Until one of the cabinet doors swings open.
And then one more.
Two people appear. Only…two.
As the pair cautiously emerges into the light, I watch the soldier-commando-alpha drain right out of my Desperado’s spine. Maximilian’s too.
The man and woman look like they’ve stepped from a production of Les Miz, with slightly better costumes. The woman’s bodice is demurely pinned, with a faded crimson fichu that matches the kerchief around her head. The man’s long vest is the same regal color, with gold buttons that match the closures at the bottom of his breeches. They look older, causing astonished bells to chime in all my instincts—did the guys’ parents find a way to escape too?—but that’s before I notice the sun damage to their skin and the work calluses on their hands.
They’re not nobility. But they’re also not strangers. Not to the two men between us and them—the secret prince of France and his newly ennobled brother—who now rush the pair of arrivals like they are the heralded royalty in the room.
But once they are before the man and woman, the brothers do not bow or kneel. Bastien and Max wrap the pair in impassioned hugs, as if determined to wipe away their dazed stares with the force of the embraces.
But I’m damn glad they do. I look over to Allie, seeing that she is too.
The guys’ gestures are what make us both certain of what we’re watching. A reunion that’s a little less shocking now.
But only a little.
All right, maybe not even that.
As Max growls out one name and Bastien the next—both coated in layers of total shock and joy.
“Carl.”
“Kavia.”
BASTIEN
“By the saints! It worked!”
While Kavia’s happy gasp is a warm bloom on my shoulder, her grip on my neck is nearly the opposite. I groan from the brutal clench but manage to end with a laugh.
“I think it certainly did,” I say. “And left you no worse for the two-hundred-year wear either.”
The woman, as equally precious as precarious to see here, bats at my sternum. “You are an impossible spade, sir.”
If she only knew the half of it now. How I could truly let fly with the flattery if I so chose, courtesy of the wild and random streets of this place. New York, for all its hard and strange edges, has also taught me about lighter wonders. Juice boosts, falafel, day spas, night basketball, hot yoga, cold sodas…and so many hundreds more. Thousands, perhaps.
The things I am still craving to see and do with Raegan by my side, if the woman would only give up the wild idea that I am not meant to be here anymore. That urgency inside her, to return me quicker than an ill-fitting sweater to the Macy’s service desk—before I have had a chance to see Macy’s at all—which has not been helped by this new development in our night.
Development?
And just whom do I think to fool with that awesome underplay?
The development stage was back at our decision to come to the gala at all. This is far beyond that.
Carl and Kavia, standing here before us…well, it is…
“And you both are incredible miracles, madame.”
And here is my brother, coming through with the perfect word at the perfect moment. As usual. Normally, it would be so simple to add the qualifier. But I wonder if usual will ever be a word I use for any part of life again.
At the moment, I focus on easier subjects. Such as miracle absolutely being better than development. I only wish it were a sentiment that either Carl or Kavia felt too—but clearly do not. The somber intent starts with our former house man but swiftly dominates his wife’s face as well. They link hands, also not a gesture I expect before turning to face us again.
“We wish we had hazarded this trip for miraculous reasons, my boy,” Carl murmurs as if he has added the duties of the Château De Leon’s undertaker too.
“Hazarded.” The echo comes not from Max or myself. Drue is the one moving forward now, rapt interest in her gaze and voice. “How did you two get here without using the time warp wardrobe?”
It is a question pounding at my own mind, but I wonder if Carl and Kavia will accept it from an aqua-haired female with such forward manners. I should have known never to worry. As Kavia lifts a ready smile at Raegan’s friend, she also brandishes a small strip of wood.
“By using this,” Kavia announces.
“And a great many prayers,” Carl injects.
The glorified splinter is not long or thick enough to qualify as a witch’s wand, but my intuition already hints at what it is. More vitally, where it came from. I obey that instinct to offer a theory out loud.
“A part of the original wardrobe itself.”
Kavia nods. “But not taken on purpose. It broke off when we moved the thing back into the château. I wrapped it up, wondering if there would ever come the bizarre chance of needing it while away from home…”
Carl fills in her pause with a heft grunt. “And Christ help us, that occasion came.”
Kavia winces. “Faster than we imagined.”
I exchange a knowing glance with Maximillian before murmuring, “The Revolution.” And then look down, knowing better than to return my regard to the people who were like a second set of parents to us. My emotions are already spiking too high. My temper, too heated. “When the new Assembly seized the château, they made you leave.”
Carl, normally glad to let his wife be their main mouthpiece, braces his stance and provides the next commentary.
“Seized it, they did,” he relays. “But they were emphatic about wanting us to stay and help operate the place.” His high forehead undulates courtesy of his arching brows. “Their offer was surprisingly decent, for a pack of wild mutts with bloodshed on the brain.”
“But you left anyway?” Maximillian prods. “Why? Because of what?”
“Not because of what.” Kavia’s gentle declaration is also a departure from the norm. She is normally like a kitchen-bound version of the town crier, undaunted about word she utters. “’Twas because of who,” she continues, just as caring. “And that who was you, Bastien.”
“Me?” Though I stand taller, my head rears back. “But if you already had the fragment from the wardrobe, that means you had already sent me off, behind the inn at Orléans. So if I was no longer there—”
“Ohhh no?” Carl nearly chortles out the interception—yet another odd occurrence. Carl does not enjoy chortling. More so, with such gusto.
“Bastien.” Kavia reaches for me. “We truly have not traveled this far just to see if we could. We came to find you—so we could bring you back with us.”
I whip my hand away. “Pardon the hell out of me?” And at once am questioning the spew. Just two days ago, after traversing the wild montage of New York City, I would have been jubilant about this. I would be madly snatching the woman’s hand and leading the way back into the big cabinet.
But now…
What do I want?
I know not. I know not.
This place and this time…I still do not belong here. My very bones confirm that. But walking away? Just vanishing and going back…
To…what? And to whom?
Kavia doubles down on her own insistence. “Bast. My boy. It is about…Magique.”