by Anna Jarzab
“Asthall Cottage in Montauk,” Gloria said to Thomas. Thomas’s face scrunched up as if he’d smelled something disgusting, but he nodded reluctantly. Gloria turned to me. “It’s right on the water. The ocean’s still a little cold for swimming this time of year, but we can put Callum in a room that overlooks it, and then of course there’s always the private beach.”
“It’s remote, too, so it’ll be easy to keep track of who comes and goes,” Thomas admitted. He didn’t sound thrilled, but he was on board. “I’ll let the General know we’ll be moving you there.”
He left without saying goodbye.
“I hope you packed your swim trunks, Cal, because we’re going to the beach,” I said as the door to his bedroom slid open. The cheeriness was forced, but when his face lit up, I didn’t have to fake it. It made me happy to see him happy, quite possibly because he seemed to be the only person in the Castle who was happy these days.
“Really?” he asked.
“Thomas and Gloria think it’s best if we get away from the Citadel for a few days,” I explained.
He nodded. “Agent Tyson told me.” Agent Bedford had survived the bombing, but he’d been seriously injured and couldn’t return to his KES duties yet. From the way Thomas had spoken about it, there was a possibility that Bedford would never be able to serve in the KES again. Agent Tyson was his replacement as the head of Callum’s security team.
“I told them we should go to one of the residences by the water, seeing as you haven’t ever seen the ocean,” I told him. He beamed at me. “And they agreed. So we’re going to Asthall Cottage.”
“A cottage? But where will all your shoes go?” Callum’s eyes crinkled when he laughed.
“It’s not an actual cottage, Callum,” I said, affecting a snooty tone that set him off laughing again. “It’s a manse, darling, of course.” I’d actually been wondering the same thing—Juliana’s family owned a cottage?—until Gloria showed me a picture of the place. The name might’ve been humble, but there was nothing humble about Asthall.
Callum put his arms around me, pulling me close, his laughter trailing off. “Is this okay?” he whispered in my ear.
I nodded, figuring it would have to be. Besides, I didn’t mind. It felt nice to be held, after the day I’d had. “Are you okay?”
“I just can’t stop thinking about what happened,” he said, pulling away so that he could look at my face. He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Me neither.” I sighed. “I’m so glad you weren’t hurt.” Thomas had dragged me away so fast I hadn’t even had time to see if someone was coming for Callum. I’d spent thirty frantic minutes after the explosion waiting for news of him. I tightened my arms around his waist, remembering the horrible, sinking feeling that came with wondering whether he was dead or alive.
“Same here.” He released me and stepped back. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but you have to tell me—did Libertas set that bomb?”
“Thomas seems to think so.”
Callum stiffened and turned away at the second mention of Thomas’s name, pretending to go through his drawers for stuff to toss into an empty nearby suitcase.
“You pack your own clothes?” I asked in wonder, hoping a change of subject would bring back Callum’s cheery side.
“I insisted. Mother never let me do anything for myself,” Callum told me. “It’s fun.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. Packing and unpacking were some of my least favorite things to do, so I was glad to let Gloria take care of it for me. “If you say so.” I stood there for a second, feeling like a spare part. “Well, I guess I’d better go see how my own packing is getting along. You’re sure you don’t need any help?”
“Nope,” Callum said.
“Okay then. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Juli, wait.” Callum looked me in the eye. “I shouldn’t even be asking this, but I have to know now or I’ll always wonder—is there something going on between you and Agent Mayhew?”
“Why would you even ask me that?” I demanded, tensing.
“I don’t know,” Callum said, shamefaced. He ran his fingers through his hair, rumpling his curls to hide his embarrassment. “It’s just that, when I see the two of you together … there’s a connection there.”
“You’re imagining things,” I told him.
“Am I? I mean, it’d be okay if … well, not okay. It’s just that I’d understand if …”
“Thomas is my bodyguard,” I said firmly. “Nothing else. Ask him yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
“No, I believe you,” Callum insisted.
“Forget Thomas. You’re the one I’m marrying,” I reminded him.
He gave me a tight smile. “Yeah, but that wasn’t your choice, was it?”
“It wasn’t your choice, either, but you care about me. Why can’t I care about you just as much?” I knew I didn’t, but Callum had no idea who it was he cared about. If he knew I wasn’t Juliana, he wouldn’t give a damn about me, so I didn’t exactly feel guilty.
“Do you?” Callum asked. “Look, I know it’s weird, that I show up here and act like I’m all in love with you after one day. Believe me, I can see myself doing it, and even I think it’s weird. But for the first time in my life, I’m finally getting to make my own choices.”
“That’s a little ironic, considering that you’re here because of a choice you didn’t make.”
Callum conceded the point. “I can see my future with you, Juli, and it makes me happy. We’re going to have this amazing life together, I just know it. That’s what I’m choosing. To not stand in the way of our future. To let myself fall in love with you.”
“I’m not there yet,” I told him. But that wasn’t what was so bothersome about this. My worry was that the real Juliana, the one who Callum would actually be married to, would never get there. I didn’t want Callum to be miserable for the rest of his life because I had led him on.
“You don’t have to be.” He smiled a bit sadly. “I just wanted to know if it’s possible.”
“It’s definitely possible.” Anything’s possible, I thought.
Twenty-Eight
Callum’s face brightened immediately upon the sight of the water. “So that’s the ocean.”
“It is indeed.” We were standing at the border of Asthall’s sprawling lawn, which was separated from the beach by nothing but a stone retaining wall. I curled my toes in the grass. It felt so good to be away from the Castle, to be barefoot and wild-haired at the edge of the sea. A strong breeze pressed Callum’s linen shirt flat against his chest, making it cling to him, a sight I had a hard time looking away from. We’d been forced to send an attendant to buy Callum some clothes in town, once Gloria realized he’d done a terrible job packing for himself.
“It’s so … big.” He laughed at himself. “That sounded dumb.”
Sometimes I forget how big everything is. I couldn’t help but hear Thomas’s voice in my head. I hadn’t seen him since we’d arrived at Asthall; he was keeping his distance, though I had no doubt he was watching me very carefully after last night’s attack. I was glad not to have to deal with him and Callum at once, but I had to admit to myself that I missed him. Not him, but the comforting familiarity of his presence, the way it had been before.
“It’s not dumb at all,” I told Callum. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go for it.”
Callum grinned at me and took off. He plunged feetfirst into the waves, then immediately hopped out. “It’s cold!” he cried. “Why didn’t you warn me it would be so cold?”
“Because it’s more fun this way!” I called back. I ran down the beach to join him, stopping just short of the water.
“Get in here!” he coaxed. I dipped a single toe in just to test it. It was freezing.
He kicked at the water, splashing me, and I shrank from the spray with a laugh. “Hey, stop! I’m getting married in a few days, I can’t risk hypothermia.”
Callum went
back in. “It’s warming up.” He shivered, his teeth chattering.
“Yes, I can see that.” His enthusiasm was catching. Eventually, we got used to the temperature, and we played around in the ocean like children until we were exhausted. Then we trudged up the beach and flopped down on our backs.
“Ugh,” Callum said, fidgeting. “I think I’ve got sand down my shorts.”
“You were the one who wanted to come to the beach.” There was no point in mentioning the circumstances that had brought us both to Asthall. Neither of us could forget if we tried.
Callum sighed contentedly. “I want to spend every minute of every day here. Let’s not go back, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But who’s going to tell the queen?”
“Not me! She already hates me.”
I stared up at the sky, where a parade of clouds rolled along like tumbleweeds made of cotton balls. “It’s a shame you were never allowed to do things like this back in Farnham. I hear the California coast is amazing.”
“Yeah, well.” Callum buried his fingers in the sand up to his knuckles. “Mother was trying to protect me.”
“From what? Jellyfish?”
“I don’t know. She never really said.” Callum turned his head to look at me. “But you can’t really protect people from anything, can you?”
“Says the boy who showed up at my door with an armed escort.”
“Not like that. You know what I mean. Experience. You can’t keep people from getting their hearts broken.”
“You think your mother wouldn’t let you see the ocean because it might break your heart?”
“No.” Callum sighed. “If there’s anything I learned from my mother, it’s that power makes you just as vulnerable as it makes you strong. People want to use you for it, or take it from you, all the time. She doesn’t want that to happen to us. She doesn’t want my brothers and me to trust people, only to have them turn on us.”
“I can understand that,” I said. The real Juliana knew the feeling quite well, if Thomas and Gloria were to be believed. Was that what was happening between Callum and me? Was I fooling him into trusting me, only to leave him in the end? Maybe so, but what choice did I have?
We were quiet for a while, the breaking of the waves upon the beach the only sound.
“Tell me a secret,” Callum requested.
“You tell me a secret.”
“I asked first.”
“I will if you will,” I said. I was stalling. I couldn’t think of a single secret I was at liberty to tell him.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s my secret: I actually fell in love with you back when I was ten.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“I saw your picture on one of the press boards. It was of you and your father, I think, at some state dinner. You were wearing a blue dress and your hair was all curled.”
“I don’t remember that,” I said.
“Well, I do,” Callum said. “And I turned to my mother and said, ‘I’m going to marry that girl someday!’ I didn’t know what marriage was, really, but kids get funny ideas in their heads and they run with them.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, typical Mother. She said, ‘You can’t marry her, she’s our enemy.’ About a little girl! When she told me about, you know, this whole arranged marriage thing, I reminded her of that. She yelled and sent me away.” He sat up, brushing sand off his hands. “Okay, your turn. What’s your secret?”
I thought about it for a second. “I think the king is trying to tell me something.”
“Your father?”
“Yeah. Those things he keeps saying. I’m starting to wonder if he’s not trying to communicate with me in some way. He doesn’t say that stuff to anybody else.”
“Then let’s figure it out,” Callum said without hesitation.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s see if we can’t find a pattern. He said ‘touch and go,’ I remember that.” He picked up a stick and wrote touch and go in the sand in a messy, boyish scrawl. “What else?”
“Um, okay, let’s see. ‘Mirror, mirror.’ He says that sometimes. And … one, one, two, three, five, eight.”
“The same numbers over and over?”
I nodded. “It’s the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s this series of numbers that forms a pattern,” I explained. “Each number is the sum of the two numbers before it. One and one is two, one and two is three …”
“Two and three is five, three and five is eight,” Callum finished. “Got it.”
“And so on, infinitely,” I said. “But he only repeats those six numbers—one, one, two, three, five, eight.”
“What’s so special about the Fibonacci sequence?”
“It can be applied to all kinds of different things. Analysis of financial markets, computer algorithms. They occur in nature, too, in tree branches and flower petals and stuff. They’re sort of like magic numbers.”
“Magic numbers,” Callum murmured. “Sounds promising. Anything else?”
“Yes! ‘Angel eyes.’ He says ‘angel eyes.’ ”
“I remember. I thought that was his nickname for you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not.”
“Angel eyes; mirror, mirror; touch and go; and the numerical sequence one, one, two, three, five, eight.” Callum rubbed his eyes. “It definitely seems random.”
“It does,” I agreed. “But I don’t know that it is.”
“What could he be trying to tell you?”
I glanced out at the horizon. “I have no idea.”
Then Callum did something completely unexpected; he leaned forward and kissed me.
I was so surprised that I didn’t move. All I could think about was Thomas; his face loomed in front of me, the way he’d looked on prom night when he was jumping around on the dance floor. In an attempt to shove away this memory, which hurt more than I wanted to admit, I kissed Callum back, my thoughts racing. Callum placed his hands upon my cheeks and breathed warm air against my cool skin. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my face into his neck. I can’t do this, I thought wildly, holding on to Callum as if I was clinging to the side of a cliff. It’s not right. Soon I’ll be gone and she’ll be back and she won’t love him. She won’t ever love him, and he’ll always wonder what changed. He’ll think it’s his fault, he’ll blame himself. …
This is a betrayal.
“Cal,” I whispered, separating myself from him. “I’m cold. Let’s go inside.”
“Cold?” He gazed at me, confused. We were almost dry now, and it was warm in the sun. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” I said with a nervous, breathy laugh. “I just … I’d like to put some pants on, if that’s all right.”
“Um, sure. Yeah, let’s go back. It’s probably almost lunchtime, anyway.”
He took off for the house without reaching for my hand, and I followed at a slight distance, knowing that however hard I tried, I wasn’t going to return home without leaving my mark on Aurora.
Twenty-Nine
Dinner at Asthall was far more casual than it was at the Castle. Back in Columbia City, only the royal family was allowed to eat in the formal dining room, unless we had guests, but at Asthall, Gloria, Thomas, and Agent Tyson were to eat with us as well. Dress at Asthall was also more casual, but that didn’t mean Gloria didn’t have a say in what I would wear. Tonight I was in a floor-length blue-and-white ikat maxi dress with an empire waist and a draped skirt. It had a long, chunky neckpiece made of dozens of silver chains attached to its fitted bodice, and I wore it with expensive-looking woven silver sandals. Gloria had done my hair herself, in a messy knot at the top of my head. I caught my reflection in a mirror; while the look was more relaxed and beachy, I was still elegant. Gloria seemed pleased with her accomplishment.
“We have a guest for dinner tonight,” she told me. It was a deliberately offhand statement, a
nd it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“The General?” The words came out in a squeak. I hadn’t seen him since the dinner at the Castle when I’d had my allergic reaction and I wasn’t looking forward to trying not to squirm under his gaze all evening.
“Close,” Gloria said. “But no. His wife, Alice Mayhew. She lives near here, and she phoned a little while ago, to get in touch with Thomas.” Gloria shot me a hesitant look. “You know Thomas is the General’s son?”
“Adopted son,” I corrected her.
She nodded. “Well, I got the feeling she was fishing and invited her up. It’s not exactly standard protocol, but it’s not unusual for the princess to extend last-minute invitations to people close to the crown, and Alice is close—at least through the General.” Gloria paused. “I think she just wants to see Thomas.”
I shrugged. “Fine. I don’t care.” I wasn’t pleased—I had enough to worry about with Callum and Thomas eating at the same table, and adding the General’s wife would only make it worse, especially if there were tensions between her and Thomas—but there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it now.
We found the entire group gathered in the parlor adjacent to the dining room. It was easy to spot Alice Mayhew; she was a small, chic woman with a perfect auburn bob and hazel eyes that rested gently on me as I entered the room. Everyone rose from their seats, and Callum came over to take my hand, giving me a kiss on the cheek; any annoyance he’d felt toward me due to our earlier discussion seemed to have dissipated.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, and I smiled at him, grateful for the compliment. There was something about the casual sophistication of the dress that made me feel, for the first time since my arrival in Aurora, a little bit more like myself.
Thomas and Agent Tyson hung back; as KES agents, they weren’t allowed to greet me until everyone else had. Next up was Alice, who smiled at me as she approached and clasped both of my hands in hers. They were cool and soft; a breeze coming through the open window carried her perfume on it, a powdery poppy scent.