Page 63 of The King's Maiden

Itwasenough, and whether I realized it right then or not, a major turning point for me and my Knight.

Chapter Eighteen

QUINN

Camelot Court was even more beautiful in the daylight and on the right side of the gate.

My initial sneak peek at it during my drive by had been like smelling a single flower in a huge field of roses. The deeper I went into the grounds, the more intoxicated I became by the surreal little world they’d been hiding away just outside of campus.

I fell in love with it a little bit on that first tour.

Which was the last thing I needed to do.

Parallel to the path I’d taken the first night, we passed the Round Tableau house. In the daylight, I realized the party had been on the first level, and it had a second level I didn’t visit. But I had no idea where the Round Tableau’s private rooms were within it.

Unless they were underground.

“Is the?—”

“Yes.” Landon nodded. “The tunnels led you to a level below where we held the party. They go to a few places on the grounds. One leads back to the main house, too.”

My eyebrows rose. “Where else?”

Landon shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets and walking ahead of me. And while that tiny detail brought up about a hundred new questions, I focused on the answers I needed more.

But I’d be revisiting those tunnels with him at some point, that much I was sure of.

Off in the distance, tall trees and cliffs surrounded the lake, jagged outcroppings of rock at various heights. Some even looked low enough to jump off. A floating dock hovered out in the middle of the water, and up ahead there was a longer, thinner dock than the one right behind the main house.

A breeze swept through the trees and ruffled our hair, and the water rippled with light, sparkling like diamonds in an expanse of cerulean blue. Birds too far away to see called out to one another. It felt like this secluded world somehow went on for miles.

As much as I wanted to tease Landon and point out that it reeked of privilege, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I stared at it, slightly awestruck, while he watched me from a few paces behind. When I opened my mouth to speak, I couldn’t really find the words.

The only place I’d ever belonged had been with my parents. When they were both gone, it felt like being on a lifeboat that was drifting out to sea—the lone survivor of a destroyed homeland staring at the wreckage behind them—surrounded by a vast world they didn’t have a place in anymore.

I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, and that feeling had been my constant companion for the last year.

But for just a moment, staring out from the shore at the lake, the loneliness faded.

Landon’s voice washed over me, drowning out the feeling even more. “Tell me.”

Attempting to maintain some lines between us, a simpler version of the truth was easier to admit, “This is so much more than I expected.”

Landon’s head tilted, as if he wanted to dig beneath my layers and see what I hid inside. “Camelot Court or The Quest?”

“Both.” I shot him a pointed look. “But the latter might be because my Knight has been withholding details.”

“Delaying your satisfaction in receiving them,” he corrected. “That’s all.”

“Potato. Potato.”

He huffed a laugh. “Don’t you mean po-ta-toe,po-ta-tah?”

“I said what I said. Now, details. Gimme.”

We approached a small dock with two Adirondack chairs set at the end. Landon led me by the hand, keeping me steady as I rounded the chair and sat down.

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