“What about Lisbeth?” Alfie demanded.
Edmund had taken my wrist and was quick-marching me back to the mansion, muttering that I needed to see Prince Lorent. “They won’t be back for some time,” he said without even looking back. I did glance back. Alfie hadn’t moved from the gates, hands on his head, running them down from hair to cheeks.
“We don’t know what’s out there!” Alfie continued, beginning to chase after us. I tried to shoot him an apologetic look, but his gaze was fixed on Edmund’s back. Fallon went to put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder but recoiled when Alfie sent a pulse of magic his way.
“My colleagues are with them. They’ll be fine.”
“And what use are you lot against them? They’re creating spells that make your magic as useful as a vampire’s!”
We came to an abrupt halt and I was flung in a semicircle as Edmund turned on Alfie, the two men nose-to-nose. “Watch what you say, young prince. I’m under no royal obligation to keep your pretty English rose of a girlfriend safe, don’t forget.”
Alfie’s eyes spattered with red. “Are you threatening me? I could have you banished for that,” he hissed.
I didn’t want to be witness to this scene. I had never seen Alfie angry, and seeing Edmund so cruel . . . I didn’t understand. Fallon hovered, as unsure as I was.
“And you think anybody cares about you with all that is going on? Don’t be so narcissistic.”
Alfie curled his lips in disgust and then opened his mouth to respond, but Edmund cut him off.
“This is a very different world from the one we lived in six months ago. And in this world, there are people that matter and people that don’t.”
Like a dog on a leash, I was led back into the mansion and commanded to wait in the entrance, Fallon at my side, as Edmund summoned the head of the house. I watched the scene of chaos in catharsis, as though it were a play, absorbed by it and pitying it but never fully part of it. Edmund stormed off; servants crossed from one room to another carrying blankets and hot drinks that I could only presume were for Tee, who had disappeared with Alya. I heard Alfie’s shouts minutes before he burst through the doors and his voice boomed through the house, demanding the attention of his father and Chatwin, cursing Edmund.
“I’m leaving!” he spat, rounding on Fallon. “There’s no way I’m staying until Christmas. I won’t put her at risk for damned family or duty!”
I realized my breast was heaving. Alfie was leaving? I glanced sideways at Fallon and he gave the smallest of nods, standing just as still as I was; just as paralyzed and frozen during his cousin’s outburst. What is there to say? Will we survive here much longer, ourselves?
“I hate this hellhole! I hate this fate-forsaken place, and this fate-forsaken situation!” Alfie took a few rasping breaths and his gaze fell to the ground, that of a man defeated. A few drops of water appeared on the marble. “Fate forbid anything happen to her,” he rasped, breaking for breath between each tortured syllable. “Fate forbid!”
I think it must have been a prayer, because he haphazardly made his way towards his father’s study, the resolve and power of his shouting dissolved into those two frail words that he muttered over and over, submitting his stooping body to them. The clock told me that I was only in the presence of the king’s brother for half an hour as I related what had passed between Nathan and me. It felt like so much longer because we waited on news of the rest of the group. When I reached out for Jo’s mind, there was nothing. Edmund reassured me that was due to the lockdown; a shield that separated husband from wife, as the princess was still in Athenea.
Edmund burst in just as I finished my narrative. “They’re just over the hill.”
I glimpsed Alfie skidding across the entrance hall and, taking Fallon’s hand, ran after him. It was a long run to the northern gate and I was already exhausted; it wasn’t long before Fallon was tugging me, though I felt a welcome burst of energy pass into my hand from the older, stronger prince, who glanced back and smiled reluctantly. We slammed into the inner gate, gripping its bars and panting, watching as the outer gate inched open cautiously.
The guards were lining up and shouting about Extermino being spotted, and we waited as the seconds passed. Then I felt it: magic, strong magic, shields and curses, moving fast toward us. Whose it was—the Athan’s or the Extermino’s—was impossible to tell.
I could hear the sound of hooves sinking into the heath and the panicked whines of the horses; I could feel the wave of fear rushing toward us like a tidal wave, stripping from the ground every other emotion. And then they appeared over the crest of the hill, racing down from its summit.
They were being chased. Chased by greyhounds of men, tall, fast, lithe, and snapping at their tails with spells the Athan were repelling easily—thankfully—with shields. But the Athan couldn’t shake them, and I watched, paralyzed, as I came to the gradual realization that they were so hot on the group’s heels that the guards would have barely any time to close the outer gate between them . . . and in they would follow, trapping our friends in a death pit.
Helpless behind Burrator’s dome shield, the three of us and Edmund could only watch as the guards attacked the Extermino with black and gray curses that the latter repelled like child’s play.
I thrust myself as far into the bars of the gate as I could, as though to urge the group forward, my knuckles brushing the very shield that held us in safety and them in danger. They were near enough now that Jo had fixed her gaze on me and was pushing her horse to its death.
And then they were through the gate and its arms swung wildly toward each other; before they had even touched, the outer shield meshed itself together and they were safe. I let out the breath I had been holding, backing away so the gate we gripped could be opened as well.
But the Extermino weren’t done. They slowed to a halt short of the gate, five of them smirking like sated dogs on a hunt. The no-man’s-land between the gates fell to an utter silence, good Sage and bad Sage separated by no more than iron and shield.
A senior guard stepped forward, and in a booming voice declared their crimes against the kingdom; a pompous announcement reduced to redundancy by their jibes.
“We do not abide by your fas, or your Terra; we recognize no Athenean authority and no universal law decreed by your Inter,” Nathan shouted back. “Good luck detaining us,” he mocked, to a backdrop of laughter.
“Then what do you recognize, scum?” Fallon shouted back, purple-faced and so angry he threw himself back into the bars of the gates.
I felt Nathan’s gaze turn on me; I felt it pierce the gulley between the gates and the guards and the horses and the humans; I felt it like I was the only person there.
“Remember what I said, Autumn.”
And then, to my utter astonishment, he dropped into another bow—they all did—the same bow, arms thrown wide, shoulders turned slightly to the side and heads lowered, vulnerable, and all of it directed at me.
“My lady,” he venerated, completing a show of the utmost respect.
My gaze shifted from Fallon to Edmund, to Jo, and everybody turned to me. My arms self-consciously wrapped themselves around my waist; I was as clueless as they were.
The Extermino disappeared into thin air, crossing the dimensions. But they did not go silently. Suddenly, the air above the shield exploded and turned blue; bolts of lightning were striking the shield and racing toward the earth, just like they had done the day we found out Violet Lee had been attacked. Cracking, sizzling, siren-like drones assaulted my ears.
People screamed and the horses reared, some bolting.
I craned my neck skyward and let the chaos ensue around me. Standing beneath this spectacle that was anything but natural, I began to feel the first drops of rain hit my forehead.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Autumn
“How long before they move us out, do you think?”
“Uncle wants the entire household back in Athenea by Christmas, and Burrator mothballed. But us? Two weeks, if we’re lucky.”
I felt the inevitable dread rise from my stomach up to my heart. The last time I had been to Athenea had been my grandmother’s funeral, and I had never attended court as a duchess in my own right.
Tomorrow would mark my sixteenth birthday, and I would gain the right to sit on the Athenean council and the Inter. Though my father would continue controlling my finances until I was legally an adult by British law, for all intents and purposes, tomorrow I was to leave childhood behind.
Fallon wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll look after you. It will be fun. And on the bright side, Father is going to waive the guardian rule for you, so no more humans!” He gently shook me and I managed a smile.
“At least the sun always shines on Athenea,” I allowed, shuffling closer to the small floating fire Fallon had conjured in front of us. Taking his hand, I pulled him across the pebbles so I could rest on him.
We were sitting on a small beach sheltered in a cove just a few minutes’ flight over the hill from my house. It was steep and stony and walled in by hills so severe you could barely climb them, and between them ran a crumbling road that led back toward the town. The most stunning features of all were the lake behind us and the stream that ran across the beach and out to the sea, rough with the strong wind today, white-capped waves grabbing at the lowest edges of the sand.
My parents had insisted I be at home for my birthday, and Edmund, wanting to teach us as much defensive magic as possible, had stolen us both away to the most isolated place he could find—Mansands Cove.
It had been only a handful of days since the incident at Burrator, but already the security had doubled—there were ten Athan with us now, and many more back at my home—and the privacy Fallon and I craved had been halved.
“And your parents? Are they putting up a fuss about leaving here?”
I shrugged. “They’re refusing to go to the Manderley estate. Father hates the grandeur and we take a lot of income by keeping it open for the public . . . they’ll just stay in London. They won’t come to Athenea.”
He pulled my head down onto his shoulder and tangled a hand in my hair, tightly weaving his fingers between the wind-swept knots and curls. “I’ll look after you. Always.”
Part of me knew that he could never fulfill that promise, yet the overwhelming mass—including my heart—absorbed that statement and swelled, content to partake of the lie. I wriggled into the crook of his arm and watched as the strip of orange resting on the sea’s horizon shrank and the sky above us moved from blue to pink to purple.
“Stand up,” he suddenly ordered, doing just that himself. Nestled in the hollow my weight had created in the pebbles, I looked up at him, frowning. He curled his fingers and impatiently motioned for me to join him.
I scrambled up and jostled for balance as stones tumbled away from beneath my feet. He steadied me before allowing one hand to slide all the way up and across my shoulder onto my neck, the span between his fingers so large he could wrap them halfway around. He pulled me toward him and rested his forehead against mine.
“You’re sixteen tomorrow,” he stated. His eyelids drooping, closing, I felt him draw in a breath from the very air I had just exhaled.
“Yes,” I answered in a whisper, sounding uncertain even of that basic fact. But suddenly my arms, hanging limp at my side, found their way around his waist, and the same girl who had straddled him after the party awoke and began to crawl from the corner in which she was chained. She peered out at me from behind the prison bars in my mind, and then looked past me to him. “I’ll be legal,” I added more confidently.
His eyes snapped open. “Don’t,” he growled, pulling me away by the scruff of my neck like a misbehaving kitten.
“Why?” I demanded, digging my nails into his shoulders so he couldn’t keep me at his full arm’s length.
“Not until you’re sure about me.”
“I am sure!”
“Then prove it,” he challenged, letting me go and spreading his arms to expose his front. “I’m all yours.” He cocked his head and allowed me a wry grin.
I spluttered over my words. I only said that to be stubborn! But here he was, a prince of Athenea, the heartthrob of the dimension, offering himself up to me on a plate. And he looked delicious . . . So what is stopping me? What am I afraid of? The depression is better; I’m not afraid of going to Athenea anymore; I can deal with the limelight.
I was aware of how rapidly my chest was rising and falling, a complete contrast to his calm, collected demeanor. “My eyes,” I began hesitantly. “What color are they?”
He was already burning me up with his gaze; he didn’t need to check. He already knew the answer. “Red, Autumn. They’re red.”
Yes, yes, they were blazing, warm and waiting.
Abruptly, he let his arms fall, instead reaching to undo the top button of his shirt, and then another. My eyes turned into saucers and I was aware of Edmund pausing midpace to stare.
Fallon moved to the third button. “Let me get one thing straight, duchess. When I was ten years old, you roped me into a game of kiss chase.” Fourth button. Fifth button. “You declared yourself winner only when you had smooched me in the throne room, in front of my family and the court.” His shirt was hanging open now, and he lifted a leg, took off his shoe and sock, and tossed them aside. He repeated the same with the other foot and continued talking. I vaguely noted the importance of breathing. “Everybody laughed and said what a great couple we would make some day. But I . . .” he waggled his finger at me, before starting on his cuff links and pocketing them, “I have spent every day since wondering what it would be like to kiss you properly. That’s almost eight years, and I am not prepared to wait a single minute longer. Damn the age of consent, and damn him,” he waved a dismissive hand toward Edmund. “Keep me waiting any longer and you’re going to go for an impromptu swim.”
He finished his speech with his shirt framing the beginnings of a washboard stomach, sleeves hanging loose at his wrists, and the gaps between his toes catching the smallest pebbles.
“You’re blackmailing me!” I accused, pursing my lips and trying my best to not blush.
“It’s what my father would call diplomacy.”
I sprang forward, hands resting on each of his cheeks, and pressed my mouth to his. His eyelids shut, and he relaxed into my grip; I could feel his smirk against my lips. After a few seconds, I pulled back.
“I’m not really a negotiator,” I murmured apologetically to his contented expression, as the gradual realization that I had just experienced my first true kiss descended. “Did I do it right?”
Slowly, he opened his eyes and his smile softened. “Not quite.” Before I could become any more mortified, he tilted my chin up with a single finger, and I needed no more than that simple touch to feel the warm rush of magic and happiness in my veins, and the tingle of rising goose bumps along my arms. He kissed me much more gently than I had him, but began to part my lips with his tongue. My eyes flew open and wide but I complied, following his lead.
Eventually he pulled away, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth. The flesh slipped away and was released with a pop, and I could feel the warmth of the graze marks along the delicate skin on the inside of my lip.
“How was that for a six-hour-early introduction to womanhood?” he asked, smirking and glancing at his watch.
“My grandmother would approve greatly of me taking lessons from a prince,” I said, grinning myself and finding a home for my arms tucked in the folds of his shirt, palms flat to his back. “And Jo will stop badgering me to get together with you.”
He kissed my forehead. “I’m more than happy to tutor you in kissing, and more, when you’re ready.” Resting his chin on the top of my head, he wrapped me up in his arms, and I tucked my head into
my favorite spot on his shoulder. “And we’ll invite Jo to court as soon as she breaks for the holidays, so you have an old friend in Athenea.”
He stroked the lace sleeves of my shirt, threading his fingers through the gaps. I was shivering; it was cold now the fire had gone out, and neither of us had dressed for a November wind.
“And my sister will be a friend to you. She’s a little younger, but she was always in awe of you . . .”
He carried on talking, whether about his sister or others I didn’t know, because I had ceased listening. An unease was creeping up from my feet, slowly but surely toward my heart.
My grandmother . . .
My hands fell away from his back and I stepped back.
What is stopping me?
“But you’re keeping it from me.”
“Autumn?”
“You know why my grandmother was murdered. Everybody knows, except me.”
He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and placed his hands on my upper arms, looking me straight in the eye.
“You already know this, and in truth, it’s why my family are here. I lied to you about coming here to escape the press.”
I held my breath expectantly. Am I about to discover the truth? The real truth? I reached up and placed my palms on his chest, warm and scarred, and could feel his rapid heartbeat, slowing. There were so many things to endear him: his looks, his sincerity and humor, the way he wanted me, and the way he made me light up . . . his honesty . . .
“I was ordered to come here because the Extermino attacked. We came to keep you safe.”
I shook my head. “But that’s suicide, you’re royalty, why would—”
“It’s to do with your grandmother. But I can’t tell you why she was murdered, not yet.”
I jumped back. “Why?!”
“I just can’t.”
Even I was shocked as my palms slammed back down onto his chest and sent him stumbling back a few paces. Two red handprints remained, one laced over his scars, turning them purple.