Go.
I flew from the closet, leaping across broken furniture and out into the smoldering hallway. The smoking walls were a blur as I ran, faster than I ever had before, because I had to beat her. Had to make it out the front and into the streets before she realized I wasn’t bleeding and broken in the atrium.
Run.
I leapt down the stairs, relying on momentum over balance, my magic throwing open the doors so I didn’t lose my pace. The soles of my feet slapped against the paving stones, and I coated them in magic to protect them as I raced toward the gate, the guards watching me with astonishment. “The upstairs is on fire,” I gasped. “Go help.”
Then I was running in the street.
But where would I go? Who would help me? Who cared enough about my life to risk my father’s wrath? The answer was, and always would be, the same.
Marc.
Ignoring the startled expressions of those I passed, I zigzagged my way through the city, down carved white steps, over the river, and into the Dregs.
The tavern where I knew he was meeting the half-bloods appeared ahead, and I drove toward it, certain that despite my circuitous route, Lessa was behind me. Certain that she’d catch me and drag me home to my father.
The flimsy door swung on its hinges, and I shouldered past the proprietor, seeking the sense of power that only a full-blooded troll would possess.
Down.
My hands hit the door to the cellar, my feet catching on the frame. Then I was falling. I had a heartbeat to contemplate what a strange twist of fate it was that I should die from the very same accident I had just fled when magic enveloped me.
I landed softly on the ground, and all around were startled half-bloods who were even now fleeing in all directions.
Then Marc’s face was above my own. “Stones and sky, Pénélope,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I burst into tears, and said, “I’m pregnant.”
Chapter Eighteen
Marc
Those two words, those fateful two words explained everything. And yet I said, “What?”
Her expression crumpled. “I’m–”
I shook my head, forestalling the repetition. “I heard. I just… I don’t… How?” Another stupid question requiring another shake of my head to keep her from answering, because I damn well knew how.
Just as I damn well knew the consequences.
I sat down heavily next to Pénélope, the stone floor of the cellar cold beneath me. I felt a hand grip my shoulder and, looking up, I saw Tips. He was the lone half-blood who hadn’t fled, and his expression was filled with unexpected sympathy given his sentiments toward the aristocracy. But everyone knew who Pénélope was. Everyone knew the nature of her affliction.
And everyone, including me, knew there was little chance of her surviving this.
“I’ll tell them not to disturb you, my lord.” He inclined his head to Pénélope. “My lady.”
His boots trod heavily up the stairs, and then we were alone.
“He knows then?” I asked, staring at the toes of my boots, because it hurt to look at her. And because I could feel, ever so faintly, the sense of a third troll’s magic. My eyes burned, and I scrubbed at them furiously, keeping my hood pulled forward though I knew she hated it.
“Yes.” Her voice was toneless, hands smoothing the fabric of her destroyed gown. “He had Lessa try to kill me. I escaped, but…”
But there was no escape in Trollus.
“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” I said. “I’ll speak to the King again. Now that you’re pregnant, that has to change things.”
“Again?”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, not wanting to tell her but knowing I had no choice. “I spoke to him after I last saw you. He… My aunt…” I broke off. I didn’t want her to know about the foretelling, which all of a sudden made a great deal more sense. The fey saw all. They’d known.
“Then there is no point.” Her voice was chiding. “You know if he wouldn’t help before, he won’t help now. I’m not worth the cost. Especially not now.”
And in my mind’s eye, I could see the King’s face when I asked the boon: a mixture of irritation and scorn. The condescension in his voice as he explained that he had no interest in meddling in Angoulême interests for the sake of a girl whose death was already in the cards.
“Then I’ll kill him. And your grandmother and Lessa, too, if I have to.”
“And be executed for it. You’re no more exempt from the law than Ana?s is.” She curled in on herself, tucking her knees to her chest. “If you believe I’ll sacrifice your life just to save my own skin, you’re mistaken.”
“It’s not just you, though,” I said. Though even if it had been, I still would have been willing. She was precious to me, and the idea of a life without her was intolerable. A life alone. Maybe if we’d never walked this path, such an existence might’ve been made palatable, my days filled in service to Tristan, my passion fulfilled by the fight for our cause. But we had walked this path, and now, knowing what life could be like, how good and precious it could be, there was no going back. And there was no replacing her.
Her forehead dropped to her knees, one hand pressed to her stomach while the other balled into a fist.
No replacing them, I silently amended, knowing what I had to do. “Pénélope, do you trust me?”
She lifted her face, then said, “With my life.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I’m going to have to risk it to save it.”
* * *
I strolled back home, Pénélope trailing behind under a cloak of illusion that I had more trouble than usual maintaining. My magic wavered and trembled, and without my hood, the concentration on my face would have given away that I was up to something, if not what. I deliberately avoided Tristan, knowing where he’d be on his inspection of the tree, because if he discovered my intentions, he’d do everything in his power to stop me.
We went in through the servants’ entrance, several of them eyeing me with interest, but it was better than being waylaid by my parents if I’d come in the front, especially since they weren’t alone. There was an oppressive weight of power in the house, which meant the King was here. I was confident about my ability to sneak Pénélope past my family, but not past him. He missed nothing.
“Wait here,” I whispered once we reached my room and I dropped the illusion, revealing Pénélope’s wide eyes and tight expression. Then I hurried down the hall toward my mother’s chambers, where I proceeded to dig around in her closet until I found what I was looking for.
Back in my room, I said, “Put this on,” and handed her the leather and armor that had been my grandmother’s. “You’ll move easier in it.”
“And where exactly will I be wearing it?” she asked, setting the garments aside while she worked on unfastening the buttons on her dress. I turned to give her privacy, hearing the faint splash of water as she wiped away the filth from her ordeal.
I hesitated, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer. “The labyrinth.”