Queen Margaret flinches, and I nearly start a mental countdown for the inevitable hysterics. “I needed to come here myself,” she says, her voice nothing stronger than a break in the wind. “Your father . . . I remember that he used to visit St. James’s whenever there was something troublesome to discuss.”
It’s my turn to withhold a flinch.
I step back, putting distance between myself and the queen before I do something regrettable. Like remind her that it’s my family that’s been sacrificed time and again for the sake of hers.
Sacrificed, splintered, and forever altered.
“Those days are over.” I move to the sink, then pour myself a glass of water from the faucet. I don’t drink it, but it’s best to focus on something else when I speak, otherwise the words might stop coming. Just as they did when the blessed king branded me. Habit has me wanting to lift my fingers to the raised flesh behind my ear. Self-control, however, wins out. As always. “We run a pub widely known for its political leanings. What do you think would happen if someone caught us at St. James’s? Hell, if someone catches you here?”
“Boom,” Guy answers, his thumb cocking the safety of a fake finger pistol that he touches to his temple. Then, planting his hands flat on the counter, he juts his chin forward and stares the queen down. “We don’t exist to you, Princess. This”—he shuffles a finger between them—“shouldn’t be happening. We’ve spent years establishing this place, its reputation . . . our reputation.”
“Which is what?” she asks softly.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Guy leans in, wordlessly baiting her to do the same—the way I’ve seen him do countless times in the past, just before he snatches a man by the shirt collar and bashes his head against the closest flat surface. But instead of pulling that maneuver, the same one he taught me the summer I turned eleven, he only issues a slow, humorless smile. “We want to see you break.”
She flinches again.
Weak, so fucking weak.
If I weren’t so desperate to keep my country from crumbling, I’d tell the queen exactly what I think of her: she’s timid, as poor a fit for the throne as her deranged father was before her. He ruled as a dictator and, so far, she’s ruled like she’s terrified of her own shadow. We’d all be better off with her still prancing about in the Scottish countryside, doing whatever the hell she’s been doing for the last twenty-some years. With the monarchy disassembled—
No.
The condensation on the glass dampens my palm, turning it slick like the blood that coated my nape when King John carved a number into my flesh.
502.
The fifth generation of spies in my family to work alongside the Crown under the umbrella of Holyrood, an off-the-books agency that was originally named after the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. It’s where my great-great-grandfather was awarded a medal of valor after saving Prince Robert’s life during the Second Boer War.
Over a hundred years later, and here we are.
Guy is 501, Damien 503.
But only I have my life’s purpose branded into my skin like I’m nothing but cattle to be sold at auction.
Prove it to your son that the Crown must always come first.
A hard lesson to learn, but one that continues to hum in my veins like a poison with no antidote.
I force the words from my throat, refusing to succumb to silence: “Putting it bluntly, ma’am, our customers would love nothing more than to see you end up just like the king. Dead. Out of the way. A nonissue. Let your mind fill in the blanks, and then come up with something ten times worse.”
Her cornflower blue eyes widen, then narrow sharply. “I-If the two of you are done with the lectures, I came here today because I have something that can’t be passed through Clarke. There’s no time for that, and I thought . . .” Awkwardly, she fumbles with her handbag, her fingers visibly shaking, and it occurs to me, now, that while my brothers and I have spent our entire lives with the royal family at the epicenter of our respective universes, she hardly knows us.
She knows our names. She knows our history—at least as far back as Pa, I’m guessing—and I’m going to assume that she knows the basics about Holyrood: some of the other agents, our central location, even. But beyond that . . . us Godwins are veritable strangers to her.
Our hopes, our dreams, are nothing but a speck of dust on her gilded radar.
With a hushed curse under her breath, she pulls out a mobile smeared with dirt. “I found this in the gardens while I was walking two mornings ago. The same morning that . . . that—”
I exchange a glance with Guy, who scrubs a hand over his mouth.
“They were caught,” he grits out, voice hard and unforgiving. “Clarke told you that we suspected something was off with them, and—”
“I didn’t listen!” The queen whirls around, her free hand clenching into a fist at her side. Her signet ring glistens under the light. Ruby red, a hand-me-down of her father’s that I well remember. “You can say it, Mr. Priest. Go on. I didn’t listen to your advice to not wander the grounds on my own until you could be sure of them. The only fool standing in this room is me.”
The phone is thrown on the counter where it careens into the wall.
“They were only teenagers, and I couldn’t”—she presses a hand to her mouth, her knuckles whitening with tension—“I couldn’t make myself truly believe that they’d been sent to kill me. That they weren’t anything more than stable hands. I should have listened. I should have listened.”
Soft.
It’s not that she’s weak, it’s that Queen Margaret doesn’t have the heart—the iron spine—to do what needs to be done in today’s tumultuous climate. After suffering the last twenty-five years under King John’s reign, parliament has become the equivalent of a brutal brawler’s match since her father’s assassination two months ago. And, equal to her rabid supporters are the millions who would see the crown stripped from her head and the jewels torn from her fingers.
“The king,” Guy says now, his stare locked on the queen’s face, “is to blame, not you. He ruled with fear after your sister was murdered. Anyone who opposed him went straight into a jail cell—assuming they didn’t disappear completely. You know this, ma’am. You see the polls. You see what’s blasted all over the news every night. Don’t tell me you don’t.”
She pauses, just for a moment, her fingers wringing together in front of her. “All of it, Mr. Priest.” A tick pulses to life in her jaw. “I see it all.”
My brother beats a fast-paced tempo on the counter with his thumb. “People don’t like the amount of power your family still wields, especially after everything that’s happened. With your father gone, they want the same of you. That’s no secret.”
Lifting her gaze to the ceiling, her throat works with a hard swallow. “Tell me what to do, then.”
“Go back to your palace.”
“The mobile—”
“We’ll take care of it,” I say. We’ll take care of the problem just like we’ve taken care of everything else: by leaning into the pub. It was a Holyrood decision for the so-called Priest brothers to open it ten years ago. It made sense. On paper, Guy, Damien, and I don’t exist. A perk, if you will, for being born into a family whose sole duty is to keep the royal family thriving for yet another generation. While the other Holyrood members once had lives, before their recruitment, this is all my brothers and I have ever known.