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.