Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
I sit at the far end of the table that’s meant for two dozen, and Kit joins me as I pull the damn wooden puzzle from my pocket, more as something to fidget with rather than in any hopes of finally solving it.
I’ve spent hours messing with it since Rosie’s death, but there’s something about the wooden shape that doesn’t make sense to me.
Something that was maybe obvious to John Phillip Michaels, but that kind of spatial intelligence isn’t my forte.
“What’s that?” says Kit quietly as the rest of the family trickles into the room. Helene, Nicholas, my mother, and finally Maisie, whose hair is unwashed and whose face is tinged with gray. I can’t look at her, and so I show Kit the puzzle box instead, holding it in my palm.
“Just one of those brainteaser things,” I mumble, already feeling guilty for not telling him it’s the same puzzle John Phillip Michaels gave me back in February. But now is definitely not the time. “I can’t figure it out.”
“That’s because this bit is twisted the wrong way,” he says, his brow knit. He takes it from me, and his nimble fingers work some strange magic, flipping one of the wooden pieces, only to drop the puzzle in my hand once more. “Try that. It should work now.”
I blink at him. “How did you see that?”
He shrugs. “The wood grain didn’t match the rest. It must’ve been moved out of position.”
Stunned, I focus on the puzzle again, and sure enough, the pieces turn easily now, just like they did under John Phillip Michaels’s deft touch. Had he flipped it like that on purpose? Or had I accidentally jammed it in one of my early attempts to solve it?
“Thank you all for being here,” says Alexander, even though there are fewer than ten of us. Kit and I remain separated from the others, though I notice Jenkins has moved closer to us, bridging the gap. “I suppose everyone is aware of what this is about.”
“That wretch,” spits Helene, her posture rigid and her eyes red. “This is treason, Alex—”
“I’m aware,” he says miserably, and my mother sets a hand on his arm. “But I can’t very well haul him in front of an executioner, can I?”
“There are other ways of achieving the same goal,” mutters Helene, and the look Nicholas gives her sends a chill through me. Ben may be Royal Enemy Number One, but he’s still Nicholas’s kid. “He’s put the entire monarchy at risk—”
“He also made it clear that he expects the crown to retaliate, ma’am,” says Astrid from her spot across from Doyle. “And anyone who believes him will also deify him should the royal family try to seek vengeance for this.”
“It isn’t vengeance,” protests Helene. “It’s all li—”
But she falters then, and heavy silence fills the room. It isn’t all lies. Ben has the truth on his side, for once, and there’s nothing anyone here can do about it.
“How did he even get his hands on that bloody test in the first place?” says Alexander, and this time his quiet rage is directed at his brother. Nicholas exhales sharply.
“I’ve no idea,” he says raggedly. “I’ve kept it, of course, but it’s locked in my personal safe—”
“And you’re certain you never gave him the passcode?” says Helene, making it obvious they’ve had this conversation before. Nicholas nods.
“The only one who’s ever laid eyes on it other than the three of us is Venetia,” he admits. “But even then, she didn’t have a copy. It was never in her possession.”
“You showed Venetia?” Helene’s face is cherry red now, and she clutches the front of her cardigan with a death grip that I’m sure she wishes was around Ben’s neck. “How could you—”
“It was part of our settlement,” mutters Nicholas. “I don’t know why she wanted to see it, but she did. Closure, maybe. It doesn’t matter. She knew that if she ever told a soul, her allowance would be cut off, and she’d be cast adrift from the family. There’s no way she would’ve ever risked it.”
“But Ben has nothing to lose,” says Maisie, her voice rough. “He’s playing his last hand, because there are no repercussions for him that aren’t already coming.”
“And because it’s true,” adds Kit, and heads swivel our way. I stare resolutely down at the puzzle box in my hands, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. “It’s ironic, in a way, after all the lies he’s told to get himself here.”
Alexander sighs heavily. “We have contacts all over the world searching for Ben, but there’s been no reported sign of him, and the interview this morning was from an untraceable connection.
Even if we do manage to ping his mobile or laptop, he’s smart, and there’s a high probability he’s made his way to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the UK. ”
“Can’t be king if he can’t return to Britain,” mutters Maisie.
“Yes, but the monarch cannot be convicted of any crime,” says Alexander.
“Brilliant,” says Helene crisply. “Then you can be the one to swing the ax, and no one can punish you for it.”
Nicholas rubs his eyes, while Alexander doesn’t even acknowledge Helene with a glance. “What we need is a way to get him onto UK soil,” says my father. “A lure of sorts.”
“He doesn’t do any of his dirty work,” says Kit, and he sets a comforting hand on my knee beneath the table. “I suppose he used to have an army of people willing to jump when he called, but that’s likely dwindled as of late.”
“Dylan could still be working with him,” I say, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “But we don’t have any way to get ahold of him.”
“Then the message will have to be public, without being obvious,” says Alexander, and he looks between us all. “Any ideas?”
“For now,” says Astrid delicately, “I think our best bet is to mitigate the damage, rather than to try to hold the source accountable. As I mentioned, because of what he said during the interview, any maneuver the palace makes against him will only be seen as confirmation of the rumors, and an attempt to silence him. Whatever our next move is, we must be aware of how it will look to the public.”
“We could always deny the accusation,” says Doyle with less bluster than usual. Even he sounds drained. “Then again, by acknowledging the rumors at all, we validate the conspiracy.”
I shake my head, my fingers turning pieces in on themselves in a pattern I’m only beginning to notice.
“It doesn’t matter what the palace does.
Ben’s third in line to the throne. By talking about it publicly—like he’s some sort of expert and only wants what’s best for Maisie—he’s already confirmed everything.
There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle, and like everyone keeps saying, Ben has the truth on his side this time.
He won’t retract no matter what you threaten to do to him, not when he knows this is his last shot.
Not when, between Helene admitting to the affair and the discrepancies with the timeline, the public is primed to believe him. ”
Yet again, silence falls over the conference room, and all I hear for a moment is the soft click-clack of the puzzle pieces sliding against one another. I’m making progress, and my fingers fly faster as my pulse begins to race.
“We could always put out our own DNA test,” says Maisie in a small voice, and my head snaps up so fast that a muscle in my neck cramps. “To prove that I am…”
She trails off, and it takes ten full seconds for Nicholas to state the obvious.
“But you’re not,” he says with gentleness I’ve never heard from him before.
“And while I want nothing more than to claim you for all the world to know, it does put the monarchy in a pickle. Which is the only reason I didn’t do so before you were born. ”
“I know,” says Maisie quietly, offering him a sad smile. “You’ve already told me.”
In that moment, despite all that’s happened between us, I feel a deep stab of pity for Maisie.
For Helene. For Nicholas, for Alexander, for my mother, for everyone who’s had to put the monarchy before love again and again and again.
It’s bullshit, and they all deserved better. They all deserve better.
“We could still do a DNA test,” presses Maisie, a note of desperation in her voice. “Claim that Daddy was worried, with all the rumors and Mummy admitting to an affair, so he privately asked for one, but the results were…well, as they should be.”
I know exactly where she’s going with this, of course, but no one else at the table seems to understand. “This is not American daytime television, darling,” says Helene with a haughty sniff. “We do not debase ourselves in such ways.”
“There would’ve been no need if…” begins Alexander, but he seems to think better of it and clears his throat. “While that’s certainly one angle to consider, we cannot tamper with the results without risking creating even more of a problem for ourselves, should someone talk.”
Though I can barely see Maisie at the edge of my vision, I sense her gaze flickering toward me. “What if it was Evangeline’s blood instead? The results would be positive, wouldn’t they? So no one would question them.”
The room goes dead silent, and beside me, Kit stops breathing for a moment. Everyone is looking at me now, but I’m still staring at my puzzle, sliding pieces as fast as I can, as if that will somehow tune out what’s happening around me.
“You’d be okay with that, right, Evan?” says Maisie, and her voice breaks slightly. “If it would—put an end to all this?”
My tongue feels like lead, and my mind is screaming at me to—I don’t know.
Walk away. Run, if I have to, from this circus sideshow.
From being a pawn, from letting myself be used like this by someone who was willing to watch me die yesterday.
Because that’s the only reason she’s being nice now, isn’t she?
Because she still needs me. She needs my blood to get out of this, and she knows the chances of me helping her have dropped dramatically in the past twenty-four hours.