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He remained in his thoughts for a moment before he responded, “I think allies will be important in the coming days.”

Recalling the chaos on that ship, I feared that there was worse on the horizon. There were still too many unanswered questions. I simply nodded in reply, but my returning stare said all it needed to. Enemies, adversaries, foes, all dangerous. But unknown forces? Even more so.

These past few days had made things abundantly clear. I’d been a fool for too long, allowing myself to be blinded by loyalties that obviously didn’t exist.

When I stepped foot inside those walls, I would be a different prince taking the throne.

46

Nora

Asleepover at Jenta’s house.

That’s what we’d told Eucinda and Kenzie regarding Melody’s whereabouts when she hadn’t returned home. To my complete and utter lack of surprise, neither asked where I’d been all day.

Still, the blatant absence of care stung a little, and I found myself needing to step outside for some fresh air. Melody offered a sympathetic look, but no one else commented on my leaving.

My feet carried me through the barren house, but each step felt hollow. I walked, but toward what end? I’d been thoroughly stripped of all ambition and determination with recent revelations, leaving me to wander aimlessly through the upheaval that’d become my life.

“Oh my stars. Nora!” Melody shouted after me. She raced through the front sitting room, waving a letter in her hand. I paused at the cracked open front door, my hand still grasped on the handle.

A blue wax seal stuck to the cream textured paper, and my stomach turned tense.

“We’ve been invited to an intimate dinner with the prince! You and me!”

I realized with a small degree of horror that Melody had no idea Nicholas had been with us, that he and I knew each other. She’d been through a horrible ordeal when we’d taken her off that ship. I hadn’t wanted to shake up her life beyond that, so I’d dodged the questions she’d asked.

Maybe I didn’t speak about it because I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet.

That word rang in my head like the pounding of a worship bell; intimate.

The excitement and delight on her face made it difficult to swallow the shock. All of this had become exhausting. Secret identities, conspiracies against magic wielders, rescue missions by a nobody girl flitting around with a prince in disguise.

“There’s no way I’m going,” I nearly laughed at the absurdity.

“What?! Why not! You and the prince had that wonderful dance. I haven’t had much more opportunity to converse with him, but this dinner surely sounds like the chance. Oh, Nora, can you see it? This time next month, we might both be living at the castle, one of us a queen!” She flattened the invitation over her chest and twirled, her pink dress gracefully following her lead.

What on earth was Nicholas playing at? I’d made it abundantly obvious that I wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. Was this his way of flexing his position? Forcing my hand because he was the prince? Showing me that if he wanted to talk, I would have to obey?

Or was this to chastise me for taking the royal horses without permission? We’d covertly left them tied to a paddock near the bordering walls, and Melody waltzed up to one of the stationed guards and struck up a seemingly frivolous conversation, during which she noted that ‘those horses tied up over there’ looked rather expensive. When they caught sight of the recognizable horses in the distance, they’d scrambled to return the beasts inside the royal stables.

“We’re not going,” I stated flatly.

Melody stopped mid spin, wobbling on her feet for a moment. “What? Why?”

I didn’t have it in me to explain, not right now. The last thing I wanted to do was think more about him. “Do you trust me?” I knew it felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to her dreams and fantasies, but I couldn’t risk Nick getting near her either. The thought of him taking Melody by the hand, of pressing a sweet kiss to her knuckles, made me want to try on a pair of concrete shoes and walk into the ocean.

Maybe it was unfair of me to pull the trust card so soon, knowing what we’d just endured together. But it was my only card to play.

“With my life.” She forced a small smile, though I could see the disappointment behind her formerly shining blue eyes.

“Then please just believe me when I say that it’s best we don’t go.”

Thoroughly deflated and accepting my decision, she asked, “What will we tell mother? She’s already read the letter.”

Shit. Eucinda would beat me within an inch of my life if she found out I’d refused our attendance of the one chance we had at saving the house. Even if it’d add twenty years to my father’s debt to Caine, I’d pay it.

I wouldn’t let Nicholas dictate my life. Not before, when he was just an unknown prince in a castle, and certainly not now when I’d given him my body. My trust. That’d been my choice, and so was this. He would have to accept that.