The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(132)

Silence fell across the overlook as people realized what he meant.

“You would sacrifice yourself for Aecor?”

“I would sacrifice myself for you, my queen. If that’s what you want.” Chrysalis tilted his head. “I’ve made many wrong decisions in my desire to serve you.” His gaze flickered toward Tobiah. “I’ve done many things that, now, I understand were bad. Even tonight, freeing Patrick and bringing the wraith. I thought only to help you. I thought I could control something uncontrollable. I don’t want to make more mistakes. I don’t want to cost you anything else.”

“So you’re waiting for me to order you to do this.” My throat tightened.

He nodded as the castle shuddered again. “I know you will make the right decision.”

No.

It was an impossible order to give.

It was the kind of order queens had to give all the time.

But I’d made him. I’d brought him to life. Unwittingly, yes, but now it was my responsibility to teach him and care for him and ensure he did the right thing.

“I won’t make you,” I whispered. “When I bring something to life, it’s never sentient. Almost never. It never has a choice but to do what I order.”

Clothes brushed behind me, like James and Tobiah exchanging glances. But I wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t give anyone here a reason to question Captain Rayner and his miraculous life. It was his secret to tell, when he was ready. If.

A low rumble filled the air: the wraith still struggling against my mirror.

“You’re sentient, Chrysalis. You have a choice. You said you’ve made wrong decisions in the past, and I know you have. Many of us have paid the price of those decisions. But this one is about you, and your life. I won’t take that decision away from you.” He was a person, not a tool. I could no longer treat him as one.

The wraith boy bowed his head. “You honor me.”

“We don’t have much time,” someone said.

I lifted my hand, signaling the crowd to be quiet.

Chrysalis pressed his palms to his chest. “I’ll do it. For you.”

Someone breathed praise to all the saints.

“But I won’t be enough. Not to make the kind of mirror you need.”

A small noise escaped me. “What?”

His shoulders slumped. “I can make myself part of the barrier; you’ve already linked it all together. But it wouldn’t last. Liadia poured so much magic into their barrier and I can provide only a fraction of that. I’m just wraith, after all. I’m more about destruction than anything.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t be more.”

Someone in the crowd was crying. Another cursed him for offering false hope. And all around us, the castle rumbled and wraith shone bright across the city, waiting, straining. There was no way to know how much longer the mirror would last.

“What about me?”

Everyone looked at James.

“What?” Tobiah grabbed his cousin by the jacket. “Don’t say that.”

Murmurs fluttered through the crowd. “What’s he talking about?”

“The king’s cousin is made of wraith?”

“No!” Kathleen Rayner pushed through the crowd. “James—”

He placed one hand on his cousin’s shoulder, and the other on his mother’s. “This is a very long story that Tobiah will have to tell.”

Tobiah shook his head. “I won’t let you.”

“Why not? What makes me any different from him?” James pointed at the wraith boy.

“You’re my friend. My cousin. I still need you.”

“Your friend, maybe, but not your cousin. That boy died ten years ago.”

Lady Rayner’s eyes went wide, and tears dripped down her cheeks. The queen mother joined the group, standing by Tobiah’s side. “What do you mean that boy died?” she asked.

My heart climbed into my throat as I looked between them. In the audience, people pressed their hands to their mouths and whispered uncomfortably.

“You made me because you missed the first James.” A faint, sad smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “You asked Wilhelmina to bring me to life because you needed me, and I’ve spent every day of my life protecting you, because that was my purpose.”

“What are you talking about?” Lady Rayner grabbed James’s arm. “You’re my son. You’re my child. You’re not like that creature at all.”

Chrysalis dropped his head. “He’s not like me, but he’s not human, either. He’s made of magic. He’s stronger than I am. Better.”

“Shut up,” Tobiah growled. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Is that true?” Francesca asked. “Just—just explain, please.”

Tears shone in James’s eyes as he repeated a shorter version of Tobiah’s story, outing the king’s secret, my involvement, and his own existence. “That’s why I healed so quickly after the Inundation. Because I’m not human. Not really.”

Others tried to close in, but Melanie and a handful of guards held them back. I wanted to help, but not all the buzzing was from the wraith; my head spun with magic being sucked out of me. James, Chrysalis, the mirror, the barrier: something had to go.