Page 23 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
I nod. We should have interrogated the rest of the school children—they were probably afraid to admit what happened and get in trouble for being in the woods in the first place.
“And so you got lost?”
“No!” He shakes his head, and his eyes dart toward his sister.
Gwen wails louder, her tears still streaming down her face. “Ig-g-got lost!”
“I had to go find her,” Archer explains flatly.
Again, I find myself nodding. “I would have done the same thing. My sister still gets herself into all sorts of trouble.”
Kastian clears his throat pointedly, but Archer doesn’t seem to notice. When he answers, his tone is slightly less hostile. “Well, I found her near this house. I was mad, because she could have gotten hurt. She’s too young to play that game anyway.”
Gwen wails louder and Fox pats her awkwardly on the head.
“Here, eat this,” Jett says, grabbing a handful of candy off a shelf and handing it to Gwen.
“Is that a good idea?” I ask sharply, eyeing the candy.
“I just ate a few of them, they’re not poisoned if that’s what you mean.”
I nod and refocus on Archer. “You were angry, and then what?”
“I broke a window,” he says flatly. “I didn’t mean to. A rock just went flying out of nowhere.”
Realization dawns on me, and I can suddenly picture the entire scene. They were deep in the woods, came upon the baker’s house and had an argument. Archer has strong magic—that much is obvious—but it’s not very well controlled, so he broke a window just like at his school.
“Did you break that barrel too?” I ask, jerking my head toward the cornmeal on the floor.
He nods. “That one was on purpose. I was trying to break the door open.”
“That was smart,” Kastian comments. “We wouldn’t have known you were down here otherwise.”
Archer almost smiles. “So when the window broke we ran up to the house and looked inside. The rock had flown inside and hit a cake. The entire town is talking about the royal wedding and we were afraid it might be the wedding cake.”
Gwen, who’s crying has calmed down somewhat, takes a sticky red candy out of her mouth. “We didn’t want to get in trouble for ruining the wedding, and no one seemed to be home, so we went inside and…and—” she takes another shuddering breath and starts to cry again.
“—and the witch came home,” Archer finishes. “She got so mad she was shaking and screaming. We tried to run away, but she caught us and threw us down here.”
If I hadn’t seen all the bones on the floor I would have asked if they knew why she imprisoned them, but the answer seems obvious. I find myself shaking with anger again and have to take a few more deep breaths before I can talk without scaring them.
“Alright,” I grind out as calmly as possible. “Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here and then I’ll deal with the witch...or whatever the hell she is.”
“Kill her, you mean?” Archer asks.
I glance at him, weighing my answer, before deciding it’s not worth lying. He might have to see it happen anyway. “Yeah.”
He smiles for the first time. “Can I help?”
I snort a startled laugh. “Maybe.”
“That’s interesting,” Kastian mutters, clearly following his own train of thought.
“What is?”
“They used magic to break a window and I can conjure a light—” he demonstrates by making a flame flicker to light in his hand “—but we can’t get the door open. Maybe her spell is confined to the door itself.”
“Maybe,” I agree darkly. “But that doesn’t help us get it open.”
