Elian ran after her. The questions Ophelia wanted to ask them both stacked up in her mind. It was cruel, she thought, that all she could do was watch them from the entrance of her room as they grabbed each other’s limbs and tried to fight one another away.

“Why does nobody believe me when I say I’ve changed?” Elian cried, as he held onto her arm, as Vera faced his gaze with a chilling glare of her own. “Why don’t you—out of all people—believe me?”

“Because—” Vera shook him off. This time, it seems Elian was too tired to even try to make her stay again. “Because,” she said, voice a little lower than before, “I know you still want to find your mother. I know you still have yet to truly move on. And I’m sorry, Elian—” Vera’s voice broke; Ophelia could not see her face anymore, though it wasn’t hard for her to imagine the expression she was making. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but until you do, I don’t think I can trust you anymore.”

Elian’s fingers curled into a fist. He didn’t move. He was still, like a statue, a perfect soldier and not the lively Prince Ophelia was so used to knowing. “Father is ill,” he said, simply, as if the statement didn’t regard his own kin.

Vera turned around. She was back to being angry now, and for a moment, Ophelia found this reassuring, because everything was back to normal and right again. “I know that,” Vera told Elian, her tone bordering on offence. “What are you trying to accomplish here?” She scoffed. “I sure hope you’re not playing the pity card on me. We both know that would be distasteful.”

“I’m not,” Elian told her. “I’m not.” He glanced down to his feet, then back up again, at her, at the hallway behind them. Someone downstairs had lit the fireplace. Ophelia could hear the sound of flames crackling through the air. “He’s…” Elian bit his lip. “In his final days now. I just wanted you to know.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Vera’s eyes widened. It was brief, but for an instant, Ophelia could have sworn her gaze had grown glossy with tears—tears she soon blinked away. “Elian—” Vera shook her head. “Forgive me. I had no idea it was this—”

“Bad?” This time, it was Elian who scoffed, as a smile he didn’t mean took his lips. “Of course you didn’t,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t know each other as well as we thought we did anymore.”

“Do you really believe that?” Vera asked, while he turned his back on her and walked in the direction of Ophelia’s room once again. “You don’t think friends have the right to fight every once in a while?”

Ophelia quickly removed her head from the door frame and jumped back into bed. She closed her eyes. She didn’t know if Elian would believe that she’d truly fallen asleep with all the ruckus they were making, though she figured it was better than standing there and doing nothing in the middle of her poor old room.

“Not when they stick around only while it is convenient, no,” she heard Elian mutter.

“Elian.” There were footsteps now. Vera’s footsteps. Panicked footsteps. “You know that’s not true!” she said. “You know I didn’t have a choice but to—”

“It’s fine, Vera.” Yet again, Elian didn’t sound like himself. His words were empty, of life, of fear, of everything Ophelia had associated with the young Prince. And Ophelia couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever truly known him, or if it was Elian who did not know himself. “I only came here to get Ophelia and tell you we were leaving early. You don’t need to apologize, or to pretend,” he told Vera. “I don’t care about what you think of me, and I won’t use my power to remove you from your post. Just…don’t be mean to Ophelia, all right? She didn’t choose to be here. It’s my fault if things ended up this way, and my responsibility, so…stay out of it.” It didn’t take long for him to find his way into a room that would soon be Ophelia’s no more once she’d walked out of the inn’s door. “Ophelia?” Elian knocked on hard wood. “Are you asleep?” he asked.

For once, Ophelia could agree with Vera—Elian was a terrible liar.