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“My... what?”

“Your breakfast,” Danner clarifies. “It’s waiting and warming in the kitchen. Let me see to it.” He vanishes through the swinging door, quickly returning with a plate of food. There’s a piece of toast slathered with bright green avocado, slices of oranges and berries, a decent helping of eggs, and turkey bacon. Danner sets all of this in front of me, including a small cup filled with a colorful array of pills—vitamins. “A special diet for gestation,” he explains.

Gestation.The word is just as cold and impersonal as what happened in the basement last night. I had to lay there with my hips propped up, imagining Lex’s weird robot sperm slithering through my uterus, and now I freeze. Could I be? Already?

No.

I’d know. Wouldn’t I? Some kind of biological signal? A feeling?

I stare at the plate, too discomfited to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” He sets a small bell next to the vitamins. “Just ring if there’s anything else you need.”

And with that, he leaves.

My appetite left at the word ‘gestation’, but I know better now than to skip a meal. One of the benefits of Pace’s gift–the phone–is that I now have access to a copy of the covenants I’d requested yesterday.

The Princess shall treat her body as a temple.

This covenant is one of the longest, with multiple subsections and bullet points, each driving home the reality of a single fact: My body isn’t mine anymore. I’m to nourish it, prepare it to sustain another life, keep it healthy and safe, and at no point was it made anything less than clear that Ashby and my Princes are the sole authorities on what qualifies as beneficial or harmful.

The Princess shall accept the gifts she is given with the highest gratitude.

The rose sits beside my fork, its long stem smooth and thornless, and I shoot curious glances its way as I fill my churning stomach. It’s gorgeous, the petals a soft cream, and even though the scent makes me stiffen with the memory of being on the throne, its presence makes me feel something not altogether unpleasant. Considering that, not even ten hours ago, he’d subjected me to the coldest display of dispassion ever, the gesture seems…

Shockingly sweet.

If it’d been material–more gems or baubles–I wouldn’t have given the gift a second glance. But this is simple. Elegant. Weirdly thoughtful.

Beautiful.

It’s the first time any of them have paid me a compliment before, and I find my cheeks heating at the memory of him propped above me last night, speaking those low, dirty words into my ear.

I eat in total silence, nothing but the distant ticking of a grandfather clock to fill the space. Every time my fork scrapes the china, the harshness of the disturbance makes me flinch. It feels like the entire Palace is holding its breath, suspended in animation as I finger the petals of the rose, wondering what he looked like, leaving this here. Was he wearing those glasses, hair unkempt, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he placed it on the table? Or was it quick–an afterthought?

I eat quickly, gulping down a small glass of juice before rising to my feet and sneaking toward the stairs. It’s a silly thing to do, climbing to the second floor and checking each door. Any other Princess in my position would eat her breakfast in that strange, alien stillness and be grateful for the reprieve. But I’m not any other Princess.

I like to know where my enemies are and what they’re doing.

I check three hallways and seven doors, and I mostly come across it by chance. At first, I assume it’s some kind of store room, with boxes stacked up against the walls and books strewn over an old, antique secretary desk. But something about the area is disturbed. There’s an energy in the air, and a scent. It smells like cologne, sharp but sweet.

The windows are tall, bearing heavy brocade curtains that have been pulled back. A beam of morning sunlight catches on something silver across the room, and I walk toward it, the hair on the back of my neck rising.

It’s a door–or more accurately, a lockonthe door. It’s shiny and modern, a box with a punch keypad, and judging by the grainy sawdust I scuff with my heels, it’s only just been installed. It’s not so much the lock that makes my hackles rise, but the orientation of it, installed on the outside of the door.

It’s meant to lock somethingin.

It’s unclasped, and when I give the door a cautious shove, every cell of my body is on alert for what might greet me.

But it’s just a bedroom.

I blink, taking in the space. The windows are wide open, and the old, gauzy curtains billow with a sudden breeze. Shivering, I assess the bed, noticing the rumpled blankets shoved toward the antique footboard. In the center of the mattress sits three empty plates.

Some of the tension in my chest is released on an exhale, only to be replaced with an odd sense of disappointment. This is where they ate. Together, the three of them. They probably talked about the day ahead. Maybe they even talked about me. About what I looked like on that exam table with my legs open wide. Maybe they sat here, sprawled out on Lex’s messy bed, and laughed as he played that recording. But on the bedside table sits a sloppy stack of blank note cards much like the one that came with my rose downstairs. Maybe they didn’t laugh at all. Maybe they sat here and struggled to find the best thing to say. What was it Ashby called them? Untutored in the art of flattery?

Most importantly, however, this is intel.

The Princes have possession of this whole Palace, with all of its bells and whistles and expansive nothingness, and instead of filling it with themselves, they settled into a small place. A hushed place. A place that’s easily secured, saturated with them and little else.