A Fortnight Later
Plucking a white rose from the bush in front of me, I broke the thorns free from their stem before dropping the beauty into the basket that dangled from my arm.
“Eww.” I wrinkled my nose and turned back to the bush, searching for the next perfect flower to pluck. When he continued to just stare at me expectantly, I sighed. “Indy, really. I told you to just go already. Pursue as many bosoms as you like. You certainly don’t have to stay up here at the castle, babysitting me every second of every day.”
Forgetting the roses, I hurried to him and clutched his arm. There could only be one reason why Indigo would suddenly be so inclined to personally watch over me.
I dogged his steps when he turned and paced away, trying to escape my worried stare. “But the secret entrance back into the castle is just right over—”
I huffed out a moody breath and yanked my hand from his so I could plop it against my hip. “Well then, if we’re not under any kind of threat, why are you being so clingy?”
“I’m not being maudlin,” I cried.
Except that was an obvious lie. Attending a celebration down in Mandalay was usually the exact type of event I enjoyed, especially since I’d spent the last three fortnights helping plan for it. It was flat-out strange for me to plead a headache and hover near the castle during such an occasion.
But the truth was: I had no idea why I felt blue.
I just did.
“Well then, I’m not being clingy,” Indigo spat back childishly before turning away and humming under his breath as he flicked a disinterested finger at a particularly limp and dreary rose.
“I swear,” I huffed. “You are the most impertinent bodyguard I’ve ever met; do you realize that?”
“I wasn’t chosen for my sunny disposition.” He shot me a smirk and began to pick at his teeth with his fingernail. “That’s just a side benefit.”
“Oh bother.” Rolling my eyes, I turned away and studied the roses before me, except I’d totally lost the desire to pick anymore. Glancing into my basket, I only found three buds lining the wicker bottom. Not even enough to fill one vase.
I rubbed at the raw flesh and closed my eyes, trying to will the prickle away.
“Best friend?” Blurting out a surprised laugh, I demanded, “Says who?”
He lifted a single shoulder and scanned the forest before returning his cocky grin to me. “Says reality.”
I continued to chuckle as I found a nearby tree stump and set myself upon it, resting my nearly empty basket on my lap as I did. Smiling up at him, I admitted, “You do manage to entertain me frequently with all the absurd things you say. I’ll admit that.”
Inclining his head as if to thank me for the compliment, he studied me a moment before murmuring on a serious tone, “You know you can always talk to me, don’t you, Nicolette? I’m not just your bodyguard. You’re like a sister to me. If anything is troubling you—”
“But it’s not,” I cut in insistently, flashing my teeth to get him to cease talking about it, already. A headache certainly wasn’t something to make an issue about.
“Yes,” I cried in aggravation. “Of course I’d come to you with any concern. In fact, my menstrual courses are set to begin any day now. So I’ll make a note to tell you about every cramp and bloated—”
Forcing a smile, I said, “If you’d really like to bring me cheer, dear friend, why don’t you tell me one of your funny, peculiar stories again?”
Nothing distracted Indigo like his bizarre but highly entertaining tales.
I’d first met him five years ago when he’d come to Donnelly from High Cliff with Princess Allera so she could wed my brother Brentley.
Which is exactly why I did so.
Quite regularly.
His outraged responses were just too amusing to resist.
“Of course, I do,” I argued. “That story about the metal horse that moves on two wheels will stick with me forever. What did you call the conveyance again?”
He narrowed his eyes before mumbling, “A motorcycle.”
Indigo opened his mouth, pausing before he shook his head. “I don’t,” he finally admitted. “They’ve been passed on to me from my grandpa, Atchison. And they’re not fantasy,” he added, lifting a finger in warning when I opened my mouth to respond. “They’re true. Every single one of them.”
I waited until he lowered his hand before I smirked. “Your grandpa, Atchison, sounds like a fanciful man himself.”
Indigo merely rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re wrong. He was a genius.”
He sounded so respectful and reverent, I lost the will to mock him, and instead asked, “He’s the one who was related to Vienne, correct?”
Vienne was a native Donnellean, like me. We’d grown up in the castle together, and I looked up to her as the big sister I’d never had. For a few short years, we’d actually been related, because she’d been married to my cousin Soren. But then Soren had turned evil, lost his life, and Vienne had taken Allera’s brother Urban for a husband instead.
“Of course.” I loved secrets, so I scooted to the edge of my tree stump and patted the space next to me, giving him leave to sit. “Tell me everything.”
After staring at him a moment, waiting for him to explain what any of that meant, I finally shook my head. “Okay,” I said slowly. “And what is a Replacement exactly?”
Indigo muttered a curse before smacking himself in the forehead. “Sorry. That’s my own term I came up with.” Leaning in until his shoulder was pressed against mine, he heaved out a breath. “But I wasn’t sure what else to call them; it just made sense at the time, so yeah…” He sent me a shrug. “Let’s just go with Replacement, shall we?”
“Oh! Right. Sorry.” Letting go of my fingers, he spread his hands, holding them about a foot apart with his palms facing. “It’s like this. When a very powerful person of magic wishes to depart the Outer Realms, it’s possible for them to escape this world and travel into an alternate dimension. Except—”
“Dimension,” Indigo repeated, blinking at me as if I should know what that meant. He waved a hand. “It’s like a whole new world. A different realm from ours entirely.”
“Oh! You mean, like the place Vienne’s nanny, Wynter, went when she was hiding from the guards who came to question her about dark magic, right before our war with Far Shore?”
I stared at him a moment as he stared back, waiting for me to process everything.
I lurched to my feet and away from the foreign object because it looked freakishly magical. And the last time I’d handled anything infused with magic, I’d disintegrated Vienne’s sister to ash.
I wasn’t so keen on magical objects these days.
“What the devil is that?” I demanded, eyeing the mysterious device untrustingly.
Indigo didn’t try to hand it to me though, he merely unwound a string of leather from around it and flipped it open, revealing more and more pieces of parchment inside, hundreds of them, bound together and fanning up from the center between two thicker outer shells to make an arch. Captivated as all the parchment settled again, I watched in awe when Indigo pressed his hand down on it.
“This,” he told me, “is called a book.”
“A book,” I repeated reverently, easing cautiously closer. “Is it dangerous?”
My bodyguard laughed. “Of course not. It’s just a scroll cut into bits and sewn together. See.” He fanned through the rectangular sections again before showing me the strings in the center that kept them bound as one. I blinked at the words on the leaflets, realizing he was right.
“My God.” I grinned in amazement. “It really is just a scroll separated into pieces. How fascinating.”
“Yes. And I must say, it’s much more convenient this way.” Indigo squinted at the words before flipping through the leaflets. “Now, which page was it on?” he murmured to himself.
“Page?” I glanced up and looked around, expecting to see one of my brother’s attendants approaching, but I spotted no one else in the forest with us. “I don’t see any pages out here.”
We seemed quite alone in the forest, which was why I had elected to wander aimlessly through the trees this afternoon. The ache in my chest had left me feeling restless, craving solitude and lots of space. The forest surrounding the castle moat was the perfect setting for that.
Indigo shrugged. “No idea. It’s just what Grandpa Atchison always called them. Here…”
I shook my head, not comprehending such a place. “No magic? None at all? But how is that possible?”
My eyebrows rose. “Carriages that fly?” Voice turning dry and belief faltering, I said, “Really?”
How absurd. He couldn’t honestly expect me to believe such a thing.
“They’re called airplanes,” Indigo went on, his eyes glittering with excitement. “And that’s how my great-grandma, Amelia, got here. She was flying over a massive sea in an airplane with a man named Fred, looking for a certain island to land on in the middle of the night. Then there was this grand flash of lightning, and the next thing she knew, she was crash-landing into the Bjorn Cliffs. Her friend died in the collision, and Great-grandmother was severely injured. But Great-grandpa Moast was among the first to find her, and he immediately recognized her as his one true love. So he patched her back together with true love’s kiss, and that was that.”
Indigo gave a rueful grin as he tapped the black tattoo on the side of his face, near his left eye. “The love mark at its best, eh?”
My own mark gave a pulse of tingling awareness, causing me to shiver. And uninvited, a vision wavered through my brain of a boy with close-cut brown hair and dark, untrusting eyes. He’d been the only person my love mark tattoo had ever responded to, and I’d barely gotten five minutes with him before he was gone again. It’d been years since then, yet my mark still pulsed with sorrow whenever I thought of him, needing something that only his presence could seem to quench.
I couldn’t look at another person’s mark or even listen to anyone talk about them without thinking of that boy, wondering if I’d ever see him again, hoping he was okay, and knowing I’d never feel truly complete unless he returned to me.
“Great-grandpa Moast tried to help Amelia return to her realm, but when they realized there was no way, he eventually convinced her to stay and marry him. They had two children together—Anniston and Atchison—and after a time, she and Great-grandpa became emissaries for High Cliff. If they hadn’t been assassinated by those wretched Graykeys, they probably would’ve been able to prevent Lowden’s entire civil war.”
“Right,” I repeated. “Of course.” All the while, I wondered if my bodyguard was losing his mind.
I scratched at my tattoo because it began to itch again. My, it was certainly sensitive today. Just thinking about my one true love had gotten it all in a dither.
“Nineteen thirty-seven?” I screeched incredulously.
“Really?” I perked to attention. “Ruling queens, you say? Hmm. I like the sound of this place already. How do I get there, again? It might make a good summer getaway.”
His shoulders slumped. “You’re still not taking me seriously, are you?”
“Oh, Indy.” I sighed and hooked my arm through his, turning him in the direction of the castle when the evening trumpets blasted from the bell towers, announcing the approach of the evening meal. “Does it really matter whether I believe or not? You have a captive audience. Just keep telling me your tales.”
He frowned as he escorted me back home, shaking his head as he said, “Someday, I’ll get you to believe me. I swear it.”
“I have no doubt you will,” I agreed indulgently.
Because he probably would. With this constant tingling from my mark, I was almost sure I’d be insane within a fortnight and willing to believe just about anything.
