Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(77)

“I understand.”

Dahlia smiled, reached over, and patted my hand. To my surprise, I sensed a small but steady current of power running through her body the second her fingers touched mine. As far as I knew, Dahlia wasn’t a magier or a master. Perhaps she was a mutt with a bit of enhanced strength or speed. But she removed her hand from mine before I could tell exactly what kind of magic she had.

“Thank you for understanding, Everleigh,” she murmured. “Your kindness means more than you know.”

I smiled back, but the expression slipped from my face the second she gazed at the pond again. She might appreciate my kindness, but I felt like my heart was one of the water lilies dancing on the surface of the pond. Only instead of currents, I had people twirling me this way and that, trying to force me to do what they wanted.

I wondered who would win in the end—or if the currents, people, and agendas that went along with them would suck me under and drown me for good.





Chapter Seventeen


Dahlia excused herself, saying that she needed to check on something in the kitchen, but I got the sense that she’d delivered her message, warning me away from her son, and that she was giving me time to digest her words.

Dahlia’s guards left with her, and Paloma stepped into the gazebo.

“That looked intense,” she said.

“How much did you hear?”

She shrugged. “All of it.”

I gave her a sour look.

Paloma shrugged again and pointed at the ogre face on her neck. “Morphs have excellent hearing, remember?”

I sighed. “Where are the others?”

“Serilda and Cho are trying to figure out how the Mortans snuck into the palace last night. Sullivan is having breakfast with Heinrich and Dominic, and Xenia is doing the same with some noblewomen. But I think that’s just an excuse for her to gather gossip and spy on them.”

“She does excel at that,” I murmured. “Well, if everyone else is busy, then I finally have time to get some answers about a few things.”

“I think you mean we have time to get some answers,” Paloma said.

I arched my eyebrow. “You’re not going to lock me in my room again?”

“If I thought that it would do any good. But knowing you, you’d just find some way to escape.”

“Probably. I am rather incorrigible that way.”

Paloma sighed. “Now I know why Auster has so much gray hair. Keeping you safe is exhausting. I let you storm out of the dining hall last night, and you get attacked by Mortan assassins less than an hour later. It’s like you’re a magnet for trouble. I shudder to think what would happen if I left you alone in your chambers all day.”

I grinned. “You have no idea.”

Thanks to some helpful signs, we found our way out of the hedge maze and back inside the palace. I asked a servant for directions, and ten minutes later, Paloma and I climbed a set of stairs and stopped in front of a door.

Blue, black, and silver pieces of stained glass joined together to create a lovely frosted forest scene on the door. My heart ached, and I traced my fingers over the colorful shards. This door looked just like the one that had fronted his workshop at Seven Spire before it had been destroyed during the massacre.

I knocked and waited until a muffled voice growled at me to enter. I turned the knob and stepped through to the other side, along with Paloma, who shut the door behind us.

An enormous round room took up this level of the tower. Large, arching picture windows were set into the walls, letting in plenty of the late-morning sun, and several fluorestones embedded in the ceiling also blazed with light, further brightening the area.

A long table covered with several pairs of tweezers, stacks of soft white polishing cloths, and other jeweler’s tools ran down the center of the room, while glass cabinets filled with precious metals and colorful gemstones hugged the walls. The workshop was eerily similar to the one he’d had at Seven Spire, right down to the metallic tang of magic that filled the room.

My heart ached again. I’d missed this. I’d missed him.

Alvis was sitting on a stool at the table and peering down through a magnifying glass at a white velvet work tray. Gemma was perched on a stool beside him, a pencil and a pad of paper in her hands, taking notes.

Grimley was here too, snoozing in a sunspot next to one of the windows. Every soft snore that rumbled out of his mouth sounded like gravel crunching together, but the steady sound was oddly soothing.

“Evie! I’m so glad you’re okay!” Gemma threw down her pencil and pad, hopped off her stool, ran around the table, and hugged me. “Uncle Lucas said that you were all right, but no one would let me come see you.”

I hugged her back. “Of course I’m okay. It takes more than a few assassins and a little lightning to hurt me. You know that.”

Gemma hugged me again, then drew back and started chewing on her lower lip. “Do you think it will happen again? The Seven Spire massacre. Do you think something like that will happen here? To my father?”

The obvious worry in her voice and the fear in her blue eyes sliced into my body like a sword, cutting me to the bone. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t the only one who had lived through the massacre. Even though Gemma had survived, she had the same sort of scars on her heart as I did.

I put my hand on her shoulder and gave it a firm, reassuring squeeze. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you or your father. Not as long as I’m here.”