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The doctor must sedate me, because the next time I open my eyes, I’m in a room that’s eerily similar to the one I woke up in on Christmas Eve. The whining in my ears is fainter now, and in its place, I hear a steady beep-beep-beep that must be my pulse.
“Kit?” I say before I can even think of why. But then the memory of that morning hits me, and I suck in a breath. “Kit—”
“It’s about bloody time,” says a clipped voice from my bedside. “The doctors said you’d be awake an hour ago, but as always, they’re utterly incompetent and haven’t a clue what they’re doing.”
For a split second, I’m positive I’m dreaming. But sure enough, when I turn my head, I see my grandmother sitting straight-backed in a plastic hospital chair, her expression drawn, her eyes red and swollen, and her designer coatdress buttoned to her throat.
“Constance?” I manage. “What are you doing here?”
“You will address me as Your Majesty,” says my grandmother sternly. “And I am here because I’ve long since done my duty to the crown, and no one cares what happens to me.”
This doesn’t make any sense, and I lift my head. The brace I wore on the stretcher is gone now, and even though every inch of my body aches, I can still move my fingers and toes. “Where’s Kit?” I say as I struggle to sit up. “Is he—”
“Would you please lie still? For the love of…” Constance reaches forward, and a moment later, my bed begins to whir and guides me into a sitting position. “You’re a very lucky girl, you know. You have a mild concussion and a nasty gash on your leg that needed stitches, but beyond that and a few bumps and bruises, you ought to be perfectly fine. If you don’t strain yourself over the next few days.”
I shake my head. I don’t feel lucky—I don’t feel anything but creeping dread. “There was a body beside me,” I whisper, my fingers digging into the thin mattress. “There was blood—so much blood—and before…before, Kit was there, and—”
“My understanding is that Lord Clarence is awake and being treated a few rooms down,” says Constance so matter-of-factly that it knocks the wind out of me. “He’s not the one who had the bloody ceiling fall in on him.”
I look at her sharply, not sure I’ve heard her right. “Kit—he’s alive?”
Constance sniffs. “Honestly, Evangeline, your life would be so much easier if you learned to listen.”
Something hot and liquid seems to explode in my chest, and before I realize it, I’m sobbing. From relief, from shock, from delayed fear—I don’t know what it is, but I’m crying harder than I ever have in my life.
Kit’s alive. He’s okay. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him.
Constance stiffens, seemingly frozen in place by a show of actual emotion. But eventually I feel her tentative touch on my back, and a moment later, she snakes a thin arm around me with the kind of awkwardness usually reserved for middle schoolers at a dance.
I don’t care that we’ve never said a nice word to each other. I don’t care that she hates my guts and is only here because she has to be. I bury my face in her shoulder as every last emotion wrings itself from my body, leaving me quaking and boneless when my sobs finally start to subside.
“Who was it, then?” I say hoarsely as I let her go. “Who—”
But then another possibility occurs to me, and I study her face. Her swollen eyes. Her haggard expression. The way she suddenly looks every single one of her seventy-plus years, despite a lifetime of facials.
“Where’s Alexander?” I say as cold horror sweeps through me, taking every ounce of my relief with it. “Constance, where—”
“Your Majesty,” she corrects, but her voice hitches. “You will call me Your Majesty, Evangeline, or I—”
“Where is he?” The guttural sound that comes out of me is inhuman, and all I can think about is that broken body beside me, and how I know beyond a doubt that my father, king or not, would have done everything he could to protect me. Even if it meant taking the death that was supposed to be mine.
Constance swallows hard. “His Majesty was pulled from the rubble shortly after you were,” she says slowly, like it’s taking everything she has to keep her voice steady. “He sustained crush injuries to his legs and chest, and—”
“Is he alive?” I demand, sick with fear all over again. Her chin quivers now, and I reel, trying to brace myself for the reality I don’t want to face.
“Yes,” she whispers. “He’s still alive. But he is critical, and the odds the doctors have given him…”
She closes her eyes, and twin tears escape down the sides of her nose. Before I can think better of it, I’m hugging her again, numb to the inconsequential aches and pains in my own body now. And when she slumps against me, all her carefully crafted royal veneer vanishing in a single shudder, I know that there’s a very real chance I’ll never see my father again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A total of eight deaths have been reported so far in the bombing of the Modern Music Museum in London during an official visit by His Majesty and members of the royal family. The identities of the victims have not yet been released, and Buckingham Palace has refused to comment on the status of the King.
—Breaking news alert from the BBC, 2:11 p.m., 12 January 2024
CONSTANCE REMAINS WITH ME THROUGHOUT the rest of the afternoon as we wait for an update on Alexander.
All details of his condition are kept from the media—a matter of national security at this point—and the hospital is crawling with police and personal protection officers, both for our safety and to hold the rabid journalists that surround the building at bay. No one is allowed to leave their room without a damn good reason, and while neither of us is thrilled about it, especially when I’m desperate to see Kit, Constance and I settle into something that resembles an uneasy truce.
