But Isoeld and Teonette knew it was going to happen. They watched and didn’t do anything to stop it. Isoeld attacked me and held me down so I couldn’t do anything, either!”
There were tears in her eyes; they had appeared seemingly of their own volition, and she quickly wiped them away. Xac Wen looked horrified. “The first minister was part of this? He was helping the Queen? I’ve heard stories about them, but I didn’t think they were true.”
“I didn’t, either. Not entirely, anyway. But Mistral insisted all along they were lovers.” She took a deep, steadying breath and stopped crying. “Xac, I have to find my grandmother. Do you know where she is?”
The boy looked stricken. “No one knows. She disappeared from her house right after you were locked up in that storeroom. I went to look for her to ask if she could help you.
Tasha said I should. But she wasn’t there. The house was all torn apart and there was blood …”
He trailed off, unable to finish. “It was pretty bad.”
Phryne stayed silent for a moment, fighting to keep her emotions in check. She was terrified now for her grandmother, no longer simply worried about what might happen, but devastated by what obviously had. Isoeld’s threats hadn’t been idle ones; she had gone after Mistral Belloruus.
She shifted her gaze to Xac once more. “I have to go to her house. I have to see for myself. Can we do that?”
“What? Tonight?” Xac was horrified. “But it’s almost morning, Phryne! People will be waking up! You’ll be seen!”
“I know the risks. But no one knows I’ve escaped yet, Xac. By morning, they will be looking for me. If I go now, maybe we can get to my grandmother’s and back again before it’s light.”
She paused. “You don’t have to go with me. You’ve done more than enough. This is too dangerous. You stay here. I’ll go alone.”
“You stay here, I’l go alone,” he mimicked. “Why would you say that? I’m not afraid!
Don’t treat me like a child. If you go, I go.”
She almost laughed at his efforts to sound tough and grown up. But that would have been a mistake, and she knew it. “All right,” she said, “you win. We both go.”
He gave a small yelp and was out the door and on his way down the stairs almost before she had finished speaking.
THEY WALKED BACK through the sleeping city, taking a more direct route this time because Xac was anxious to get this ill-advised visit over and done with and told her they would forgo the safer, but more circuitous route.
“Can’t chance being caught out in the light once the sun comes up,” he declared. “If something happens to you now, Tasha will skin me alive!”
“I wouldn’t want that,” she said, managing to keep a straight face.
“You know why they wanted you out of there, don’t you?” He kept his voice low, talking rapidly as they walked. “Tasha and Tenerife? Why it was so important to free you?”
She shook her head. “You mean besides giving me a chance to prove I’m innocent of what I’m accused?”
He nodded vigorously. “Besides that. Most people don’t really think you killed your father, anyway. They did at first because that’s how things looked. But after they began to talk it over, they started asking questions. Why would she kill her father over an argument? Weren’t they especially close? She wasn’t like that before. She was a good person and she never hurt anyone. Stuff like that. Fingers were starting to point elsewhere. That’s when Tasha and Tenerife really started to worry.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. If you don’t get locked up for your father’s murder, your stepmother doesn’t get to take the throne. You do.”
That stopped Phryne right where she was. She reached over and grabbed the boy by his arm. “What are you saying?”
He shook her off. “What do you think? I’m saying that keeping you in prison keeps you off the throne. You’re next in line, you know. With your father dead, you should be Queen, not Isoeld.”
She hadn’t thought of that. In the rush of things, amid all the confusion and anger and despair, she had never once thought about being heir to the throne. It was such a ridiculous idea that she could hardly consider it. She had always thought her father would be King for years to come, and the prospect of having to rule in his place seemed ludicrous. But now she saw how wrong she had been.
“You still don’t understand!” Xac snapped, frustrated by her inability to grasp what he was trying to say. “Keeping you locked up is only a temporary solution. It would be a lot better for Isoeld if you didn’t need locking up. Now do you see?”
She did. “You mean if I were dead, the matter would be settled. Tasha thinks Isoeld might be intending to kill me, too.”