Chapter 39 – Desta
DESTA
We leave the room in a bit of a daze. Or perhaps that’s me. I’m missing pieces. I know I am. I just don’t know what those pieces are. It’s as if I’m not only trapped underwater but also in corn syrup. It’s too thick and suffocating. There’s no breathing through it.
Yet I don’t feel so alone. Not anymore.
And I’m safe here. Safer than I am probably anywhere.
Not a lot is making sense to me, and it seems I’m not the only one with that.
I destroyed my phone, and now part of me is wishing I hadn’t.
But what do I hope to have happen to Antonia?
Was she going to kill me? She said she wasn’t.
That she loves me. But why can’t I shake the feeling that even though she does love me—I do believe that—that she was also planning to harm me?
Ferrin leans in and kisses my neck as we walk through the palace toward a dining room where the children are going to meet us. “You doing okay?”
“Kind of,” I say in a low tone. “What about you?”
“Could be worse, honestly. It’s not what I imagined the king and prince were like.”
“Same.” I lean over and kiss his left shoulder. “We need rest.”
“Yes, but food first.”
“I don’t know what happened to Sven. I only know she’d never bring him to the cottage.”
“My guess? He’s dead. I would have killed him if I were her. He’s a useless loose end.”
“Yes, but she paid him. Why pay him if you’re going to kill him?”
“Wait.” Marcella holds up her hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to listen. Old spy habits die hard. But you said she paid these Sven and Lars people, right?”
“Yes,” Ferrin confirms. “After I killed Lars, I stole his phone and read their texts. She had hired them to get Desta back to her.”
“But she paid them. There’s a record of that transaction somewhere.” She twists to Rowan and then Gabe. “She paid them. We should look into any financials they could possibly have. Maybe it could lead back to her somehow.”
“I have numbered accounts in places that protect anonymity,” Ferrin admits. “Any jobs I ever did were paid to me in cash or done through Monero cryptocurrency, which isn’t traceable.”
She tosses up her hands. “It’s a place to start when we don’t have much of anything else to go on.”
“I suppose,” Ferrin agrees. “She has money. That much is clear. She’s also been very good at evading detection. Honestly, there’s nothing holding her to this part of Europe anymore. Desta escaped and is now a liability to her freedom. If I were her, I’d be long gone.”
I can only hope she is.
Maybe with me coming back here, the curse is done. Then something occurs to me.
“What about Brea?” I ask. “There’s a baby sister, right?”
Sebastian and Rowan stop just outside the dining room. “There was.”
“Was?” I question Sebastian.
“She’s dead,” Rowan reveals. “Or so it seems she is. Our mother never told us, but after everything that’s happened over the last few months, we started looking deeper into it.
All that was said about her was that she was very ill as a baby.
She was taken from us, and we weren’t allowed to see her.
Not ever. Our guess is that our mother didn’t want to hurt us more after we lost you.
Or she was afraid of what people would say, and that more talk of the curse would follow.
She also seemed to have lost more than one child, and we’re not only talking about you.
There’s likely quite a bit of grief there, and emotion isn’t something our mother does.
We haven’t talked to her about this yet.
But according to housing records, the home Brea was supposedly living in with a lot of care has been vacant for quite some time, and the nursing care for her stopped about ten years ago.
There’s also a record of a cemetery plot that was purchased around the same time.
We had no clue. It’s not something we followed, truth be told. ”
My hand covers my lips. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Sebastian says with a sad smile. “You’re here.”
We enter the dining room, and a teenager who looks similar to Marcella is there, along with two young girls, a young boy, and newborn twins. A smile lights up my face, and for the first time since I got here, some ease creeps into my heart.
The girls stand. “Hello. I’m Princess Phaedra of the house of Alarie. This is my sister Sabrina and our brother Prince Zayer.”
“Phaedra, I’m a princess too,” Sabrina whines. “You didn’t tell her that.”
Phaedra makes a dismissive noise. “Sabrina, she already knew that.”
I walk over to the girls and crouch in front of them. “Hi. I’m your Aunt Desta. It’s so wonderful to meet you, princesses and prince. I’m a princess too. Only I’m really new at it. I’m hoping since you’re both pros, you can help me out. Show me the ropes. Tell me all the things I need to know.”
Both girls’ faces light up. “Yes!” Sabrina cries. “We’re so good at it. We’re helping Marcella too since she’ll be a princess after she marries Oncle Rowan.”
“Awesome!” I wipe imaginary sweat from my brow. “Thank you. That’s such a relief.”
I pat Zayer’s head because he’s so cute.
He’s got his fingers in his mouth and is simply staring up at me with a goofy grin and big blue-gray eyes.
He looks so much like Sebastian, whereas the princesses don’t.
They have my smile, though. No denying that.
I haven’t seen a picture of the former queen yet, but I’m wondering if they take after her.
The twins are tiny and insanely adorable with dark hair and blue eyes. I have no clue about children, let alone children that small. I take them in, but I don’t dare try to lift them out of the rocky chair things that they’re strapped in to.
“Hi. I’m Desta.” I reach out my hand to the teenager.
“I’m Jaqueline. I’m Marcella’s half-sister.”
“Lovely to meet you all.”
Dinner is fantastic and I’m not only speaking of the food.
I eat my weight in roasted meats and potatoes and vegetables, followed by dessert that Bellamy and the kids made for me.
I explain to them how I love cooking and baking, and they tell me about their Friday night tradition of watching a movie as a family.
A family.
One I’m part of now.
“This is our favorite,” Phaedra explains as she sinks into the space beside me. Sabrina climbs on my lap, and Zayer is all over Bellamy. Sebastian and Rowan play with the twins and let me hold them a little. It’s a cartoon movie with a green ogre, and I laugh through the entire thing.
It’s not long before I’m falling asleep, though. I say goodnight to everyone, and Ferrin and I head across the palace together, both of us quiet, lost in thought, and utterly exhausted.
“Tomorrow we can wake up and simply have breakfast and coffee,” I muse.
“Princess, I was thinking…”
“Yeah?” I twist to him as we meander through long, dark halls with endless doors. This palace is ridiculous, and it’ll take me the rest of my life to figure it out.
“The king and prince have bodyguards. And Marcella and Jaqueline are the children’s nannies.”
“Yes,” I prompt when he ends it there.
“What if I were your bodyguard?”
I stop him in the hall. “What do you mean?”
“I need a job. Something real I suppose, and I have no skills other than thievery. But I’m smart and crafty and know how to read people. I’d protect you with my life. What do you think?”
I wrap my arms around his waist and step into him. “I love that idea.”
“You’re sure?”
I smile and kiss his chin. “Absolutely. It means you’ll stay. And there’s no one else I want by my side or keeping me safe should the need arise. Which honestly, let’s hope it doesn’t. You could end up very bored.”
“With you, princess, I don’t think I’ll ever be bored.”
“Then you’re hired.”
He leans in and kisses me, and I sigh against his lips. “I think we may need to sleep tonight.”
I snicker. “I’m so relieved you said that.”
He laughs against my lips. “I had plans for you tonight. They’ll have to wait for morning.”
“Sounds great.”
I rest my head against his good arm, and we go into our bedroom. He’s staying. And better than that, he’s going to be my bodyguard. My protector. I’ll make him teach me how to fight and how to shoot and do all the things I need to know.
There are a million dancing pieces to this puzzle, and none of them seem to fit together. What’s the dowager queen’s involvement in all of this? I understand it’s Rowan and Sebastian’s mother, but I’m not her daughter. And how could she not tell them that their other baby sister is dead?
They obviously know her well—she is their mother—but none of that is making sense to me. It feels as though she’s hiding a lot more secrets than she’d ever want anyone to know. But why? And how do those secrets impact us?
We get undressed and crawl into bed. I’m uncomfortable, but I have to imagine Ferrin is in a good amount of pain.
He falls asleep quickly, and despite how tired I am, my mind won’t stop working.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember anything after the festival.
Was I unconscious the entire time? Will I ever see Antonia again? Is that even what I want?