Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The spark of hope his lingering touch created didn’t fade as I walked back to Camelot Courtyard. I’d spent most of the afternoon convincing myself Vivian’s reaction stemmed from Max choosing her, especially once he’d defended her, but now, I didn’t know what to think.
As I thought it over, I pulled the clues out of my lockbox and worked on removing the paint smudges from the group photo.
A statue I hadn’t seen in the other Maiden Introduction photos stood out in the background of my clue. I pulled out the magnifying glass in my lockbox to look closer.
Then I walked back to the sitting room.
I ran into Morty in the hallway.
“What the hell are you doing, Morty?” I huffed as I walked up to him. “Why are you always lurking around?”
“Why are you so fired up about it?” He shrugged. “Looking to burn the place down again?”
“Burn the—What the hell are you talking about?”
Morty picked his nails. “You really need to brush up on your Camelot Court trivia. It’s like you don’t even care about the history and tradition here.”
“I don’t,” I said dryly. “Spill it. Now.”
He pursed his lips, and it occurred to me to be intimidated, but I ignored that feeling. “Ugh. You’re such a bossy bottom. Can’t a guy get a Please, Sir, may I have some answers?”
I arched a brow, pursing my lips in return and propping my hands on my hips for good measure.
Being ordered around and asked to heel by one Dread brother was more than enough. No way I’d give Morty that power over me, too.
Thankfully, he read the no chance in hell written in my expression and sighed. “You’re no fun. Alright, follow me.”
Waving his arm dramatically over his head, he took off down the hallway again. He weaved through Pendragon Estate until we reached the small parlor where my Strategy lessons with Peter took place.
But he didn’t enter it.
He gestured for me to go inside. “Move it or lose it, sister.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience, but then I followed his instructions, turning around once inside.
He still hadn’t come in after me.
“What are you doing?”
Pointing to the photos on the wall, he urged me forward. “Go check the dates.”
My brow furrowed, but again, I did what he said. As I walked along the row of pictures, I understood why Morty hadn’t come inside the room. Glancing at him over my shoulder, he scanned the hallway, the ceiling, the carpets—anywhere but where I stood.
“It still hurts to see her photo.”
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I told you that’s why he picked you.”
The sudden edge in his tone didn’t surprise me or warrant a response, familiar as I was with avoidance.
Especially with things that hurt most.
“I couldn’t look at pictures of my dad for a year.” I admitted it quietly, my voice wavering as I thought about the photos. “It took even longer with my mom.”
He said nothing in response, but his wandering gaze was fixed on a spot across the hall.
“My therapist said that could be because I was so young when she died.” I shrugged, eyeing the dates along the bottoms of the photos as I walked across the back wall. “I have all their pictures in an album on my phone.”
I paused at the end of the wall when the photos cut off before jumping twenty-three years. “This gap…? Is this when the fire happened?”
Morty nodded.
“What happened?”
“A fire. Fiii-yerrr.”
I spun around, giving him my best droll expression.
He rolled his eyes. “I mean, I wasn’t there.”
“Obviously, Morty.” I sighed heavily. “Do you have to make everything so difficult? Is everything a game to you?”
“You don’t know anything about me, little princess.”
“I don’t need to know anything about you.
I get the feeling I’m far too familiar with your type.
” I snorted, and when he cocked an eyebrow at me, I expanded.
“You and my ex-boyfriend seem cut from the same cloth. Flippant, dismissive, unserious even when the subject matters to whoever you’re speaking to. You could practically be twins.”
“Well, we do share one half of our DNA.”
I gritted my teeth. “Max is not my ex-boyfriend.”
“Really? The guy about to be engaged to another girl? What’s that make him to you then?”
“He’s my—He’s—” I growled, furious with myself for letting him bait me. “He’s just fucking mine. That’s what. Now, stop giving me a hard time and answer the question, Morty.”
He rolled his eyes as dramatically as possible. “Alright, alright. So demanding.”
With an exaggerated groan, he walked over to the couch and plopped down on it, reclining like a patient in a therapist’s office. A subtle nod to my therapy mention earlier, I had no doubt. The goddamn prick.
When I didn’t move, he stared pointedly at the open spot at the end of the couch.
I shook my head. “Not going to happen. Quit stalling.”
“Okay, fine.” He rested his arms behind his head and crossed an ankle over the other. “So, the way they tell it is that this guy, let’s call him…Daddy D’Arthur, not to be confused with Drake D’Arthur, or any other Daddy energy you may have picked up on in close proximity.”
I stared blankly at him.
He pouted, but then smirked, stealing my go-to move and deflecting because I hurt his big, bad feelings.
Realizing I wouldn’t appease him, he leaned his head back and started sharing. “So, Daddy D’Arthur, they say he knocked up a nice lady, and he was all set to welcome a baby boy. The kingdom rejoiced! The next heir. Apparently, that’s a big deal or something. I don’t know.”
He peeked at me through one eye, and when I shot him a droll look, he closed his eyes again.
“Anyway, he and his lady love were sleeping soundly in their unholy premarital bed one night when it happened. The place caught fire. Newspapers called it the biggest blaze they’d seen in a century.”
My hands flew to my mouth. “Oh my god, that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I know.” He nodded, staring out at the moon. “They almost lost Pendragon completely.”
I gaped at him. “Not the house, you numbskull! The family that died.”
“Oh, yeah.” Morty waved his hand. “Tragic, I’m sure.”
Taking a page from Kingston’s book, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How can you be so insensitive about that?”
He shrugged.
I frowned, but before I could respond, he swung his legs off the couch and sat up. Bracing his elbows on his thighs, he clasped his hands under his chin and stared at me.
And maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe the moon casting an eerie glow added something dark and dangerous to his features. But I shivered at the intensity in his gaze.
“That fire is the reason Camelot Court is the way it is today. The reason the man in the highest chair is who he is. Instead of all this being ruled over by a slightly less satanic option, who had the ability to love, at least, and who could see past wealth as an eligibility factor, we got blessed with our beloved leader.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That fire, those deaths, are why Drake D’Arthur rules with a bloodied, iron fist. Why he’ll do anything, no matter how despicable or cruel, to make sure nothing threatens the D’Arthur’s seat of power. Ever again. Not now that he holds it, when it should’ve fallen to someone else.”
After tossing and turning all night, disturbed by dreams of house fires, my mom and dad, and Max, I woke too early and gave up on the idea of sleep.
Thinking through what Morty had shared the night before, I couldn’t help but wonder if the fire hadn’t been an accident.
Suddenly, I understood the fear Drake D’Arthur instilled. He was ruthless, but also unpredictable.
How did we protect what we loved against an opponent whose next move we couldn’t see coming?
And Drake wasn’t the only threat.
The Valencourts lurked in the background, too. If Max’s gesture during our lesson the day before had been a sign, they had something strong enough to keep him in line.
In that case, I had to take them seriously. Maybe I had to consider that it wasn’t as simple as I wanted it to be, that promising to fight with him wasn’t enough.
If it was the opposite, and Max had been using me for his grander plan of getting him and Vivian out of Camelot Court, a thought that soured my stomach and I refused to fully accept, I was still out of my depth here.
I also realized I hadn’t asked Max about my clue. Again.
With half the Knights and Ladies out of commission for food poisoning, I’d have time to ask him the next day, so I resolved to ask him when I saw him.
Bright and early the next morning, before I left Camelot Courtyard, my eyes gravitated to Max’s room, and I hesitated.
Despite telling myself I’d ask him about the clue, I didn’t want to disturb the slight peace we’d found between us the night before. But I hated feeling so wishy-washy and torn between two choices.
So, I put on my big girl panties and walked over to his room.
When I knocked on his door, it didn’t swing open.
The one behind me did.
My spine straightened, and my muscles locked reflexively. I braced because if Vivian’s door had just opened, and he walked out of it first thing in the morning, it would gut me.
I didn’t want to look.
Unfortunately, my feet had a mind of their own, and my stupid, useless heart had gone too long without a decent pummeling, so I whipped around before my brain worked up an argument that kept me safely facing away.
On a positive note, when Max stalked out of Vivian’s door, he didn’t look happy about it. His eyes locked on mine, his body tensing as he pulled her door shut behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might have my next clue. Our theory about the Scavenger Hunt is that it’s about our journey since we got here, so you would be part of mine.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and stepped forward, reaching around me to open the door. “If you don’t mind, I need to…”
“Clean up?” I asked sourly.
He frowned and clenched his jaw. Withdrawing his arm to cross both over his chest, he scoffed. “No, Quinn. I don’t need to clean up. But nice assumption.”