Stepsister(94)

Isabelle didn’t know where to start. “I was running away. On Nero,” she began.

“Nero? But Maman sold him.”

“I got him back. But Madame LeBenêt—our neighbor, remember her? The house burned down—”

“What?”

“We were living in her hayloft, and she wanted me to marry Hugo—”

“Hugo?”

“So that Tantine would give him an inheritance. But I don’t love Hugo. And he certainly doesn’t love me.”

Ella stopped dead. She made Isabelle stop, too. “How did this all happen?” she asked, upset.

“There’s no time, Ella,” Isabelle protested, glancing back the way they’d come. “I’ll tell you later. I’ll …”

Her words trailed away. She’d been so focused on getting Ella out of the camp, she’d had no time to think of anything else. Now the enormity of the danger they were facing hit her. The grand duke was a traitor, in league with Volkmar, and Volkmar’s troops were hidden in the Devil’s Hollow, and Ella knew everything. Volkmar and the grand vizier would try to stop her at all costs. She and Ella might not make it to safety. They might not make it out of the Wildwood, or even up the path. This might be her only chance to tell Ella what she needed to tell her.

So she did. She told her everything that had occurred since the day Ella had left with the prince. About Tanaquill. The fire. The marquis. The LeBenêts. Tantine’s ultimatum. And lastly, Felix and his note, and how Maman had destroyed it and caused them both so much pain.

“Things would have been so different, Ella. If we’d run away like we planned. If Maman hadn’t found his note and destroyed it. I would have been different. Better. Kinder.”

“Isabelle …”

“No, let me finish. I need to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being cruel. For hurting you. You were beautiful. I was not. You had everything, and I’d lost everything. And it made me so jealous.” Shame burned under her skin. She felt helpless and exposed saying these things, like a small desert creature, tumbled from its den and left to die in the sun. “You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

“I might know more than you think,” Ella said softly.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

Ella smiled, but it wasn’t the sweet smile Isabelle was used to. It was bitter and sad. “Isabelle, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

Isabelle nodded. She lowered her head. The fragile hope she’d felt when she’d told Ella that she was sorry had just been shattered. She had found her stepsister, found another piece of herself that had been cut away, but it didn’t matter. There would be no forgiveness, not for her. The wounds she’d inflicted were too deep. Tears spilled down her cheek. She had not known that remorse could feel so much like grief.

“Isabelle, don’t cry. Please, please don’t cry. I—”

Ella’s words were cut off by the sound of barking.

Isabelle’s head snapped up. “We need to get going,” she said, wiping her eyes. “We need to find a safe place for you.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something. The important thing is that we get you there without getting shot. All right?”

Ella nodded. “All right,” she said.

Isabelle gave Ella her hand. Ella took it and held it tightly. The two girls started running again.

For their lives.





One Hundred and Ten


Isabelle threw a pebble at the window.

It hit a pane of glass and fell back to the street.

She was standing in front of an old stone building at the edge of Saint-Michel. Looking nervously up and down the dark street, she picked the pebble up and threw it again. And once more. And finally, the window opened.

Felix leaned out in a linen shirt that was open at the neck, holding a candle and blinking into the darkness.

“Felix, it’s you!” Isabelle said breathlessly. He’d told her he lived over the carpenter’s workshop, but she wasn’t sure she’d had the right window.

“What are you doing here, Isabelle?” he asked, bleary-eyed with sleep.

“Can we come in? We’re in trouble. We need to hide.”

“We?”

“Felix, please!”

Felix pulled his head inside. A moment later, he was at the workshop’s gate with his candle. Isabelle met him there. She pointed across the street. Ella was standing in the wide, arched gateway of a stonemason’s yard, holding Nero’s reins. She hurried towards them.

“That’s Ella,” Felix said to Isabelle. “As in your stepsister. As in the Queen of France.”

“Yes.”

“I forgot my trousers. The queen of France is standing at my door, and I’m in my nightshirt.” He looked down at himself. “With my knees showing.”

“I like your knees,” Isabelle said.

Felix blushed.

“I do, too,” Ella said.

“Your Royal Highness,” he said.

“Ella will do.”

“Your Royal Ella-ness,” he amended. “I’d bow, but … uh, this nightshirt’s a little on the short side.”

Ella laughed.