“What about Olive?” Emmy whispers.
She had wandered off in silence while I was playing cards. “She’ll meet us back at home. We can decide what to do with her later.”
We turn the corner into the tunnels that will lead us back to the street, when I hear footsteps.
We look to each other, panicked. In this narrow passageway, there is nowhere to hide.
“Olive?” I call hopefully.
A figure approaches from the darkness, at first nothing but a silhouette.
But the closer he comes, the more features I can make out. A man, tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a top hat.
After an agonizing moment, he steps into the lantern light.
Rhion smiles. “Hello, little rebels.”
Chapter Six
“Oh, thank goodness. We’ve gotten hopelessly lost on a women’s historical society outing. Can you help us find the way out?” The lie springs to my tongue easily. Before I met Emmett, I wasn’t a very good liar at all.
Rhion claps his hands together in front of his heart. “No need for that! We can speak freely now! Come, come.” He waves his hand and it feels as if we have no choice but to follow him.
We end up in another dark antechamber, this one with a bricked floor and more little piles of bricks, like tiny ovens scattered throughout.
“The old caldarium,” Rhion explains. “The Romans used to come here and sweat and gossip and do business. That was before my time, but my father didn’t like the Romans much at all. Said they were so serious they never agreed to any fun bargains. They were too busy marching and building walls.”
“Whatever you think we did, we didn’t do it,” Faith says. She’s less scared of the Others than the rest of us, I think.
“That’s a rather blanket denial,” Rhion replies.
“We’re ladies-in-waiting to our benevolent queen,” she says dryly. “What business could we have with rebellion?”
I nearly snort a laugh at Faith calling me benevolent. She usually opts forannoying,tiresome,naive.She cares for me in her own way, I do believe that. But only four months out from the competition for Bram’s hand, we’re both still nursing the wounds we suffered at Bram’s and Emmett’s hands. She’d never confess it, but I know she still blames me for the way Emmett cast her aside. Her love for Marion has softened her but she’s stubborn in nature. We have that in common.
Rhion takes off his top hat and holds it humbly in front of his chest. “Can we stop with the posturing? Bram is a monster. You’re all smart enough to see it.”
I pause.
This feels like a trick.
“I love my husband,” I say slowly.
“You don’t need to lie, not anymore,” Rhion replies.
“I am devoted to my husband, King Bram. I love him truly. Now if you would be so kind as to show us the way out, we’d be much obliged.”
Rhion shakes his head sadly. “He was my friend, my closest friend. My father was his father’s closest adviser. We grew up more like brothers than friends. But then he snatched the crown from his mother, and the parts of Bram I loved—his humor, his kindness, his good nature—were warped into something cold and unrecognizable. His father was a cruel man and Bram learned well at his knee. Better than I’d realized. It took me too many years to realize the Bram I once loved no longer existed. It wasn’t until his wedding that I understood just how gone he was.”
It’s a strange thing to say. Rhion wasn’t at my wedding; he didn’t arrive until the next day.
“He was kind to me, when we first met,” I offer. I don’t even know why I say it. It’s like some primal part of me wants to comfort Rhion. The pain on his face as he explains who Bram used to be is difficult to look at.
“Bram has always been a skilled actor,” Rhion continues. “Even in our youth, he learned how to manipulate others. I don’t think he ever did a lick of his own schoolwork, there was always some girl who mooned after him doing it for him. Or, on rare occasions when that didn’t work, some younger student he’d threaten into doing it instead. If they refused, he had no trouble acting upon his threats of violence.”
“Cheating on his homework seems a rather small thing compared to patricide,” Emmy says.
As Rhion paces, he leaves little indents in the felt of his hat from gripping it too hard. “I know, I know. I mean only to paint a picture. Bram was born troubled, and time and circumstances have warped him into a monster. We were young men by faerie standards when he led the coup against his parents. Queen Moryen and her husband, King Urien, ruled as true co-monarchs. But on one key issue they disagreed: the humans.”
