Page 26 of The Prince and His Stolen Throne

Sometime around midnight, Delilah and I dragged ourselves to our guest suite. Her feet scraped across the ground until they tangled in the rug. With a yelp, she fell forward, and I held out my arms to catch her.

Thump!

I blinked and looked down at the floor where she’d fallen, several feet away from me.

She mumbled something into the rug.

“What?”

Turning her head toward me, she enunciated, “Fitz is atyrant.”

Choosing our potential quest wasn’t enough. As soon as everyone had narrowed their options down, Fitz plunged us straight into research.What would we need to fight this threat? How long is the journey and what is the best route? What additional dangers might we face along the way?For every. Single. Quest.

Not that we could answer all the questions. Fitz had a large collection of maps and bestiaries, books on medicine and herbs, but that meant we had more material to slog through. He would have kept us there all night if Maximus hadn’t knocked a teacup onto one of the maps when he’d fallen asleep. Fitz decided it was safer for his books if we stopped for the night.

“He just wants us to survive,” I replied.

“How are we supposed to survive if he kills us withresearchbefore the quest begins?”

“Nobody’s ever died from research.”

“Tell that to the Head of the Chambord Scholar’s Association.”

My brow furrowed and I collapsed into one of the sitting room chairs, too tired to trek all the way to the bedroom. “Who?”

Delilah flipped herself over and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment before her eyes drooped shut. “He wrote half of the bestiaries in Fitz’s collection. He died while researching the habits of Giant Bats.”

“Did they eat him?”

“Yes, but only after he had a heart attack from overwork.”

Maybe researchcouldkill people. “Where’d you learn that?”

“In the footnotes of his last book. It was finished by his assistant.”

What a dedicated assistant.“How did the assistant survive the bats?”

Only a soft, snuffling snore answered me. She’d regret falling asleep on the floor in the morning.

Or … I could be a good cousin and help her to bed.

I remained in the chair for a long time, too tired to move, too uncomfortable to sleep. Finally, I sighed and shoved myself to my feet, hoping the forced burst of energy would trick my body into staying awake. I prodded Delilah with my foot, waking her up enough for the two of us to work together to settle her in one of the bedrooms.

She fell asleep again the second her head hit the pillow.

I found my own bed and fell onto it face down. I could have slept fully clothed if my belt wasn’t poking into my stomach. Groaning, I turned over and unhooked the belt, dropping it to the floor.

Any second now, I would fall asleep.

Except my feet seemed swollen in my boots, everything too tight. Sighing, I sat up, unlaced my boots, threw them across the room, and flopped back onto the bed.

Two minutes later, I rolled out of my jacket, leaving it beside me. Then I rolled the other way to escape the confines of my waistcoat.

When did I become a pampered prince who couldn’t sleep through slight discomfort? What the fuck will I do during the quest?

Quests involved camping. Camping meant lumpy grounds and sleeping in your clothes in case you were attacked in the middle of the night.

Determined to push past the discomfort, I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched the edge of my pillow. At some point, I finally settled into sleep.