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“Thank you,” Tovi says to me when we’re deposited into some guest chambers.

I had tried to take note of our location as we walked, but it was impossible with so many winding corridors. The doors to our guest chambers were small, opening into a tiny receiving room where only a chair on either side would fit. Then the set of large ornate doors into the chambers themselves were opened.

The sitting room is large. Tovi and I sit in oversized sofa seats that face a massive window, looking out onto the city. As suspected, we’re in the east wing, but it’s hard to tell which floor from our vantage point. The window doesn’t open, nor do we have a balcony.

There is one big bedroom at the end of the room with two large beds, a washroom for us to share, and a giant wall of windows along one wall of the sitting room. The sun is setting, a beautiful sunset baking the horizon with golds and reds, warming the colors of our chambers.

“You’re welcome,” I finally reply. “How are you doing?”

“Sick to my stomach. What are we?—”

I hold a finger up to my lips to silence her question and she frowns. I point to my eyes and ears and then around the rooms. She nods. We both search the room: every picture, corner, and wall for any kind of holes or ways to spy on us.

Nothing. I quickly scan the ceiling and floors, but nothing obvious stands out. Releasing the breath I had been holding to keep my rage in check, I yell, “Fuck me!” and then laugh, an edge of hysteria in it.

Tovi whips around, looking at me like I’ve lost it entirely.

I give her the biggest, dirtiest, scheming grin I could possibly muster and run at her. She takes a step back, still looking at me like I’m crazy, but a smile tugging at her lips when I shake her shoulders.

“He’s with us, Tovi. The prince!”

“What? How?”

I shake my head, still not quite believing it. “We—I—broke into his rooms a few nights ago. We had a half-cocked plan to kidnap him and force the king’s hand. But then the prince…was not who we expected.”

“He looked as fucking expected to me!” she hisses.

I laugh softly, full of pride for the little prince. “I know. He did so well. This wasn’t planned, he didn’t even know I’d been captured until we saw each other. He said he would help to find Amarilyss. It seems she was nice to him when they met, and so, we trusted each other.”

“You are trusting a complete stranger. Well, that’s a Divine miracle, isn’t it?” Tovi drawls, shoving my shoulder gently as she sits down.

“He didn’t know about you either because I didn’t know you were here. The kid did all of that on his own.”

“You’re sure this isn’t some sick game? That he hasn’t just fucked us over royally?”

I scrunch my face and shrug. “He looked pretty sick about it to me.”

“You mean ‘menacing and vicious,’ right?”

A knock startles us both, and an elderly Patron ambles in with a trolley of food. All discussions are forgotten as the smell of real food hits us. I am famished and my stomach is growling, but Tovi looks positively delirious at the sight of real food.

“Careful,” I warn. “You might make yourself sick.”

“Worth it.” She grins, already shoving a buttered bread roll into her mouth.

The Patron gives me a courteous nod as she leaves, her violet eyes a reminder. I watch Tovi stuff her face, gravy dripping down her chin, while I pick at my food.

“Are you going to eat that?” she asks, pointing at the chicken drumstick I haven’t touched.

I pick it up and take a massive bite out of it, then with my mouth still full, lick the gravy off the other side in one swipe. I offer it to her with a smirk. I nearly choke when she shrugs and takes it from me and continues to eat it where I left off.

She’s chewing open-mouthed through a smile, and I narrow my eyes at her in question.

“You didn’t think I’d take it. Suck shit. Object empathy, remember,” she says, spinning the half-eaten leg between her fingers.

“Hope you felt how stupid I think your face is too.”

She sighs, giving me a side eye as she puts her plate to the side. “No. But I could feel that you’re anxious about something. Something you want to ask me but don’t know how.”