There are three missed calls from Olivia and two from Charlotte, along with a handful of texts requesting I call either of them. The tone is unmistakably urgent, and I can’t seem to dial Charlotte fast enough.
“Hello?” She sniffles on the other end of the line.
“It’s me,” I tell her. “Where is she?”
“Ella’s in the hospital!” she cries out.
My heart slows to a crawl, and the phone nearly slips from my grasp. “What?”
“She took something. Olivia found her at the sanctuary, and there was a bottle of Nerium oleander beside her.”
My vision swims, and I feel my body swaying as the plane comes to a halt. This can’t be real. I’m shaking my head, but the words aren’t coming, and when I finally force them out, I don’t recognize my own voice.
“Ella wouldn’t do that.”
“She did!” Charlotte sobs on the other end of the line.
I drag in a breath and try to focus on what I need to do. What is the next logical step? Because right now, I’m too fucking numb to string a sentence together.
“What hospital?” I choke out.
“Hawkhurst,” Charlotte answers.
“How long has it been?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice rises. “Olivia found her thirty minutes ago. We don’t know how long it was before that.”
“I’m on my way.”
I hang up the phone without waiting for a response and meet the driver as I exit the plane, giving him instructions to take me to Hawkhurst right away. When I’m in the car, I dial my mother’s nurse. After a brief argument with her about waking my mother, she puts her on the line.
“Thorsen?” she asks sleepily. “Is everything okay?”
“The antidote.” My words are stilted, barely audible. “What is the antidote for the oleander?”
“Thorsen, no—” She releases a sorrowful sob.
“It isn’t for me, but I need to know right now. Please, Mor… there isn’t time.”
“Charcoal would be the first option,” she responds with jarring breaths between words. “Then intravenous magnesium, possibly atropine. But those have their own risks, particularly if the heart is affected. It depends on the dosage. The entire bottle, it’s highly unlikely any of those things will help. Who took the oleander?”
“I’ll explain later,” I apologize. “I have to go. Just… don’t worry about me.”
I disconnect the call and text the information to Charlotte while asking the driver how far away we are. He tells me we are still forty minutes out, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so fucking useless. When I dial Charlotte again, she answers breathlessly.
“They’ve already given her charcoal,” she says. “And I told the doctor what you said, but they won’t give us any other information.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Are you really her boss?” Charlotte asks, seemingly confused. “How do you know so much about the oleander?”
I stare out the window, wishing what I was about to say wasn’t true. “She got it from me.”
The other end of the line falls silent, and I don’t doubt that her friend is already convicting me and sentencing me to death. But none of her thoughts could be any worse than what I’m already thinking myself. I fucked up, and I hate myself for it. But more than that, I’m terrified for Ella.
“Please keep me updated. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Okay,” Charlotte answers woodenly.
We disconnect the call, and the next thirty-five minutes pass with torturous slowness. When the driver finally pulls up to the curb at the hospital, I’m already halfway out the door before the car even comes to a stop.
Inside, I follow the signs for the emergency department, and it isn’t long until I find Charlotte and Olivia waiting in the hall with nervous expressions on their faces.
“Where is she?” I demand. “I need to see her now.”
Charlotte’s jaw drops, and she stares at me in stunned silence before she reacts. “Oh, my God. Thorsen, as in Thorsen Lykken, the latest crowned King of Norway? That’s who I’ve been talking to? You were who Ella was working for?”
I glance around, looking for someone who can give me information.
“They came out five minutes ago and said she’s awake,” Olivia informs me. “They’ll come back to update us soon.”
“Awake?” I repeat in disbelief. How is that possible?
In a daze, I move toward the nurses’ station, and the woman behind the desk is scribbling something onto a notepad, not bothering to look up. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to see Ella Laurent, immediately. Show me where she is.”
“The doctor will be out soon enough to give you an update—”
“He’s the King of Norway.” Charlotte comes up beside me and hisses over the desk. “You better do what he says.”
The nurse lifts her chin, recognition dawning in her eyes, and she blinks several times before she seems to recover from her shock.
“Oh my God.” She discards her pen and stands up immediately. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I didn’t realize.”
“Take me to Ella,” I clip out. “I need to see her right now.”
She nods and walks around the desk, gesturing for us to follow her. Charlotte trails beside me, and Olivia joins us on the way down the hall. It feels like the longest walk of my life before the nurse finally pulls a curtain aside, and I see her.
She’s propped up on the bed with pillows behind her, struggling to keep her eyes open as the doctor asks her questions. When he sees us, his eyes narrow in on me.
“You aren’t allowed back here right now.”
“I’m not leaving.” I glare at him as I stalk toward Ella.
“He’s the King of Norway,” the nurse whispers.
The doctor’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline, and a moment later, he’s shaking his head in resignation. He knows better than to make a scene. This may not be my country, but I could royally fuck his whole world up with a few simple phone calls.
I take my rightful place at Ella’s bedside, and when her cloudy eyes find mine, she reaches out to touch me as if I’m not real.
“Thorsen?”
I take her hand and guide it to my chest, and it has the immediate effect of relaxing my entire body.
“Gudinne, what happened to you?”
She’s battered and bruised, and it looks like she’s been through hell all over again. But when she reads the agony in my eyes, she reacts as only Ella could, trying to comfort me even as she’s returning from the brink of death. She squeezes my hand, her warmth a balm to the raw wound that feels like a caged beast inside me. She’s awake, and she’s alive, but how? I still don’t understand.
“I didn’t take the oleander,” she tells me. “I dumped it out after I took it from you and replaced it with oil from your kitchen before I swapped the labels with the sleep elixir.”
The suffocating weight on my chest evaporates, and I kiss her hand a thousand times, thanking every god in the universe that fate hasn’t ripped her away. My fire-breathing goddess is still here. She still lives on.