Jayd twisted her lips. “Something is off.”
Emme’s eyes widened. “Should I call for guards?”
“No.” Fully aware she might be cursing herself a fool for it soon, Jayd did not renege the call. “It is not that kind of off.” At least she did not think so.
Emme squirmed. “You also did not think we had to worry about Gervais and Remy.”
“Fair enough. But I promise I will scream right away if there is something you need to know.” She held up a pacifying hand as soon as her maid broke out a worse glare. “Please,” she entreatied. “Just stay here, okay? I have no idea what is going on, and you know my parents and their pride.”
She almost slipped and said stupid pride. Worse yet, with an addendum like chronic vanity or pompous paranoia. But there was something else about the way Maimanne—and now Paipanne too—had summoned her. Something that did not help her frayed nerves as she pivoted and pushed against the big oak door that led to her mother’s most private sanctum.
The wires in her psyche sparked madly again.
The portal was not supposed to give way so easily to her touch. Nor was its small creak supposed to be so obvious in the thick, still air beyond. The air that did not feel or smell or even taste the way it should. No smoky French ballads from the old turntable in the corner. No jonquil and jasmine perfume mixed with almond cookies and milky tea. There were traces, of course, of those familiarities—but they were swiftly overtaken by other elements. Old dust and dead flowers. Spicy cigarettes and sweet wine.
She almost wondered if she had stepped through a portal to land back in Paris—in the middle of a brothel. But then her father stepped into the foyer, snapping her back to this strange reality.
Well, not as strange as before.
At least not at first sight.
The man had seemingly woken up about his overly needy text and was back to being cordial but cool. He reached to embrace her, but the clinch was barely more than that. His pecks on her cheeks were as perfunctory as ever. He gave tiny squeezes to her shoulders.
Ah, merderim times a million, Father. Nothing says you desperately missed me like a couple of shoulder squashes.
And nothing made her want to abolish the thought than the moment he stepped back.
As if his feet were cement blocks.
As if his exhalation contained droplets of acid.
As if the drops in his eyes were formed of the same.
“Daughter.” He swept one hand from her upper arm to the corner of her jaw. His fingertips trembled against her skin. “Merciful Creator. You are safe.”
“I…am.”
Stars and saints, now she was yearning for the regal masks again. How she suddenly realized she could do with a lot of their safe decorum, their predictable parameters. But nothing about this situation was predictable. Clearly, Paipanne needed her as much as she did him. He was trusting her just as fully. Showing her his fear with as much nervous faith.
This was, she suddenly realized, what she had asked for. Life without a safety net.
“Paipanne?” she uttered after too much of his edgy silence. “What is it? What is happening?”
In the middle of his gray-tinged beard, his lips compressed. He lowered his hand in order to scoop up one of hers. He followed suit with the other hand. “In light of Trystan Carris’s newest stunt, your mother insisted that you two speak.”
She fought the urge to wrench away. “Because my own stunt was not worth the response?”
He pulled in a stiff breath. “Jewel, I do not think she was aware of your—well, your little trip.” His grip tightened around hers. “But I was,” he croaked, shaking his head. “I was, Jayd—and I prayed like a medieval friar through every second of it.”
Confusion formed a painful crunch across her forehead. “Why?”
An equal amount of the stuff invaded Paipanne’s face. “Because I could not sleep. Or eat. Or think of anything else.” He hunched in, peering more closely at her. “Because I am your father, Jayd Dawne.” He cut her eye roll short by jerking at her hands. “I am your father, damn it.”
She ceased on doling out the reactions on that. Already it was clear they would not hold water to the man’s determination. No. Beyond that. He was pledging the words to her like a scrap of his DNA was in her blood—a reality she was not about to talk him out of now. Perhaps not never. If Trystan was successful with any part of his wild scheme, it was doubtful she would ever get to see or talk to her family again.
Which meant they all needed to pitch in and help.
Which meant her parents—well, her mother and her stepfather—could not have picked a worse time for this bizarre reunion.
Or, perhaps, had not picked a better time.
Either way, they needed to get on with it. Despite how every bone in her body screamed in strange dread of exactly that.
“Where is Maimanne?” she asked, unsure of any smoother way to phrase it. “The original messages were from her, so—”
“Yes,” he interjected, fully grimacing with it. “I know. After we turned off Carris’s press conference, I got up to get more gauze and bandages. When I heard your mother’s phone buzzing, I figured out what she had done. I must admit, we had some immediate words about it… But then I realized, in light of the bonsun and his treachery, she might actually be thinking clearer than I about the whole thing.”
“About what whole thing?” Jayd demanded. “Gauze…and bandages? Why?” She huffed. “Paipanne, what on earth is—”
“Jayd?”
Though the interruption was coarse and frail, she automatically corrected her posture. Because that was what she always did when her mother was in the room. Because she recognized it all as the self-comfort it needed to be now, especially as Paipanne winced as if a sword had gouged him straight through.
“Jayd Dawne?” came Maimanne’s new call, containing a strange wince of its own—discernible enough to make Jayd throw a matching look toward her father. “Ardent, where is she? My chér-kik. My beautiful little girl.”
It had become a soft but desperate keen, intensifying Jayd’s scrutiny at her father. He reacted by re-donning his armor—the figurative version of the stuff that she remembered so vividly from her formative years. No. Her whole life.
She had seen chinks in those shields on only three occasions. Once, when he and Evrest had fought bitterly over her college selection. The second time was during his formal abdication of the kingdom’s crown to Ev. The third time was thirty seconds ago.
She was damn glad it was over now.
“Eyes up, bijheur.”
She complied, but not because he had uttered her nickname in Arcadian. Again, it was the urgency in his tone. The implication that he needed her to really hear him. He proved that with the fervent look on his strong, noble face.
“I know you were hurt, Jayd…not being called up here sooner.” He took her hand again, and she wondered when he had switched out his bones for iron rods. But while his grip was glacial, his words were soft and warm. “I am sorry about that. But there are reasons. Good ones.”
“All right.” Jayd reinforced her hold too.
“Like the rest of us, your maimanne was not prepared for the information Carris and Santelle brought to Evrest last week. But unlike everyone, she endured a deeper cut from that blade.”