Page 30

C HAPTER 30

DAYS UNTIL THE CORONATION: FOUR

It’s 2:00 A.M. , and the hospital library is dead silent. Yes, a hospital library. I was confused too. Patients can also do Pilates in the basement gym or take a dip in the heated hydrotherapy pool. (Wellness junk!) Not me, though. I’ve been advised against strenuous exercise or swimming until my new stitches heal. And since I don’t want to risk a second case of sepsis, I’m in the library, where my chances of contracting another infection are sufficiently low.

Like a lot of the building, this room looks nothing like a hospital. It has an empty fireplace, carpeted floors, and velvety red furniture covered in throw pillows. I’m lying on one of the sofas now, my eyes glued to a gold chandelier above me, wondering how many of Theo’s ancestors have died in this institution.

It’s morbid, but I need to focus on something to drown out the restless, anxious “do something” energy that has me wandering the halls in the middle of the night. When my nurses find out I’m missing again, they’re going to be pissed. (American version.)

I thought the endless waiting would be over once we were rescued, but it turns out this hospital is just a different kind of limbo. I’ve been here for two days, and although I was mostly unconscious for the first several hours, it feels like I’ve been here for a month: waiting to be discharged, waiting to find out if I’m the accidental queen consort, waiting for Theo or Graves or the Firm to remember that I exist. But maybe Theo is still mad at me, and Graves is too busy fighting back against the news stories claiming Theo is unprepared for the throne, and the Firm is knee-deep in arrangements for the coronation.

I wonder how much of royal life is waiting for instructions from the Firm. Honestly, that doesn’t sound so awful right now. If someone official showed up and gave me a list of royal duties and instructions, at least the limbo would be over. Not knowing what comes next is a special kind of hell.

A cold draft of air blows through my thin hospital gown. I rub the goose bumps on my arms and walk to the window, pulling back the heavy drapes. Despite the hour, there are paparazzi camped out on the street. Naomi was thrilled to report that they got pics of her and Brooke on their way to the hotel where they’re now staying with my mom, and then equally devastated when the blurry shots were banished to a small corner on page 3 of the London Echo.

Mom, Brooke, and Naomi all have tickets to fly home in a couple of days, and it’d be nice to know if I’ll be allowed to go with them. No one has told me anything, though. I still don’t even know if Theo and I are married.

The door to the small room opens.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t sleep and I was hungry and looking for food!” I blurt, wincing in preparation to face the mean nurse who yells at me when I get out of bed.

Instead, a head of dark, curly hair peeks in, and my heart spikes.

“Henry?” I’m shocked but surprisingly happy to see him, and I don’t stop myself from throwing my arms around him.

“Oof!” He wraps his arms easily around me and lifts me off the floor in a big hug, and then I’m crying. I was starting to feel like the last week was a fever dream, and like the royal family and I had never crossed paths.

“Did someone say hungry?” Henry sets me down and displays a greasy take-out bag with a flourish. “I thought you might be getting sick of hospital food.”

My mouth waters at the smell of hot french fries. I open the bag and shove three in my mouth at once. “Why are you here in the middle of the night?”

“It was the only time I could get away. They’re keeping you under lock and key. Top secret. I had to sneak in the back door so the wankers with cameras wouldn’t see me.”

“Is that why no one else has been here?” I ask, my voice wavering on “no one else” in a way that makes it obvious I’m only talking about one person.

Henry doesn’t make eye contact as he runs his fingers over the dusty spines on the bookshelf. “I reckon Theo’s been pretty busy with coronation stuff.”

My stomach sinks. Theo and I said we’d be together until we were rescued, but I didn’t think he’d take it quite so literally. I flop backward on the red couch. “How’d you find the time at”—I check the clock on the wall—“two thirty A.M. ?”

“Tragically, no one needs the spare at the coronation,” Henry says, his head bent over the pages of a thick book with a throne on the cover. His tone makes it sound like a joke, but by this time I know him well enough to realize there’s a fundamental sadness underneath his words. Even after his mom’s death, he’s trying to be the perfect son that she always wanted.

“Why are you really here?”

“I wanted to see how you’re doing. Plus, you know, I have to get checked out, make sure everything looks good after my procedure.”

I sit up straighter. “What procedure?” Brooke and Naomi told me that other than dehydration, Victoria’s hyperglycemia, and Winston’s broken leg, no one else from the crash had serious injuries.

“You didn’t hear?” Henry crosses to the couch and brandishes his inner elbow in front of my face.

“What am I looking at?”

He points to a red dot the size of a pinprick, so I lift the sleeve of my hospital gown and show him my eight inches of sutures. “Again, what am I looking at?”

“The reason you’re alive.” He smirks.

I roll my eyes. “Explain.”

“You needed a blood transfusion, and I was a willing pincushion. Theo was rather annoyed about that.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Why?”

He gestures between us. “Because we have the same rare AB-negative blood type, and Theo’s O-positive arse was useless.”

“Another competition? Really?” I groan. If not even surviving a plane crash together can get them on the same page, I don’t think anything ever will.

“If by competition you mean my jealousy and his self-loathing, then yes. Both are thriving.” He cracks open the throne book while I stare at the side of his face in disbelief that he’s the one who’s here, in the middle of the night. I guess somewhere in the cracks of tragedy and his and Theo’s sibling rivalry, we became friends.

I can tell he knows I’m watching him when the dimple makes an appearance. “Is there something else?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the page.

“What are you going to do after the coronation?”

He looks up at me with a grin. “I’m headed back to school in Scotland. I could pull some strings and get you in.”

I slant him an annoyed look. “My life is in Chicago.”

“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but your life is allowed to be whatever and wherever you want.”

He’s clearly underestimating the number of times American children are told they can do anything they set their minds to. But for some reason “anything” didn’t ever seem like it was meant to be taken literally. In my family, I knew that “anything” was code for getting good grades, going to a good college, and starting a sensible career path. “What if I don’t know what I want?”

“That’s the beauty in being eighteen, darling,” he says with a wink. “You’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out. Starting now.” He looks pointedly around the empty room, and then goes back to reading while I let my mind wander through Northwestern’s campus and down palace halls. Despite Henry’s claim, I feel the pressure of time even more than I did on the island; classes have already started, and the coronation is in four days. Sand is falling so quickly through the hourglass that it reminds me of the days before the comet. Only this time, I know I’ll have to live with the consequences of my actions.

I yawn, and my eyelids start to droop. “I should go back to my room before the nurses send out a search warrant.”

“Want some company? I bet we can find a truly awful infomercial to watch.”

I feel a prickle behind my eyes that makes me worried I’m going to cry again. “You’d do that?”

He’s still staring at the page as he clears his throat. “If you’re anything like me, it’s been hard to sleep since the crash.”

“I traded nightmares of sinking boats for flaming airplanes.”

He tucks the throne book under his arm. “For me it’s the volcano, except instead of spewing ash and magma, it’s an eruption of quicksand.”

“How would that even work?”

Henry laughs and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know! I wake up in a cold sweat before it kills me.” He reaches for the door, and I put my hand on his to stop him.

“Thanks for coming,” I say, and I mean it. It’s nice to have one royal who’s still willing to talk to me.

Henry smiles, and the dimple really is overwhelming. “I do have one more surprise for you, if you can keep a secret.” He motions for me to follow him, and we tiptoe past stained-glass windows and a sleepy receptionist wearing a waistcoat and tie, through empty corridors, and all the way to my room without being seen.

I glance up and down the empty hallway. “Where’s the surprise?”

“Go in.” He nods, and my heart beats double-time as I twist the handle with sweaty palms. I pull the door open, and Comet is waiting for me on the other side, his tail thumping excitedly.

I don’t even bother fighting the tears as I kneel on the hard floor to hug my dog. I glance over my shoulder at Henry, who is watching me with a grin. “The nurses are going to kill you when they find him in here,” I say.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Do they not teach ‘snitches get stitches’ in America?”

Comet and I climb into the hospital bed, and Henry pulls a chair next to us, puts his feet up on the end of my bed, and flips on the TV. We settle on an old episode of Doctor Who, and after ten minutes I’ve never been more confused. I turn to Henry to demand an explanation, but he’s already asleep with his head on his shoulder. Twenty minutes later, the mean nurse comes in to check on me and kicks Henry and Comet out with a nasty glare.

Stitches, Henry mouths as she ushers him into the hall. He lifts his fists and dances on his toes like we’re facing off in a boxing match. The nurse slams the door in his face.

I slouch down into my bed and fall asleep with a smile.