“You’d be risking your life.”
“It’s nothing less than you or Tobiah would do. Besides, I have no intentions of dying. Best case, I return with barrier pieces to help protect Aecor for a time. Worst, I return with information about the wraithland and where the borders are.”
“Worst case, I never see you again.”
“I’m reasonably certain I can’t die.” James hazarded a smile, but we both knew he was thinking about the mystery of his healing. Now he’d never know what happened. “Maybe I can find refugees as well.”
Maybe he could find his cousin, he meant.
I turned my eyes to the fire, watching flames jump up and around the blackening logs. “This is the only plan we have?”
“The only one that doesn’t involve giving up.” James leaned forward and touched my arm. “Let me do this. I know I can.”
The idea of sending James into the wraithland was appalling, not just because the wraithland was a nightmare come to life, but because I needed him here. But he was the best choice for this mission, and if there was even the slimmest chance that Tobiah and the Ospreys had survived, James would be the one to find them.
“Prince Colin won’t permit it.”
“I know how we’ll deal with Prince Colin.”
I nodded. “I won’t stop you, then. We need any parts of the barrier you can recover. In the morning, I’ll work with Paige and her new assistants to see if there’s any way to convert one of the unused factories into something like Tobiah’s barrier facility. We may not be able to construct an entire barrier here, but we can do something.”
We spent the remainder of the night discussing who would go with James, and what routes they’d take into Skyvale. When we’d finished our tea and they started for the door, I hugged both of them. Melanie for the friends we’d lost. And James for the hope he still carried.
“Remember, this won’t be a rescue mission,” I whispered. “I don’t want you to stay in the wraithland any longer than it takes to fetch the barrier.”
“I know,” he said, and they left.
Alone, I opened the entangled notebook James had left on his chair.
Page by page, I read through the letters Tobiah and I had written each other, and the last string of notes and pleas I’d left.
I opened a jar of ink and dipped a pen.
How long have you been gone, Tobiah? Since we last talked? Was it that night? That hour?
I’ve only just had confirmation that Skyvale has fallen and even though part of me suspected this whole time, I hoped. I hoped. But if you’d survived an attack on Skyvale, you’d have reached me by now.
The last time we wrote, I wanted to tell you something, but I didn’t. Maybe there’s no point anymore. But. But Tobiah, I miss you.
I miss you and I wish you were here.
Love,
Wilhelmina
Tears swam in my eyes as I cleaned the pen and then placed my hands on the notebook. “Go to sleep,” I whispered. “Be a normal notebook again. Nothing more.”
THIRTY-SIX
MY EYES WERE gummy in the morning, aching with the loss of Tobiah and the Ospreys and an entire kingdom I’d been raised to hate, but grown to love.
In spite of the grief, there was work to do, and I needed to appear strong. Truly, I was stronger; keeping the notebooks active had been draining me, and without them I had a chance of enduring the day.
Today was an important day. Historic, maybe.
Tomorrow would be bigger.
I sat still as Danie smoothed powder under my eyes to conceal the evidence of my late, restless night. She found a soft, dove gray dress and waited while I changed behind the partition.
“Will there be anything else, Your Majesty?” she asked, once she’d finished braiding my hair.
“That’s all.” I smiled as warmly as possible. “When you admire Sergeant Wallace today, maybe you should try speaking to him, too.”
Her throat and cheeks flushed. “Oh, I couldn’t. He’s much too good for me.”
“Never say that.” I stepped forward and squeezed her arm as I would have Melanie’s or Paige’s, and Danie tensed. Though she touched me all the time to do my hair or apply cosmetics or help me dress, she was always quick and efficient, never casual. I was a flasher queen, commander of the wraith boy: I was terrifying.
When I backed away, Danie forced her shoulders down. “Maybe I’ll try. Good day, Your Majesty.” She was out of the room in seconds. That probably counted as fleeing.
I grabbed my black notebook and papers, and headed out the door a moment later.
“What did you do to Danie?” Paige asked. “She looked somewhere between alarmed and ill when she came running out.”
Behind us, Melanie fished a coin from her pocket and gave it to James; he’d won the bet.
I sighed as we headed to the council room. “I’m trying to be friendly to the staff. To show them I care.”