“Where is Samuel?” Sophia demanded.
Those words were enough to do it – for the woman to dare mention her son’s name like she had a right to know where he was. The jelly in her bones hardened right back up – into steel. The same steel hardened in her eyes and she turned them on Sophia, but she didn’t answer.
Sophia reacted as if she hadn’t expected an answer – she’d mastered this game long ago, unfortunately. Her eyes narrowed as they swept downward over Quinn, piercing deeply enough to make Quinn’s arms clench tighter over her chest – but it didn’t help. “Clearly you’ve been with him recently. You didn’t bother to follow any of my advice even for your own purposes. He’ll be discovered, you know. Wherever it is you’ve hidden him, it can’t be far. And how long can he go without you, anyway?”
She didn’t know how, but she managed to keep herself from flinching – or knocking the woman flat with her fist.
“And what is that you’re wearing? This is how you present yourself in public?”
It was getting easier to just stare, to just ignore and tune out whatever Sophia was saying. Her grandmother – if she lived through today, that term would have an entirely different meaning to her than it did to most people – was, of course, dressed in a green velvet gown that swept the tops of her glistening black boots. Her gray curls were secured back with an elaborate green and gold barrette. The thing that drew Quinn’s attention the most, though, was the red satin sash tied around Sophia’s waist.
Quinn couldn’t even remember what she was wearing, and she wasn’t going to look down to check now. Although it wasn’t a dress, it couldn’t have been terrible – wrinkled, maybe, after being captured and thrown in prison, but she didn’t need to look to know that the clothes themselves were worthy of her station. Even amidst war and traveling, she’d still had Mia to attend to her wardrobe.
Sophia finally got frustrated with her inability to get a reaction from Quinn – or else she’d never intended to do anything more than stand in the cell for a moment and hurl insults. “I guess you don’t want my help or advice.”
What was your first clue? Quinn wondered, though she didn’t say anything. In truth, she was surprised at how little she cared about anything Sophia was saying – maybe being betrayed by her had its perks.
“Apparently we’ll have to see how you handle yourself on your own in public in an hour. Although, if I were you, I would at least consider changing.”
The statement didn’t make any sense. The cell was empty except for a rough wool blanket on the cot – surely whatever she had on was better than that, even if it was wrinkled.
But then, Sophia held her hand out toward the guard who stood at the entrance of the cell. He handed her the strap of a simple, white canvas bag. Sophia dropped it unceremoniously on the cot before turning and exiting. She was all the way out of the dungeon by the time the guard had finished re-locking Quinn’s door.
~ Forty-One ~
Surprises
ZANDER HAD FINALLY MANAGED to get a small fire going just inside the first part of the entrance to the cave – it had taken him a while to figure out how to obscure any smoke without sending the fumes into the larger cavern – when a soft scuffle of talons on stone alerted him that Larya had returned.
He whirled around to face her. “Is it really too much to ask for you to follow one direction without just doing what you want to do anyway?”
She lifted the canister toward him.
“There’d better not be a new note in there, bird. You shouldn’t have taken my note to anyone except Stephen, and an hour is not long enough to get to Eirentheos. You’re going to get us killed!”
He had to fight to keep his hand steady and not be rough with the bird as he popped open the canister and reached inside.
Larya – as usual – was smug, already butting her head against his pants leg as if he’d be so happy when he saw the note that he’d give her all the treats in his pockets.
She’d been right about that before, but when Zander unrolled this note, he wasn’t happy at all. Instead, he thought he was going to be sick.
He still reached into his cloak pocket and emptied it onto the ground in front of the bird, spilling both dried meat and some seeds he’d saved.
Because she’d done exactly what he’d asked her to.
The note in his hand was from Stephen.
And there was only one way the king of Eirentheos could have sent a response that quickly.
“What am I supposed to do about this?” he mumbled.
Larya looked up at him for a moment, but then returned to hunting the largest strips of meat from the cave floor.
“Zander! Can you bring some water, please?” Nathaniel yelled. The tone in his voice completely negated the “please”, so Zander grabbed the bucket of water he’d meant to put on to boil and ran into the larger cavern.
He was just in time to be there for the part he’d been hoping to miss, but he really was needed.
Mia was entirely occupied with a crying Samuel; she carried him out outside just as Zander came in. William and Nathaniel both looked completely calm and were focused intently on their tasks – which he knew meant they were stressed past their ability to do anything except keep Linnea and the almost-arrived baby safe and alive.
So he ignored everything in the room except Linnea’s face and he went and knelt next to her pile of blankets on the floor, facing her. He reached for her hand, grateful when she allowed him to take it, and he brushed her hair back from her sweaty forehead. “You’ve got this,” he told her.
“I don’t think I do.” Her hand closed tightly around his, and he helped her pull herself up so she was sitting more than lying down.
“All right Linnea, one more time, I think.” Nathaniel’s voice was steady and soothing – but not all that helpful.
“You have it,” Zander said. “Let’s meet her.”
She squeezed his hand so hard he wasn’t sure he’d be able to use it again today, but he didn’t care. He didn’t say anything else – he knew she didn’t need words – he just held her up, and squeezed her hand in return.
After a long, tense, loud moment, there was a tiny squeak, and Zander helped Linnea lie back onto the blankets.
“Beautiful, Linnea,” Nathaniel said. “Here sh… Well, this is a surprise.” A second later, he laid a tiny, still-slippery bundle on Linnea’s chest. It wasn’t nearly as disgusting as Zander would have imagined – well, maybe it was a little – but even so, it was so amazing that he couldn’t stop staring.
Nathaniel laid another blanket over both of them. “It’s a boy.”
Zander’s eyes darted to Linnea’s face, worried she might be disappointed, but the light in her gray eyes told him the tears on her cheeks were anything but sad ones. She ran her fingers through the thin wisps of black hair on the baby’s head.
“He’s so little,” she whispered.
It was true. The baby’s head was barely bigger than Linnea’s hand. Zander was used to Samuel, but even so, this one seemed miniature. “Maybe that explains the fast labor,” he said.
“No. Being Charlotte’s daughter explains that,” Nathaniel said, smiling. “There’s a reason she didn’t make Stephen move into his own apartment after the first few babies.”
Linnea still looked concerned. “Is he all right?” she asked.
Nathaniel nodded. “He’s pink and he’s breathing; he looks perfect, really – and he’s already hungry.”
That was also true. The baby was making grunting noises into his mother’s neck.
“I think he’s just small,” William agreed. “We could definitely use some warm water in here now, though.”
Zander had a hard time peeling himself up off the floor and away from them, but he did. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
* * *
Quinn approached the white bag on her cot as if it were a snake that might bite her. For all she knew, it contained one.
She looked over at Ruth’s cell
; the kind woman only shrugged before turning around and picking up a book.
At least the people in prison for their loyalty to her weren’t being tortured.
None of the other prisoners were looking at her, out of respect, she supposed. The guard’s eyes still flicked to her every few seconds, although less intently than before. Maybe he’d expected her to make a break for it when Sophia had come in. She wasn’t that stupid.
There was no private way for her to change clothes. Not that she had any intention of wearing whatever Sophia had brought for her. But she was curious.
She lifted the bag before she opened it. The fact that it was heavier than it should have been for clothes made her even more wary.
For a minute, she really wasn’t sure that she would open the bag at all. Whatever was inside could easily be infected with pimaeum or coated in shadeweed powder. Eventually, though, her curiosity won out. If they really wanted to poison her, they’d put it on her bed or in her food, anyway. She untied the heavy string.
The heavy green silk that poured from the bag was almost the richest material she’d ever seen. Even as queen, she’d only seen dresses this expensive and fancy twice before – at her wedding and at her coronation.
She thought she was going to be sick. Waves of nausea washed over her as she took in the beautiful details of the gold embroidery and lace.
What kind of sick joke was this? She’d known these people were manipulative and evil, but this? The nausea faded as quickly as it had come, replaced with a red, raw fury that was so consuming and distracting that she almost didn’t see the heavy object that fell from the folds of the fabric and landed on the cot.
She had to throw the bag back on top of it to conceal it.
What in the? She looked around at the other prison cells and at the guard. Nobody seemed to be paying attention or like anything was out of the ordinary.
She reached into the bag again. There were other items inside, but they were innocuous – sort of. There was a hairbrush and a set of golden combs. All of this was a game for someone, but she had no idea what the rules might be.
Under the guise of smoothing out wrinkles, she carefully patted down the rest of the dress, checking for anything else hidden inside. When she didn’t find anything, she sneaked another peek at the object now hidden under the dress and the bag.
Yes, it was exactly what she’d thought in that first glimpse. A dagger. A shiny, heavy, well-made dagger with a gold and green inlay in the hilt. It was even in a leather sheath that could be strapped to her ankle.
Or to her arm, if she was wearing that dress with its loose, flowing sleeves.
It could be a trap. It’s probably some kind of trap. But she didn’t know what kind. She went over and over it in her head as she shrugged out of her shirt and into the soft silk slip she’d also found in the bag. Her privacy now concerned her much less than keeping the weapon hidden. Everything she might need was here, except shoes – and the long dress would conceal her black boots, which weren’t terrible in any case.
It probably was a trap – but as she stepped into the dress she could almost see Zander standing next to her shrugging. If it was a trap, she was screwed anyway – and having a weapon had to be better than walking into it unarmed.
* * *
“Do you have superpowers I don’t know about?” Zander asked Mia when he got back to the small cavern near the entrance where he’d built the fire.
Samuel was perfectly calm – asleep, actually, against Mia’s chest where she’d secured him using some kind of cloth – it might have been her own undershirt stretched over her clothes. He didn’t care what it was; he was impressed.
Not only was Samuel fully tended to, but the fire was stoked nicely, and somehow making less smoke than the smaller one Zander had been working with, and a bucket of water was starting to bubble over the embers.
“That’s something from your world again, right?” Mia asked, frowning.
“Superpowers?” He chuckled. “No. In my – in the world I came from – they’re imaginary. Here they might be real, at least in this cave.”
“How’s Linnea?”
He smiled again. Mia didn’t like compliments any more than he liked being called by his title. He could work with that. “She’s good. It’s a perfect little boy.”
Mia’s eyes lit up like Christmas morning, though she rolled them as she grinned. “Leave it to Ben to make sure this day would be as happy as possible even if he wasn’t here.”
He frowned. “How does Ben being wrong make it happier?”
Mia reached for the bucket as she spoke. “He knew she really wanted a son first – a boy who would carry his name. Besides, as much as she’d deny it most of the time, she loves having older brothers.”
Zander moved her hand out of the way and put on one of his leather gloves before he retrieved the hot, heavy metal container. “Still…”
“So if he told her it was a girl, she’d have no choice but to celebrate – either she’d be happy that he was right, or she’d get her son.”
His mouth fell open as he stared at her. “You think Ben was that…”
“Clever? Sweet? Maybe a bit conniving? Yes. I know he was.”
He raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t so sure.
“It’s always the ones you think are quiet who can surprise you, Zander. You knew Ben a little, but think about it… he married Linnea.”
“If you say so, Mia. You’re tiny and quiet, and you surprise me almost all of the time, so…”
She laughed. “In any case, just wait until King Stephen hears the news. He might be the only disappointed one. Four grandsons and counting.”
Ordinarily, Zander would have made a comment about how King Stephen still had plenty of baby girls at home. But he wasn’t smiling now. The note. He looked around for Larya.
“You might murder me, Zander, but she’s not here.”
“What?”
“I read the note from Stephen – and I answered it. With our location.”
“Why would you do that, Mia? He’ll come here! There are soldiers out there. He could get killed!”
“Most of the soldiers out there are on our side, Zander. It’s true we don’t know which ones. There may still be some of those who betrayed Quinn’s location. They may be searching for us. It’s not safe for us to go out there with one guard, two healers, and women and babies. But most of them are not dangerous. If Stephen didn’t come here, where do you think he would go?”
He closed his eyes, the horrible knowledge dawning on him. “The castle.”
“Exactly. I have no idea what he was thinking coming as a king into this situation. I suspect his only thoughts were for his children – including Quinn, and probably the two of us – but would you rather have him and his troops come here, or go to the castle?”
He sighed. “Maybe that baby in there knew exactly what he was doing.” If Linnea hadn’t been in labor, he’d never have messaged Stephen right now.
Mia’s green eyes pierced into him. “Thank the Maker.”
Swallowing hard, he nodded. “I’d better get this in to them.”
“Yes.”
Even before he was inside the larger cavern with his bucket of water, he could tell something was wrong.
Linnea was making noises she shouldn’t have been, and the baby was crying – in William’s arms instead of his mother’s.
Zander was lucky only a little bit of the scalding water splashed up on his leg as he set the bucket down hard.
“What’s going on?” he asked, running up to William. His body was the one shaking now. “She’s not supposed to still be in pain like that, is she?”
He didn’t know if it was his special “healer” mindset, or what, but for once, William was a lot calmer than Zander. “She is if she’s still in labor.”
“What do you…?” he looked over at Linnea, then at the baby, then back up at Will, not understanding at all – until he did. “There’s another baby?”
&nbs
p; “Yep. Surprise.”
Just then Linnea let out a scream much worse than any noise she’d made the first time.
“William! I need you!” Nathaniel called. “I think this one is breech.”
Zander had only the vaguest idea of what that meant, but it didn’t sound good, and his heart raced as William shoved the baby into his arms and ran over to Nathaniel and Linnea.
The baby was still crying and messy. Zander looked around helplessly. He saw Mia in the doorway – she must have come to investigate the yelling – but as soon as she took a step toward them, Samuel stirred, and then he started crying, too.
Mia carried him out again. Superpowers or no, nothing about this environment would calm Samuel down – and another crying baby would be the opposite of helpful in here.
He looked down at the new baby again. His face was turning red from the screaming, but his little foot had slipped out of the blanket and was starting to go blue. Think, Zander. He couldn’t go over and help Linnea through her ordeal this time, but he could take care of her son.
“Okay, little one. You’re precious, but you’re disgusting. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He carried the infant over to where he’d set the bucket of hot water.
Though he would never understand how, he managed to tune out all of the chaos and the noise as he tended to the newborn. There was probably more screaming, more worried shouts, more sounds that he had no desire to ever hear in his life, but for those moments, all that mattered was the child in front of him.
By the time the tiny boy was clean and wrapped in a new warm blanket, he was quiet, sucking on the side of his fist as Zander held him and swayed gently back and forth. Quiet enough for Zander to hear Nathaniel’s tender voice say, “Ah. Here she is, Linnea. Your little girl.”
~ Forty-Two ~
Waiting
IF THERE WAS ONE thing Quinn hated more than anything else, it was waiting – being forced to do nothing when all she wanted to do was take action.
Leaves of Revolution Page 31