“I didn’t save the world,” I said, my overworked voice breaking.
“Close enough. Are you and Benjy getting a cottage in the woods together? Going to run off and be a happy little couple?”
“I—” I stopped. If he’d been listening, he should have known. Maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to be sure. “Benjy broke up with me.” The words hurt less than I thought they would. “He’s still my best friend, and he’ll always be around, but—it’s better this way. We weren’t as good together as we both deserved. Not like that.”
Knox raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And how good can it get?”
“I—” I took another sip of my water. My throat burned, but it gave me time to think. I didn’t know how good it could get. That was the problem. I thought Benjy was it, but he wasn’t. And the evidence was currently staring at me.
“You...?” said Knox, waiting for me to continue. I shook my head. He knew. He knew he knew, and I’d given him the confirmation he needed. Now he was just being a jerk.
“Don’t make me say it. Today’s been traumatic enough for both of us.”
He seemed to consider that, leaning back against his pillows without taking his eyes off me. I held his gaze, and for the space of several heartbeats, neither of us said a word. My pulse raced. He knew. And so did I, without him having to say a word.
“You should get some sleep,” he said at last. “Save that voice of yours. The next few days are going to be rough and confusing, and the people are going to need some guidance.”
I nodded, both relieved and dismayed at the shift in conversation. The last thing I wanted was to go on national television yet again, but he was right. The people would need a leader, and I had already given them everything else. I could give them this, too. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Anything.” He seemed to realize how earnest he sounded, because he added with a smirk, “Within reason.”
I gripped my glass, running my thumb through the condensation. “I’m tired,” I whispered.
“I told you, you should get some—”
“Not that kind of tired. I’m exhausted. Wrung out. There’s nothing left. I just need—I need a break. I need to get away. Not forever. But just for a little while.”
Knox was quiet for a long moment. “I can make that happen.”
“Really?” I said, and he nodded.
“I know exactly where you should go.”
* * *
The next day, the hospital released me into the care of a private physician. Walking out into the bright sunlight, so incongruous with the turmoil we had all survived—it didn’t feel real, but nothing did anymore. And I was okay with that. The instant it felt real was the moment I would start appreciating it all a little less, and I never wanted that moment to come.
Greyson assembled his council in the dining room of Creed Manor that afternoon, along with a camera crew and an order for my speech to be broadcast on every channel across the nation. My throat was in bad shape, and more than once, Greyson asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this, but I was. He would do most of the talking anyway. I just had to make sure the country knew he was nothing like his father or the madman that had impersonated him.
With Knox still hospitalized, the council consisted of seven members: me, Greyson, Benjy, Rivers, and three other surviving leaders from the rebellion. Together we sat at a round table—it was symbolic, according to Benjy—and as the red light clicked on, I took a deep breath.
“My name is Lila Hart.” My voice was barely above a whisper, and the microphone was turned up as loud as it would go, but I knew subtitles would be running across every screen. “Yesterday, you all witnessed the undoing of Victor Mercer, who had been terrorizing our great nation as Prime Minister Daxton Hart for over a year. You heard him confess to treason, murder, and countless other crimes, and for the first time, you had the veil pulled back from the people who have been running your country and your lives. You saw the corruption. You saw the greed. You saw the madness my cousin Greyson and I have been witnessing for months, and you also saw your Prime Minister die at my hands. I’m sorry for taking his life, and that’s something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of mine. But I am not sorry for doing what I had to do in order to protect the people—in order to protect you from histyranny.