The Essence (The Pledge 2)

Max, on the other hand, remained by my side and reminded me that I was still me. My reactions to him weren’t re-creations of someone else’s emotions. They were mine and mine alone.

I leaned into him, watching as tiny snowflakes flitted down from the cold, dead sky above. The flakes were too small to do anything but melt as they landed on our cheeks and eyelashes and hair. But the flurries were lovely, as if we were trapped inside our very own snow globe and someone had shaken up our world.

Shaken. That was an apt description.

“Do you regret coming?” Max asked as I stared absently at the swirling white flakes.

I smiled wearily. “I missed you. I miss my parents and Angelina.” It wasn’t an answer, but I didn’t have a better one yet. I needed time to process all that had happened.

I’d hoped to make a quick—and unnoticeable—escape from Vannova, but Neva had come to see us off.

“Be safe, darling,” she’d said as she made a show of watching while my soldiers were rearmed and Brook took inventory of their returned weapons. The elegant queen had leaned closer to me then, the warm skin of her cheek brushing against mine. “I don’t know what happened,” she whispered against my ear, making my blood run cold and filling me with apprehension so cutting I’d shivered. “I knew she was aged, but I’d expected her to at least survive the summit,” she’d said.

I’d relaxed then, releasing my breath in a cloud of steam.

“I wish we had more time to get to know each other,” she’d added.

That strange sensation lingered still, the one that warned me that no one, not even the queens—maybe especially not the queens—could be taken at face value. I’d replayed the conversation in my head over and over again, questioning every syllable, every lilt in her speech patterns, every subtle glance she given me as we’d packed to go.

I’d behaved like the epitome of guilt. Yet I was certain she didn’t suspect me.

“Perhaps another time,” I’d finally managed to say to her, and she’d squeezed me in such a warm and comforting way that I felt as if I were betraying a true friend.

On our way out of the palace walls, we’d passed Queen Langdon’s party, also preparing to depart. Her soldiers solemnly surrounded a box covered by a shroud fashioned from their country’s flag—green and gold and sapphire blue. There had been no doubt that it was her casket.

I’d turned to Zafir, my brow furrowed. “The writing,” I’d said.

Zafir noticed the same thing I did: the flag. “Yes. The language is a form of Gaullish. Solaris is one of the eastern queendoms.”

The Eastern Region was a vague thing, defined less by geography and more by the long-dead beliefs that had once allied them. Now, however, the only thing that truly linked them linked them was Gaullish, their shared language—in its various versions. “How many others are there? Of the queens in attendance?” I spoke softly, not wanting to be overheard.

“Astonia and New Rome,” Zafir answered, naming Elena’s and Thea’s nations.

I thought about the map, the one marked with my route to the summit, and I wondered if it could have originated in any one of those countries. If the traitor were Astonian, New Roman, or Solarian.

I wondered if I’d killed the queen of the traitor.

Even now, the thought made me sweat inside my coat.

“I missed you too, Charlie,” Max said, bringing me back to the present. “More than I can ever say. When I saw that rider approaching the palace . . . When he told me what he’d seen on the road . . . Brook’s men . . .” He’d already said this, or at least tried, half a dozen times. He couldn’t seem to finish his thoughts, but I knew.

“Max . . .” I tried to grin, to show him I was okay. “I’m fine. And look, we’re together now. We’ll be home in no time, and everything’ll go back to normal, right?”

He bent down and leaned his chin against the top of my head. “Not really, Charlie. We’re not going home. Not yet.”

I jerked back. “What are you talking about? Then where are we going?”

His charcoal eyes crinkled. “Relax. We’re going south, to the estate where your parents and Angelina have been staying.” He sighed, his voice dropping so no one else could hear us. “We still don’t know who the traitor is, and even though I’m sure Brook’s father is somehow behind this whole thing, we still haven’t managed to capture him. Until we have him in custody, I’d feel better—we’d all feel better—if you stayed away from the palace.”

My eyebrows rose. “Just like you all thought I should go to the summit?” I questioned, sounding intentionally dubious of their plans. So far, I wasn’t convinced that any of us really knew what we were doing.

Max shrugged. “It wasn’t our idea to go south, actually. It was Bartolo’s.”

Again, conflict roiled through me as I wondered how much faith should be afforded to Niko Bartolo. On the one hand, I knew he’d never let anything happen to Sabara. But could I honestly say that same concern extended to me?

I supposed it had to. At least for as long as she was inside me.

“So, what’s his plan, exactly?”

Max shook his head, his fingers threading through mine now, and my pulse picked up. His gaze fell on someone behind me, and I knew immediately that we were no longer alone. “I’ll let him explain it to you.”