“You showedVenetia?” Helene’s face is cherry red now, and she clutches the front of her cardigan with a death grip that I’m sure she wishes was around Ben’s neck. “Howcould you—”
“It was part of our settlement,” mutters Nicholas. “I don’t knowwhyshe wanted to see it, but she did. Closure, maybe. It doesn’t matter. She knew that if she ever told a soul, her allowance would be cut off, and she’d be cast adrift from the family. There’s no way she would’ve ever risked it.”
“But Ben has nothing to lose,” says Maisie, her voice rough. “He’s playing his last hand, because there are no repercussions for him that aren’t already coming.”
“And because it’s true,” adds Kit, and heads swivel our way. I stare resolutely down at the puzzle box in my hands, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. “It’s ironic, in a way, after all the lies he’s told to get himself here.”
Alexander sighs heavily. “We have contacts all over the world searching for Ben, but there’s been no reported sign of him, and the interview this morning was from an untraceable connection. Even if we do manage to ping his mobile or laptop, he’s smart, and there’s a high probability he’s made his way to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the UK.”
“Can’t be king if he can’t return to Britain,” mutters Maisie.
“Yes, but the monarch cannot be convicted of any crime,” says Alexander.
“Brilliant,” says Helene crisply. “Then you can be the one to swing the ax, and no one can punish you for it.”
Nicholas rubs his eyes, while Alexander doesn’t even acknowledge Helene with a glance. “What we need is a way to get him onto UK soil,” says my father. “A lure of sorts.”
“He doesn’t do any of his dirty work,” says Kit, and he sets a comforting hand on my knee beneath the table. “I suppose he used to have an army of people willing to jump when he called, but that’s likely dwindled as of late.”
“Dylan could still be working with him,” I say, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “But we don’t have any way to get ahold of him.”
“Then the message will have to be public, without being obvious,” says Alexander, and he looks between us all. “Any ideas?”
“For now,” says Astrid delicately, “I think our best bet is to mitigate the damage, rather than to try to hold the source accountable. As I mentioned, because of what he said during the interview, any maneuver the palace makes against him will only be seen as confirmation of the rumors, and an attempt to silence him. Whatever our next move is, wemustbe aware of how it will look to the public.”
“We could always deny the accusation,” says Doyle with less bluster than usual. Even he sounds drained. “Then again, by acknowledging the rumors at all, we validate the conspiracy.”
I shake my head, my fingers turning pieces in on themselves in a pattern I’m only beginning to notice. “It doesn’t matter what the palace does. Ben’s third in line to the throne. By talking about it publicly—like he’s some sort of expert and only wants what’s best for Maisie—he’s already confirmed everything. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle, and like everyone keeps saying, Ben has the truth on his side this time. He won’t retractno matter what you threaten to do to him, not when he knows this is his last shot. Not when, between Helene admitting to the affair and the discrepancies with the timeline, the public is primed to believe him.”
Yet again, silence falls over the conference room, and all I hear for a moment is the softclick-clackof the puzzle pieces sliding against one another. I’m making progress, and my fingers fly faster as my pulse begins to race.
“We could always put out our own DNA test,” says Maisie in a small voice, and my head snaps up so fast that a muscle in my neck cramps. “To prove that I am…”
She trails off, and it takes ten full seconds for Nicholas to state the obvious. “But you’re not,” he says with gentleness I’ve never heard from him before. “And while I want nothing more than to claim you for all the world to know, it does put the monarchy in a pickle. Which is theonlyreason I didn’t do so before you were born.”
“I know,” says Maisie quietly, offering him a sad smile. “You’ve already told me.”
In that moment, despite all that’s happened between us, I feel a deep stab of pity for Maisie. For Helene. For Nicholas, for Alexander, for my mother, for everyone who’s had to put the monarchy before love again and again and again. It’s bullshit, and they all deserved better. They alldeservebetter.
“We could still do a DNA test,” presses Maisie, a note of desperation in her voice. “Claim that Daddy was worried, with all the rumors and Mummy admitting to an affair, so he privately asked for one, but the results were…well, as they should be.”
I know exactly where she’s going with this, of course, but noone else at the table seems to understand. “This is not American daytime television, darling,” says Helene with a haughty sniff. “We do notdebaseourselves in such ways.”
“There would’ve been no need if…” begins Alexander, but he seems to think better of it and clears his throat. “While that’s certainly one angle to consider, we cannot tamper with the results without risking creating even more of a problem for ourselves, should someone talk.”
Though I can barely see Maisie at the edge of my vision, I sense her gaze flickering toward me. “What if it was Evangeline’s blood instead? The results would be positive, wouldn’t they? So no one would question them.”
The room goes dead silent, and beside me, Kit stops breathing for a moment. Everyone is looking at me now, but I’m still staring at my puzzle, sliding pieces as fast as I can, as if that will somehow tune out what’s happening around me.
“You’d be okay with that, right, Evan?” says Maisie, and her voice breaks slightly. “If it would—put an end to all this?”
My tongue feels like lead, and my mind is screaming at me to—I don’t know. Walk away. Run, if I have to, from this circus sideshow. From being a pawn, from letting myself be used like this by someone who was willing to watch me die yesterday. Because that’s the only reason she’s being nice now, isn’t she? Because she still needs me. She needs my blood to get out of this, and she knows the chances of me helping her have dropped dramatically in the past twenty-four hours.
“We can consider it an option,” says Doyle gruffly after it becomes clear I’m not going to answer. Kit’s hand tightens around my knee, and I can feel him staring, waiting for me to look athim, to communicate what I’m feeling to some degree. But I can’t, not without giving it all away. So I don’t. Not yet.
Astrid toys with the ends of her glossy hair. “As for other options, we’ll of course argue that the original test was forged—”
“Naturally,” agrees Doyle, scribbling something down.
