Queen (The Blackcoat Rebellion #3)(34)

“Getting my foot through pants hurts too much to try right now,” I said, tugging awkwardly at the waist. I’d worn plenty of fancy dresses as Lila, but I’d never gotten the hang of them completely. “Is it almost time for dinner?”

“In a few minutes,” he said, closing the door behind him and turning the lock with a click. I looked up, frowning.

“What—”

“I have something for you.” He held up a small velvet box, the kind that usually held a ring or a fancy pair of earrings. Lila had had dozens of them in Somerset. “An early Christmas present.”

I had no idea what day it was anymore, let alone how close it was to Christmas. A week, maybe, but I couldn’t be sure. “What is it?” I said, taking the box and weighing it in my hand.

“Open it and see.”

I untied the ribbon. He’d given me two gifts before: the first, a necklace that had doubled as several different kinds of lock picks, had been meant for Lila. The second had been a picture frame that, when the right button waspushed, revealed a photograph of me—the real me—and Benjy on the last Christmas we’d spent together as ourselves. Both were exactly what I’d needed at the time, even if I hadn’t known it then.

I cracked open the box to reveal a tiny silver cuff that matched my necklace. It was simple—the kind of thing that blended in as an accessory rather than standing out. Nothing that would capture notice, even if Daxton was looking right at it.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, and it was. It was a fine piece of jewelry, with silver vines wrapping around to form the cuff. “How am I supposed to, uh—wear it?”

“Here, allow me.” Greyson plucked it from the velvet box and scooted closer to me. “Look at the television.”

Obediently I turned my head, and Greyson slid the cuff onto the cartilage of my ear, sliding it down until it rested just above the lobe. He gave it a gentle tug, and it stayed on firmly, no piercing required. I touched it, running my fingertips over the metal. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He inched away to give us both a little more room and folded his hands in his lap. “It’s one part of a three-piece set.”

“Where are the other pieces?” I said, and he held up his wrist. A plain silver cuff link caught the light.

“Like it?”

I smirked. “I’ll like it better once I know what it does.”

“They’re communicators. As soon as I activate it, all three pieces will connect, no matter how far apart they are. You could be on the other side of the country, and I would still hear you.”

“How? That’s on your wrist,” I said. “Unless you have some weird ear anatomy going on—”

He chuckled, and after the day we’d both had, it was a welcome sound. “The cuff links are a little different. They come with a piece that slides on the inner part of the ear, right on the cartilage.” He turned to show me, tapping on the part of his ear that stuck out. “It’s in there, and it won’t fall off until I decide to remove it.”

I tried to spot whatever it was he was talking about, but to no avail. “Who has the third piece? Lila?”

He shook his head. “I’ll make one for her eventually, if she wants. But I had one smuggled out to Knox. He should be receiving it in the next couple days.”

“You—what? Knox?” My mouth dropped open. “How did you—”

“The less you know, the better,” he said. “Just trust me on this, Kitty. They’ll work. And whether you leave or Lila and I leave, we’ll all have a way to communicate.”

I threw my arms around him, my heart swelling with gratitude and that same acceptance I’d felt earlier, when he’d done nothing more than help me with my crutches. This was what family really was. “You are a genius.”

“I’m not. I just see things differently, that’s all.” He awkwardly hugged me back, and a moment passed before he said, “I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other growing up.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said, still holding on to him. He relaxed a little in my embrace. “We’ll make up for it when the war’s over. We’ll go on vacation somewhere, talk about stuff, figure each other out—”

“Is that what siblings do?” he joked. “My brother—our brother, I guess—he mostly ignored me.”

Jameson, Greyson’s older brother and the original heir to the title of Prime Minister, had been killed in the same bombing that had taken the lives of the real Daxton Hart and his wife. Greyson had only been spared thanks to that marvelous brain of his, when he’d skipped the outing to tinker on his inventions instead, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for it. “I won’t ignore you,” I said, as I let him go and tapped my cuff. “I won’t even ask how to turn this thing off in case you get too chatty.”

“There’s a gemstone on the side,” he said with a smile. “All you have to do is slide it down. Slide it back up to turn it on. Obviously you’ll want to keep it on as much as possible, just in case, but if you absolutely need your privacy—well, I didn’t want to give you any reason to take it off.”

“I won’t,” I promised, and I pressed my lips together. “I’ll miss you, Greyson. Stay safe, all right? Whether I’m the one who goes, or you and Lila are.”