“Please,” says Maisie with a sneer, and she snatches her phone from my hands, leaving me staring blankly at the wall instead.“I have better things to do than listen to your half-baked excuses.”
With that, she shoulders her way past me and back into the hallway, and I listen to the echo of her boots against the wood of the corridor, my mind a dizzying hurricane.
It’s over. Guy’s been arrested. The Army of the British Republic has collapsed. Fox Rex is finished.
It’s over, and Ben is still free.
“Ev?” says Kit, at my elbow now. I don’t—can’t—look athim.
“Tibby,” I say, stepping into the Scottish country-chic room and shoving my shaking hands into my pockets. “We need a minute. Please.”
“Very well,” she says, and she eyes Kit up and down. “I suppose you remember where your room is.”
He nods curtly, and I don’t bother asking why he has a separate one. Right now I’m almost glad he does.
As soon as Tibby is gone and the door is closed, Kit leans against the back of the tartan love seat, his shoulders sagging. “I can’t apologize,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if that’s what you’re waiting for, but it had to be done.”
I cross my arms to hide my trembling hands as I pace in front of the enormous four-poster bed. “You should have told me,” I repeat, and this time, he nods.
“I should have. I am sorry for that.”
“Everything we worked for, every risk we took—it was all for nothing now.”
Kit frowns. “They have them, Ev. They have Guy, and they’ll have the rest of the ABR soon enough, if they don’t already—”
“They don’t have Ben,” I snap, and silence falls between us,heavy and unmoving. Kit is frozen in place, his hand angled toward me like he wants to reach out, but there’s too much space.
“Ev…we were never going to get Ben,” he says carefully, like he’s walking through land mines, and I want to smash something to pieces. “Guy only wanted you—us—to think we could. He was toying with us the entire time, and there was nothing we could do but play our ace—”
“Our ace wasBen,” I say, tears burning my eyes. “It was the fact that we know he’s part of this, and if we can just get them toadmit it—”
“If Ben is truly involved—”
“If?”
“—then he’s the real prize, Ev. He grew up in the royal family. He knows more about how the entire institution functions than you and I ever will, and he knows Alexander and Maisie better on a personal level than nearly anyone in the world. Guy Fawkes would never turn him in to the authorities and risk all Ben knows about him, too, in order to hook you. Especially when the public already associates you with the ABR.”
I stare at him, my mouth hanging open as I let my arms drop. “But—”
“Evan.” He finally breaks the invisible wall between us, taking both of my hands in his and holding them so firmly that he feels like an anchor in a thrashing sea. “I love you. You’ve done more in twenty-four hours than the entirety of MI5 has managed in months simply by being your courageous, stubborn, utterly reckless self, and Iloveyou for it. But I have stood by and almost lost you more times than I care to count, and all I want is for this to be over.” He squeezes my hands, ducking down sohis dark eyes bore directly into mine. “I am begging you, Ev. Let MI5 do their job now. If there’s any chance of finding a connection between the ABR and Ben, they’ll manage. And in the meantime, please,pleaselet this nightmare be over for us.”
I take a shuddering breath, and then another as he continues to hold my stare, his fingers lacing between mine. The worst part is, I know that if he’d simply told me he was going to Singh, this would all be okay. That the trust ripped out at the seams between us would still be there, and that we could find a way to mend the rest of the damage. But that gaping wound is bleeding freely now, and as I watch him, I have no idea how he can’t feel it.
“You should’ve told me,” I say one more time, my voice small and pitiful. And as I untangle my hands from his and head toward the door, the hope on his face drains away, and I know he can feel the wound now, even if he may not realize how deep it is yet.
Chapter Eleven
Now that members of the Army of the British Republic are being rounded up by the ever-vigilant MI5, almost a month after the bombing that killed eight innocent people and almost ended the reign of our beloved King Alexander, will Evangeline Bright and Lord Christopher Abbott-Montgomery finally be held accountable for their roles in the attack?
If the mountain of evidence that has surfaced over the past three weeks isn’t enough to convince our counterterrorism experts that this dastardly duo must finally be taken seriously, we at theRegal Recordhave unearthed pictures of Evangeline deep in conversation with the accused leader of the ABR, known only as Guy Fawkes. The pair are photographed in a private setting, reportedly discussing yet another attack on the royal family, this time at Balmoral—the alleged cause of all the fuss in Aberdeenshire this morning. Click below to view our exclusive gallery.
At what point do the people of the United Kingdom stop allowing royals and the rest of the aristocracy to slip their gilded handcuffs and start demanding real justice?
—The Regal Record, 2 February 2024, 1:14 p.m.
Something is licking my toes.
I jolt awake, disoriented and confused, and jerk my leg away from the warm tongue. I’m sprawled out on a couch in a drawing room deep within Balmoral, and as my heart races, a small black-and-white spaniel pops up from the other side of the sofa, cocking its head as its pink tongue hangs out of its mouth.
