Chapter Eighteen Eugene #2
Enver paces over to his desk and casually shuffles some papers.
“It’s not easy being a royal consort, is it?
Of course you love the girl, but it’s different to love a queen.
To know no matter how hard we work, we will always come second—for the country, second to the queen, and for the queen, second to her country.
I was a duke, and I still never felt good enough.
It must be a thousand times worse for you, coming from an orphanage. ”
Eugene would like to deny it.
He would also like to have spent the last six weeks not convinced Rapunzel’s parents were waiting for an opportunity to send him packing.
“I don’t know what to say,” he answers truthfully.
Enver sets the papers down—oddly. Almost fanning them out.
As if he’s hiding something beneath them.
“I just want you to know that you belong in Astera as much as I do, and you will always have a place with us.” Astonishingly, Enver strides over and clasps his shoulder. “And despite your parents…here, at least, you can rise to be your queen’s equal. Just like me.”
Unbidden, Hughes’s words echo back to Eugene: They believed better things were possible for all of Astera.
So, too, do Cressien’s: The king and queen saw their potential, not their rank.
His parents dreamed of lifting everyone. And Enver—growing the apple tree, attacking the council and the People’s Dagger, closing the Starlight Spring, keeping Astera on a leash and dangling the hope of Verette’s reign just out of reach—Enver has only ever climbed for himself.
Someone like that could never be satisfied with anything less than the only crown in a kingdom.
That’s not Eugene’s dream. Or his parents’.
And he has it on good authority there’s a new life already waiting for him—as an apprentice spymaster.
Maybe it’s time to apply himself to the job.
Enver has spent this whole conversation trying to get Eugene to identify with him. Just like me. It’s not easy, is it? We will always come second. Maybe he’ll give up more information if Eugene plays along.
Maybe he’ll let Eugene get close enough to the desk to see what’s under the papers.
Eugene butters his face with humility and gratitude. “You really think I could be like you? I mean—I never believed an orphan like me could actually be important. I’m just some guy, you know?”
What he’s really asking is Why are you suddenly trying to convince me to stay in Astera?
“Nonsense! With hard work and dedication, a lad like you could go far in a kingdom like this.” Enver straightens up, and then—he winces. One hand strays to his burgundy doublet for a moment before he seemingly shakes it off. “I could see you contributing a great deal, in fact.”
Eugene rubs the back of his neck and wanders over to the windows, really laying on the “simple little guy” act. “I don’t know…I really don’t want to split up with Rapunzel.”
What he’s asking now is Are you after me, or both of us?
He hears the shift in Enver’s voice, the veneer of fake sympathy. “That is certainly a challenge…I’d never want to choose between my homeland and my heart.”
“I don’t know that I can,” Eugene fibs. He shuffles a little further, angling himself so the desk is halfway between him and the office door.
Enver decides to push even harder. “Well, if you decide to spend more time in Astera, perhaps you’ll come up with a way around that challenge. Long-distance relationships aren’t for everyone.”
Eugene can’t tell if that’s a condolence or a threat.
A bell rings to mark the hour, and Enver starts. “Oh, bother, I’ve lost track of time. They’re going to start the invitations any minute now. We’d best be off.”
“Of course.” Eugene bows and heads for the door, passing the desk on the way.
He can’t make out much beneath the array of papers, but it looks like there’s a…map? A red ink line arcs across the pale blue of a sea, its arrowhead terminating on a familiar coastline labeled Kourenne.
Does Enver mean to follow them back home?
Eugene keeps the confusion off his face until he’s exited the office and bowed to the king, who rattles off orders to Hughes before striding away.
Hughes hangs back a moment. “Everything in order, Fitzherbert?”
Eugene makes sure, once again, that no one’s watching. Then he swiftly passes Hughes a heavy iron key.
Enver’s key to the entrance of the Starlight Spring.
After all, Eugene didn’t need an apology, not really. He just needed an opening to pick the king’s pocket.
“All in order,” he says smugly—then sobers. “But there’s a map on his desk, under his papers. I think it shows a sea route back to our kingdom. And when I came in, he tried to hide it.”
Hughes’s face tightens. “Perhaps he means to send Princess Verette back with you.”
“Or actually pass on the throne and return with us himself,” Eugene suggests. “Or maybe he wants to do a kingdom swap? Is that a thing people do?”
That only seems to trouble the chamberlain more. He stows the iron key in a pocket. “We need to get this to Councilor Teophine right away,” Hughes breathes through his teeth. “No matter what the king is up to, I’m certain we’re going to need it.”
Hughes leads them back to the audience hall and vanishes into the crowd; Eugene does the same, though he’s weaving his way over to Rapunzel. She beams when she sees him, and excuses herself from a knot of hoity-toity bureaucrats. When he reaches her, she whispers, “We have a problem.”
That wasn’t what Eugene expected to hear. “What?”
Her hands have been linked behind her back. She furtively whips one around. Pascal is huddled on her wrist, blending seamlessly into her lilac sleeve.
“Somebody decided to stow away on my dress again,” Rapunzel grits through a sunny smile. “And I won’t have a chance to take him back to my room.”
“Maybe he can fend for himself,” Eugene suggests. Rapunzel scowls, and he throws up his hands. “Pascal did trip Gothel so she fell off the tower. I’m just saying, when the chips are down, that frog has the instincts of a stone-cold killer.”
Pascal blinks at him, somehow imbuing the movement with a myriad of implications, all of them sinister.
Eugene relents. “I’ll drop him off when we head out.”
“Thank you.” Rapunzel tucks Pascal into the crook of her elbow. “How did it go with the king?”
“Weird,” Eugene says, muffling the words in a canapé he snagged on his way across the hall. “Successful but weird. He was hinting that I should stay in Astera.”
Rapunzel’s face drops. “What? Why?”
“No clue,” Eugene says. “He also has a sea route charted out to follow us home, I think.”
Rapunzel’s nose wrinkles as she thinks. “The tree takes years to grow each apple, so even if he’s eating them, he could have traveled in between…so if he wanted to leave, why wait until now?” Then her head tilts. She looks up at Eugene. “Wait…do you want to stay here?”
The prospect of honesty has only grown more daunting after all these weeks—but didn’t Cressien warn him it would never get easier?
Eugene takes a deep breath. “The funny thing is…I’ve been expecting your parents to ask me to leave.
I mean, they’d be nice about it, but at the end of the day, I know I’m not who most people, let alone royalty, want courting their daughter. ”
“Did they say something to you?” Rapunzel demands.
“Also funny, Cressien asked almost exactly that. And then he told me how wrong I was. And he might have gotten me a new job.” Eugene doesn’t realize he’s nervously wadding up the half-eaten canapé in a napkin until it’s too late.
“Point is, I was afraid there wasn’t a place for me in the palace in the long run.
And now…I feel like it’s exactly where I could belong. ”