Two more days. I’ll encourage larger orders with the false insinuation that I’ll be leaving for a honeymoon a few days after the wedding. That should take me well over my goal, and I’ll be gone before anyone knows it’s a lie.
That my life is a lie.
The night before my wedding, I’ll hack my way out—with Lord Aaron’s help, if necessary. I’ll escape via horseback if that’s what it takes. One can never trust technology not to fail at the most crucial moment. That leaves me almost exactly forty-eight hours to collect five hundred thousand euros. Once I might have thought such a task impossible.
Saber and I sit silently, fingers entwined, as the car moves smoothly down the road. Saber squeezes gently, and I look up to see that soft affection brimming in his eyes. I don’t call it love; it’s too difficult to think of it that way. Considering the past six months, the last thing I need or desire is a fiery, adventurous romance. Saber’s quiet steadiness has become more than a comfort—the way he reaches out to touch my hand at just the right moment is all the stability I have left. His simple presence, two steps behind my left shoulder as I go about my palace business, makes me stronger.
The car stops and Saber slides from the seat, reaching out a hand to assist me. The door of the dance studio opens, and for an instant we all don our masks—the haughty noblewoman, her scandalously handsome secretary, the subservient dance teacher. Closing the door behind us feels like closing out another world.
“Just pull it out. I’ll take care of stacking it,” Saber says as we kneel in front of Giovanni’s closet, one floor up, a few minutes later. “You’re obviously anxious—you head out, I’ll finish here and then join you.”
“Thank you,” I say, rising to my feet. I was hoping for an opportunity like this. I hurry down the stairs and pause for just a moment to thank Giovanni again, then pull my black cloak over my rose-colored silk gown before slipping out the back door.
I’m not there first, but it doesn’t appear Reginald’s been waiting long. “I’ll need ten vials this week,” I say softly.
“This week?” he asks, clearly finding humor in my words. I find none. “I thought you were leaving in two days.”
“Large orders in anticipation of my absence. For my supposed honeymoon.”
“Desperate, eh?”
“Certainly not,” I reply with a scoff. “But it can’t hurt to have some additional capital on hand in whatever new life you’ve prepared for me. The goal of five million is essentially met.”
“Essentially?”
I decline to dignify his taunt with a reaction. “I need you to be ready. My plan is to leave the palace on Friday night—well, technically early Saturday morning, say three a.m.-ish? I’ll need a dependable way to contact you.”
“Easy.” He hands me a small cell phone. It’s an archaic and clumsy device compared to the Lenses, and I wasn’t entirely sure they still existed. But I suppose they have their uses. Especially if you’re a criminal.
“My contact information’s already programmed in there. I’ll be ready.”
“Good, good.” I swallow hard, but I know this is the only chance I’m going to get. “Reginald, I want Saber.”
“A blind man could see that,” Reginald says, then guffaws at his own joke.
“I want to you to free him; send him with me.”
His face freezes. “And why the hell would I do that?”
“We both know you never actually expected me to raise the five million. And saying my Glitter sales at the palace have been outstanding is a gross understatement.” I raise an eyebrow. “My worth to you in the last few months more than justifies a small favor, in my opinion.”
He hawks low in his throat and spits on the ground. “That’s what I think of your opinion, missy. Saber belongs to me, and that’s that.”
“Be reasonable.”
“I’m always reasonable.”
I force myself to keep my voice calm. “I could attempt to offer you more money for him, but I’ve already given you something better. We both know how much you hate Sonoman-Versailles; I’ve handed you the power to make another five million off them with utter ease. Or contact the authorities and send them in on a raid. Do that and you might well topple the entire kingdom, dissolve the pocket sovereignty, and restore the palace to the people of France. I’ve handed you my entire world to do with as you will, and you know it—you almost certainly planned it. All I’m asking is one life. Just one.” My voice cracks at the end, but I haven’t the pride to feel ashamed.
Reginald’s face is inexplicably stony as he leans forward, the acrid scent of stale tobacco filling my nostrils. “And if you want it, you’re going to have to pay for it, just like the next sorry sod, and you ain’t got enough money for two.”
My eyes widen and my mouth is so dry I can’t swallow.
I thought for sure…
I hear the slightest scuff behind me and spin to see Saber leaning against the wall. I feel the blood drain from my face as I realize that if he didn’t hear the entire conversation, he heard enough.
“Here,” Reginald says, holding out several vials of shimmering Glitter. We go through our regular routine of tucking them into the pockets that hang under my skirts as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The moment we’re finished, I’m itching to get away, but Reginald halts us. “Almost forgot these,” he says, handing an envelope to Saber, who wordlessly tucks it into his breast pocket and continues to Giovanni’s back door.
That’s right. My father’s patches. The force that propelled me into this nightmare to begin with. I’m so disgusted with Reginald that all I want is to get out of his presence. I hate that I need him. I hate that he owns Saber.
The door from the alley closes, and Saber whirls on me. “What were you thinking?”
His anger feels like a blow. “I—how can it hurt to ask?”
“Hurt? You’ve destroyed everything!”
“I don’t see how that’s even possible.”
“I fly under the radar, Danica. I do as I’m told, I never complain, I’m never punished. But now?” He runs his fingers through his hair with a low groan. “That was clumsy at best, but seriously, the worst possible way to go about it with Reginald. Insinuating that he owed you? What did you think would happen?”
I’m feeling my own temper rise as Giovanni comes around the corner, looking concerned.
“I thought he would see how much I’ve done for him. That he would be rational.”
“He’s not rational! He’s the height of irrational. How the hell could anyone rational live the life he lives? Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?”
“I thought it would work. I wanted to help you; to free you.”
But Saber’s already shaking his head. “You think you can just do things and mess with people’s lives without consulting them. That’s your problem—that’s the problem with all of this!” he says, spreading his hands wide. “You think your little life is so important that you can change other people’s futures and it doesn’t matter what they want, or think. And somehow, you’re sure you have the power to make everything all right.”
“Power?” I shoot back, almost yelling. “I have no power, Saber. I’ve never felt so powerless in my life. But I thought that this one thing—this one tiny thing—maybe I could do it and…and…”
“And redeem yourself?” Saber asks. “One nearly useless life for the hundreds you’ve ruined?”
“I wanted to bring you with me,” I shout back, and silence falls over the studio.
“Ah,” Saber says after a long pause. “So even freeing me was self-serving in the end.”
I want to argue with him, but the words catch in my throat in a surge of indignation. I feel falsely accused, and the hurt and anger war into a tight ball of emotions I can’t speak past.
He’s right, of course. I should have talked to him. Not only so that the person who knows Reginald best could advise my strategy, but simply because I should have asked if he ev
en wanted to come. I took his future and tried to shape it to my own liking. The thought that makes the anger drain away and the shame take over is that I treated him like the slave he is.
Saber mentioned punishments; would Reginald hurt him for this? Kill him for this? The thought makes me ill.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper through my tears. But it’s too late. I’ve ruined any chance of his coming with me, and I’ll leave him with a strained relationship with the man who controls every aspect of his life. It’s possible I’ve destroyed any already-dim future Saber might have dreamed of, in one fell swoop.
Saber’s shoulders crumple at my words, and he steps forward to enfold me in his arms. “I’ll handle it,” he says gruffly. “As long as I can convince him I didn’t put you up to it, it should end up okay.”
“Why would he think you had anything to do with it?”
Saber arches an eyebrow. “How else would you know about my situation at all?”
I hadn’t even considered that. Of course Reginald would think Saber had told me a sob story and we’d hatched a plan—a plan for Saber to essentially run away.
Saber’s right—I was stupid.
“Let’s get back to that godforsaken palace one last time,” Saber says with false cheeriness. “We have a job to do.”
The ride back to Versailles somehow feels both longer and shorter than usual. In two days I’m expected to wed the King. In two days, to keep that from happening, I’ll have to leave Saber behind, and my father as well. I’m too beaten to feel triumphant, too triumphant to feel beaten.
The car glides through the golden gates, around to the back of the palace, and into the underground garage. I wish I could hold Saber’s hand as we walk from the car to the lift that will take us back into palace life. Even the lift ride feels too long. When we step out of it and back into the frescoed hallway, three guards are waiting, and after dropping quick bows, they gesture both Saber and me into a small alcove. “What on earth is going on?” I demand.
One of the guards holds up his tablet to show me a document with a few scrawled signatures at the bottom. “Warrant,” he says. “My apologies, but I’ll need to search you, Your Grace.”
My heart seems to stop and then race almost simultaneously. “I don’t understand,” I say, but my voice is much quieter now.
“A tip that something might be brought in from Paris” is all the man says. “Don’t worry; there’s no need for this to be uncomfortable. If you would please turn around for me, Your Grace?”
Saber, however, is not shown nearly the courtesy I am. The guard closest to him shoves him against the wall and yanks his arms behind him before applying magnetic cuffs.
“Is there a need for those?” I say, stepping forward, then halting when a thick arm snakes out in front of me.
“Just searching him, too, Your Grace. More likely to be him than you, if you get my meaning.”
He laughs, but the sound dies away under my withering glare at his insulting assumption.
“If you both hold still, this’ll be over before you know it.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” I say wryly. I glare at the man but hold stock-still as his hands range very tremulously over my form. I keep a careful eye on Saber, who’s patted down roughly, his breeches nearly torn when they turn his pockets out. Even without a warning from me, however, he’s not fighting. I hate that he knows better.
They dump his messenger bag on the floor but hardly look at the contents once they prove to be run-of-the-mill. Thank goodness I had the foresight to carry all of the illegal vials myself.
My valise is similarly emptied, though it’s poured out gently onto a nearby table. I have to stifle a hysterical giggle when the three pots of Glitter are examined and set aside. The guard searching me apologizes before zipping open my pannier pockets and reaching carefully into them. I’m not worried. It was Saber’s idea to line the seam of the pockets with Velcro, and unless this guard feels some odd need to press quite hard on the bottom of my shallow pockets, he’ll never discover they lead to a much vaster space.
He doesn’t push, and I let my breath out slowly, silently, tasting victory.
Until a voice sounds from my right. “Sir, I’ve got something.”
I turn, my eyes wide with horror as I realize, immediately, what they’ve found. The torn-open envelope of patches is held aloft in the guard’s hand, and I can see a hint of frustration etched across Saber’s face. The guard holding the tablet takes the envelope, removes a patch, and lays it on his tablet, where a red line scans it. I hold my breath. After a few seconds it beeps, and the guard looks confused and does it again. When the tablet beeps a second time, the guard purses his lips, then looks up and says, “Arrest him. Take him downstairs.”
Saber turns to look at me, and for just a moment, before he hides it, I see fear in his eyes. Damn that envelope! Damn my father for needing it! But there’s nothing I can do as the guards pull him to the still-open lift, and, frozen in terror, I watch as the doors close between us.
A soft chuckle pulls me from my terrible thoughts, and I turn just in time to see Lady Cyn cover her Glittery lips with one gloved hand—as though to belatedly stifle the sound—then disappear around the corner.
I FIGHT THE urge to run after her and slap her across her too-pretty face. Perhaps with the back of my hand, which bears two sharp rings. But Lady Cyn isn’t the actual problem. She’s simply desperate. She’s about to lose the only dream she’s ever truly held in her entire life; after that awful moment in the Hall of Mirrors, I should have expected one last, desperate act of malice from her.
Still…
A tip, the guard said. No one would search the future Queen on a simple suggestion from an adolescent lady of the court. No, even if Lady Cyn was the betrayer, the order would have to come from the King himself. I tipped my hand when I allowed him to see how much I needed Saber. When Lady Cyn ratted out her own supplier to her lover, she must have hoped the King would see me for what I really am—and throw me over, just days before the wedding.
Foolish whore. All she did was hand His Majesty a reason to separate me from the one person he thought I might sneak away with, leaving her path clear.
I spin from wherever Lady Cyn is headed and aim for the King’s public rooms instead. He’ll be there, likely surrounded by a dozen cronies, forcing me to face him very much in the court’s eye if I want to confront him at all. Sure enough, I find him in the Salon d’Apollon enjoying apéritifs with what looks like half the governing board. It’s strange to see him there with a group of powerful men, each no less than fifteen years his senior. I see for the first time just how hard he must work to hide his youth from them. But there’s no room in my heart for sympathy today.
“My liege,” I say with a calm smile.
“My love,” he replies, raising his glass jovially.
My insides explode, like the crystal diffuser I threw against Marie-Antoinette’s wall, but I don’t let myself betray so much as a flicker of my eyelashes. I simply stand, arms in careful ballerina arcs, fingertips touching in front of my skirts, with my head tilted slightly to the side in a pose of anticipation.
The men’s eyes keep darting to me, and I can feel the tension around us rise as I stand, so obviously wanting His Highness’ attention; His Highness so clearly ignoring me.
Finally he can avoid it no longer. “Do you require something, darling?”
That I don’t lash out at his false show of affection in this crucial moment is possibly the greatest victory a dance instructor has ever won.
“A brief word, Justin?” I ask, lowering my eyelids and bobbing the shallowest of curtsies as I commit the grievous sin of addressing him by his first name in front of his much-older toadies.
“A word and a kiss, perhaps?” he says, challenge glimmering in his eyes alongside anger.
Silently, I offer him not my mouth, nor my cheek, but raise my gloved hand.
The men around him burst into laughter, and though he shoots me a
swift glare, His Majesty joins them.
“Methinks my lady is displeased with me.” The wry comment is made in Duke Darzi’s ear and behind a gloved hand, but easily loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. There are mutters of good-natured ribbing, and the King steps forward, makes me a deep, elaborate bow with multiple flourishes, then rises and offers me his arm.
“A turn about the salon would be lovely,” I say, making it clear that we are not to adjourn to his private office.
“The better to be seen, my dear.”
“My, what large teeth you have,” I reply. The brandy on his breath makes my stomach simmer. As we depart the gentlemen, I tilt my head toward his as though I have secrets to share. “You’ve just deprived me of my personal secretary, two days before my wedding. I fail to see how you expect me to get anything done.”
“Not to worry—I’m bringing in a dozen extra staff this evening. Any and all of them are at your disposal.” He makes no attempt to deny that it was his doing.
“There’s so much that will need to be redone without Saber’s presence.”
“I’m replacing him with twelve ladies,” His Highness says, putting a clear emphasis on the new staff members’ gender. “I’m confident you’ll manage.”
I quickly glance around us. “Abandon this pretense, Justin. Why?” I stop walking and turn to look him square in the face.
“I was informed that this outsider was bringing illicit substances into the palace. You know I can’t turn a blind eye to that.”
“You could have waited until after the wedding. Why now? And for God’s sake, tell me the truth for once.”
The King takes both my hands and raises my fingertips to his lips, not quite kissing them. “Danica, in our months together I’ve told you many truths. I only wish you’d believed them.” He drops my hands abruptly and offers his arm again, starting to move forward without waiting to see if I’ll accept. I almost have to lunge for his elbow to keep up. “It’s not easy, but I am trying not to underestimate you. You’d be fighting every last wedding plan if you didn’t think you could run away. In truth, you never would have spurned the offer I made two weeks ago if you didn’t already have a plausible escape at the ready. And who’s the one person most likely to assist you in carrying out such a plan?”