Page 86 of Falling Princess

“I don’t know exactly. My dad told me the gist of things, but not the details. I’m not supposed to tell you.”

I groaned with frustration. “I hate being cut out like this.”

“Zosia, we’re supposed to protect you. You wanted freedom. Everyone here has been trying to give it to you. It doesn’t help that you never appreciate the fact that we’re all busting our butts to give you what you want, in the middle of war preparations.”

“I know. I appreciate it. I do.” Almost as much as I resent it. This isn’t even close to the independence I longed for. Once again, my father has decided what is best for me, and dictated the terms of my life, without really understanding that freedom, to me, means making choices for myself.

Yet he went out of his way to give me as much of what I wanted as he could, without letting me get assassinated in my careless ignorance, so I swallowed my angst and meekly buckled into the back seat of Cata’s car, next to Raina. Lorcan took the front.

Nobody spoke a word during the drive. We pulled up to the curb around the corner from a couple of tram lines. Lorcan opened the car door and was gone before the car completely stopped.

It amazes me how quick and silent he can move.

“Cata.” I leaned forward between the seats to talk to her while she drove. “Why can’t I know what’s going on?”

She licked her lips and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Zosia, sit back and keep your head down for a bit, would you?”

I sank down until my bright hair wasn’t visible from outside.

“Here. Take my hat.” Raina passed me a plain gray wool beret. Awkwardly, I wiggled out of my white coat and draped it over my lap.

“I knew I should have changed my jacket.”

“Yes, well, time for recriminations later. I should have come sooner.” Cata jerked the steering wheel. A horn blared. We cut across two lanes of traffic and down a side street. “Stupid academic meetings. Interminable.”

She pulled into a parking lot and killed the engine. “Everyone, keep your head down.”

We waited.

Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Three. My leg started to cramp. Cata, bent across the center console, fumbled in the glove compartment on the passenger side. I heard a click. Dark metal glinted dully. A gun.

“How is sitting in a parking lot in the middle of Edinburgh safer than being at Royals?” I asked. This all felt a bit melodramatic and silly. Also, frightening.

“Keep your voice down.” She scanned the exterior. “We have an inside threat.”

Raina gasped.

“A what?” I hissed.

“An inside threat. A spy. Saskaya’s lab has been tampered with. We don’t know whether the leak is here or back home, or if one of our diplomats is collaborating with the Skía. Which is why Lorcan has to check out a lead.”

I didn’t have enough information to make sense of why a lab a thousand miles away was a threat to my immediate well-being severe enough to constitute my removal from school. I accepted that for now, all I could do was follow orders.

“There you are, you bastard.”

Cata rolled down the window and aimed the gun out the corner. Her hair is just as visible as mine, if not more so.

“Where?”

“Keep your heads down,” she snapped. Raina and I obediently scrunched into little balls. We waited.

Nothing happened.

“Good. We lost him.” Cata did something to the hilt of the pistol—the handle, whatever it’s called, I know nothing of firearms—and stuck it into the belt of her coat. “Zosia, I need your cap.”

I passed it to her. She pulled it over her topknot and sat up, starting the engine. A shadow lurched at us the instant her headlights came on.

“Shit!” She gunned it. The sedan jerked forward. The man fell. Tires bumped. I grabbed Raina’s hand and crushed it, trying not to think about the fact that we ran over a man and left him for dead.

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