I realize the blankets fell away from my chest and snatch them back up, my blush deepening.
“You could almost fool me,” I tell him. “You’re beautiful on the outside but there’s a cold, twisted thing in there.” I point at his chest. “Without an ounce of feeling or compassion.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You don’t know me, so asking me to marry you is just a touch presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“Yes. That is what princes do, they presume.”
I snort and fall back into the pillows.
“I want to go home. Please.”
“After doing anything you could to get away from it?”
I roll my eyes. “What are you, my therapist now?”
He shrugs. “It strikes me that wherever you are, you seek an escape from it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He’s cutting a little too close. I feel my lip tremble.
That balcony is out there and it’s quite a drop. All I’d have to do is sit on that ledge, swing my legs over, and…
I pinch my eyes shut.
“I know what it’s like for the whole world to feel like a prison. For every wall to lock you out.”
“You told me you’d tell me what happened to the girl you were supposed to marry.”
He flinches, as if something about the way I said it sets him off.
“My brother killed her. Then I killed him. He was insane.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m sorry.”
“None of this was supposed to be mine,” he says very softly, and stands. “I will take you to see your friend when you wake up. Sleep now if you like. I can have something brought from the library, if it pleases you. Anything you require, pull the rope to send for a servant.”
I roll over on my side, away from him. “You can’t bribe me into liking you.”
“My father had an arranged marriage, as did his father and his father before him.”
“Yadda yadda five hundred years,” I cut in.
“Your insolence is not amusing.”
I smirk a little, where he can’t see.
“My mother did not love my father when they married. You would not have known it from seeing her when he died.”
“Where is she?”
“She died, too.”
“So you’re alone.”
“Yes. Yes I am.”
I turn over, but the door has already banged shut, leaving me in the dark. I felt a little pang of sympathy for him there, I admit it. It’s a terrible thing to be alone, and creature comforts don’t make up for the touch of another human being.
“Magua’s heart is twisted. He would make himself into what twisted him,” I say aloud.
I wonder if the prince has read that book, too.
I don’t usually sleep on my back, but I’m fairly exhausted. My eyes close eventually and I fall asleep before I realize what’s happened. Waking almost startles me. The same as yesterday, it takes me a moment to adjust to my surroundings.
I keep expecting my eyes to really open, to wake up in camp like some crazy Twilight Zone episode, but no, I’m actually here. I kick out from under the covers and reach for the rope.
No, I should dress first.
I bathe quickly, brush my hair and pull it into a ponytail, and choose a dress almost at random, one of the plainest ones on the rack. I wish I had some actual pants to put on.I’m getting sick of the dresses. It’s a pale yellow and covers me up a bit more than the green one I had on yesterday.
Once I’m dressed I give the bell a sharp tug. I feel it pull against something somewhere in the castle, and a heavy bell bong-bongs far overhead.
Wow, really.
About five minutes later the prince arrives, dressed in a plain black outfit like he wore yesterday, without the boots. He offers me his arm but I walk past him into the hall and wait. I fall in beside him and walk in silence to the courtyard, and pointedly ignore him on the car ride from the castle.
The hospital doesn’t really stand out. The only thing marking it off is the red cross painted on the side, the helicopter pad, and the fleet of ambulances parked outside in a long garage.
The car takes us right up to the front entrance under an overhang, and I brace myself. There will be other people here. I’m getting my request. I’m going to see the peasants in action.
The prince personally offers me a hand to step down from the car. I take it, still feeling a little wobbly on my ankle. All that walking yesterday made me sore, and now I’m starting to regret the boots.
I walk slowly, head up, shoulders back. As I walk into the hospital I get more than a handful of stares. I’m suddenly the center of attention. There must be two dozen people right here in the immediate area. Patients waiting to be seen, receptionists behind the front desk, doctors in scrubs.
Everything is new and clean, well lit. I wouldn’t know I wasn’t in America without the hushed speech in Kosztylan making my ears burn.