The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(60)

My breath heaved in and out, too heavy. I turned my glare on the wraith boy. “Don’t hurt anyone else.”

“I was protecting you,” the wraith boy whispered. “They were touching you.”

A high, panicked laugh came out of me. “They were trying to protect me from you.” True or not, that was what he needed to believe. “You just killed a woman and a handful of guards. They thought you were going to kill me, too.”

His mouth fell open. “I would never.”

Meredith’s body filled the corner of my vision. Then there was Tobiah, braced between James and a bench. Indigo-coated guards fanned around them. All eyes were on the wraith boy, waiting.

“All you do is break things,” I said. “That’s all you are. Destruction. Chaos.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you, my qu—”

“No!” I advanced on the wraith boy, as though I had any power to hurt him. “You said that what I want is the only thing that matters. How dare you presume to know what I want?”

“I felt what you wanted. On the balcony, when those men grabbed you, you were terrified.” The wraith boy’s eyes were wide and pleading. “You wanted to be safe, and I made sure they wouldn’t hurt you. And now you want him”—he pointed at Tobiah—“and I thought it was my duty to make sure you could. You were sad, weren’t you? Now you don’t have to be. What you want is the only thing that matters to me, and you don’t even have to tell me what it is, because I know, my queen. I already know.”

“What do I want now?” I stopped only a pace away from him. He was exactly my height, and again I had the strange feeling of looking into a warped mirror.

“You want me to go back to my room.” His voice was small.

“Go,” I hissed. “Don’t come out again unless I tell you.”

He was gone a moment later, vanished, and the air in the chapel suddenly felt less dense. Less oppressive.

I stood alone in the middle of the aisle, not very far from the body of the duchess. Only vaguely was I aware of the dead guards around me, the wedding guests huddled at the door.

In a corner, Meredith’s parents held each other, sobbing. The queen mother stood by them, her hands on their shoulders. Strands of hair escaped the diamond-studded pins, obscuring her face.

And from behind a wall of guards, Chey and the other young ladies of the solar huddled close to one another and wept. A few prayed.

I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I understood the wraith boy’s decision to remove a problem in the most direct way possible. He didn’t know. . . . He couldn’t understand what this would do.

Tobiah pulled himself straight, and everyone looked at him. His crown was on the floor, forgotten, and his clothes were torn and askew. His hair, tame just minutes ago, was a disaster. He couldn’t seem to pull his gaze from Meredith.

“Your Majesty?” someone whispered. “What do we do?”

The whole chapel held its breath as the king turned toward me, jaw clenched and eyes hard. Tears shone on his face. “Just go, Wilhelmina.”

I didn’t need to be told again. With a pair of guards trailing me, I left the chapel and went back to my apartments.

For five hours, I listened to the clock ticking like a heartbeat.

Tick tick tick.

Footsteps outside my door.

Tick tick tick.

Protesters screaming my name from the opposite side of the palace.

Tick tick tick.

Memory of the deafening snap of Meredith’s neck, and thud of her body hitting the floor.

Connor and the Gray brothers had once told me that people rarely died right away from broken necks. It was the suffocation. The restricted blood flow.

Meredith could have been alive and aware for several seconds, listening to the chaos around her. Alive but unconscious for entire minutes. Maybe she could have been saved, if I’d thought about it, and done away with the wraith boy more quickly, sent for Connor to rescue her.

Tick tick tick.

A knock sounded on the door, and Tobiah and James entered the sitting room without waiting for me to answer.

Tobiah’s voice was rough, barely recognizable as he glanced down at my dress. “You haven’t changed.”

I hadn’t moved since I dropped into a chair at the table in the sitting room. What would I have done anyway? Tidied my quarters? Written a letter? I should have at least lit a fire; now all the rooms were cold.

“Did the injured guards”—I swallowed hard—“did they make it?”

“Connor helped the ones who wouldn’t have otherwise.” Tobiah stood by the door, unmoving, while James prowled the perimeter, checking inside the other rooms. For intruders? For the wraith boy? Finally, he lit a fire, filling the room with the rush and crackle of flame, and then took up a post by the music room door. “A few protested because they wouldn’t be saved by a flasher whose kind had created that thing, but I insisted. I told them it wouldn’t make a difference anymore. Not at this point.”

“I’m glad they’re going to live.” The words were thoughtless. Glad was an emotion I couldn’t remember anymore, like relief or hope. It was as though that knot of agony watching Tobiah’s wedding had exploded, and now every feeling I’d ever felt lay flat and dead at the soles of my feet. Useless, except to weigh me down. “Prince Colin will use that decision against you, though.”