An awkward night spent in Finn and Mia’s increasingly cramped house did nothing to ease the tension between Ridley and me. I wanted to talk to him, to find out what was going on, but it was impossible to get a moment alone. There was always someone—usually Liam—in the way.
I’d taken the floor in Hanna’s room, so Tilda could have the bed, and Ulla had gone back to Liam’s room again. Ridley slept on the couch, while Konstantin strangely took the stables, insisting he’d gotten used to sleeping anywhere.
In the morning, I awoke with an awful crick in my neck. The bandages on my side were a bit bloodier than normal, probably from pressing too hard on the floor, but it was nothing that I couldn’t survive.
First thing after breakfast, Ridley and I walked down to the palace for the meeting with Queen Wendy. We spoke very little on the way there, mostly commenting on the weather or the way the gravel stung my feet. Even though we were together for the first time in ages, the distance between us stretched further than ever before.
We’d been shown into the palace and left to wait outside the Queen’s office. Presumably, she had some business to attend to before she’d let us in. There was no waiting area, so we stood in the hall just outside the office.
Ridley leaned back against the wall, staring down the corridor with a look of boredom and annoyance. The top few buttons of his shirt had been left undone, the way they usually were, but I noticed that his rabbit amulet was absent. It had been his gift from the kingdom upon becoming Rektor three years ago, and I’d never seen him without it before.
I wanted to ask him where it was or why he wasn’t wearing it, but I doubted I’d get any kind of answer from him. Everything he’d said to me since he’d been here had been little more than a word or a grunt. It was like he couldn’t even bring himself to speak to me.
I did my best to keep my head up and my expression neutral, like this wasn’t breaking my heart all over again.
“One thing’s for sure,” Ridley said at length. “We can’t all keep staying at Finn’s house.”
“I plan on leaving soon anyway,” I told him honestly.
He jerked his head to look at me. “Why? Where are you going?”
“Doldastam.”
His eyes darkened. “You can’t go back there. Mina will have you killed.”
“I didn’t realize you even cared,” I replied wearily.
“What are you talking about? Of course I care,” Ridley said in an angry whisper.
I studied him, standing across from me. His hands were clenched on the chair rail that ran along the wall behind him, and his expression had softened. For one of the first times since he’d arrived in F?rening, I could actually see the guy I’d fallen in love with.
“Do you?” I asked softly.
He stepped away from the wall and moved toward me. With only inches between us, he stopped, and looked down at me in the way that made my heart beat erratically. He had this wonderful, dizzying way of making the whole world disappear for a few moments, so it was only me and him, and all the rest of my fears and worries fell away.
Ridley opened his mouth like he meant to say something, but I’ll never know exactly what it was, because the Queen’s office door opened, interrupting us, and Ridley quickly stepped back from me.
Chancellor Bain leaned out into the hallway, hanging onto the door as he did, and offered us an apologetic smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting. But the Queen is ready to see you now.”
“Thank you,” Ridley said. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and straightened his shirt, then followed Bain into the office.
I took a second longer to collect myself. Thanks in part to my much fairer skin flushing so noticeably it was a bit harder for me to return to normal after moments like that with Ridley.
The Queen’s office was smaller than I’d expected. The entire exterior wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, which helped it feel a bit larger than it actually was. Two of the three interior walls were all shelves filled to the brim with books.
A large oak desk sat in the center of the room. Along the edges, vines had been carved into it, but that was a reoccurring theme throughout the room, with vines carved into crown molding and the frames around the window.
On the wall across from the desk were two large paintings—one of the previous Queen Elora, Wendy’s mother, and the other was of Wendy, her husband, and an adorable boy of about three years old, presumably their son, Prince Oliver.
When I came into the room, Bain sat cross-legged in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk, while Ridley preferred to stand, leaving the other chair empty. Wendy was standing with her hands on the desk, leaning forward to look down at the papers spread over it.