it go. We eat until his lazy slouch creeps back in and easy conversation picks up.
I’m about to apologise again when he ruins the moment by saying, “They overdid it with the salt.”
“Then why did you inhale my food?”
“I was taught to never waste.”
“Yes, because when I think of your family, ‘modesty’ and ‘penny-pinching’ are the first words that come to mind.”
“That’s adorable; I think of yours whenever someone brings up ‘healthy coping mechanisms’,” he quips, looking maddeningly pleased with himself at having the last say.
No. Absolutely not. “Bold statement from a man who short-circuits every time he gets an email from the king and then eats his body weight in slap chips.”
The line slips out before I can stop it.
I wait for a flicker of wounded pride, but it never comes.
Not even a twitch of irritation. His smile spreads slowly, eyes narrowing in amusement when he offers me a look I’ve only seen referenced in mythology: the way his mouth twitches at the sides, unsure whether they should be expressing mirth or fully committing to awe.
Trapped in Philip’s hijacked car, I feel like the first flicker of heat in the world, and Eric watches like he knows he’s stolen something Redford tried to hide.
The edges of him blur, and he’s Prometheus, reaching for the wild, reckless thing he’s just discovered.
“You’ve been hiding this mouth the whole time?” he asks quietly. Heat licks the back of my neck, and I imagine the water dripping there sizzling. “Never would’ve guessed you’re this sarcastic.”
I make an attempt at indifference, but the heat has now crawled towards my cheeks.
My mind replays the previous hour, and I realise that I have been babbling through every minute.
I’ve insulted the list of cafes he Googled, gone on a tangent about lasagna and mocked his order.
Running my mouth like I’ve forgotten there are cues and scripts I have to stick to.
My fingers worry with the napkins, wiping grease that’s no longer there.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
“Hey.” He flicks an empty sauce container at me, and it lands in my empty takeaway box. “Don’t climb back into the coffin.”
Language flees me, and my brain manages to download only one word. “Okay.”
He doesn’t push for more, just backpedals slightly and tells me, “At least you got something out of this trip—permission to depose me.”
It takes a few seconds for the implication to land.
When it does, I turn to argue, to chase his teasing, pin it down and rename it.
But he’s already shovelling our dirt into the takeaway bag and climbs out.
Wet asphalt and petrichor rush in, soothing lungs that momentarily forgot the taste of oxygen.
He crosses to the bin right at the edge of the lot as rain, having slowed to a light mist, hits his figure.
I exhale, gaze dropping to the empty cupholders in search of my phone.
That’s when I notice the menu peeking out from beneath my boot, the receipt stapled to the cover.
Must’ve fallen when we fought over the last strip.
I grab it with the intention of forcing him to make a second trip to the bin because I need every opportunity to recompose myself.
Something catches the light at the back of the receipt.
Ink . My heartbeat slows a little at the assumption that a server scrawled her phone number on it for him to find.
I tell myself I’m not bothered, and yet I rip it from the menu anyway, turning it over until the scrawl stares up at me.
It’s not numbers, though.
It’s words.
Francesca,
It’s beginning to get a little chilly in the northern woods. Do be a dear and take Gabriel a blanket. He always hated when his hands were cold.
I stare at the writing until it blurs. Casual cruelty delivers a swift punch to my sternum, reminding me who I am.
The paper crumples, and I gaze towards the building as though I can peel back the walls and catch the spectre watching.
The fear hibernating within my ribcage opens its eyes and refuses to turn in that direction.
Fingers trembling, I wrestle with the idea of showing this to Eric, but despite what Percy says, he belongs to the world of the living, and I belong to whatever wrote this note.
And each swirly loop in the penmanship reminds me I’m not alive.
Every stroke says not yet .
Not while Godwyn still knows where to find me.
By the time Eric settles back into his seat and starts the car, I’ve already reburied the girl who had the nerve to think she was free.