Gwyneth shakes her head. “No, we will stay and hopefully gain a position in the library.”
His eyes widen. “You can read?”
Gwyneth rolls her eyes as I plonk my ass on a cushioned high-back chair. “You believe us illiterate because we don’t come from The Hallowed?”
Hart runs a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not without evidence,” he mutters. “Most maidens from Far, Far Away do not read.”
“The Duke made it a requirement in Strongfair,” Gwyneth explains. “He believed we would be chosen by a Charming if we were educated.”
“An educated female is a dangerous one,” Hart mumbles. I disagree. If I’d been paying attention in school, it would have saved many a calamity. Like the fact frogspawn can geteverywhere. Also just because a berry looks tasty, doesn’t make it suitable for consumption.
I shake my head and fold my arms. “Who in the Blazes taught you that?”
“It’s a saying, not a belief.”
The door swings open and Malachi strolls in and slams the door closed. He opens his palm, revealing a frogspawn-like substance.
“Can you give him enough to keep him alive, but still unconscious?” Gwyneth asks as they converge closer to the bed. I stay rooted to my chair and pick up a wooden brush from Charming’s dresser before starting to tug it through my hair. Idle hands make a dangerous Daphne, and if I don’t give them something to do, they will take matters into their own hands. Wait. If my hands have hands, do I have four hands? I put them in front of my face. No, still two.
“We can try,” Malachi mutters. “But if you want the kingdom to accept you spent the night being manhandled by Charming, you need to make sure they hear it.”
“Like a daily pamphlet?” I ask. “Do we post our salacious encounters for all The Hallows to read?” How ridiculous, even us Burghers didn’t publish our sundown activities for the town to read. The Hallowed are weird.
“No,” Malachi says as he unwraps a pale Charming. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Are we too late?” I wonder.
“Open his mouth,” Malachi says to Hart.
Hart sighs and glances over his shoulder at me. “You owe me for this, Calamity.”
I’m the calamity? He’s the one carrying a body through The Hallows Palace. Wait, that’s also me. “We are both calamities,” I decide.
“Wrong. What we were doing was planned. You accidentally overdosed a Prince Charming. That makes you a calamity.”
I huff and lean back in my chair as Hart pries open Charming’s mouth and Malachi forces the clear jelly balls down his throat. Charming convulses and his hands grip Hart’s and Malachi’s wrists. His eyes spring open and fly around the room, landing on me. I dart from my chair and zoom towards Charming. My hand snaps out and I bash his temple with the brush. He goes limp and his eyes roll into the back of his head.
“What the Blazes, Daph,” Gwyneth whisper-yells in that tone that scares the bunkum poop out of me.
“Are you trying to kill him?” Hart mutters as he stands. “Because you don’t need our help, if that is your intention.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Malachi says with a grin. “You’ll need to spin that as a sex injury.”
“Which brings us to how you are going to ensure the kingdom knows he had a joyous night,” Hart says.
“And how are we going to do that?” I snap, waving the wooden brush in front of me.
“By making lots of positive noise,” Malachi answers.
“Like he needs compliments, Charming’s ego is already bigger than this room,” I declare.
“Not that kind of noise,” Hart says with a roll of his eyes.
“Oh,” Gwyneth says.
I glance between her and a smirking Malachi. “Oh, indeed,” Malachi says with a wink. “Don’t worry too much about it sounding fake. People expect that from this chamber.”
“Expect fake?” I question. “Speak plainly.”
