Page 96 of The Prince and His Stolen Throne
Sometime after Wilde left, the inn reverted to its old state of decay. I stepped carefully across the wooden floorboards, glad they only creaked slightly in protest. The stairs were another matter, since saplings grew out of every step, taking up most of the space and creating dozens of tripping hazards. I pressed my back firmly against the wall and felt around with my foot before proceeding, and I still tripped over a root on the last stair.
Maximus caught me before I faceplanted on the ground. “Are you alright?”
I nodded and shrugged him off, but he grabbed my arm as I tried to pull away, glowering down at it.
“What did he do to you?”
Still a little groggy, the snarled question confused me. After Wilde left, I’d tried to sleep for a few more hours, but the old man’s plans gummed up the gears in my brain. A hundred ideas raced through my head, too fast for me to catch and analyze the possibilities. I stared at my arm for a long moment before registering a red, swollen cut. “The librarian,” I reminded Maximus, twisting my arm out of his grip and rolling my sleeve down.
Guilt flashed across his face, and he quickly tucked his hands behind his back. “Sorry.”
“It’s not that bad, but I wouldn’t say no to a health potion.”
He nodded eagerly and moved to the center of the room. Instead of trusting the furniture, he’d laid out a bedroll and used his pack as a pillow. Knowing his dislike for Wilde, I wondered if Maximus had gotten any sleep, or if he’d stayed awake to keep watch.
Maximus handed me Angelica’s pouch so I could search through it. I found one of the green bottles, popped the cork, and drank the whole thing in one gulp. The cinnamon taste lingered in my mouth as the scattered papercuts smoothed over and vanished.
“Why didn’t Will heal you?” Maximus asked, his guilt souring back into a glower.
I ignored the angry undertones and treated the question like genuine curiosity. “He doesn’t practice healing magic.”
“What kind of magicdoeshe practice?” He waved around at the inn’s front room. The cozy sitting area had turned into a graveyard of broken furniture. The check-in counter had collapsed again, sloping backwards, and buckling under its own weight. The rug was so dirty that my inky footprints disappeared into the rest of the grime. “The inn was perfectly fine last night, and now it’s rotted faster than meat left in the sun.”
“I guess the bubble popped.”
Before Maximus could ask what I meant, a loud yelp drew his attention upstairs. While he was looking away, I quickly shoved Angelica’s pouch into the bottom of my pack.
Fitz soon followed the yelp, stumbling down the stairs. His tawny hair and clothes were rumpled, and his eyes shifted behind his glasses in wild agitation. “I woke up in a rat’s nest,” he whispered with a deep shudder.
“Me too!” Delilah announced with much more enthusiasm as she jumped past the last two stairs, landing with a wide grin, her arms spread wide like a gymnast.
Fitz eyed her warily. “Please tell me you didn’t eat any of them.”
Delilah licked her sharp teeth and giggled. She skipped across the front room, gracefully hopped over a rotten section of the floor, and sidled up next to me. “Why did Will leave? Is he mad at us?” she whispered.
Maximus muttered something I couldn’t hear. If I had, it probably would have just started an argument. The old man would love it if I sowed discord throughout the group, but I didn’t want to pit the royal champions against each other. They still needed to work together, now and in the future.
“He returned to his master,” I explained. He’d want to help the Lord of Grimnight prepare for our arrival.
“Damn, I’d thought of a few more questions for him—” Fitz stopped as we all glared at him for different reasons. He held up his hands in surrender and forced a smile. “Which we can figure out on our own!”
Maximus nodded. Now that he knew Wilde wouldn’t be joining us again, his expression softened, and his stance relaxed.
Fitz straightened and announced, “Today, we will finally break the decades long curse on the Grimnight Forest, freeing Traumstead from an evil mage. In this, we honorably serve and protect the Desolated Lands.” He paused, waiting for someone else to say something. When no one did, he asked with less confidence, “Does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish that?”
“We’ll need to scout the lair first,” I said. “Figure out what kind of defenses we’re up against and identify the anchor before stumbling into a fight.”
“Angelica’s already inside,” Fitz said. “Maybe she’s learned something?”
“How would we get that information from her?”
“You have a mirror that lets you talk to Will, don’t you? Can you use it to speak to Angelica?”
I’d never tried to use the mirrors to talk to anyone except Wilde and the old man. I didn’t even know if the enchantments allowed that. “I can try, but no promises.”
The compact was buried at the bottom of my pack, tucked between clothes. As my hand closed over it, I chanted in my head:Please don’t be black, please don’t be black.I sighed in relief when I saw the shiny gold outside. No messages from Wilde I would have to hide.
Hopefully he wouldn’t answer a summons that wasn’t meant for him.
