The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(111)

“I think the ball should go as planned,” Prince Colin said. “The preparations are already made. It would be awful to waste the food and hard work people have already put into it.”

The food could be given to people in the city, but the hard work was already done.

“I think you should have it,” murmured Tobiah. “We can rest tomorrow.”

When I glanced around the table, the Ospreys all looked hopeful—for most, this would be their first ball, and Paige had put so much work into it—and even some of the Indigo Kingdom people appeared interested.

“All right.”

“That said”—Prince Colin leaned forward—“we should consider what His Majesty’s arrival means for Wilhelmina’s queenship. As I recall, the Wraith Alliance granted Wilhelmina her queenship only because the sovereign of the Indigo Kingdom was dead. Much to my delight, my nephew is alive.”

Silence fell around the table.

“Again, by some miracle.” Prince Colin never looked away from Tobiah. “When Patrick Lien shot you, you recovered so quickly, just like your cousin.”

Connor slouched into his chair, and James’s jaw tightened.

“What are you implying?” A frown pulled at Tobiah’s mouth—a reminder of his princely mask. “I’ve had a long journey and I’m not in the mood to untangle your paranoia.”

Prince Colin’s voice was steady. “I’m implying that it’s convenient you were declared dead, Wilhelmina was crowned queen, and then you arrived immediately after.”

Oh, saints. I opened my mouth to tell him to shut it, but Tobiah got there first.

“You think this was convenient?” Tobiah stood and looked down on his uncle. “You think I planned for the wraith to destroy my city? My home? Thousands of my people? You think I planned to have to abandon everything and trek across the wraith-flooded kingdom to seek refuge in the land I was kidnapped to as a child? You think I planned my numerous brushes with death, and having to persuade everyone that coming to Aecor was our only hope of survival? All so that Wilhelmina could be crowned queen?”

No one moved. Not even Prince Colin.

“Even if that had all been planned—which would make me both a mass murderer and capable of seeing into the future—do you think I’d have timed my arrival to look so suspicious? There is nothing convenient about today.” Tobiah let that linger, and then he sat down again.

Well. Now that Tobiah had that out of the way. “Prince Colin,” I said, “you are dismissed.”

He shook his head. “I want to talk about the bridge.”

I allowed my voice to dip lower, dangerous. “You are dismissed. James, please help Prince Colin to the door.”

James stepped away from his place by the wall, but Prince Colin was already up and moving. He paused at the door, taking a heartbeat to glare at Tobiah, and then at me. “Isn’t it alarming how quickly King Tobiah recovered from the death of his bride, and now he rises to support the queen who commands the creature that killed our dear Meredith?”

As members of the council glanced at one another, some with disgust or surprise, Prince Colin disappeared down the hall.

Tobiah motioned to one of his guards. “Watch him.”

The man bowed and left the room.

“Now,” I said, “there’s a ball to prepare for. Everyone has one minute to leave the room.”

As the council chamber emptied, leaving Tobiah, Melanie, James, and me alone, I drifted to the window from where Melanie and I had watched the bridge explode.

“He had a point about the bridge,” Melanie said. “The Red Militia was thorough when they collapsed it. Forty-seven people died.”

“I didn’t think we’d see anyone else from the Indigo Kingdom. At least not for a long time.” Outside, the bridge was jagged and broken once more. Gulls circled the dust plumes and remnants. “It was obviously a powerful flasher who made the bridge whole while you came across. All that magic contributed to the wraith, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t care. I’m just happy to see you again. All of you.”

“Radiants,” Tobiah said. “I thought we agreed radiants.”

Through the notebook. “Yes. We did.” I wanted to ask why he’d stopped writing and if he’d seen all the letters I sent after, but when I glanced at him, his eyes were still on the bridge. Muscles tensed in his jaw and neck and shoulders.

He’d survived war and loss and now the wraith.

This morning I’d believed he was dead. Now I faced days or months or years with only a door between us at night, but it might as well have been a kingdom. That door was Meredith and the wraith boy, and the never-fading memory of what he’d done to her.

I understood now what I hadn’t before: Chrysalis wasn’t good or bad; he was simply power. He wasn’t human, but he was part of me, a reflection of my desperate wants.

Last autumn, Black Knife and I had talked about flashers and their magic, and why they might use it even knowing the wraith was coming. I’d said they were desperate, and their desperation made them dangerous.

Chrysalis was my desperate danger.

I’d created him. I was responsible for him. And though I hadn’t wanted him to bring down the cathedral or kill Meredith, I’d wanted to be somewhere else and see the night sky, and I’d wanted Tobiah not to marry Meredith.