Page 28 of The Alliance

Luckily for both of us, I was familiar with putting on a suit and I managed to get us both dressed, our ties perfectly-tied and straight, and us both downstairs in time for the party. Gramps might have a particular soft spot for me but I wasn’t sure he’d forgive even me for being late to our Alliance Party.

Chapter 11

Darren

John had out-done himself with this party. He’d arranged it to cover three rooms so there was more than enough space for us to spread out and not overwhelm each other. All of the dragons were feeling their instincts a bit more than usual and crowding them together wouldn’t have been a good idea.

The party made me feel a bit nostalgic, actually. It was at Seren and Dane’s mating party that I’d arrived at the Hoskins castle and met Prince. I could remember my first sight of him, branded into my memory. He’d looked so young and handsome.

And horrified. He’d looked horrified.

He’d just knocked over a whole tray of drinks, and was blaming himself.

I automatically looked round for him, just to check where he was. He wasn’t far from me but I didn’t like him being away from my side, not in a crowded room like this.

Normally, he wouldn’t have been further than a couple of feet from me, but Edith had gone to talk to a few of the guests in the other room and John was chatting to a few others, so I’d stayed with John. Not that I expected anything to happen, but I just wanted to make sure.

I was watching and listening, that was all.

My heart leapt into my mouth when I heard the crash. It was horribly familiar.

It was the sound of a load of books and ornaments being scattered from the top shelf of the bookcases and onto the floor.

Prince was standing in the middle of them, holding the white cat that always seemed to know where Prince was. I was starting to suspect she’d done that deliberately.

John rushed over to Prince, and I was right beside him.

“Prince, are you hurt?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m not hurt. I just caughtFrosty as she jumped. She—”

He looked round at the mess.

“Never mind,” I said. “Nothing’s broken.”

With that, I began to scoop things up and dump them back on the shelves. John took the cat from Prince and called Hannah over, putting the cat into her arms and asking her to take it upstairs and shut the door. She scurried away before anyone could remember that he’d already asked her to do that, and she’d forgotten.

Prince was helping to gather the scattered ornaments up and he suddenly gave a little cry.

I dropped what I was holding and turned to him.

He was staring down into a familiar little box.

Around us, the room was quiet. I knew Prince hated to make a scene and he’d blame himself for this, even though it wasn’t in any way his fault. I wanted Prince to relax, so I forced a little smile onto my face and asked, “Why do I always find you with that finger?”

Prince looked up at me, his eyes wide.

“Idon’talways have a finger! It just falls into my lap. Why do we evenhavea severed finger?”

At the interesting word ‘severed’, a few people turned away. Glimmer appeared beside us out of nowhere, making Prince jump.

He peered into the little box at the single digit inside.

“Oh,youhave it! I wondered what happened to that.”

Prince looked up at Glimmer, his expression queasy. “Is it yours?”

Glimmer shrugged. “No, I just noticed it was missing, that was all. When I took the body to the incinerator.”

---