“They’ll need to document it, at the very least.”
“This has all gotten way out of hand.”
“We have to file a report and—”
“But you’re leaving him in the dungeon. Have we even used the dungeon since the 1800s?”
“Obviously, we have used it occasionally, but we’re a peaceful country—”
“Who is suddenly in the business of abducting American tourists?”
The other members of the guard eyed one another uneasily, as if, like me, they could see the headlines now when the news broke of what had transpired in Town Square.
“I’m sorry,” I heard behind me, and turned to see Princess Cassie entering with Mallow and two other guards. She’d removed her Maleficent horns from her costume and held them in her arms. “Did I get Keeg in trouble?”
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong with him, aside from totally botching up my alias. But why did you wander off?”
“I told you, there were protesters for the Equal Marriage bill. I wanted to support them, since no one else in this family seems interested in doing what’s right.”
During the parade, Cassie had noticed the equal-marriage protestors in Town Square and insisted we support their cause. Of course I agreed with her, but considering the family discussion about the royal stance on the upcoming parliament bill, I knew it would all be on me if I took Cassie over to the protest.
“I understand. You have no idea how much I understand, but it was dangerous to go on your own. You should have asked me first.”
“And you would have said yes?” she asked skeptically.
“You’re too young to be making clever arguments,” I told her.
“I was trying to do the right thing,” she added, like she was pressing a hot poker into my chest to remind me of my own guilt for the silence I kept.
Funny to think that not an hour earlier, I had my tongue down another guy’s throat.
“Where is the King?” I asked Mallow, who stood at her side.
“He and the Queen are returning from their engagement after the speech in the eastern part of Praeve. They’ll be arriving shortly.”
“In the meantime, I’m going to go down and find this poor American, who we haveabducted,” I said, trying to dig that fact into Mallow’s and Cromley’s thick skulls, “and then hopefully I can talk him out of making this into some sort of huge catastrophe. I’m pretty confident we don’t need America sending some former president over to rescue one of their own citizens from our fucking dungeons.”
I stormed out of the conference room.
“The dungeon,” I muttered, pissed at the thought of that poor kid being confined to a place intended for lowly criminals.
On my trek, I got a call from Frederick. “Where are you in the castle?”
“North side. What about you?”
“I’m at the main entryway. I’ll come to you.”
“No, I’ll meet you on my way down to the dungeon.”
“Okay, I’ll deliver the bad news as soon as I see you.”
“Eager to hear it,” I said as facetiously as I could manage before hanging up. Between all the walking I’d done during the parade and the walk across the palace, my legs were getting nearly as sore as my mood.
I greeted Frederick with, “So tell me this bad news,” wanting more than anything to know what could possibly make this day any worse than it already was.
Frederick handed me his phone. “Apparently, the great citizens of our nation were as picture-happy as ever and captured what you thought was a private moment.”
He already had a picture pulled up on his cell—Keegan and me kissing. I was wearing my mask, though, and it was a side shot, so arguably, it wasn’t necessarily me.
