Four Dead Queens(43)

“Okay.” He stepped toward me. “And how would you go about that?”

“You never steal from someone without knowing more about the situation and person—by watching them.” An early lesson from Mackiel.

“We’re not stealing from anyone.”

I waved a hand. “Same difference. As you said, we know one person who is involved—the person who was meant to receive the comm chips.” He nodded, encouraging me to continue. “If I were to do this, theoretically, then I would arrange to redeliver the comm chips in order to meet them. That way, I’d know who was pulling the strings. That would be valuable information to the palace.” Hopefully valuable enough to access HIDRA.

Varin nodded as if he was considering my plan, but the light behind his eyes told me he was impressed.

Not that I was trying to impress him.

“Okay,” he said. “I find out more information about the intended recipient of the comm chips and then take that information to the palace.”

“You need to make the delivery spot somewhere more public this time,” I said. “Safer.” Somewhere Mackiel wouldn’t be.

“Okay,” he said again, putting the new comm case with the chips into his messenger bag. “Thanks for your help.” He headed for the door.

“Wait!” I cried, jumping from the bed.

He stopped but didn’t turn around. “What is it?”

I’d hoped to be free of these memories once they were out of my head. I’d hoped I could forget what I’d seen. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t free. I was tied to these four dead queens, whether I liked it or not.

But now I had a plan. Not only a plan to help the palace, but to help my father and restore my family. I squeezed my eyes shut, imaging my mother’s arms around me, welcoming me home.

My heart fluttered inside my chest when I replied, “I’m coming with you.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN





Marguerite


   Queen of Toria



Rule seven: A queen must produce an heir before the age of forty-five, to ensure her royal lineage.


Marguerite took a deep breath, waiting for the moment Iris would pass by.

Her body.

Her friend was gone.

Iris’s death procession would be the fourth Marguerite had attended since entering the palace. Usually, they would wait for the new queen to be in place upon her throne, but with the inspector’s plan to pull Iris apart for clues, they had moved ahead and set the ceremony for only twenty-four hours since she had been found dead.

Iris should’ve been then laid to rest within the palace tombs. Instead she would return to the inspector, and he’d poke and prod her with his implements in that cold and sterile infirmary of his. “She cannot rest,” he had said. “We cannot rest. Not until the assassin is found.”

And while Marguerite understood the need to find answers, she wished it did not cost Iris her final dignity.

The death procession was not complex. The body of the queen was to be placed in a glass coffin, adorned with what she loved, and then carried through the palace by her advisor, handmaidens and close staff. First, she would be moved through the Archian corridors, then the Torian corridors, and so forth through the different parts of the palace. She would then be returned to the infirmary, as promised to the inspector.

Marguerite shook, her fists clenched by her sides.

The palace was in chaos. Every conversation carried Iris’s name, every whisper spoke of her death. And there was the inspector, seemingly everywhere at once. Always with his questions, and yet no answers to Marguerite’s.

Marguerite had spent the morning reliving everything she could remember over the last few weeks for the inspector to record onto comm chips for later ingestion. Marguerite shivered at the thought of him watching her memories through her eyes. But she would do what she must to ensure the culprit was found.

Regardless that the queens had told the same story—they had last seen Iris in court that day, after she had declined the Archian governor’s request for electricity—the inspector continued to focus on the monarchs. His black eyes narrowed when they entered a room, his lengthy fingers twitching at his recorder whenever they spoke. Yet Marguerite knew they were without guilt. She could not imagine a queen carrying out such a monstrous act upon her own sister.

The swish of footsteps on the marble floor brought Marguerite’s attention back to the procession. The Archian advisor appeared first. Behind followed two of Iris’s handmaidens. They wore matching black dresses, skirts long to the floor, leaving a dark interweaving trail of material behind them. They carried the coffin as if it weighed nothing, and yet their faces were drawn in such grief, Marguerite worried they would collapse. When they neared, their eyes found the Torian queen and they tilted their heads in respect.

As in the infirmary, Iris appeared as though she were merely sleeping. She wore a white lace dress, hands placed on her stomach, cheeks dusted with pink. Her fair hair had been braided into a long plait and placed across her neck to hide the garish wound.

Iris would have hated her advisor deciding what she would wear and how she would look. Completely undignified, she would have said. I am queen. I decide what I wear and where I go!

Marguerite dabbed a handkerchief under her eye. She would miss the whirlwind force that was her friend.