Chapter 9
My daughter, come home.
The thistle is in bloom, and the red amaryllis is climbing the trees.
The baby hinds are in their spots, and the eagles are home from the mountains—I can hear them calling over the hills in the morning, while the sparking beavers snuffle in the back garden.
It is not too hot, and the breeze blowing off the loch cools my face.
Beloved, your father is a proud old boulder.
Let him get his own house back, and come home.
“I wish you had come to the funeral.”
Startled by her father’s voice, Magdala dropped her mother’s letter onto the bed. “I thought it would be better to leave the family in peace,” she said, snatching the folded paper off the quilt and tucking it under her pillow.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
Magdala gazed at her father, perplexed.
“You’ve known Julian for years,” he added. “You must be devastated.”
Magdala bit her lip and glanced away, pulling at a loose thread on her sleeve. She’d already grieved over Julian, months ago, when she looked into his eyes and saw the fire her father lit in them. He’d died to her long before the ball.
Perhaps her father was to blame for his death as much as Prince Asherton was. He had radicalized him in this very cottage, turned him into a zealot for a lost cause.
“I have a meeting tonight,” her father said. “Would you mind offering refreshments?”
Magdala glared at him. “You should not have those meetings in the house. Huxley looks the other way because he needs me on the guard, but imagine if someone else found out?”
“No one will find out.”
Sighing, Magdala shuffled down to the kitchen and took a basket of vegetables from the windowsill. “I will make food because I am in the mood for cooking. Not to suit your madcap friends.”
“They’re not madcap,” he grumbled.
Magdala shot him a skeptical scowl as the first knock echoed through the cottage.
The door creaked and shut, creaked and shut, as her father’s radicals scuttled into the sitting room like roaches.
Magdala dropped a tomato onto the wooden cutting board and set the knife against the flesh.
She remembered the scratch of her blade on the prince’s neck.
Her teeth on edge, she sliced into the tomato.
The sitting room full, bodies spilled into the kitchen, bumping her as she sliced tomato after tomato, her hands dripping red juice, her blistered fingers stinging. She snapped at the intruders, and they shied away like skittish mares.
Just when Magdala lifted the rolling pin, meaning to crack the skull of the next person to jostle her, a familiar voice carried over the crowd. Her stomach flipped when she saw Huxley wading toward her.
Magdala deduced from his black wool suit that he had come directly from Julian’s funeral. He shook hands with her father and then moved toward the cramped kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” Magdala asked suspiciously. “You’ve never been a royalist before. You don’t believe in curses.”
Huxley thrust his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Yes, yes, well, Julian’s passing and the prince’s acquittal have changed my mind.”
“What of your promotion?”
“Magdala.” Huxley leaned against the counter and fixed her with an aggrieved look.
“Even I am not so mercenary as to care more about rising in my career than my brother’s murder.
Lately”—he ran his thumb along a groove in the wood grain—“I haven’t been able to think about anything but Asherton Ageric and what he did to Julian. ”
“And so you’ve come to join this lot?” Magdala pointed the rolling pin at the press of bodies. She had thought Huxley was too clever for her father’s excitable friends.
“I don’t know where else to go.” Huxley sighed, stared at his boots for a beat, and then said abruptly, “Did you kill Julian, Magdala?”
Magdala jolted. “What?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your arm is bruised.”
“A crowd tried to press me to death,” Magdala said, slamming her knife down on a carrot. “Of course I am bruised.”
“I see the riot bruises,” he said. “It’s these fresh ones I’m noticing. I know you lied at the inquest.”
Magdala wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “I couldn’t kill anyone,” she said. “To my shame.”
Huxley sniffed and studied her. “I think you could. I think it would be easy, if you had the right reason.”
Magdala frowned. “I haven’t got a good enough reason.”
Huxley moved on quickly. “I know that Asherton killed my brother. I know it in my soul. I don’t want that man sitting on the throne, smug in his victory. So, I’ve decided to join your father’s cause.”
“What about the curse? Won’t he die if he tries to take the throne?”
“I still don’t believe in curses.”
Magdala scraped her sliced vegetables violently into a cast iron pan. “My father will be pleased to have you. He always did want you as a trophy on his wall.”
“Because of the riot in Largotia, the queen-regent has requested a bodyguard for the prince. She has tasked me with appointing someone.”
“Alright …”
“I want you to go to Elegy and guard him.”
Magdala spun on him, her jaw slack. “What?”
“I want you to be his bodyguard. At Elegy.”
“Elegy?” Magdala breathed. “Elegy, as in … my Elegy?”
“Yes, Magdala. Your Elegy.”
“The house I was born in?”
“The very same.”
Magdala let out a short laugh. “You want me to go to my house, my ancestral home, my inheritance, and serve the man who stole it from me?”
“Asherton is dangerous,” Huxley continued, ignoring her objections.
“He wants to join Sennalaith in the war, and he wants to tamper with the dragon trade. Our economy hangs upon a thread—we train and trade dragons to both of the warring kingdoms. If Ashkendor and Sennalaith are no longer at war, our society crumbles. And if we cut trade ties with Ashkendor, then we will be forced to enter a war we have no part in. If Asherton comes to power, it will change this kingdom. It will ruin us.”
With a hint of shame, Magdala said, “I don’t think I can kill him. I don’t think I have it in me. I’m sorry.”
Huxley waved this aside. “If we could prove he murdered Julian, then the prince would be forced to abdicate. The queen-regent will remain on the throne another twenty-one years, and all will be well.”
“But you said that you cannot prove that the prince killed Julian."
“We could if he admits it to you.”
Magdala chuffed. “I’m not going to seduce him either.”
With a small laugh, Huxley said, “You have many talents, my dear, but you’re not quite alluring enough to win over Asherton Ageric.”
Magdala bristled.
Huxley pulled a glass vial from his pocket.
“This is amanite powder.” He held out the vial.
It swirled with midnight-blue, iridescent powder.
“When mixed into liquid, it is colorless, flavorless, and odorless. And it forces whoever drinks it to tell the complete truth for a full minute after it is ingested.”
Magdala scowled. “You want me to give this to the prince and force him to admit that he killed Julian?”
“It could save our kingdom, our people, and our way of life,” Huxley said.
“But won’t he know I betrayed him? Won’t he have me punished?”
“If he abdicates, he’ll be nothing—no one. His word will carry no weight. And, because he will have to leave Allageshan lands in exile, Elegy will be vacant, and I will see to it that you and your family are restored to your home.”
He handed Magdala the vial. It weighed less than a feather.
“Why not just put him on the witness stand and make him take it?” Magdala asked.
“Oh, well.” Huxley rubbed his hands together. “It’s not permitted in court.”
“Why?”
“Do you want this deal or do you not?” Huxley snapped. “Because my patience is wearing thin.”
“Why are you so sure the prince killed Julian?” Magdala persisted. “What reason would he have to do it?”
Huxley rubbed his palms on his legs and glanced away. “He and Asherton did fight often at school. It was unfair how Asherton’s brother intervened. Perhaps now that the brother is out of the way, Julian wanted a chance to even the score between them, uninterrupted. But Asherton overpowered him.”
Magdala slipped the amenite into her pocket. “If I do this, you can’t tell my father where I’m going. He’ll get mad ideas about assassinations.”
Huxley nodded. “Very well.”
“And I want to do it my way, in my timing. I won’t have you staring over my shoulder, incriminating me, and bossing me around. I don’t want to see or hear from you until it’s done.”
Crossing his arms, Huxley shrugged. “Alright then.”
Magdala imitated him, her biceps bulging as she crossed her arms too. “And I’m not going to kill anyone.”
“What about an assassin?” Huxley asked. “Someone could try to kill the prince. Probably someone sitting in this room right now. Someone who has eaten your lovely sourdough bread.”
Magdala swallowed. She hadn’t thought of that. “I won’t kill the prince, but I won’t save him either.”
“Excellent.” Huxley offered her his hand. “You have until the coronation. Just over a month.”
Magdala did not shake his hand. “Consider it done.”