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She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little at the chill in the passageway, and sent me a look of dawning suspicion. “It’s Dulcie, right?”
I did not so much as blink. “I fail to grasp your meaning.”
“You’re here in the passageway, by the secret entrance to my room, because Dulcie’s in there.”
I hadn’t known. But my foolish heart beat faster to hear it. “Dulcie. Your friend…”
“Yeah, duh. Like you have trouble remembering who she is.”
“You are angry with me.”
Her eyes grew tender again. “No. Never. I just… I saw the way you looked at her the other night. And the way she looked at you. Valbrand, you do have to ask yourself, where can it go?”
Nowhere, I silently replied. It was a truth I fully accepted. “We shared a dance.” I sketched the most casual of shrugs. “It means nothing.” And it didn’t, not in the greater scheme of things. I had felt something powerful when I looked in Dulcie’s eyes, and experienced a thoroughly shaming physical response to her. But it was of no consequence, I kept telling myself. And I would hardly have occasion to see her again. I asked my sister gently, “You object to my dancing with your friend?”
“No. No, of course not. It’s only…she doesn’t have an inkling of what we’re up against here. I don’t want her involved. I want her to enjoy her visit to Gullandria and I want her to fly home safe and sound the day after the wedding.”
“And so she shall. As for tonight… I knew a strange foreboding. It caused a restlessness within me. I looked in on Eric. And then, unbeknownst to him, on our father. I checked on Elli and Hauk.” Elli was our sister and Hauk was Elli’s husband. “Hauk woke, of course. He saw it was I and rose to speak with me briefly, vowing that all was well with them and their unborn babe. After that, I came here to assure myself that you, like the others, were undisturbed.”
“I’m fine. Honestly.”
“Good, then.”
“Eric’s awake?”
I chuckled. “Go to him. Find out for yourself.”
She came closer, laid her hand on my arm and brushed a quick kiss against the mask. “Don’t hang around in the passageways all night. Please?”
“You mustn’t concern yourself with me.” I touched the device on my belt. “I’ll signal if I require your aide in repulsing intruders.”
She made a scoffing sound. “Valbrand, you’re a little overboard on this, don’t you think? Nothing suspicious has happened in months.” Her pretty lips curved down in a scowl. “Not since that SOB Sorenson escaped us.” My sister had a special enmity toward the traitor, Jorund Sorenson. Before we found him out, Sorenson had pretended to be her friend in order to get close enough to try to kill her. “There’s no reason for you to—”
I put a gloved finger to her chattering mouth. “Go. Remind my friend what a fortunate man he is.”
“Will you go back to your rooms? Get some sleep? Nothing’s going to happen here, in the palace, in the middle of the night.”
I took her by the shoulders and turned her gently toward the waiting corridor. “Go.”
She sent me one last fond, exasperated glance over her shoulder before she hurried off down the gleaming stone hallway.
I watched until she’d turned the corner, and then continued watching, until the light from her lantern faded to nothing.
Utter blackness. It was good. Soothing to the formless anxieties I’d been experiencing that night.
I ducked back into the alcove a few feet from the now-invisible entrance to my sister’s rooms and, for a while, I simply stood there, arms crossed over my chest, surrounded by darkness, lulled by the gift of blindness, velvet black all around me…
Yes. I confess. I was thinking of the redhead on the other side of the looking glass. Thinking how simple it would be: to press the spot that would open the wall, to step through the glass.
I pictured her sleeping, wild coils of red hair poured over white pillows. Myself, the handsome prince I once was, bending close for the kiss that would wake her from her dreams…
It was but a fantasy.
In the world of reality, it never could have been—and it would never be.
Once, as a man who dedicated his life to his country and to the sacred duty to someday earn the throne, I could not have allowed myself a dalliance with a commoner from California. Not such a commoner as she, in any case—one with stars in her eyes and true love on her mind.
That would have been wrong. Cruel.
In the months since my return home, I had come to realize that the man I was on leaving had been vain, one who preened in pleasure at his handsome face and lean form, at his very goodness. And yet, all vanity aside, I did strive, in those earlier days, to be a better man. If I gave love casually, it was only to women who gave it back in kind.
Now, since the horror, I gave no love of any kind.
Everything was changed. Without and within.
My father insisted we could simply continue at the point where we had left off, that I should resume pursuing my former goal. That I would still one day be king.
I knew differently. I would never be king. I lived on for one purpose only. To root out and destroy the threat to my family.
Thus, when it came to the redhead from California, nothing was changed. The reasons might be different, but the truth remained the same: I had nothing to offer her. I might dream of her a little. But in practice, I would leave her—and the emotions she stirred in me—strictly alone.
How long did I stand there, in the dark, thinking of honest eyes and Titian hair, tormenting myself with what I wouldn’t do?
Too long.
At last I bestirred myself. My little sister was right. Lurking in the secret passageways was a senseless waste of time, time that would be better spent in slumber. There was no danger here. Only empty shadows and a futile longing for a tender touch I would never know.
I slid my thumb to the switch of my flashlight.
In that fraction of a second before light spilled out in front of me, I saw a glow—another light, moving toward me down the passageway.
Another light, and the sounds of stealthy footfalls approaching.
Chapter 4
In my sleep, I heard the strangest sounds: heavy grunts, the thuds of fists on flesh.
“Wha—?” My eyes popped open.
For about a half a second, I was sure I must be having a really vivid nightmare. But then something fell against the bed.
A man’s voice growled low, “I’ll cut yer balls off, fitzhead.” The bed shook again. There was another volley of thudding blows.
I let out a disgustingly wimpy little yelp. Scooting fast, kicking with my feet, I scuttled to a sitting position—up hard against the headboard. Cowering there, trying to blink the last traces of sleep from my eyes, I had a clear view of what was going on.
Three masked men. Brawling. I blinked some more and shook my head. But blinking didn’t help. They were all three still there, below the dais at the foot of the bed, two in ski masks, one in black leather.
One of the ski masks had drawn a gun. The guy in leather threw up a lean leg and kicked. The gun went flying. I watched it come spinning toward me.
Plop. It landed on the bed, a few feet from my Pipe-Dream pink toes. I gaped at it, gulped—then shifted my gaze to the fight again.
The guy in leather was still kicking. Some major kung fu moves, I kid you not. His boot connected with the other guy’s head. That guy went down.
But now the second ski mask had his gun out. The one in leather ducked as the gun went off. It made an odd pinging, airy sound. Silencer? I guess.
The shot hit an armoire over in the corner, splitting the gorgeous dark wood. The guy in leather dived for the guy with the gun. The shooter toppled, his second shot going into the ceiling, sending plaster trickling down. The fall broke his grip and the second gun went spinning under a bureau.
Ski mask number one was rallying, crouched now on hands and knees in a corner, shaking his head, moaning a little. I looked at the gun by my feet.
Better get that, I thought.
In the meantime, the one in leather and the second guy were up again and trading blows. The guy in leather delivered a right hook that sent ski mask number two lurching back. He hit the wall and steadied himself, then leapt on the guy in leather, who reeled back and bumped a chair, which hit a side table. A china lamp tottered and hit the rug, not shattering, but cracking neatly in half with a sound like a big eggshell splitting.
I whimpered some more and reached out my foot toward the gun.
The guy in leather slithered free of the one who’d just jumped him. He landed a punch—a good one, hard in the belly.
“Whoof,” said the guy in the ski mask, a sound halfway between a hard grunt and a big dog’s low bark. The one in the leather mask hit him again, a lightning fast karate-type chop to the back of the neck.
The guy crumpled to the fabulous antique rug and lay still beside the split-open lamp. Ski mask number two was down for good, it looked like to me.
I had my pink toes curled over the gun. Wincing, sure any second I would shoot myself in the foot, I inched the gun toward me over the crimson velvet. When it was close enough to grab by just reaching down, I got it in my shaking hands and aimed it, my quivering index finger on the trigger.
“Stop,” I said in a terrified croak. “Freeze.”
As if anybody cared. Ski mask number one was through shaking his head. He lurched upright and launched himself at the one in leather, taking them both to the floor. They rolled, punching at each other, grunting as each blow connected.
“No,” I said, in a tiny squeak. “Uh, ooh, ah, ga.…” I held the gun out at them with both trembling hands and jerked and twitched in terror and sympathetic pain as each blow landed.
No, I was not particularly helpful.
But think about it.
Whose side should I have been on, anyway? Who should I be shooting? Like I had a clue. Like I had any idea why this was even happening—and then, all of a sudden, before I could even begin to make up my mind what to do next…
It was over.
The guy in leather was still standing, the other two sprawled at his feet, neither one moving. The expressionless black mask turned my way. “Are you injured?”
I held the quivering gun on him and slowly shook my head.
He extended a hand. “Bring the gun to me.” He said each word with great care—as if addressing a total hysteric. And you know what? At that moment, that’s pretty much what I was.
“No,” I managed to get out in a wimpy little whisper. “I don’t think so.”
That gave him pause. For about a half a second.
And then he simply ignored me. I braced against the headboard, the gun still pointed—and still quivering—in his general direction. He went about tying up the guys in the ski masks.
He did it with lamp cords. Just ripped them from the wall and the bases of the lamps and crouched over the men he’d beaten, yanking their lax hands together at their backs and whipping the cords around their pressed-together wrists.
It was all very smooth, accomplished in maybe sixty seconds, tops. Once he’d tied them both, he tore off their masks, one and then the other, grabbing each by the hair to get a good look at his face, then letting go with a shove, so their heads thudded hard against the rug.
Did he recognize them? I didn’t ask.
As he stood from unmasking the second guy, it came to me very clearly that now he would be dealing with me. I didn’t think I wanted that.
“Stop,” I croaked. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
He took a step toward me.
“I mean it. I am going to shoot.”
Another step.
About then, I realized…
I couldn’t do it. I could not pull that trigger. Not for the life of me—and it seemed at the time that the life of me was precisely the issue. He took another step.
The guards!
The words exploded in my brain. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of the guards before? Maybe they were too far off—beyond at least two sets of doors, who knew how many hallways between—to have heard the fight. But by golly they were close enough to hear me scream.
I did scream. “Guards! Help!” And then I just shut my eyes, threw back my head and let the pure sound rip.
It was amazing, the earsplitting perfection of that scream. Jamie Lee in Halloween could not hold a candle, you hear what I’m saying? I screamed again, piercing as the first time.
I heard doors flung back somewhere in the suite, booted feet pounding my way.
I stopped screaming and opened my eyes.
The man in the leather mask had vanished—escaped, no doubt, through the empty mirror frame into the secret passageway. There were only the split-open lamp and a couple of overturned chairs, the bound, unconscious men on the floor, and me—in my SpongeBob pajamas with a big black gun in my hand.
Chapter 5
The two guards kicked open the bedroom door at almost the precise second that Brit and Eric burst through the mirror frame.
All four had weapons drawn, though Brit wore her Wile E. Coyotes and Eric had on soft drawstring flannel pants, his chest bare. They all froze at the sight of the two men on the floor. They took in the overturned furniture, the broken lamps and shattered knickknacks—and me. On the bed. With the gun.
All four gaped. Seriously. They went slack-jawed at the sight.
Which struck me as hilarious, just hysterically funny. A wild trill of laughter escaped me.
“Dulce?” Brit said my name as if she wasn’t really sure it was me sitting there.
And I was instantly appalled at myself. What was I laughing at? This was not funny. Not funny at all. I shut my mouth on a dry sob.
There was an extended moment of bleak silence.
