Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Once we were back, I walked her up to the roof gardens, and she enjoyed seeing the whole city.
“It’s like a dream being here,” she told me.
“Sometimes it is.”
We had one of our epic talks back in my quarters, her stretched out on one couch, me on the other, separated by only a coffee table. When she fell asleep, I covered her with a light blanket.
I got a call then from the bakery. There had been some kind of accident in their kitchen, and they asked if there was any way I could pick up the cake now, as it was finished but they had no place to keep it anymore.
“I’ll be right there,” I promised.
I texted Varic, told him what happened, told him to check on Ode, and then left our quarters through the back stairwell Tiago had shown me, which was cut inside the wall. I didn’t normally use it—the steps were short, steep, and worn down by age, which meant slippery—but I was in a hurry, and it was easier to leave via the secret back entrance than walking all the way to the front of the palace. Plus, I enjoyed the surprise on the faces of the king’s guards when I walked back in the front when they hadn’t seen me leave. Was it childish? Yes. Did I enjoy it as much as Tiago did? Yes again.
It was later than I thought it was once I was outside, and many of the side streets were already heavily shrouded in shade. When I reached the bakery and found it closed, only then did it hit me that I’d made a mistake.
I forgot—all the time—about my station. About who I was. Zev got on me constantly, and I gave him crap, but I vowed right then that I would stop. I would listen to him going forward. Pulling out my phone, I was suddenly bumped hard, thrown up against a wall, and my cell clattered to the cobblestones. A man was there, in front of me, and he stomped on the screen.
“The hell are you doing?” I yelled, and when he reached for me, I dodged, felt his hand on my arm and twisted free, then kicked him as hard as I could in the knee.
His scream was loud, and when I turned to run, I saw her then, and it was jolting. Carice, of all people, standing at the opposite end of the street, with Sorin beside her, pointing at me. Just for a moment, I thought I was back in my quarters in the palace with Ode, asleep. I had to be. What the hell was Carice doing with Sorin? It made no sense. I looked for her son, for Chryos, thinking he might be there as well, but remembered he was abroad with friends, in love with Fiji, and had been there since the summer. He liked Oceania as much as Cirillo. And of course, when I thought of the devil, he appeared.
“What are you doing out here?”
Turning, I found Cirillo using his tongue to touch each corner of his mouth. “What are you doing here?” I asked, frightened that he was in on whatever this was as well. Perhaps he and Chryos had met on some getaway and come up with some nefarious plot.
“One of the king’s courtiers and I—well, you get the idea. But really, what are you doing out here? Where’s your wolf?”
My thoughts were jumbled, and that was why for a moment I thought he meant Varic. But no one called him a wolf even though he was the wolf of Maedoc. He was the prince. And Zev was my wolf.
“Are you in on this?” I asked him.
“In on what?”
“Are you plotting with Chryos and Carice?”
“Isn’t Chryos Cassius’s child?”
“Yeah.” I glanced around, not seeing anyone at the moment.
“Why would I be plotting with—he’s a child. And go back, plotting what?”
But I saw people moving then, and so turned and ran.
Darting down one of the side streets, I rushed into an open artisans’ market, dodged stalls, then popped out into an alley and emerged in the square.
“I do so enjoy running with you,” Cirillo said snidely, falling into step beside me. “It does get the blood flowing.”
“You should go. I just saw Carice and the prisoner, Sorin, and I think something’s happening that I haven’t considered.”
“Who’s Sorin?”
“I don’t have time to—he’s a prisoner and shouldn’t be out.”
“That I understand, but what do you mean by something you haven’t considered?”
“I dunno, I’m not sure, but I’m thinking whatever it is, it’s treason.”
“What are—oh,” he gasped, and I saw men bolting toward us.
“Go back to the palace and get help,” I ordered.
“No, you come with me,” he countered. “Varic will kill me if I leave you alone.”
“Only if I’m dead when he finds me.”
“Not comforting in the least,” he nearly shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me after him down a street toward a dead end.