When they returned into the city, Gwynn expected it to be business as usual. They’d picked up Pirlipat and Layla at the witch’s cottage before Katherine’s mother had been generous enough to portal them down to Bozhidara at the base of the mountain to catch their tram. It had been a good adventure, with a clear end and a new destination.
But then Ellowyn Khmer was waiting for them at the train station, a panicked look on her face.
“Nikolai, Katherine, thank goodness you and your friends are back!” Ellowyn clasped Katherine’s hands. “Have you heard the news?”
Katherine frowned. “No, what’s going on?”
“It’s the Annwyn—they invaded the Artorias Palace, they say the Royal Family is missing!” Ellowyn looked beside herself. “They say that the lady who visited our school is one of them!”
Gwynn looked to Coppelius. “How could this happen?”
He at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “I didn’t know where she ended up!”
“I think we know now,” Pirlipat muttered.
“You know what we have to do, don’t we?” Layla asked as she tugged on his sleeve. “We have to help them!”
Pirlipat sighed. “Of course.”
Ellowyn stopped sniffling long enough for her frown to deepen. “What are you going to do?”
“They’re here because of us,” Coppelius said miserably. “We should fix it.”
“They’re here because of—“ Ellowyn looked wildly from Coppelius to Katherine. “I don’t understand, what—“
“Let’s get you back to the Institute.” Nikolai took Ellowyn’s arm, while Katherine did the other.
“But what about—“
“They’ll fix it, I promise.” Katherine glanced back, meeting Gwynn’s eyes. “There’s nothing they can’t do. Tell me when you’ve done it, will you? I’d like to put it in my book!”
“I will!” Gwynn called out after her.
It wasn’t long before Katherine, Ellowyn, and Nikolai disappeared into the crowds of huddled, disconcerted Otsoans. Which left them to their mission.
“Where’s the Artorias Palace?”
----------------------------------------
It turned out to be rather difficult to miss.
It was the largest building in all of Thule. With candy-colored domes for the ceilings of the stone towers, circular stained glass windows, it was yet another beautiful thing to see in Gwynn’s travels with Sorrel.
To Gwynn’s surprise, there were no guards outside. They were able to just walk right in. What they did see inside the palace was full on warfare.
Guards were fighting Annwynese skirmishers and barking orders, while servants and lower-ranking nobles and clerics ran and screamed for their lives. In the chaos, no one noticed a group of travelers in the palace.
“The queen!” One guard yelled. “We have to find the Queen and her children—“
“—Prince Armel and Princess Misha are unaccounted for—“
Gwynn’s stomach sank. They had done this. They had been the one to bring the Spider-Queen’s gaze here.
Was this how Coppelius had felt to see Perrault razed to the ground for the crime of having set foot on the place?
She shook her head. It would do her no good to fall into the endless void of thought. Not now. Not when there was something they could do about it.
She looked to Coppelius. “You can track them, can’t you?”
“I can feel their magic.” Coppelius closed his eyes and reached his hand out. “Only the Otsoan Royal Family and special clerics are allowed to use it, here. Their aura is distinct.”
He then opened his eyes and pointed. “There—that way, come on!”
With that, they all took off running down the corridors. No guards bothered them—they were all otherwise occupied with fighting off the Annwynese soldiers. They twisted through the corridors, looking for any sign of the Queen of Otso and her two children.
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Somewhere along the way, Gwynn felt a cold wind playing at her hair, an intuition’s call.
Gwynn stopped.
It was that prickle of familiarity, the cold wind over her shoulder and rustling through her ebony hair. Not so foreboding as a blizzard, with perhaps the same mischievous familiarity as a wind that carried in sprinkles of snow on Bonfire Night. Although Gwynn could never picture the one who she associated with the ice-cold winds being mischievous.
That was what tore her away from the party, had her running down the corridors in blind pursuit of it even as the others yelled for her to come back.
They were so certain that the Otsoan queen and her son, the Crown Heir, were the targets. They never even considered that there was some other plan at work, something greater than conquering this one planet!
Her footsteps were as sure as they were traversing the trails of the Reserve. With each step, she was that much more confident in her instincts.
That was what Persephone had told her, wasn’t it? To trust her instincts—that was what would make her a good witch. Perhaps one of the great ones like the Astral Coven someday.
Gwynn wasn’t so sure about glory—but she could save one family, one planet, if she could just get to Versailles.
The corridor opened up into a wide room like the ballroom at the Governor’s Mansion on Lemuria, with a glass ceiling and windows, although these were made of the intricate stained glass characteristic of Otsoan architecture. And standing all alone in the center of the dance floor were two people.
One was Versailles. His indigo eyes were wide, desperate in a swirling tempest of emotions that Gwynn could not pick out, like individual threads in a single patch embroidered cloth on the wrong side.
The other, trapped in his arms with a knife to her neck, was none other than Princess Misha Ursa, the younger sister of the Crown Prince.
Gwynn slowed her steps. “Let her go. I know there’s something else you want.”
“What makes you say that?” Still, there was a glimmer approval in his eyes.
Gwynn took that as license to continue her approach, with her pale hands held up. “Princess Misha isn’t the queen or her heir. They’re in another room in this castle. You’d have gone after them if this was really about politics.”
Then she paused, tilting her head as another piece clicked into place. “No. . . Lady Isolde went after them, because for her it’s political. For you. . . this is something else, isn't it?”
“You’re not entirely wrong,” he admitted. “But you aren’t right either. Princess Misha is exactly the sort of hostage that Coppelius or your sister would care about. The kind that they would go any means to rescue from the Queen—even if it meant trespassing into her domain.”
Right into her trap.
Princess Misha whimpered, a sound that reminded Gwynn of what was at stake.
“I thought you didn’t want innocents getting caught up in all of this.” She managed to get closer—still not close enough to grab Princess Misha, never mind the business with the knife.
“I don’t.” There was a wariness to Versailles, the hackles rising—but also the expression of defeat, of uncertainty in it.
He still didn’t want to hurt people like Princess Misha, to pull her into it.
Just as he hadn’t wanted Gwynn or Sorrel to get involved in this centuries-old conflict.
Gwynn could blame Sorrel for all of it, say that she had followed her heart recklessly and that Gwynn was just cleaning up the mess the way she always had. But that wasn’t really true, was it?
No, for all Gwynn had fretted about safety and security, the truth was that she would never have ignored Coppelius’s pleas for help, or what Annwyn had done. She’d had her chance to walk away on Lemuria. She could have run away from the ball, she didn’t have to help her sister, and she’d begun to regret her choice anyway.
And then there was what Persephone Solokova had seen—the secret desire for adventure, to be important, to matter in the way that Sorrel had.
Gwynn bit her lip. She’d made her choices when Princess Misha hadn’t. And when she looked into Versailles’ glittering violet eyes, she realized what he was really after. All the components of the storm laid bare for her.
Fear, pleading, desire, and something else, something ancient that did not need to be named, the very power that had sprung between Coppelius and Sorrel, that divided Gwynn and her twin in these days.
“You need a hostage for the Spider-Queen, one that my sister will come after, no matter what.” She spoke calmly, clearly, reiterating what they both knew. “A trap.”
“Yes,” he breathed, and Misha whimpered again.
“Then leave her out of this.” Gwynn’s heart pounded in her ears, but she tried to quell it as best she could.
For all that this choice left her future uncertain, she knew one thing.
Versailles would not hurt her. Nor would he let her come to harm. His actions on Lemuria were evidence enough of that.
“You don’t mean—“ the hope was there, burning brighter than any star.
“Take me instead.” Her voice was quiet, but deafening. Like falling snow, like breaking glass.
He removed the knife and let go of Princess Misha.
She stumbled forward—but Gwynn stepped up, just in time to catch her. She slowly lowered both herself and the Otsoan princess to the ground.
The girl looked up at her with wide green eyes, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.” Gwynn gently pried the princess’s fingers off of her jacket. “You weren’t the one he was after. It was me—it was always me, wasn’t it?”
When she looked up to Versailles, there was a blush spread across his face, his eyes avoiding her—a tacit confession.
She looked back to the princess. “Go find the Royal Guards, tell my sister what happened, alright? She has red hair, her name is Sorrel—you wouldn’t be able to miss her, even if you tried.”
Princess Misha nodded, her attention rapt. “I won’t forget what you’ve done for me, never—“
“Gwynn Marchand.” She rose from the floor and looked to Versailles. “I suppose this means I’m your prisoner, then.”
She offered her hands forward, expecting some kind of spell-binding or something similar.
Versailles shook his head as he took one of her hands into his. Perhaps that felt like shackle enough, or should have. Never mind that something about it felt right, something electric.
“You will be a guest in my house,” he assured her, placing the other hand over his heart. “No harm will fall to you, and you will be given all the dignity that entitles you to.”
Gwynn inhaled sharply. “Then take me home.”