I smiled, but guilt coursed through me as Zafir shepherded me into the awaiting vehicle, a different one from the one we’d driven to the school this morning, and I wondered if the other had been destroyed. I wondered, too, where this one had come from. I said nothing, though. I just waited until the door was closed behind me before letting myself cry.
I saw Max running toward our vehicle long before the palace had come into view.
“Stop!” I shouted at the driver as I was climbing over Brooklynn to reach the door.
I stumbled only a few feet over the pitted road before I fell into his arms, which came around me and lifted my feet off the ground as he hauled me against him. “You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . . You’re safe. . . .” he whispered over and over again.
I was shaking all over but I somehow managed to find my voice. “It’s okay, Max. I’m okay.”
I inhaled the scent of his skin—wondering when I’d stopped smelling the smoke, when it had stopped filling every part of me—while I ran my fingers roughly through his hair. I could taste his worry as his lips moved restlessly over mine, not settling in any one place, just pressing to mine and then moving on to my cheek, my nose, my chin, as if he were trying to memorize my every feature with them.
Then at last, his kisses slowed, and his agitation became something gentler, something far more distracting. My pulse raced as his mouth traced my jawline and he whispered against my ear, his breath hot and teasing and filled with yearning, yet I couldn’t understand a single word he’d said.
It didn’t matter, though. I understood his meaning well enough.
We were together.
“Brook’s father is already claiming responsibility,” Xander announced over breakfast. “He’s spreading the word that he plans to hit the queen where it hurts.”
My stomach knotted. I stared down the table to where Brooklynn sat, wondering if she felt half the responsibility I did. If she’d lain awake last night replaying yesterday’s events over and over in her head.
“We have to get you out of here, Charlie,” Xander went on. “All of you—your entire family.”
My father pushed a loaf of hot bread toward Xander. “Are you sure that’s necessary? We’re safe here, aren’t we?”
“Look,” I tried, hoping to stop all this talk about fleeing before it got out of hand, before my family had to be displaced. “I know Brook’s dad. I grew up with him. Maybe I could just talk to him.”
“You realize what he did yesterday, don’t you?” Max’s voice was subdued, his dark eyes serious. “He killed innocent people, Charlie. I think we’re past talking now.”
“Besides, you didn’t see him,” Brook said sorrowfully from her side of the table. “He can’t be reasoned with. I warned him what would happen if he tried anything—”
Xander’s fist pounded against the table and the room went silent. He glowered at Brooklynn. “You saw him? Tell me you didn’t know about this.”
All eyes turned to Brook.
“It was before the attacks, before her tour. I told Charlie we should tell you, that we should postpone her trip into the city,” she explained. “But I had no idea he would actually make good on his threats. . . . Especially not like this. I thought . . .” She shrugged. “I thought he was harmless.”
“Brook’s right,” I tried to intercede. “This isn’t her fault. It’s mine. If I’d have listened, none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”
Max’s hand found mine beneath the table, and without meaning to, I blushed. “It’s not your fault either,” he said. “He’s a madman. Someone like that can’t be reasoned with. You need to listen to Xander. We’ll get your parents and Angelina to safety, and you’ll leave a few days early for the summit.”
My eyes went wide as I turned to him. “What about you? You’re still going, aren’t you?”
Xander’s voice drew my attention. “He can’t. Not now. Ludania needs someone who can rule in your absence, and Max is the most qualified. He was raised in the palace and he was in the military. He can keep the palace—and the country—running while we concentrate on keeping you safe. Eden and I will go with your family, to my grandmother’s private estate in the southern region. They’ll be safe there, no one knows where it is.”
I glanced down at my mom and then my dad, and finally to Angelina. “They could go with us. To the summit, I mean.”
Xander shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. Ludania is nothing without a queen. As second in line to the throne, Angelina’s safety is as important as your own. Separating the two of you is the only way.” His expression softened. “As her sister, surely you understand that.”
I did. Of course I did, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept, and despite being the leader of an entire nation, at the moment, I was powerless. Less than powerless.
They were leaving me with no options.
“There’s more. These are already starting to circulate.” It was Aron, who’d been quiet up until now. He slid a piece of paper down the length of the table.
I stared at it. On it was a picture, one that the photographer had snapped of me kneeling over Sydney’s body on the steps of the Academy. My skin looked as if it were reflecting the light from the camera’s flash, creating sparks of light all over the image. My expression looked dazed.