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Magnus pushed my lower back up into the car. I climbed into the back. Tyler followed. Magnus sat beside Lady Mairead and the door slammed shut behind us. The car careened us away.

42 - KAITLYN

The back windows were blacked out so we couldn’t see what was happening outside, but I could tell we were going very very fast. I tried to catch my breath while staring at Magnus’s neck and shoulders in front of me, the side of his face. His eyes open. The strength held there in his neck, the corner of his jaw, clenched as we took corners way too fast. I held the seat. Tyler gripped the seat in front of him.

Magnus asked, “Where are ye takin’ us?”

Lady Mairead sat stiff and unmoving. “I have an apartment in the city.”

I asked, “Will we be safe there?”

Lady Mairead said, “Ye’ll be safe for a time, while Magnus prepares tae battle. Now, if ye can calm your questions, I will speak tae ye on it when we arna drivin’ at this speed.”

We were going very fast, but it was pretty funny that she couldn’t talk through it.

After a very long drive we hit traffic, I could tell because we slowed, stopped, started, slowed and stopped again. Maybe we were in a city? I guessed it meant we were close to where we were going — Lady Mairead’s house?

It was odd to be transported without knowing where we were going. Hadn’t I been warned to not get into the back of a van with evil diabolical people? Yet here I was. The back of her neck was stiff and straight, thin and weak looking. I could kill her, with my hands, right now. Flashes of Donnan’s brutal death slammed into my head again. I took a sharp breath and another. The line between breaths and hyperventilation was a lot thinner than I liked. Panic, panic that I had been swallowing down for hours threatened to pull me under. I looked down at my hand, to spin my wedding ring nervously, but it was gone — I pulled at the bottom of my bodice.

Magnus caught my movements from the corner of his eye. He turned in his seat and reached for my hand. I clutched it in both of mine. There were splatters of blood around his fingernails, I gasped for air. I wasn’t close enough. I wrapped around his arm and tucked my face into his shoulder and wished I could go home.

43 - KAITLYN

Our car turned, crept along for a moment, turned again, and finally stopped. Our door slid open. Magnus stepped out then Lady Mairead said, “Follow me,” and left before I was all the way out of the car. A total bitch move.

Magnus put his hand on my back to help motivate me to actually want to follow her at all through the parking garage, every space occupied by a similar self-driving car with darkened windows. We went through a fancy door into an elevator and zoomed up to, my guess because it was so fast, the third floor, but my stomach dropped like we were much much higher.

The elevator opened onto a large, luxurious apartment that was full, like every other space in Lady Mairead’s life, with a hoard of art and antiquities on every square inch of floor. She said, “I needs be removin’ some of this tae my store house, but in the meantime enjoy it. It has been a chore gettin’ it here.”

The ceilings were very high. There was a wall of glass that probably looked down on the whole mysterious kingdom, or at least a city of it, but the windows were a solid white. I wanted to sit down, but stuff was piled on all the furniture except the small sofa and two chairs meant to be a sitting room in the middle.

She waved an arm and lights went on, blinding me. We all winced. Tyler said, “Fuck, that’s bright.”

Lady Mairead stopped in mid-walk as if she had only just then noticed he was there. “And you are?”

“I’m Tyler Wilson, I’m a friend.”

Lady Mairead’s brow went up. She looked directly at me. “Oh? Really?” She humphed and leveled her gaze at Magnus.

He said, “He traveled with us tae the past and was captured and brought here. I intend tae take him home verra soon when we have a vessel tae spare. I consider him a friend and need for his life tae be guarded as Kaitlyn’s and my own until then.”

Lady Mairead humphed again. “If you say so Magnus, though I daena understand how ye run your household. Things that would send most men intae a fit of rage ye take as acceptable. I canna under⁠—”

“My ability tae control my rage is the only thing keepin’ ye alive right now.”

She wove her way through paintings and sculptures and cloth-draped furniture to the far end of the room. “Down this hallway you’ll find your room, Magnus.” She opened the door to a room that was luxuriously decorated: a four-poster bed, Persian rugs, silk sheets, antique furniture with a silver cast, silver covering the windows.

She walked farther down the hallway and gestured toward another room. “This will be your room, Tyler Wilson.” She added, “If you would like tae get some rest and freshen up, ye may. We will discuss going forward during dinner in three hours.”

“I daena want tae rest! We need tae speak of what has happened — how are ye ensuring our safety here? We have been followed, I am sure of it.”

“First, Donnan left me this apartment. Tis mine and Samuel daena ken of it. Second, we were followed, but I have friends high up in the government who will help me hide ye until ye are ready tae fight for your throne. They daena want a spent, wounded prince. Tis crucial that ye be ready tae fight. Third, Samuel is nae smart. He winna find us.”

“What is my next move?”

“Ye are too tired tae discuss it now. Ye have traveled far and must rest. We will talk of it at dinner.” She left us standing in the hall.

Tyler asked, “Who the hell is that?”