Cheating Royalty (Chasing Royalty #2)

3

Long after Alexanne’s carriage has left the courtyard the people continue their chants. Grace has to scream to be heard over the noise, “I think we should go, now. The streets are going to be clogged by the time everyone decides to actually leave. Besides, we might not make it back to the city before dark.”

We elbow our way back out of the crowd. We hurry down the abandon streets and back to the country road leading to our home city.

We walk in silence for a long while until Grace says, “It’ll get better now. Once we relocate to a different home you’ll be able to move on. Memories and familiar faces won’t be haunting every street. You can forget and strive to live just a normal life.”

I shake my head, “After the future I was supposed to have, a normal life seems like a failure.”

“You will find a way to be content with it. Everyone else has. Besides, no one is dictating whether you have a completely average life. Perhaps you will find something else to gather people’s attention with. Maybe you have a hidden talent? Painting? Embroidery?”

“You and I both know that I can never have true success or gather too many people’s attention. If I become noticeable, Alexanne might find me again. She made it quite clear that if she so much as heard a whisper of my name, she would surely hunt me down and make sure my name didn’t reach her ears again.”

“Fine, you won’t be able to gather worldwide fame. But we can work hard and have minor success. We might be able to eventually buy a nicer home and maybe even retire.”

We both know that these are lies as they fall from her lips.

Grace says, “We can’t ponder the future too much. We’ll pack tonight and leave tomorrow morning for the north. At least you now have freedom, Admira. That’s something you haven’t truly had before. You can act and say and do and go wherever you want without a noble or a guard or an advisor grumbling about your actions. That counts for something right?”

A constant threat over my life in return for freedom? I’m not sure whether it is worth it, when the freedom isn’t completely real.

My mind shifts back to Florentine and I realize we’ll have to change our plans. “We can’t leave tomorrow. That woman I was talking to at the coronation? That was Florentine.”

Grace’s eyes widen, “Florentine. As in the Florentine that you risked your life repeatedly to sneak out to see?”

I nod.

“How did she recognize you will your disguise?”

“I have no idea. When we were in the castle and we snuck out in disguises, she would always recognize us.”

“If she could recognize you, you don’t think that…”

“Antonin did recognize you.”

Grace tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay, so maybe our disguises weren’t perfect from close up. But the people who mattered, Alexanne and William, they were too far away to notice us. We are safe.”

“Unless they showed paintings of us to the guards surveying the crowd. Maybe the guards weren’t looking for rebels, but for us.”

“They wouldn’t know us well enough to see through our disguises. Besides, if they realized who we are, I think we wouldn’t be walking down this road. We would be sitting in prison, if not already dead.”

I wince, “Thank you for that lovely image. Anyway, Florentine asked me to meet her tomorrow morning in the courtyard of our city.”

“You told her which city we were staying in? You agreed to meet with her? Certainly you don’t plan to actually see her.”

“Why not?” I frown.

“How many times did you sneak out of the castle to see her? And how many times did she give you information that was actually helpful to you?”

“She was trying to help us. All the information she gave us was valid. We just knew it already because we were connected to all of the royal gossip. However, now that we are no longer in the castle, she might know something that could be helpful to us. Besides, it’s not like it could harm us. If she doesn’t say anything that helps us, you can say that you were right and then we can leave.”

“She wanted to help you while you were a princess in the castle. You are now a criminal living in a dirty, old apartment. If she’s as connected to the castle gossip as you say she is, she’s probably heard the rumor of you working with the rebels and certainly heard that you are dead. Don’t you think she should have reacted a little bit if she saw you?”

“Florentine always seemed to know when rumors where rumors and when they actually hold some truth.”

Grace tilts her head to the side, “Funny that you say that. Wasn’t she the one who convinced you that I was the murderer?”

Even after all my insistent apologies and Grace’s forgiveness, there is still a dark bruise of betrayal in our friendship. I don’t know if I will ever be able to regain the complete trust that used to be between us and I have no one to blame but myself.

I sigh, “What’s the worst she can do?”

“Well, she could always alert the guards, get us both arrested, and then killed.”

“Or, she could give us some information that might help us.”

“Like what, Admira? What information is she going to tell us that is going to magically turn you into the Queen? This isn’t like before, when we were searching for any trail that might lead us to the murderer. Maybe she tells you that Alexanne has been mourning the horrible loss of her sisters or that she appointed a new head cook. What do you think she’s going to tell you?”

I press my lips together. “She said it was important…”

“Isn’t that what she said every single time you met with her before? Then she would mumble about how she couldn’t say anything because she might be hurt. I think you want to believe that Florentine is some mysterious lady who has the answers to all your problems, if you can just meet with her enough times and convince her to tell you. But, from how I see it, Florentine is just a bored old lady who wants some more drama to her life.”

I don’t say anything more. I have no counterargument to Grace because she’s probably completely right. But I don’t know if I can walk from this kingdom, wondering if Florentine had anything ‘important’ to say.

Grace is silent for a few more minutes before she softens, “I’m sorry, Admira. It’s just that I feel like she has some dangerous hold over you, convincing you that she’s more important than she actually is. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up that she will save you, when all she might have is gossip.”

I nod, “You’re probably right. It most likely will be nothing more than stupid gossip, but what if it’s not?”

Grace lets my words hang in the air before she gives in, “Fine, you can see her tomorrow morning. But please don’t get your hopes up. We will still pack and plan to leave after your meeting. Unless she says something completely life changing, we won’t change our plans of going north.”

A grin splits my face and I hug her. Despite her warnings, I can already feel my hopes rising.

●◊●◊●

Only in the morning do I realize how vague Florentine’s command of meeting her in the “first hours of the morning” really is.

I creep out of our apartment room in the same disguise as yesterday just as the sun begins to rise. The pale gray sky lights the street just enough to show that they are completely abandoned. Shouts and cheers echoed long in the night as people drunkenly celebrated the coronation. I expect that most people are passed out in various alleyways and crowded rooms.

I managed to convince Grace to stay home. I was worried that if I wasn’t alone, Florentine wouldn’t tell me everything she might. However, now with my lone footsteps ringing down the empty street, I wish I hadn’t come alone.

I reach the courtyard without any conflicts and lean against a building to wait. Though I want to hide behind something, I’m not sure if Florentine will reveal herself without seeing me. Every footstep and shout causes me to flinch as the minutes crawl by. I don’t know where Florentine is, but I don’t know how much longer I can wait. Perhaps, for whatever reason, she couldn’t come.

Just as I begin seriously contemplating leaving, loud, uneven footsteps reach my ears. Florentine appears down the street, moving faster than I’ve ever seen her. Her face shines with sweat as she reaches me, panting. She shoves a piece of paper into my hand and turns to leave immediately.

I run after her, “Wait, what are you doing? I thought we were going to talk. You said you have something to tell me.”

“I do, something incredibly important. But it seems as though I’ve made a horrible miscalculation and neither of us should be here, especially not together. Run back to your apartment as quickly as you can and watch carefully for anyone following you. Don’t talk to anyone who might try to talk to you. Once you get home, gather all your belongings and follow the instructions, each one very carefully. Then, and only then, can we talk. Do not follow me, my dear. I would hope that neither of us wants to die this morning. Go on now.”

She pulls away from me in her hurried limp. I pause for a second before lifting my skirts and running the opposite way. Never have I seen Florentine with such an urgent expression. I’m careful to keep my footsteps light and stay in the morning shadows of the buildings as I sprint back to the sewing shop. I pound up the rickety stairs to our apartment room and fling open the door.

Grace’s head snaps up, her hands frozen in the packing. I close the door quickly behind me and open up Florentine’s instructions, crumpled from my tight fist.

Grace frowns, “What’s wrong? That took much too short to have gone well.”

I barely hear her, scanning the instructions.

Pack all your belongings and leave your apartment immediately. The guards will be coming there soon. Be sure to have appropriate disguises, the ones you had on yesterday.

You must travel in the abandoned alleys, the dark, twisting streets. Do not go on any of the main roads, there will be guards stationed at every single one looking for both of you.

Do not speak to anyone. Anything, even small talk, could be used to trace your whereabouts. They will be interviewing anyone who could have possibly seen you. Keep your head down. Do not talk to each other. Be sure to use fake names, different from any aliases you might have been going by for the past two months.

Grace has been calling herself Greta while I call myself Adeline.

Scrawled at the bottom of the page are instructions to what Florentine describes as her home. It’s nothing more than a listing of streets we should follow.

I wordlessly hand the sheet of paper to Grace while I begin gathering the last of our belongings. Grace spent the entire night sewing our two blankets into pouches to carry everything we own. The amount of extra room we have inside each bag is pathetic.

I toss in our entire supply of food, two small potatoes, and an extra torn dress for each us. Thankfully Grace has already put on her disguise as we were planning to travel. I slide in my stack of stolen books in as well.

One she’s finished reading the note, Grace clears her throat, “I suppose what Florentine had to say was important after all.”

Then she jumps into action as well. Within a few minutes we’ve cleaned out our entire apartment. All that is left is the dusty floorboards and the dented walls. We leave behind the small stove, too heavy to carry on our backs.

We hesitantly climb down the stairs to the sewing shop, just in case the guards have already reached the sewing shop. However it is just as abandoned as always. Not even the old owner sits in her stool. It seems rather sad that after all she’s done for us, we don’t have the final chance to thank her or say goodbye. I suggest that we leave a note, but Grace points out that it will only show that guards that we’ve been here, even if we use our aliases. Chances are if they know where we are living, they know our fake identities as well.

We follow the instructions, hurrying down street after street. We move fast enough for my heart to pump, but not enough to look too suspicious. By now the city has begun to come to life again. We pass by laughing children, depressed workers, anxious mothers. But we’re in a too secluded part of the city to pass any guards.

When we are in an especially abandoned street, Grace leans towards me and says, “We don’t have to go to her house. We could leave the kingdom right now.”

“That would involve crossing a main road, going out into the open. Besides, we don’t know where the guards are searching and where they aren’t. If they are set on finding us, they are probably monitoring the roads leading out of the kingdom.”

Grace doesn’t say anything more as we travel the rest of the way.

The instructions lead us to a towering mansion, clearly recently built. Towering spires touch the sky, bright granite sparkling back at us. A dark metal gate greets us at the front of the house.

Grace squints at the note, “Surely this can’t be right. Florentine refers to this as her home. I don’t think that…”

A voice interrupts me. “Oh, how wrong you are.”

Florentine steps up to the gate to open it for us. “This is my home, though I suppose it’s not what you would expect. I’m afraid I’ve had to mislead you in my true identity. Please allow me to try to explain.”