“I think the European Parliament would be fascinated to see the footage of the last few minutes, don’t you?” my mother said with a razor-sharp edge of danger in her voice.
The King swallowed visibly. My mother had made sure to capture everything in her recording. And the lack of sound made no difference with our lip-reading technology. Creating an accurate transcript would be child’s play. Possibly not admissible in a court of law, but since when was the legal system required to utterly ruin a man?
“You may feel powerful, Justin; you may be the King and CEO of one of the most prosperous companies on Earth, but if you don’t cooperate, you’re going to remember the hard way that this is not the seventeenth century, no matter how your employees live and dress. You are not God, and you are not even the Sun King. Can you imagine, I wonder, the lengths to which France might go to see you dethroned? This kingdom disbanded?”
“This—this is blackmail!”
“And this is murder,” my mother said, flinging one arm toward the body on the floor. “Take your pick.”
“She’s a child!” he snapped, flinging an arm in my direction. “An enfant!”
“Danica is hardly younger than your illustrious self, my liege,” she said acerbically. “You’re nineteen; she’ll be eighteen in six months. You marry within a week of her birthday or this deal goes away.”
That snapped his mouth closed. He stared at her. And though the seconds rolled past slowly—drawn out in that way terrible situations have of bending time—I was certain that a full minute ticked by before something changed in the King’s eyes and I saw surrender.
For both of us.
And I said…nothing.
“HOW CAN WE bear such secrets?” my father asks, as though sharing in my silent rememberings. He sounds oddly lucid as the drug takes hold of him. “You had such a bright future ahead. With your computer programming and math skills, you’d have been a brilliant researcher, or engineer. But a Queen hasn’t got time for such things…all that potential, squandered,” he whispers, his eyes closing in an expression of bliss that makes bile rise in my throat.
Typical. Even after recognizing his responsibility, he does nothing. I sit back on my heels and try to think clearly. He’s grinning to himself, and though his eyes are closed, he’s conscious. He does look happy, and the drug obviously works quickly. Temptation licks at my conscience, and I pick up one of the patches and hold it up to the light. Six hundred euros a week. Six hundred. A prickle traverses my spine. I know a lot of people who would pay well for such euphoria.
I shake my head against the thought, but math has always been a strength of mine, and the sums are stacking up and multiplying in my brain without provocation. I stand and pace. There are several thousand people living and working in the palace. Could I get one hundred buyers? More? Numbers add themselves in my head until I reach a quite satisfying total. It puts me into the realm of possibility in a way that selling jewelry never did.
But drugs?
I glance up at the ceiling. A room M.A.R.I.E. doesn’t monitor? Here in my home? I stare around the familiar study; it’s a typical Versailles room, with paintings on every wall and gilded trim along a plaster ceiling, painted with a faux-rococo fresco. It’s not just a bit of hallway, like that stretch downstairs—now haunted in memory if not in actual fact. A truly private room. The possibilities sprawl out before me, as though I were gazing into a pair of mirrors angled to reflect each other into infinity. Terrible, unthinkable possibilities.
If you truly think your pathetic life is worth five million euros.
Is my life worth doing what it would take to get my hands on five million euros?
A thunderous pounding puts an end to my number-crunching. My mother wouldn’t knock, and none of my friends would pound that hard. The King, then.
I sent the bots away without my belongings. It appears I defied the King.
I want to weep from the bone-deep weariness I’m already feeling, only to have to face my fiancé again. I rise from the floor, grab my box from the desk, and turn to my father. “Do not come out,” I order, pointing a finger down at him as though he were a naughty child. Not far from the truth tonight.
As I approach the atrium the pounding grows louder, but over the noise, His Majesty growls, “I will override your security in ten seconds.” It’s possibly an empty threat; personally forcing his way into the private rooms of nobility, even untitled nobility like my father, would almost certainly cost the King more influence than he’s willing to lose.
But the angrier he gets, the less I can count on him to act in his own best interest. I spend a few precious seconds pushing back my fear and revulsion, then fling the front door wide, and my liege nearly clocks me in the face.