“Who do you think?” I practically shout. The words reverberate off the cobblestone streets and down the hill, echo out toward the sea. “My brother should be king. Who do you think wants us dead?”
I expect outrage or anger—for someone to strap me to a bed and pump me full of meds until I stop talking crazy. Nothing could surprise me more than when he looks down at the bundle in my hands and asks, “Where did you get that box?”
I’m so shocked that for a second I don’t answer. “It’s … It was my mother’s.”
“Where did she get it?”
“From her mother,” I snap. If we’re going to fight, I’d really like to get it over with.
“They told me about you,” he says, but it’s almost like a threat. “They said you had issues. I’m not supposed to believe you.”
“That’s a very solid game plan. But it doesn’t mean I’m lying.”
“No.”
“Fine. Believe me. Don’t believe me. I don’t care. And, for the record, I don’t want to marry you and have your babies either, but it’s that or be hunted until I die, so …”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it?” I look into his eyes and stalk closer. “You know the woman you just saw? The one who was singing that creepy, made-up song?”
“It’s not made up,” he snaps. I don’t argue.
“Well, she was your mom’s friend. Just like my mom was your mom’s friend. And together they went looking for the lost princess. That woman ended up in a mental institution for her trouble. My mom ended up dead.”
The prince is backing away again, but he’s no longer shaking. “They would have told me.”
“Do you really believe that?” I don’t mean to shout, and I don’t mean to sound sarcastic. But some things can’t be helped, I guess. “You didn’t know that there were tunnels beneath the city. You look like you’ve never even seen the city after dark. Have you?”
He doesn’t give me an answer, and I don’t wait for one.
“You think you know your parents? Well, trust me, you don’t. I don’t care if they’re royalty or military or schoolteachers or dentists or … I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. Because you never really know anyone. And that’s the only thing I know for sure.”
I don’t realize it, but I’ve slowly turned as I’ve been speaking, and when I finish I’m looking up at the palace on the hill. Spotlights shine upon it, and from here I can see the tower Ms. Chancellor locked me in at the beginning of the summer. I can almost feel that old panic start to rise again, knowing that, in a way, I’m still trapped and I’ll never be able to break free.
“So believe me or not, Your Highness, but that won’t make it any less true.”
I turn.
I stop.
I panic.
Because the future king of Adria is nowhere to be seen.
I should run, I know. I should look. But the streets and alleys are like a maze here. Worse. They’re like a maze where nothing runs straight and nothing runs even—where right now the prince could be running up toward the palace or down toward the sea. Or lower.
I look behind me. Thomas knows how to get into the tunnels now, so I bolt in that direction, expecting to see a flash, a peek. But the alley is empty and the opening to the tunnels is closed. I open the door and lean down, listen for the sound of running royal feet, but there is nothing but the drip, drip, drip of water. I know in my gut that I’m alone.
I stand and bolt back to the street, turning, looking. “Thomas!” I yell into the darkness, but Valancia is sleeping. I am alone. And the future king of Adria is gone.
I didn’t lose the prince.
I didn’t ask him to come with me. I didn’t tell him to follow. I certainly didn’t make him run off in the middle of the night down streets that I’m pretty sure he’s never even seen before.
I absolutely did not lose the future king of Adria.
Or so I tell myself over and over throughout the night.
By the next morning I’m not entirely sure that anyone is going to believe me.
Maybe he made it back, I tell myself. He’s a big boy—just a year younger than me. By the time I was his age I’d already lived a dozen lifetimes. But Thomas isn’t like that. He’s lived his whole life behind walls and gates and fences so high that the outside world never stood a shot of seeping in.
By his age, I was nestled deep inside a shell that was growing harder and harder every day. The world could still harm Thomas, I know, and that’s what scares me.
I should tell someone, I think. But who? And what should I say exactly?
Funny story. So last night, I snuck out of the palace to go see the boy I like and my friends who are trying to prove that the royal family are murdering psychos, but then my pseudo-boyfriend’s mom—who is an actual psycho—freaked out and I had to leave. Oh, and the prince followed me and heard all of this and then he freaked out and ran into the city and I didn’t know where to find him, so I just gave up and came back. Now what’s for breakfast?
No. I don’t think that would help matters at all, so I don’t say a word of it.
But I have to do something, I know, as I slide my mother’s puzzle box beneath my bed, then dress and start downstairs.