“No, because I am not interested.”
She drags me into the palace and to our chambers, not getting lost even once. She’s like a human compass. We strut down the carpeted hallway and freeze when we find our chamber door open and several Burghers carting our belongings in their arms.
“What is the meaning of this?” Gwyneth snaps, grabbing the potato sack full of pots and pans.
The girl grimaces. “You and your sister have been relocated.” Wow, that was fast. Charming doesn’t wait around.
“We expected this,” I whisper. “It’s a positive thing. Charming has given up and understands that your floof isn’t in his future.”
“Don’t forget my mirror,” I say to the guy looking around the room. He makes to take the mirror woman off the wall. “No, not that one. That one,” I tell him, pointing at my mirror.
“But it’s broken.”
The mirror man appears with a frown at the guy passing judgment on his state. “I am in perfect working order,” he tells the guy. “Doris is my fair maiden, and they will not part me from the fairest of them all.”
The mirror woman appears and tries to side-eye my guy. “You are moving? Good riddance. I can reclaim my room without you constantly babbling.”
“I do not babble,” he says as the guy picks him up and carries him out of the room. We double-check they have left nothing of ours in the room before we follow the procession of Burghers to our new quarters. I hope the Burgher quarters have cloud beds. If we don’t, I will launch a campaign.
We walk for many, many turns. Okay, a few tempos. I huff as we trudge through the palace. “How much further?” I grumble. “My poor Burgher legs are tired and I avoided being unalived this sundown.”
“A few tempos,” the guy carrying my mirror calls out.
“This isn’t the Burgher quarters,” Gwyneth mutters under her breath.
“Where are we headed?”
She shakes her head as her frown deepens. “I’m not certain.” A disgruntled pair of blonde girls pass us with their heads held high and their pointy noses turned toward us.
We edge around a curve, like we are in one of the many towers. The Burghers disappear into an open room. Gwyneth enters the room first, and I follow her.
A heavy gnawing in the pit of my stomach forms. If anything, these chambers are grander and more opulent than the ones we vacated. There’s a central living chamber, surrounded by separate individual sleeping chambers with beds twice as big as our previous ones. In each room is a huge bath stationed by the window, giving us an amazing view of the gardens.
I turn to face a grimacing Gwyneth. She has come to the same realization. Charming hasn’t lost interest. He’s stepped up his woo on Gwyneth’s floof plans.
ChapterSeventeen
My suspicious thoughts came to fruition before dawn. I was dreaming of sausage and Nash’s version of lessons. Together, it made for rather a happy slumber, but not a deep one, which is why I woke the second the door to my chambers creaked open. They should get that sorted. Creaky doors don’t allow people to sneak around the palace with nefarious intentions.
I bolt upright, my blankets pooling at my waist, as I clutch my throat while my breath comes in sharp pants. Five enormous shadows, faces shielded with black cloth, move around the room and descend on my bed. I open my mouth to scream because nothing good is happening here.
The closest one rushes forward and clamps a damp cloth over my mouth just as I let out a scream. A fierce sour aroma surges up my nostrils and my eyelids flutter shut. A thick exhaustion fills my limbs, preventing me from doing anything. I envisage smacking the intruders in their faces, but my head lolls back.
“Wrap her in the bedsheet,” a gruff voice instructs. It’s not one I’ve heard before, but seriously, is this a thing in the palace? Wrap a body in a bedsheet? I’m thinking that it is a common occurrence, and nobody would have batted an eyelid if they’d caught me and Gwyneth dragging Charming behind us. Something to note for the future, if I survive this latest diurnal’s calamity. They secure me in the sheet and then lift me onto the floor with a soft thump. Is it too much to ask to be carried gently when you’re being kidnapped? They drag me across the floor, my back finding every lump and groove, making small moans of pain hum in my throat, but they don’t make it past my lips.
They slide me through the chambers and out into the corridor. Ugh, Gwyneth is going to be so mad at me. I keep disappearing.
“Gareth, Paul, you pick her up at either end to get her down the stairs,” the gruff voice commands. Gareth and Paul are now on my shit list. Congratulations guys, you have successfully kidnapped the maiden that would kill you—by accident. But they’d have it coming.
My feet lift into the air first, followed by my head, so my body swings between them. There’s a coolness sweeping through the sheet and my flimsy nightgown. Ugh, I hope I’m not about to die in my nightgown. That would be embarrassing. Would they change what they buried me in? I’m sure Gwyneth would see to it, rotting for eternity in nightwear isn’t healthy. Something flattering, but comfy. Stuffed inside a dress forever would be torture. I know you aren’t meant to feel anything when you die, but no soul has come back to report otherwise.
We descend several stairs and they dump my body onto a cold stone floor once again as they drag me along. “Careful with her,” the gruff one says. “We don’t need to damage the damsel.”
I blink and start screaming that I am no damsel. Except the screaming doesn’t leave my body, because whatever they’ve drugged me with has left me mute and helpless. Yet my mind is still as sharp as ever. How annoying. The most intelligent thing I have ever breathed might be on the tip of my tongue, and it would be stuck inside me.
“Anyone else finding it odd that we are drugging the damsel?” someone asks. Ah, so this isn’t the normal routine. Which means someone has interfered. Charming. This is his doing, I’m sure of it. He had us moved to fool the kingdom into thinking that we were damsels. I would kill him.
“Just do as you’re told, Gareth,” the leader snaps. “Questions land you in the dungeons without a hope of seeing another sunrise.”
