Page 106 of Enchanted Kingdom
I sat up a little as I looked him over. “Are you drunk right now?”
He moved his head back and forth. “Mmm, a little.”
“So that’s a yes.”
Keir shrugged and said as if it explained everything, “Everyone else usually gets completely annihilated.”
I shook my head, not completely understanding, but also never wanting to find out. “Well, I was going to talk to you about something, but I don’t want to do so if you aren’t sober, so raincheck until the morning?”
Keir looked at me a long moment. “About everything you found out today?”
I inhaled deeply. “Yes, that.”
Keir sat at the foot of my bed. “I’m just relieved you know.”
I looked down at my hands, trying my best to keep my mouth shut.
“Hey,” he said gently. “What’s wrong? Too much information today?”
I shook my head and tried to keep the tears out of my eyes. “It’s okay. We can just talk about it in the morning.”
He cocked his head. “I won’t be able to sleep knowing you’re upset about something, particularly in this state, so hit me with it.”
“I just...” I was struggling to put into words how I was feeling about being in the know about everything going on. “I understand why you let your brother decide what you could tell me, but you didn’t have to tell me everything. You could’ve just told me...something?”
He sighed. “I could have, yes. And I should have. At the time I just kept thinking I was protecting you by keeping you in the dark. The less you knew the better.” He paused. “At the beginning, that first night, I was just convinced you were a disloyal. And I was excited. I thought you’d already know things you shouldn’t. I hoped you’d be my ultimate ally.”
“But I wasn’t?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. You just weren’t in the way I thought you’d be. I kept trying to figure out how much you knew or figure out what your angle was.”
My forehead creased.
“You didn’t know anything. Yet at the same time you still knew enough to loathe my father.” He paused. “I’ll confess when I first figured out you weren’t one of the disloyals in the Assemblages, I was a little disappointed.”
What?!
“But that lasted a whole day or two and then I knew that you were still everything I thought you were, you were just flying blind.”
“Okay...”
“Before this started, I always hoped I’d find a partner in crime, someone to help me—help us—take down my father. I still have that with you, and there isn’t a thing I would change about you.”
He was being brutally honest here. I didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the fact that I knew everything now or what was going on. Maybe a combination of the two. I didn’t know what to think.
“I had to fight my personal expectations about you too, I guess,” I offered.
He smirked. “And still do, I’m sure.”
“Wait,” I paused, “There are some disloyals within the Assemblages?”
Keir just smiled. “Yes. Varying degrees, but a few call themselves disloyal, yes.”
“As opposed to me who was but just didn’t know it?”
He gave me a nod. “Exactly.”
I squinted. “Aiyana?”
