Page 73 of The Prince and His Stolen Throne

“Red hair?” she continued, picking up one of her own blond curls and shaking it at them.

Syb nodded slowly.

“Yes, I thought so. He’s quite rude,even to us.”

Sisyph sighed and covered their eyes, as if they didn’t want to look at her anymore. They even went so far as to wave her off. “This job isn’t worth the measly payout. Go on, we’re not capturing you.”

Angelica scowled and planted her hands on her hips. “Unacceptable.”

All three lacertians stared at her in shock.

“You’re going to make me walk through the forestunescorted? What kind of gentlemen are you?”

“We’re not human,” Syth replied.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and glared down her nose at them. Despite being significantly taller than her, they hunched their shoulders, chastised. “You don’t need to be human to show common decency.”

“We’re alsomercenarieswho serve anevil mage,” Sisyph reminded her.

“Exactly!” she declared. “I demand you properly capture me and take me to your leader.” She stamped her foot. “Right now.”

The three lacertians hissed at each other in their own language. As their words grew more heated, Sisyph eventually sighed, shoulders slumping. They’d clearly lost the argument. “Alright, princess, but remember you asked for this.”

She expected them to swoop her into their arms like a groom would his bride. Instead, Sisyph bent down, wrapped their arms around the back of her knees, and flopped her over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her breath left her in a surprisedwhoosh. Any ideas of continuing her performance immediately fled as the blood drained to her head.

“Does no one,” she wheezed, “know how to treat a princess?”

The lacertians ignored her and picked up their pace. Even if she’d wanted to speak, they wouldn’t hear her faint voice over the rushing wind.

She hoped the evil mage at the center of this plot had better manners—and taste—than his minions.

Chapter Twenty-One

Running from your problems was all well and good until you tripped and fell on your face. I sprawled on the ground, face pressed into the dirt, refusing to get up. Let the fucking monsters catch me. I wasn’t taking another damn step.

When nothing tried to eat me, I eventually rolled over and stared up at the dark canopy. The branches overlapped to obscure every inch of the sky. The night vision potion allowed me to see in the dark, but it couldn’t bring back the sun. I missed its warmth on my skin. The bright colors of the world. I was sick to fucking death of twilight.

This is the world the old man thrives in. The world Wilde belongs to.

I belonged in Bane, with warm sunny days and my jewel-toned wardrobe. Morning sword lessons with Hector. Boring lectures in the afternoon. Meals with my fathers, where they still flirted like newlyweds.

I didn’t want the darkness and monsters to invade my home. Or have my fathers look at me like I was a stranger, an enemy, someone who had lied to them and betrayed every bit of love they’d shown me.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes to keep the tears buried. It didn’t matter what I did now, the defense spell would fall. That choice was made a long time ago, before I understood the consequences of pretending to be Brendon Bane’s son. Everything I would fall in love with, and everything I would destroy.

All I could do was keep the royal champions—the real ones—safe and try to protect my home with an evil smokescreen.

Speaking of royal champions, I needed to find my way to the library. I pushed myself up and looked around, trying to gauge where I was. The problem with traveling through a haunted forest was how much of it lookedthe same. Every tree was an individual living organism, with its own knots and branches and characteristics, but all of them together became a botanical blur.

Fitz said that Traumstead should be north of the farm. I rifled around in my pack for my compass. My hand closed around a small, round object and I pulled it out. Which, of course, ended up being Wilde’s compact.

I glowered and tossed it aside, then continued searching.It should be in here somewhere.Panic growing, I dumped everything onto the forest floor, then pawed through my clothes in case it had gotten caught in the folds.

Nothing.

I thought back to our whispered planning in the barn. I’d asked everyone if they had a compass, and they all nodded. Had I seriously forgotten to check my own supplies?

Groaning, I put my head in my hands and sat like that for a long time.