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Instead, I wake up a disorienting amount of time later, to the sound of Helene’s gasp. “You’re certain? You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says a deep voice I recognize, but can’t place. “My team took pictures of the scene, if you’d like to see them.”
I sit up groggily and rub my eyes. Gray winter light streams through the sheer curtains in the reception room, and as I glance around, I notice Maisie lying in a bed twenty feet away as a nurse checks her blood pressure. But even though Maisie should be asleep—we should both be asleep—her eyes are open, and she’s watching me.
“Hey,” I say softly. “How are you feel—”
Before I can finish, a series of curses echoes through the foyer, growing louder as the click of heels approach. “After all we did—after everything she’s put us through—”
“Ma’am—” says the familiar voice, but suddenly Helene appears in the arched doorway, the fury on her face so consuming that for a split second, she looks like a completely different person.
“You,” she growls, rounding on me. “You did this.”
“What?” I say, sitting up so fast that I’m light-headed.
“You set the fire,” accuses Helene as she advances on me. “You’re the one who nearly killed my daughter.”
My mouth drops open. “I had nothing to do with—”
“Palace security found accelerant hidden in your sitting room,” she says. “The same accelerant used to start the fire.”
I stare at her, gaping, as a man I recognize from the morning council meetings appears with a tablet clutched in his hand. Stephens—the royal family’s head of security.
“Turpentine,” he clarifies, angling his screen to show me a picture of several bottles of paint thinner stored in a cabinet in my sitting room. “The brand matches the supply used by Ms. Bright in His Majesty’s private apartment over the past few weeks.”
“I—” For a moment, I forget how to breathe. “I don’t know how those got in my room, I swear. I didn’t put them there. I don’t paint—”
“Then are you saying your mother is the one responsible for the fire?” says Helene viciously.
“Of course not,” I protest. “Why would she do that? Why would either of us do that?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Evangeline?” says Helene. “Every time something dreadful happens lately, it all seems to come back to you, doesn’t it? Maisie’s protection officer said you were in my daughter’s room last night. You would’ve had ample opportunity to splash turpentine around her bedroom—”
“I wasn’t anywhere near her bedroom,” I argue. “I would never—”
“Actually, ma’am,” says Stephens abruptly, we believe the fire started in His Majesty’s bedroom and spread into Her Royal Highness’s.”
Helene lets out a humorless gasp of a laugh. “Lovely. Was it Laura after all? Have we been hosting an entire family of arsonists? No one’s forgotten why you were expelled from your last boarding school,” she adds, blue eyes narrowed at me. “You certainly have experience with this sort of thing, don’t you? Perhaps your mother asked you for help, and you were all too eager to offer it.”
I stand then, toe to toe with Helene, and even though I’m barefoot and more than half a foot shorter than her, I refuse to cower. “My mom and I didn’t have anything to do with this. We were both in my apartment all night, and we didn’t leave. Aren’t there cameras all over Windsor? Can’t you check the footage and—”
“There are none in the private apartments, at the request of Their Majesties,” says Stephens, and his uncomfortable glance at Helene tells me exactly why. Because during her years of sneaking around with Nicholas, neither of them wanted to leave any evidence behind. And Alexander undoubtedly went along with it—probably out of guilt, or a misguided attempt to keep the peace.
And now I have no way of proving I didn’t try to barbecue my own sister.
I let out a choking laugh, though while I mean for it to be sardonic, it comes out as more hysterical than anything. “Great. Terrific,” I say, glaring at my stepmother. “I can’t say anything to change your mind, can I? I could find whoever did this and have them confess in front of you, and somehow you’d still be convinced that it was me. But it wasn’t. I would never hurt Maisie. She’s my sister—”
“Half sister,” corrects Helene sharply.
“She’s my family,” I say. “And that actually means something to me. I am not the source of all your problems, Helene. I’m sorry that my existence hurts you. I’m sorry my parents made some pretty awful choices, and you had to pay the price. But I didn’t do this. My mother didn’t do this. And the longer you insist that we did, the longer the real culprit is still out there, and the longer you’re the one putting your entire family in danger by refusing to believe anything but the worst in me.”
She stands there, cold as ice, for the better part of ten seconds. “Get out,” she snarls.
“Mummy,” says Maisie pleadingly. “Evan didn’t do this. Someone must have planted the bottles, or maybe Laura stored them there ages ago, and—”
“Stay out of this, Maisie,” orders Helene, her tone as hard as diamonds. To my dismay, Maisie falls silent, but I can see her staring a hole into the back of her mother’s head. “You, Evangeline, will leave my home and stay away from my family. You’ve been nothing but a plague on us since the day you were born, and if you ever come near us again, I will go straight to the Daily Sun and tell them you were the one who started the fire.”
I shouldn’t be surprised—there’s no low Helene won’t stoop to, apparently, though I still stare at her in disbelief. “But I didn’t,” I insist. “It wasn’t me.”
