I sense the direction of his words, and panic reignites, flaring in my stomach. “Sal,” I say. “Sal could do it …” I’m not ready. Not yet.
The Silver Prince steps forward. His face and voice are softer when he speaks to me.
“Madeline,” he says. “I was younger than you are now when I erected the barrier around Oasis. Youth is nothing if you have a clever mind and a strong heart.”
But I don’t have either of those things, I want to say. If I were strong, if I were clever, everything would be different. My family would still be here. Maybe Brekken would still be here, if I had been sharper-eyed, kept better track of what his hands were doing in the hayloft. I could have stopped him, made him explain himself.
“I’m sure Marcus will wake up soon,” Graylin says, squeezing my shoulder with his left hand, while his right still streams magic down into Marcus’s chest. “But until then, we’ll be with you every step of the way, Maddie.”
“You won’t be alone,” the Silver Prince echoes. There’s something about the way he’s looking at me, steady, intense, that feels like an anchor.
I swallow, laying Marcus’s wrist carefully down at his side. To give myself time to consider, and to have something to do with my hands, I bend and gather some of the scattered papers from Marcus’s desk, carefully avoiding touching any of the sticky blue blood staining the floor.
It makes sense, I guess, why someone from another Realm can’t lead Havenfall. Tensions between the magic-gifted worlds have flickered and shifted over the centuries like tides; most recently, in the nineteenth century, before the city of Oasis was built around the Byrnisian doorway, the ruinous climate of that world sometimes spilled through into Haven and the other worlds. Gouts of flame or ice or toxic, blistering wind, strong enough to fill the tunnels and wipe out anyone unlucky enough to be passing through at the moment.
Back then, Fiorden and Solarian delegates entered a secret alliance to close off the door to Byrn forever. Byrnisian delegates caught them in the act, and it sparked a battle that led to a dozen dead delegates on both sides. The Innkeeper at the time—whoever held the post before my ancestor Annabelle—stopped the violence with a hasty treaty: the door would remain open provided that Byrn weathermakers were posted there at all times to keep the passageway safe. But it’s clear that the Silver Prince has never forgiven the short-lived Fiorden–Solarian plot to cut his world off from the Realms.
And Brekken. He’s gone, and so are my keys, and that can’t be good. It definitely doesn’t look good. What could my friend possibly have to do with this? His face flashes through my mind, his laughing smile as he stepped away from me at my door. The lightness of my pocket where the office keys are missing. Our kiss, his hands on me, under my clothes.
It doesn’t square with the boy who carried shiny polished stones or bits of brightly colored eggshells or books of poetry in his pockets, all the way from another world, just to give them to me.
My eyes blur with tears, a drop falling on a piece of paper as I pick it up, some kind of handwritten receipt. Marcus is so careful, so conscientious of his responsibility to keep the peace. Please let him wake up.
The Silver Prince’s voice comes softly, breaking me out of my spiral of thoughts. “Madeline?”
Get it together, Maddie. People are depending on you.
I take a deep breath, stand and lift my chin. Fear rages in my chest, but I can’t let that rule me. Solarians took my mother and brother from me. I won’t lose Havenfall too.
“Okay,” I say to the room. I meet the Prince’s steady gaze, drawing some comfort from knowing Graylin is behind me. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
The Silver Prince nods and leans casually against the bookshelf, folding his arms. He doesn’t seem discomfited by the Solarian corpse at his feet. “My advisor, Bram, and I were leaving the ballroom earlier tonight when we saw a Fiorden soldier heading toward the tunnels. It didn’t seem right, so we followed.”
I swallow hard. “And you’re sure it was Brekken of Myr? The soldier we spoke to in the ballroom?”
I strive to keep my voice casual. I spoke to lots of people in the ballroom tonight. The Prince doesn’t know there’s anything special between me and Brekken. I want to keep it that way—I don’t want anyone to know, not until I’ve untangled what’s going on.
The Prince gives me a considering gaze. “Yes, fairly sure. Red hair and red jewels in his ears.” His tone says he is entirely sure, even if he’s trying to be tactful.
Even though I expected that answer, it’s still a blow. My stomach sinks, and I lean back against Marcus’s desk, gripping the papers so tightly they crumple beneath my fingers. All the feelings I had kissing Brekken float back to me, but now they’re twisted and corrupt, heady joy turning to sick dizziness, the butterflies in my gut dissolving into nausea.
I work hard to keep my voice even and ask the Silver Prince, “And then what happened? What did you see at the juncture?”
“The soldier went into the Solarian tunnel.” The Silver Prince drops his gaze, clear regret crossing his face. “I didn’t follow. I didn’t think there was any danger in it. I thought—just a dare from a fellow soldier, or a girl …”
I think of Marcus earlier, warning me against being seen with Brekken. If he did have something to do with this and anyone finds out about the kiss, I’ll be shut out of talks like this, out of piecing together what happened with the Solarian door. No one will trust me to be neutral. No one will trust me, period.
“What did you and Bram do?” I ask.
The Prince lowers his head into his hands. Regret looks strange and incongruous on him. “I checked in the Innkeeper’s office while Bram went to intercept the boy, and I found it like this.” He looks up and waves a hand around, indicating the open drawers, the evidence of the place having been searched. “Then I heard a scream from down the hall. I ran out and found that thing—and no Bram. Just his sword.” He points at the carpet-wrapped corpse; his voice trembles with righteous anger. “I slew the beast, but it was far too late. And the Fiorden boy was gone. He must have opened the door to Solaria and then escaped back to Fiordenkill.”
My stomach turns over, swirling with sickness and questions. How could Brekken have opened the door when it’s been closed for almost a century? He has no reason, no ability. And yet, why else would he have been down here? Why would he take my keys?
And that brings a whole new tangle of questions to the surface: If Brekken lied to me, how deep did it go? Was everything between us just a ploy, a setup? My throat constricts as I glance at Marcus’s unconscious form. I’m sorry. You were right. The rise and fall of his chest is scarcely perceptible. I will him to move, to wake. But he doesn’t.
“We shouldn’t take rash action,” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel. “We don’t know enough about what happened to place blame. Not yet, anyway. We need to keep everyone calm and find a way to secure the door. Sal should look through Brekken’s room to see if he left any sign of what he might—or might not—have been up to. And we can sweep the grounds to make sure no other Solarians escaped.”
It feels like a paltry plan to me, and I expect one or both of them to push back, but neither of them does. The Silver Prince rises to his full, imposing height and inclines his head in my direction. Graylin, for his part, gives me a small nod and a sad smile.