Prince James paused and canted his head at me. “What did you get?”
Interesting, how he wasn’t surprised I had things as well, almost as if he’d fully expected me to come prepared. Surely the man didn’t know me so well already.
“Our head housekeeper keeps a log of all offenses made against our staff and arranges a settlement for them,” I explained. “If there’s too many offenses—generally more than three—then she’ll handle the lord herself when they visit. Gillespie has many, many offenses against him, each correlating to when he stayed overnight to visit Princess Helena. Or…” I flipped a page and frowned. “A few of them don’t, but I bet he was visiting Prince Victor.”
Prince James cackled. “Multiple accounts verifying each other islovely. Edwin, I knew I could depend on you to think of helpful things. For my own part, I have someone looking into Gillespie’s criminal activity, and he has a month to report back to me. Either way, Helena, we’ll get you free of this bastard within the next three months. Hopefully within the next month.”
Princess Helena beamed, and it took me aback. I’d never seen her smile from the heart before in the decade I’d worked at the palace. It was a silent testament to how stressed and unhappy she’d been.
“Thank you so much, James. Truly.” She turned her smile on me. “And you, Edwin. I never would have thought to even look for those accounts, and they may help turn the tide.”
I gave her a half-seated bow. “I speak on behalf of the staff when I say we hate Lord Gillespie just as much as you do. We’ll do what we can to help you be rid of him.”
“Thank you. I’m heartily glad to know I have so many allies. For now, I’m content to wait and see what we can gather before devising a plan of action.”
“Very good. Then let’s switch topics. Royce, I believe I have the answer to this already, but you have no desire to be king, correct?”
Prince Royce made a face. “Gods above and below, no. Too much peopling.”
“I rather thought as much. In that case, will you support my endeavors to make your sister queen?”
Prince Royce blinked behind his glasses. Blinked again. Then stared at his sister as if he’d never seen her before. Princess Helena looked steadily back at him, seemingly holding her breath. I was certainly holding mine, utterly astonished. Prince James had been forthright enough about his lack of desire to be king, but…I’d seen his leadership abilities firsthand. He’d be anamazingking. I had no idea if Princess Helena could even hold a candle to him in comparison.
“Oh! You’re…” Prince Royce sucked in a breath and smiled. “Actually, yes. Yes, do that. Helena, you’re responsible and good with people. You’ll make a far better ruler than me or Victor.”
Princess Helena smiled back at her brother and clapped her hands, delighted. “I’m so happy you’re supportive of this. James has promised to help train me.”
All right, I felt marginally better. With Prince James’s support, Princess Helena’s rule would indeed be a good one.
“Good,” Prince Royce said. “I know no one else has. I, er, well, I’m rather shit with people, but I’ll support you as I can.”
Princess Helena leaned over and hugged him. “Just you saying so is a godssend to me.”
Prince Royce hugged her back with a silly little grin.
I’d never once seen these two be affectionate with each other, and quite honestly, it was lovely to see. After all, before being prince and princess, they were a family. Perhaps this was the power of Prince James.
“To start with, Royce, let’s give Helena lead on your project.” Prince James gestured to the packet of information Prince Royce had brought with him. “Salence is a very deadly disease we all want eradicated. If we can let Helena spearhead this project, get the funding and momentum it needs, and leave you to do the research, it’ll be a match made in Paradise.”
Prince Royce was still all smiles as he gave his sister the file. “Er, I wrote it in rather complicated medical language, but I can try to explain it all better. I’ve been researching this mostly alone for years now, so having two supporters is exciting. Um, where do I start?”
“It’s a coughing disease.” Princess Helena gave him an encouraging smile. “Right? I know that much.”
“Oh, certainly.” Prince Royce, now having a starting point, launched into a quick explanation, a man clearly warming up to his subject. “It’s in fact an infection that enters through the orifices—usually nose or mouth—and contaminates the lungs. It likes to attach to the upper respiratory system, mainly the throat, and releases toxins once rooted in the tissue. The toxinsthen damage the area, causing the airways to swell. This leads to people coughing nonstop and gasping for air. They literally can’t get enough air into their lungs. Because the throat constricts so completely, they strangle to death if the disease isn’t somehow countered.”
“There is a potion that cures it, isn’t there?”
Prince Royce waffled a hand back and forth. “Yes and no. A cure-all potion called Great Cure eases the symptoms, allowing a person to breathe, but it doesn’t cure the sickness altogether. Salence is anti-magical at its root, so magic doesn’t really work as a cure. It does, however, buy the sick person time. The one asset we have to the disease is that it’ll eventually die off. It only has a two-week lifespan. If you can keep the person alive for two weeks, they’ll heal naturally. But it’s so deadly, most people don’t live past the eight-day mark.”
I couldn’t help but chime in. “The potions are also very, very expensive. My grandparents came down with salence. My grandfather first, then my grandmother, who was caring for him. My sister sacrificed her entire wedding savings to buy the potion for them, and even then barely had enough money to cover it. Fortunately, the potion worked, but not everyone has access to that kind of money.”
Prince James gave me a disturbed frown, as if he hated hearing my family had gone through such a thing. So empathetic, this man.
Prince Royce nodded. “And that right there is why I’m researching a cure. Most of our citizens can’t afford the potion, and salence can have a devastating effect on communities. It’s spread through the air whenever someone coughs, so it’s highly contagious.”
Princess Helena frowned. “If it spreads through the air, how can you prevent someone from catching it?”
“The only method I’ve discovered so far is washing your hands constantly and all surfaces around the sick person daily. Salence can live on a nonporous surface for a good two weeks before dying, so simply touching a surface can infect you. But this only works if you know to take the preventative measure, and a person can be sick for two or three days before it’s clearly salence.”
