Chapter 31

Inara knocks before the sun rises. When I open the door for her, Frederick’s awake and alert outside, a small bag on the floor next to him. She’s carrying a bag, too.

“Good morning.” I rub my bleary eyes.

“Are you ready to go? Alora’s plane is preparing to leave.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say, “and I think you should stay.”

Inara drops her bag. “Why?”

“I’ll have Edam and Alora to train me, and you could stay here and look for the ring while I’m gone.”

“Judica will already be looking,” Inara says.

“Exactly. I’d love to have someone here I can trust not to simply schedule the funeral and investiture without me, and you could maybe try to warn me of any assassination attempts headed my way.”

Inara frowns. “I can protect you better if I’m near you. And I can’t counsel you at all, not from here, not with any confidence that no one else knows what I’m telling you.”

“I need someone I trust to put the family first here, in the heart of Alamecha.”

Inara sits on my bed, her lip trembling. “I miss her, too. I want to do what she wants me to do, but I don’t know what that is.”

I sit next to Inara and wrap my arm around her. Her dismay tears at the gaping hole in my heart, but I can’t fall apart when she needs strength from me. Not when she’s been so amazing.

Inara wipes at her face and straightens. “You need me here?”

I nod.

“Then I’ll stay. Maybe I can provide something, information or, I don’t know, something helpful from here. If nothing else, I can work with the people to make sure they soften toward the idea of you as their ruler.”

I’m sure they hate the thought of me taking over for Mom. No one who doesn’t know about the EMP thinks I’m the right choice. They’re probably all right.

Inara must see the pain in my face, because she bites her lip. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sure people are pleased. Everyone loves you. They were just surprised, is all. I can help them adjust to the idea.”

“Might be a huge waste of time,” I say. “I may just abdicate. If we can’t find the ring, it won’t matter that I reacted to it.”

“There’s a prophecy about it, right?” Inara asks. “Mom mentioned it once to Adika when I was much younger, but I overheard. There’s some queen to rule all queens, and she thinks it’s you.”

I have no idea why it’s supposed to be such a secret, but I see no reason not to confirm Inara’s guess. I nod. “Something like that. It’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not.”

I stand up and grab my bag. “I guess I don’t have time to brush my teeth and shower, not if Alora’s plane is about to leave.”

Inara stands and hugs me again, so tightly I can almost hear my bones creak.

“Careful,” I say. “I know we heal, but it still hurts.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh please.”

I grab my bag and head for the door.

“Wait,” Inara says.

“Yeah?” I ask.

“Give me your phone.”

I shake my head. “How else will I call you?”

“Judica can look up that number on her system here. She can track you with it if she wants to. It’s not safe.”

“She agreed to ten days,” I say.

Inara shrugs. “Fine, trust in her good nature.”

Crap. I hand her my phone. “How will I contact you?”

She passes me an envelope full of cash. “You can buy a new phone, or if you trust Alora completely, have her get you one. At least no phone she provides will be monitored by the main Alamecha security protocols.”

I hadn’t even thought about all of this. It’s making my head spin. As Empress, I need to learn a lot more about security and espionage. I glance at the stack of books on my bedside table. Mom was always piling me up with light reading about the world, telling me I’d need to integrate all that information at some point. I snag five of them: Hacking Exposed, The Art of Deception, Thinking Strategically, Why Nations Fail, and Sladius Today: Decimate your Opponent. At least I’ll have something to read on the flight to NYC.

The pain I feel when I walk away from Inara, my mother’s mini-me, is nothing to the ocean of sorrow when I think about the fact that she’s gone. But it still hurts. I glance over my shoulder and she smiles broadly at me and waves.

Frederick, of course, trails on my heels. “Is this going to be a new thing?” I ask.

“What? Me following you?” His dark hair falls in his face, and he uses his free hand to brush it back.

“I don’t need a shadow.”

“I disagree,” he says. “But I haven’t had time to thoroughly vet enough of the guards. That will have to wait. For now, I’ve chosen ten I trust completely to accompany us.”

I open my mouth to argue.

Frederick sets his jaw and clenches his fist, and I don’t have the energy to argue with him, not now. Not after the last two days.

“Fine.”

I survey his approved guards on the runway outside. Seven men and three women. I know them all, of course, but I only know four of them well enough to carry on a conversation of any kind. I’m surprised how many of them are young. Like, only a few years older than me.

“How did you pick these guards specifically?” I ask as we climb up the steps to board the jet. “I’ve barely met a few of them.”

“I wish I could have simply transferred your mother’s guard to you.” He shakes his head. “But I felt it was safer to recruit only people I was one thousand percent sure supported you specifically.”

“I think she was poisoned.” I blink back tears. “I doubt the guards were to blame for that failure. More like one of Angel’s staff.”

“You can be sure Judica will conduct a thorough investigation there.”

Unless Judica poisoned Mom herself. I see that register on Frederick’s face, so I don’t bother saying it. Frederick’s guards split, half in front and half behind me. I wait patiently at the top of the stairs for them to clear me to board. Alora’s jet only seats twenty, and I notice there’s already one guest on board. It’s not Alora.

Edam’s sitting in the window of the first row on the right side. He doesn’t smile at me when my eyes meet his. In fact, it almost looks like he’s scowling. Did I imagine the flirty interchanges over the past few days? I expected a little gratitude for getting him out of a holding cell at the very least.

“Hey, Edam.” Even with the awful day I’ve had, his face brightens the room.

He grunts.

Why is he grunting? What did I do? Maybe he hates anyone in line for the throne. “I’m glad you’re safe and onboard.”

“I wish I was.” He crosses his arms, the muscles in his forearms rippling, and leans back in his chair.

“Umm, are you saying you wish you weren’t safe? Or that you weren’t on board?” I ask.

He lifts one eyebrow.

I sit down on the seat next to him, and he leans slightly toward the window and away from me. What the—? “What’s wrong with you?”

“If Your Majesty finds me lacking in any way, I apologize profusely.”

“Knock it off with all the majesties and whatnot. Why are you upset?”

“No reason. No reason at all. And now that Your Majesty is Empress, I certainly can’t justify using a more informal address.” Edam pulls a book out of his bag and pointedly sticks his nose into it. Sein Und Zeit. Great. He’s reading Heidegger’s Being in Time. In the original German. Instead of talking to me.

“A little light reading for the flight?” I thought my stupid security, economics, and game theory texts were bad enough.

He answers without looking up. “We’re joining the humans for a while. I figured I should brush up on my studies of human morality.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” I ask. “You’re reading an old German philosopher so you can connect in New York City?”

Edam plonks the thick, leather bound book down on his lap. “What would you prefer for me to do, Your Majesty? I’m sure that your wish is my command.”

“I thought, since we’re in this together, you might talk to me. We could formulate a plan or something.”

“We’re in this together?” The corner of Edam’s mouth quirks up.

“Well, aren’t we? You came to my defense, which landed you in a cell, and I struck a deal with my sister, one requirement of which was that she free you.”

Edam closes his eyes for a moment. “I dumped your lunatic sister, who by the way, never asked me if I wanted to date her in the first place. That really pissed her off royally. Then I kept her from decapitating you, and later, from strangling you. That certainly didn’t help, but she wouldn’t have killed me, not really. Especially if I groveled, which is all she’s wanted from the beginning.”

My mouth dangles open stupidly. “Are you saying you wish I’d left you imprisoned? Awaiting execution?”

Frederick snorts behind me, and I feel a little vindicated at least.

“I wasn’t given an option. Again.”

This time, when Edam opens his book and begins reading, I almost don’t interrupt. But I can’t have him thinking I’m the same as Judica. If I’d known he wanted to stay with her, I never would have negotiated to bring him along. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. Then I stand up and go to the bathroom, just so I can change seats.

The bathroom stall winds up being a nice place to cry in silence. It’s not like Edam being mad at me even rates on the general barometer for horrible events in the last few days, but somehow, his anger at my attempt to help sends me over the edge. The plane’s about to take off when I finally emerge, and there’s a seat open near Alora. Thankfully.

“Inara made me leave my cell phone behind,” I complain.

Alora lifts one eyebrow. “I hope everyone on this plane did the same.”

Heads nod all around me.

“I’ve made arrangements. You’ll all be provided with new phones upon arrival, or if you’d prefer, I can show you to a location to procure your own.”