Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(11)

A scuffle of shoes. The thud of something hitting the ground. He’s not alone.

“No!” My father’s voice is gravelly but strong. “I’ve paid you!”

That brings me up short. I watch a man in a dark cloak bend to sweep up a stack of scattered bills, the glint of a knife at his hip. I should move. I should run. Alert security. Something.

But I freeze. There’s something bad, something dark and secret happening here. And I am fear’s slave.

My father, for once, is the active one. “Please,” he begs again. “You’ve been paid.”

I feel the cloaked man look at me, even though I can’t see his eyes under the shadow of his hood. They don’t waver from my face as he spins a small envelope through the air to my father. He starts to back away, and finally I find my nerve.

“Stop!” My voice bursts out so much smaller than it sounded in my head. I try again, but already he’s running down the short hallway to my father’s bedchamber—with a stack of money that belongs to me. Dropping my box onto the desk, I follow the cloaked figure, but the weight of my skirts and the width of my panniers hamper my progress. I round the corner as the criminal—what else could he be?—disappears through a small panel at the back wall.

I run to the wall and fall to my knees, pulling open the door and reaching into the blackness of…the clothes chute. Of course. A criminal just escaped my father’s chambers through the damned laundry chute.





MY FATHER WASN’T meant to be a nobleman. Not really. He was born into the gentry. We were happy and well supported by his middle-management position at Sonoma Inc., which his mother held before him. Then his stepbrother died, young and unexpectedly, and willed Father his voting shares and place at court. By accident. The document was a prenuptial formality—a relic of their parents’ marriage. My step-uncle would have gotten around to updating it eventually, but no one expects to die in their twenties.

After that, everything changed. My father instantly moved his family from the city of Versailles into the palace. Into the kingdom. I was caught up in the excitement too. I’m sorry to say I took after my mother in that way—hungry for the glitz and glamour of the palace. By the time I made my début, I was so anxious to be a part of the scintillating court of Sonoman-Versailles that nothing could have held me back.

Anger bubbles over as I link to my father everything that’s happened to us in the last few months—even though much of it truly isn’t his fault. I need someone to blame, somewhere to vent my fury, and the obvious person just escaped.

“You’ve ruined everything!” Sobs are trying to force their way into my throat, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let my father see me cry. It doesn’t matter that I was never going to save enough money anyway—with someone stealing from me, it really is impossible.

I feel so young, suddenly. The last few months have forced me to grow up quickly. But now, slumped on the floor and watching my father stare at his parcel, I feel very much like the teenager everyone seems to have forgotten I am. I’m too young for this game with its life-and-death stakes.

He’s staring at the envelope, cradled in his hands as though it were a newborn child, utterly unaware of the daughter whose dreams he’s shattered. “What is that, Father?” I say levelly.

He looks up and blinks. The confusion in his eyes makes it all too clear that he didn’t notice me entering the room at all. At all. Not when I startled the criminal, not when I slammed the laundry chute closed, only now, when I shout directly at him.

“What. Is. That?”

“Dani…Dani, I—” He tries to conceal the envelope behind his back, of all places. But I’m surging with adrenaline and far more nimble than he, gown and all. I expect him to fight, but when I wrench the envelope away he crumples to the floor and begins to cry.

The anger drains from me, replaced by something so much worse. Pity. Disillusionment.

“Father, don’t,” I say gently. But I keep hold of the envelope. I study it, baffled. It’s sealed and there’s nothing written on it, but the lack of a pressed wax circle on the back suggests that it’s from outside Sonoman-Versailles—which would explain why he had to pay for it with euros. The packet is lumpy and bulging. With a quick glance at my father, I slip a finger beneath the flap and tear it open. I tip the envelope and pour a stack of about fifteen beige squares onto my hand. The sound of weeping fades from my awareness as I try to figure out just what I’m looking at.

“What is it, Father?” Though I’m not snapping anymore, I do hold the squares in my fingertips high above him, waving them out of reach.

“Forgive me. I needed it,” he says, stretching his long arms upward, woefully shy of their mark while he kneels on the floor in front of me.

“Needed what, Father?”

“I needed it.”

I grit my teeth and curse my grasping, devious mother for driving him to this, curse the King for stealing what was left of my childhood, and even curse my father’s pox-ridden stepbrother for dying and putting us all in this unbearable situation in the first place. “Tell me exactly what this is or I swear to you I will toss it down the chute after that criminal who gave it to you.”

“No, no!” he says, splaying himself on the floor. “You can’t.”