“I mean – look at what’s going on, Will. There are hundreds of these Philothean refugees now – they’re huddled in these camps, they don’t have the things they need, and they can’t find shelter, and why? Most of it isn’t because of a few dozen evil people from Philotheum who actually mean harm to them. It’s because of all the people who ‘don’t want to get involved,’ who just want to stay in their safe little villages and pretend that everything is okay. Or worse, they want Stephen to close the border and for the whole kingdom to look the other way from the things that are going on over there.”
William swallowed hard, a strange feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Until recently, neither did I. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. This isn’t the world I want my child to grow up in.”
William raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, Will, Essie and I are expecting a child. We just found out, right before all of this happened.”
* * *
Back inside the clinic, while Jacob finished getting the wagon ready, William approached the two little boys, the supplies he’d readied hidden in a small, covered box.
“Hey guys,” he said quietly. “Do you want to see something fun?”
Wesley, who was the oldest, eyed him warily, but nodded along with his younger brother who, even with a leg that was hurting him, was enthusiastically curious.
Even though he hadn’t loaded the saddle bags this morning, William was never completely empty-handed when he arrived at a clinic. He reached into the small, leather pouch he always carried, and withdrew a toy. It was a small puzzle-game he’d bought in Bristlecone, a brightly-colored cube covered in small squares. He took a few minutes now to show the boys how to twist and turn it, trying to match up the colors on each side.
They were fascinated. He let them play with it for several minutes, showing them a few tricks and getting them comfortable before he patted Darren softly on the knee, just above the bandage that Nathaniel had wrapped around his leg.
“Hey buddy, can I take a look at your cut while you play?” he asked, purposefully keeping his tone light.
Darren nodded, still absorbed in the game, but Wesley’s attention immediately honed in on what William was doing. He gave the protective older brother a friendly smile, but the boy relaxed only a little.
Darren whimpered when William tugged gently on a part of the bandage that had gotten stuck, and Wesley’s glare turned angry. “Don’t hurt my brother,” he said.
“I’m just looking at it right now,” William said, as he examined the cut. Nathaniel was right. It was going to need several stitches. He looked up at Wesley. “Hey, can you help me with something over here for a minute?”
“What?” the little boy asked, when William had gotten him out of his younger brother’s earshot. “What are you going to do to my brother? You’re not going to make him cry and then go to sleep like my sister, are you?”
William’s heart did a little flip at the boy’s concern. “We only gave your sister a little medicine to make her sleepy because her tummy was hurting so much,” he said. “We’re going to fix it soon, but right now the best thing she can do is rest. She’s going to be okay.”
“Will she wake up again?” Wesley asked, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, and William’s heart ached even more.
“Of course she will. Everything is going to be fine, buddy.”
“Are you going to do that to my brother?” Some of the tears were starting to drip now.
“No, I’m not. He’s going to stay awake, and you can stay sitting next to him the whole time to make sure, okay?”
Wesley nodded, wiping his cheek on the shoulder of his shirt. William reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief; the motion of handing it to the little boy made him think about Quinn. He hoped she was doing all right back at the castle.
“Are Clara and Darren twins, Wesley?”
“Yes.” He dabbed at his eyes with the crumpled-up cloth, sniffling.
“I thought so. Did you know that I have a brother and sister who are twins and they’re just a couple of cycles younger than me?”
“You do?”
“Yup. And I love them very much, and I always try to protect them, too. You’re doing a really great job as a big brother.”
The look in Wesley’s eyes was very slowly becoming more trusting.
“I do need your help, though Wesley. Do you think you can help me?”
“What do I have to do?”
“I need to clean out your brother’s cut, and I need to fix it so it can heal the right way and it won’t get infected or give him a bad scar. But I don’t want to hurt him when I do that, so I need to give him some medicine to make just that little part of his leg go to sleep for a while.”
Wesley raised his eyebrow skeptically. “He doesn’t like medicine.”
“Nobody does, Wes,” William said, meeting his gaze. “And he’s really not going to like this kind, because I have to use a little needle to put it just in his leg.”
Wesley’s eyes popped open wide.
“Yeah, I know. It will sting, and he’s probably going to cry for a few minutes, but then that part of his leg will fall asleep and he will feel better. Do you think you can help him out and hold his hand and help him keep his leg still?”
“Maybe.” Wesley still looked dubious, and William had to smile.
“We’re not going to talk about the needle, though, okay? Not even if you see it, although you probably won’t, because I have a special way I like to hide it while I’m using it. I won’t lie to him – I’ll tell him when it’s going to pinch, but talking about the needle is a little scary. Can you just talk to him about other stuff, like maybe his favorite game to play or his favorite thing to eat? Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try.”
William couldn’t help smiling again. It was an honest answer. “Awesome. Thanks, little man.”
“Prince William?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to stick needles in me, are you?”
William looked him right in the eye and smiled. “No, I’m not.”
20. Mia’s Revelation
Quinn walked back into the castle slowly after saying good-bye to William at the stable, still upset with herself for ruining his surprise. She barely gotten inside the hallway to the family’s quarters when Linnea pounced on her.
“So?” Linnea said, smiling widely.
“So what?” She frowned. Had she missed something else?
“Which one did you pick?”
She felt her face and neck flush hot. “You knew?”
Linnea rolled her eyes. “Were you really under the impression that people keep secrets from me around here?”
She raised an eyebrow at her friend, “I suppose not many.” Of course, Quinn knew of several secrets people were keeping from Linnea, her own included, but it wasn’t like she could say anything.
“So? Which one?” Linnea’s eyes shone with curiosity and excitement.
“The one that’s a solid light gray color except for the patches of white on the chest and wings.”
“Oooh, good choice!”
By that point they’d reached the door to Quinn’s bedroom, and she was surprised to find that the door stood open. As soon as they entered, she could see why. “Do the two of you ever hang out in your own bedrooms?” she asked Thomas, who was sitting on her couch. His injured leg was propped up on her coffee table.
He shrugged. “Yours is a nice change of scenery. Besides, we were waiting for you, wanting to hear how the bird-picking went.”
“You were right, T. She picked the one you thought she would.”
Thomas’ eyes lit up as he smiled widely. “I’ve been calling that one Raeyan. It’s perfect for you.”
“You can name it something else if you’d like, though,” Linnea said hurriedly.
“I don’t know; it’s kind of a nice name. I don’t know anyt
hing about naming seeker birds – and at least that one’s a name I’m not going to have to learn how to pronounce.”
Thomas chuckled. “See, Nay. I knew what I was talking about.”
“Does the name mean something?” Quinn asked.
“Um ... it’s something like ‘trusted guardian’.”
“Well, that’s appropriate then.” She sat down in one of the armchairs and put her own feet up on the table. Her thoughts were still in a tangle; she couldn’t decide whether Thomas and Linnea being in her room right now was a welcome distraction or an annoyance. After she’d sat there silently for a moment, she realized that the two of them were still looking at her expectantly.
“What?”
“Anything else happen on your walk?” Linnea asked.
She frowned. “Like what? We saw some rabbits, too.”
“That is so not what she’s asking,” Thomas said. “What else happened between you and Will?”
Now she was confused. Nothing else had happened, at least nothing noteworthy besides her overreaction, and they didn’t know about that. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Thomas and Linnea never looked more like twins than when they both reacted the same way to something. Watching them both roll their eyes at the same time was almost comical.
“Do you think she just doesn’t know that him asking her to formally announce their courtship at the party is a big deal?” Linnea asked her brother.
Suddenly the room felt like it was spinning. “What?” she managed to splutter.
Linnea’s eyes widened, and pink lines spread across her cheeks. “He did ask you, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t ask me anything, except about the birds. What was he supposed to ask me?” And why did his siblings have to know everything before she did? Her heart pounded heavily in her chest as she wondered just how badly she’d upset him over the bird thing. She’d already felt terrible enough.
Both Thomas’ and Linnea’s faces were beet red. “Sorry, Quinn,” Thomas said. “I had no idea we’d be ruining anything by saying something.”
Quinn blinked furiously, as she tried to regain her composure. The pain in her chest threw her off balance. He’d been going to ask her about that and now he hadn’t? What did that mean? What had she done?
“Quinn…” Linnea walked toward her, a sympathetic look in her eyes.
Suddenly, there was a soft knock at the open door, and Quinn looked up to see King Stephen standing there, looking a little concerned. She’d never before thought how nice it might be if she were a chameleon, capable of blending into the background on a moment’s notice.
“Oh, hi Father,” Linnea said, the red coloring in her face reaching all the way past her hairline and to the tips of her ears now. “How long have you been standing there?”
The look Stephen directed to his children right then might have made Quinn laugh if she hadn’t been so mortified. “Long enough to hear the two of you crossing the boundaries of decent privacy, as usual.”
They both looked down at the floor.
“I do believe there’s a good deal of silver that needs polishing downstairs,” Stephen said, in a tone that caused both Thomas and Linnea to slink out of the room immediately.
Once they were gone, Stephen’s eyes fell back on Quinn.
“How are you?”
“I’m all right, thank you.” It was a lie; she was barely holding herself together, and she’d never felt quite this awkward talking to him before.
“We haven’t really had a chance to talk since you’ve been back.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Do you have a minute now?”
She nodded slowly, taking a couple of deep breaths. Her thoughts were spinning so wildly that she wasn’t sure she was capable of maintaining a conversation, but she’d try.
Stephen closed the door to her room and came over to sit down on the couch that Thomas had just vacated. They both sat there for a moment, just looking at each other – she had the feeling that he wasn’t quite sure what to say to her, either.
Finally, he spoke. “How are you doing with everything?”
She closed her eyes and took another deep breath before she answered. “Apparently not as well as I thought I was.”
He chuckled under his breath, though his gray eyes shone with sympathy. “That sounds about right. It’s a lot to take in. Nathaniel told me that Megan gave you the pendants.”
“Yeah.” Quinn reached deep into the pocket of the woven pants she wore for the little pouch she’d stored there. Carefully, she unclasped the safety pin that held it in place, and pulled the pouch into her hand. The pendants inside jingled together softly.
“She gave me the pendants, and Nathaniel told me the whole story. Or at least what sounds like the whole story. I’m learning that there’s always some part of things I don’t know about.”
“It sounded like he told you most of things that are relevant. He told you who he really is and who your father was.”
“Who I am,” she added raising an eyebrow at the word ‘relevant’, but choosing to let it go for now.
“Yes. Who you are.”
“Well, that’s the part I’m having the most trouble with,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with that information.”
“I imagine it changes a lot of things for you, Quinn.”
She looked up at him, meeting his gaze, a little wave of irritation crashing into the sides of her stomach. “Is that what it’s supposed to do? Change everything for me?”
He sighed, his expression shifting to one that looked almost – guilty? “I don’t know the answer to that. There’s nothing about this situation that’s the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be. Or at least, the way I wish it was. I said something to Alvin once, about not knowing what I was supposed to do about any of this, and he told me that there’s no such thing as supposed to – that there is only whatever situation is in front of us today, and the choices we make in dealing with it.”
“So what do I do now then? What choice do I make?”
“Ultimately, that decision is up to you. No one else can choose for you.”
The anger rushed in so fast it took her by surprise; she didn’t even know where it came from. “I keep hearing that. Everyone says ‘the choice is mine,’ but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like everyone else has been deciding everything for me my whole life, and now they’re waiting on me to make some kind of ‘choice’ that’s really going to be what they wanted the whole time. What is it I’m supposed to be deciding, exactly, Stephen? I don’t even know! What are my choices?”
His face was red now, and there was a definite look of guilt in his eyes. He was silent for several minutes, watching her closely as she tried to calm herself, by taking deep breaths.
She raised her eyebrow, and he finally spoke. “I don’t know if I can even answer that question and be fair to you, Quinn. I’m trying to be as honest as I can here, but I’m not a neutral party in this. The Maker knows I’ve tried, I’ve done my best to sit back, to stay out of your way so that in the end the decision you make is really yours. But I have a stake in this. And I’ve already interfered more than it was my right to.”
“Interfered how? You’re not the one who told me any of this, you’re kept it from me as much as anyone.”
Stephen looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact with her, and cold trickles of fear seeped into her chest.
“I interfered with your mother, even against your father’s wishes, prohibiting her from taking you out of Bristlecone.”
She nodded – she’d known about that, but she had a niggling feeling that that wasn’t all he was talking about.
“But at least that helped Nathaniel to be able to know you, and left the door open to your making your own choices eventually. And, honestly, I never fully agreed with Samuel’s decision to keep everything from you. The much bigger interference of course, the one that crossed the line, really –
that I sacrificed my own son’s choices for – was when I sent William to Bristlecone to be near you.”
Quinn’s blood turned to ice in her veins. “You did that because of me? Not for him to study medicine?”
“That was a big reason, and it’s certainly the only reason he ever knew about. But no. We could have found other ways for him to gain that knowledge here, maybe not as in-depth, but I’m not sure we could have brought ourselves to let him go there at such a young age for that reason alone.”
“But why? Why would you send William to be near me? I never really even knew him in Bristlecone.”
Stephen sighed. “It’s complicated, Quinn.”
A sudden flash of intuition nearly knocked her out of her chair. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? I’d meet William, find the gate, and learn about my real world ... and then what, Stephen? I fulfill this prophecy you claim not to care about? I marry your son and take over the Philothean throne, re-unite the kingdoms?”
Stephen wouldn’t make eye contact with her; his face grew even redder, and she felt her muscles constrict in rage. “Are you serious?” she asked in a low, cold voice.
“I told you I’m not a neutral party. And I’m human. I don’t always make the choices that are the right ones. I know I shouldn’t have. That my only responsibility was to wait on the Maker. I justified it by telling myself I wasn’t actually forcing anyone to make a certain choice. But I did stack the deck, yes.”
“You ‘stacked the deck.’ Like a card game? So it’s some kind of a game to you? My life? William’s life?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down twice before he managed to choke out an answer. “No, it isn’t a game. But it is what I did.” He stared out the window now, still avoiding looking directly at her.
“Are you apologizing?” she asked.
He finally looked at her, with an expression she couldn’t begin to understand. “I don’t know if I’m sorry.”
* * *
Quinn stormed out of the castle, her heart racing, and tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember ever having been so angry before in her life. Everything – her whole life, the time she’d spend in Eirentheos, her relationship with William – had all been a set-up. Something planned by someone else.
Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) Page 22