“My home is open to you at any time, Princess,” he said, pulling back his collar to reveal the symbol that she’d already known was there. “You are certainly more welcome here than our other, uninvited, guest. Anything you need here, anything I might be able to provide, if you don’t see it, you need only to ask.”
“Thank you. I take it this means you know who I am?”
“Yes, Princess. Your grandmother and your uncle have explained it to me. I’ll admit that I’ve never been so shocked in my life, but also never so filled with relief and hope. You are the true heir, and your marriage to Prince William will fulfill the prophecy. This is wonderful news, indeed.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I was afraid this news would be difficult for people to accept.”
“It might be for some,” Brian agreed. “For those who have been influenced by Hector and Tolliver, for those who gave up the hope and the fight in exchange for promises of favor under the new regime, it will be a challenge.
“But I think you underestimate the power of tradition and of your family in particular–and how we feel about the connection of the crowns. Over the past twenty cycles, we’ve seen our relationship with Eirentheos slipping slowly away, carrying our friends and families further from us. You, Princess, may just be able to give that back to us.”
“I certainly hope so. Thank you for being one of the first to give me that chance.”
“Anything, Princess. And I must apologize to you that my home was not a safe haven for you when you first arrived. I never imagined that keeping the secret of my loyalties too well would result in my home being seen as a hiding place for that…” He shook his head.
“I’m so sorry. Please tell me that Princess Linnea hasn’t suffered any permanent damage. It was only a few hours ago that I realized they’d brought her here as a prisoner, and I nearly lost my mind. I couldn’t believe even Tolliver would stoop so low.
“Are there members of the Friends of Philip hiding here, then?”
“Yes. About twenty-five who are known to Tolliver’s troops. More, of course, that they’re unaware of.”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “So many?”
“Yes. Until recently, many were coming here so we could help them get across the border into Eirentheos. Queen Sophia has done much for the cause in the last half-cycle or so.” He sighed.
“It doesn’t matter now. We’re done hiding. It had already been decided when we realized Linnea was here. We were going to get her back home safely, whatever we had to do. I’m actually glad you all arrived when you did. Otherwise, you might have walked in to the middle of a battle. Tolliver’s troops are being removed from my home as we speak.”
Quinn blinked. “Are you telling me there’s a battle going on, here, right now?”
“Yes, although I suppose it isn’t much of a fight. Soldiers or no … the only advantage they ever had over us was that we were trying to keep this safe house hidden.”
“We were traveling with more people,” she said, suddenly alarmed. “They were on their way here as well.”
“Yes, Prince Jonathan spoke to me about Prince Charles and Princess Ellen, and the others with them. Prince Jonathan has sent them a message with his bird, and a small contingent is heading out to look for them and escort them back safely.”
“Okay, good,” she said, breathing again. William put his arm around her shoulders. “Do you know how Tolliver is doing?”
“I don’t particularly care Princess, but when I checked in with Prince Nathaniel, he said he thought he’d be all right. There were two other healers here at the estate, and they went to help him as well.”
“All right.”
“In the meantime,” he said, eyeing the bloodstained floor, “I imagine you are all tired and hungry, and would probably like to get cleaned up. I am having some rooms prepared for you.
* * *
An hour later, Quinn, William, and Linnea found themselves alone in a much larger suite.
“Is this place as big as the castle, or something?” Quinn asked, looking around at the expansive sitting room. It was very nice, featuring several couches, and a fire crackling in the large stone fireplace.
William nodded, rubbing her shoulders. “Well, maybe not quite as big, but these old estates owned by royal families are pretty impressive sometimes.”
“Right. The Millers are related to me somehow?”
“I think so,” William said. “But I’m not exactly sure how, probably distant cousins or something.”
“Yeah, Queen Sophia said they were cousins,” Linnea said. “But not how.”
William and Quinn both looked at her. “You spoke with Sophia before this afternoon?” Quinn asked.
“Yes. They brought me to her first. We’ve been talking for the past two days. Tolliver wanted his mother to get to know his bride, you know.” She shuddered and sank down onto one of the couches, being careful of her bandaged hand.
“Was she really going to let that happen?”
“I don’t know, Quinn. She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t really see any other options. I almost told her about you yesterday. Tolliver only arrived here a little while before you did. If I’d had the chance to talk to her before he was dragging me in front of all of you at knifepoint, I probably would have told her today.”
“I would have been okay with that, Nay. Anything that might have helped you.” She sat down next to Linnea on the couch, and William went to kneel in front of both of them. He was so grateful to have Linnea safe in front of him, he would have been okay with anything.
“How did it happen?” he asked. “How did Catherine get you out of the castle?”
“You found out who it was?”
“Yes. Maxwell figured it out somehow. Don’t even get me started on how angry I am about all of that.”
“I don’t think he knew, Will. I mean, I never really liked her, either, but I don’t think he had any idea that she was just tricking him the whole time. I thought she was kind of … well, anyway, still, I didn’t think she was the kind of person who would do this.”
“What did she do? How did she pull it off?”
Quinn gave him a look, and he realized how insensitive he was being. “Sorry, Nay. You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready to,” he said.
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “It was simple really. She just found me in the hallway, after I took you two up to your room … she started being all nice to me, and then she asked if I wanted to meet her brothers, since I never had. Said they were driving her father’s new carriage. I didn’t really want to, but she was Maxwell’s companion, and I thought I should be nice.”
Tears started forming in her eyes, and William sat down next to her on the opposite side of Quinn, and they both put their arms around her, holding her tightly.
“I can’t even really remember what happened after that. We went out the front door – I saw one of her brothers waiting outside of the carriage, even though it was raining – and the next thing I knew, there was a pillowcase over my head, and I was on the floor of the carriage, and it was moving. Someone’s hand was over my mouth…” Her shoulders started shaking.
“Shh, Nay,” William said, his heart rising into his throat. “You don’t have to tell us anything else, sweetheart. It’s all over now. You’re safe; we’ve got you.”
William didn’t hear him enter the room, but when he looked up from where his head was buried against his sister’s shoulder, he saw Nathaniel standing there, watching them – all three of them huddled together on the couch, a shuddering mass of tears and hugs.
William wiped his face on his sleeve before waving his uncle in, and Nathaniel dropped to his knees in front of them and put his arms around them all.
Sometime later, William looked up again and saw Quinn watching him. Her tears were dry now, leaving grimy streaks down her cheeks, and he realized for the first time just how dirty they all were. Quinn was the only one of the three of them with no blood on her clo
thes. Nathaniel looked like a scene from a horror movie – not that William had ever watched one, but Thomas had, on the computer when he’d visited, and William had seen a little bit of it.
“They said there was water for baths, right? I’d do just about anything for a bath right now.”
Quinn nodded toward several large pots sitting near the fireplace. “I don’t know if we’re supposed to climb in those, or what.”
Nathaniel chuckled. “There’s probably a bathtub in one of those rooms,” he said, pointing toward the doors that led off of the main sitting room. “It’ll even have a drain through the floor, and a water pump from the well, but that water will be cold. The water over there is for warming over the fire, and then we can mix it in the tubs. We can ask some servants for help.”
Quinn shook her head, and he knew how she felt. He didn’t want to see any more strangers right now either.
He and Nathaniel hefted one of the heavy pots up and onto the hook over the fire, and then they all explored the rest of the apartment.
Nathaniel had been right, in addition to two bedrooms, there was a bathroom with working pumps both at the sink and by the enormous cast iron bathtub.
Quinn went with Linnea into the bathroom first. The anesthetic William had used earlier was starting to wear off, and they all wanted to get her cleaned up and in clean clothes for bed before she was really hurting.
While the girls were in the bathroom, there was a knock on the door, and when Nathaniel opened it, two servants carried in large trays of food. One of the servants, a strong young man, was upset he hadn’t come early enough to warm the bathwater for them, but William assured him they were fine. Still, he insisted on hanging the second bucket for them and refilling the empty one.
“Are you going to go and check on Tolliver again tonight?” William asked, once the servant had left.
Nathaniel shook his head, shrugging out of his bloodstained shirt, and into a soft linen one that had been left on a chair in the corner of the room. “If I never see that man again, it will be too soon. There are other healers; they can take care of him.”
“They don’t have the knowledge you do.”
“Is Tolliver entitled to the knowledge I gained because I had to run away to another world to avoid actually being killed by my own stepfather or half-brother?”
“No. I don’t disagree with you, Nathaniel. I just … I know who you are, and I wanted to make sure you’d thought it through. I don’t care who he is – you saved his life already, and that’s more than he deserves. I’ll never be more proud of anyone than I am of Linnea right now – and I hate violence.”
Nathaniel smiled. “She was wonderful. And nobody’s ever deserved that as much as Tolliver did. Even while I was pulling that knife out of his leg, he was still making comments – thinks he’s going to get back at all of us. He said a couple of things about both Quinn and Linnea that made me want to shove that thing in further.”
William’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”
“You don’t need to hear it, William. But I did go and share it with my mother, and I plan on sharing it with Stephen, as well. Tolliver won’t be seeing the light of day again. I don’t care what Hector has to say about it.”
“Do you think Hector really is going to try to go through the gate?”
“I don’t know. It’s not worth taking the chance. We have to let Stephen know what has to be done. How bad is Linnea? Would she be all right traveling, if we could find a way to get her back home?”
“She’ll be all right. I think she’d be okay to travel tomorrow if she needed to, though the day after would be better. She’s going to be hurting tonight.”
Nathaniel nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of morphine, but I saved a dose for her. She deserves it more than Tolliver does.”
“Agreed.”
Nathaniel paused for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was hesitant. “Does Quinn really know some way to close the gate?”
“Sort of. Alvin told us both about it at our wedding – how the gate works.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. There’s some kind of magnet buried in the ground on either side. Then, when the two worlds are lined up just right, the magnets weaken the magnetic field between them. But if either magnet is missing, then the gate doesn’t work.”
“So we have to find the magnet.”
“Right, but I don’t have any idea how.”
“Or if it’s even possible.”
“I hope it’s possible,” William sighed. “If Jonathan is right, and Hector really has told more people about the gate, then it’s not going to be enough to just stop him. Our world could be in danger forever.”
“Do you think Quinn is really going to be okay with that? With closing the gate?”
“No, she’s not. How could she be? Her family is over there, Nathaniel. I don’t know if I’m going to be okay with it.”
“Okay with what?” Quinn’s voice startled both of them; they turned to see her coming out of the bathroom.
“Is Linnea all right?” Nathaniel asked.
William could tell that she saw right through the quick change of subject, but that she decided not to pursue it – she’d ask William later.
“Yes, she’s just finishing getting dressed. I was just coming to get a hairbrush.” Quinn sighed. “She says she’s completely fine, but I think she’s still pretty shaken up. I was thinking maybe…” she looked at William hesitantly, “maybe I should sleep with her tonight?”
He didn’t have any idea why she would be worried about asking him something like that, and he was about to tell her that, of course, she should stay close to Linnea tonight, when the bathroom door, which had been barely cracked, came flying open, and his sister stalked into the room.
“I. Am. Fine.” Linnea said. “You two have had a bed to sleep in together for exactly one night since you got married. I am not going to be the reason you’re separated tonight.”
“Nay,” William said softly, walking over to her. “Quinn and I are going to be married for a very long time. Neither one of us is worried about a few hard nights.”
Linnea closed her eyes. “Can we compromise? How about I sleep on the couch, and everyone can keep an eye on me as much as they want to?”
“How about this, Linnea,” Nathaniel said, “you sleep in that bedroom there, on a bed where you can actually be comfortable, and I sleep on the couch, where I can hear you if you need anything at all?”
Linnea raised her eyebrows at William and Quinn. “Satisfied?”
“All right, Nay,” William said, sighing to himself. He’d never in his wildest dreams imagined himself on this side of an argument. “So long as you eat a good dinner, and then you let me give you some medicine that will help with the pain and make you sleepy – I’ll agree to that.”
“Fine.”
* * *
Nathaniel took his bath while the rest of them ate and got Linnea into bed. When Quinn and William came back out of Linnea’s room, Nathaniel looked up at them. “I’m going to go speak with Marcus and Ben before I go to bed. Maybe see if I can find Jonathan, as well. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” And he disappeared into the hallway.
Quinn watched him go. “Well, that was subtle.”
“Better than Linnea, who practically gave us a checklist for what she expects us to do.”
Quinn giggled. “She did not.”
The look he gave her made her giggle again, and he wrapped his arms around her. “It’s nice to hear you laughing.”
“You wouldn’t think that would be possible after a day like today.”
“I don’t know. What’s so bad about today? The meeting with your grandmother went … well, it was interesting, but I’d say the outcome was good. We got to watch Linnea stab Tolliver – that’s a decent day in anyone’s book, I think.”
“William!”
“Well, it was. He deserved much worse, and I’m not going to feel bad that he got what he did.”
>
Although it surprised her a little, Quinn didn’t feel even a little bit bad about Tolliver, either. She knew he wouldn’t have hesitated to do it to Linnea – to any of them if they were standing in the way of what he wanted. Still, all of their problems hadn’t been solved by Tolliver’s arrest – or even by Sophia’s acknowledgment of Quinn as the heir.
“We still have to deal with Hector, you know.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “One day’s problems at a time, love. Much of Hector’s power is gone if he doesn’t have Tolliver. And he doesn’t have Tolliver – or Linnea. Today was a good day.”
“That’s not the only reason I’m worried about Hector.”
“I know it isn’t. Do you want to talk about that right now?”
No, she didn’t. She didn’t even want to think about that right now. William was right – one day’s problems at a time. She shook her head.
“Okay.” He kissed her again, and then stepped away from her toward the bathroom. “It looks like Nathaniel already put fresh hot water in the tub; that was nice of him.”
She followed him in there; the steam coming off the water already felt good just standing next to it. “That definitely looks better than washing in a cold river.”
He nodded. “Much better. Do you want to go first?”
“I’m not the one with blood on my clothes.”
“You make it sound like I’m covered in it or something. It’s just a little bit on my pants. I changed my shirt. I washed my hands and face. I can wait a little longer. And besides, I think I had more sleep than you last night. You should go first so you can relax after.”
But standing here with him, in this warm, steamy little room, she suddenly wasn’t tired at all. In fact, looking at the huge bathtub gave her an idea – but she wasn’t sure she could say it out loud.
“Why are you blushing?”
Oh, no … she definitely was not brave enough to ask him this … was she? She felt her face getting hotter and hotter. She swallowed hard, pulling herself together. It was William, her husband, she could do this. “I was just thinking how much easier it would be if we didn’t have to heat water and fill the tub again after this…”
Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles - Book Four) Page 31