Page 89 of Solstice

“No, Uncle. Protect yourself. I’ll be okay.”

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I do not like this. Take three of my most trusted guards. They will stay until after the wedding, until you can sort this out.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.” Moreover, I didn’t trust guys I didn’t know.

“You didn’t ask,” he said. “I insist. You can’t tell your mother. This is what uncles are for, huh?”

I laughed. “Thank you. I’m not worthy.”

“You’re Romanov. That is enough.” He smiled and kissed my cheek again. “For now.”

* * *

“Holy shit.”Ivy stared into the back of the van with her mouth open. “Dmitri just found her wandering around his house?”

I nodded. “She’s been looking for Poppy. That explains why she came to the cabin over Solstice; Poppy was there.”

“Your Highness,” Ivy said to the queen. “Please, let me first say?—”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t understand. Donnelly was right. She’s been bewitched.”

The queen’s eyes darted from me to Ivy and back again, eyebrows furrowed as we talked. She’d settled down now that I’d cut the bindings on her hands and taken the gag out. She still didn’t seem to remember me or Ivy, but I believed she could tell we meant her no harm.

I inhaled my cigarette and glanced back at the house where our relatives mingled, drinking alcohol like the world wasn’t ending. No one could see us out here, no one could know about her. “I tried to make her tell the truth, but that went as well this time as it did last.”

Right on cue, the queen babbled something in a language that didn’t sound real. Ivy took a deep breath and took a step forward, holding her hands up in solidarity. The queen backed away at first, but she must have found something in Ivy that seemed peaceful because she slowly leaned forward.

She put a hand on Diana’s wrist, a gentle, simple touch, nothing to suggest anything untoward. Their eyes closed, and I held my breath, waiting to see if Ivy’s gift would work where mine hadn’t. But she shook her head and dropped her hand to her side.

“I can’t get through, either. It’s like…she has a force field around her mind. It’s powerful.”

“Well, shit.” I stabbed my cigarette out and threw the butt in a nearby garbage. “Any ideas what to do with her?”

Ivy shook her head. “Christ, we can’t keep her in the Range Rover all night.”

“What about the servants’ quarters?” Mount Vernon had been ripped apart and renovated five different times since the original Washingtons owned it, and sometime during the Victorian era, an entire servants’ corridor had been added in the basement, replacing the old wine cellars and kitchen.

“It would take one outburst for everyone to hear her.”

I rubbed at the crease between my eyebrows, a headache brewing on the horizon. “We could take her home, maybe keep her there until this is all over.”

“I mean, Siobhan told us to find her, right? That she was the only thing that could protect us from Alberich?”

I mulled that over. “Yeah, but what good is she in this condition?”

Ivy crossed her arms and looked back at the house. “Taking her home is probably the safest. The house is warded. The king won’t be able to enter without a welcome.”

“Dmitri gave me a few guys to watch her. I’ll ask them to keep her entertained.” I gestured to the big dudes standing next to another black SUV a few yards away. “They’ll stay with her for the wedding.”

Ivy shook her head and pursed her lips. “I don’t like this.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

She pulled her lip between her teeth. “Lex…maybe we should stop this? We haven’t heard from Siobhan or Poppy or any of the others. We were supposed to regroup three days ago.”

I should have told her Poppy had been hiding Diana all this time, but that too would have to wait. “Whatever shit they had to do to rally the troops, it didn’t sound like it would be easy.”

“What if they’re dead?” Ivy’s eyes radiated all the anxiety in her body. “What if we’re on our own?”

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