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“One portcullis and a drawbridge, then we’re free.” Beast glances around until he finds the narrow stairway tucked behind the door. “The mechanisms to raise both are likely up there. Poulet, come with me.”
Once the portcullis is raised and the drawbridge lowered—with no guards or sentries alerted—Beast comes back down the stairs to join us. “We have a problem,” he announces.
“What now?” Lazare asks.
“The drawbridge is raised using a winch and pulley.” We all look at him blankly. “It will be too heavy for Sybella to operate on her own.”
And just like that, our plan is felled not by our enemies, but by simple mechanics.
“Nonsense,” I mutter indignantly. “It is only the pedestrian drawbridge, not even the main one.”
“But it still weighs four hundred pounds.”
Which is why there is a winch, I think but do not say. There is no point in arguing further until I know if I can do it. Wanting to prove Beast wrong, I mount the stairs to the room that holds the workings of the drawbridge.
“I’ll stay,” I hear Poulet say. “No one knows my face, and it will be easy enough to slip out of the palace yard in the morning.”
“No one is staying,” I call back down. I have operated winches before, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let this one foil our plans.
I place my hands on the spokes, then pull with all my might. It does not so much as budge. Resisting the urge to kick it in frustration, I come around to the other side, grip it again, and push, putting my entire body into it. Still nothing.
“It is too heavy.” Beast leans against the wall by the stairs, arms folded as he watches me.
“Poulet is not staying behind,” I say stubbornly. There is too great a chance they would find him and punish him for our escape.
“No, he’s not.”
Alarm leaps in my breast. “And you most definitely are not staying behind. Don’t even think it.”
He pushes away from the wall. “Would that be so very bad, to have me stay behind long enough to ensure you, too, got away safely?”
I tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Yes,” I whisper. “The entire point of this was to get you out of here.” And away from your vile father.
He reaches for me then. “I do not like leaving you here.”
“It is only for another day or two. Long enough to be certain no one discovers your absence or, if they do, connect it to me and thus the queen. And Pierre is not here,” I add softly.
There is a flicker of something in his eyes before he gathers me close. “No,” he whispers in my ear, “but the regent is, and she is every bit as venomous as he.”
“I will be fine.”
He slips his hands into my hair and cups my head, forcing me to meet his gaze, his dislike of this part of the plan clear in his face. “If you are not fine, I will come back and raze the palace to the ground with my bare hands and choke the life out of anyone who has harmed you. Are we clear?”
“It will not be necessary. I promise.” I rise up on my toes and press my lips against his, trying to reassure him that this will all work out as we’ve planned.
“I hate to break up you two lovers, but are we going to leave tonight or just make camp?”
“Lazare,” Beast growls, “tell everyone to get ready to cross the drawbridge.” Once they are all across, he steps around me, then reaches for the winch. Although the muscles in his arms bunch and flex impressively, he does not even have to breathe hard. It is beyond annoying.
“You promised you would not stay behind,” I remind him.
“I’m not.” He grins. “There.” He reaches for a nearby torch and jams it into the turnwheel. “Most of the weight is up and balanced on this side of the fulcrum. You should be able to get it up the rest of the way. Try it, but leave the brake in.”
I reach for the spokes again, relieved that they do indeed move when I pull on them hard enough. “There. I can do it. Now how will you get down if the drawbridge is not—”
He grabs me once more, this time in a rib-cracking kiss meant to both silence me and reassure me that he does not bear a death wish. Then he releases me and trots down the stairs. I hurry after him in time to see him take a running start, then leap, reaching for the top of the drawbridge with both hands. With the length of his body pressed against the wood, he begins to pull himself up, his heart beating rapidly with the effort—no, wait. “Someone’s coming!” I whisper. He nods, then hoists himself the rest of the way, balancing on the four-inch lip of the drawbridge, graceful as a cat. I race back upstairs to finish raising the bridge as soon as he is clear.
I hear a grunt as he launches himself across the moat. With no time to ensure he has not hurt himself, I place my foot against the spokes of the winch to remove the brake, then hoist the bridge all the way up. No sooner have I done so than the door to the gatehouse opens. With trembling arms, I step back against the wall, inching toward the corner where the shadows are the deepest.
“The regent said she saw the old priest wandering around down here. Wanted us to patrol the gates and make sure nothing was amiss.”
“Everything looks fine,” a second voice says, then grunts. “Except there ain’t no guards in here, like there should be.”
Their heartbeats grow louder as they cross the first room, then move into the second, where they stop. “Portcullis is down, bridge is up. Just the guards are missing.”
“Do we tell her that?”
A long pause as they consider the price of displeasing the regent. “Not yet. You stay here while I go see who was supposed to be on duty. If I can’t find out who and where they are, then we’ll tell her.”
I lean my head back against the wall as my own pulse begins to return to normal, not quite believing that they have gotten free.
Chapter 71
My head has scarcely touched my pillow when Elsibet is shaking my arm. “Wake up, my lady. The king has sent for you.”
Alarm clangs against my ribs like a bell. Praise the Nine he did not send for me two hours ago. As I dress, I try to reassure myself that he cannot have discovered Beast’s absence. If so, he would have sent an armed guard. The thought is not as reassuring as it should be.
Once I am presentable, I am ushered, not to the king’s audience chamber, but to his private apartments, past the main salon, past the bedroom where his valet is overseeing the last-minute packing for his hunting trip, to an office of sorts. The king sits at his desk. A stack of correspondence is shoved to one side while a small white letter sits in the middle. He does not bother with a greeting.
“Do you know where she is?”
Not Beast, but Gen, and I am prepared for this. “No, Your Majesty. Her departure was a great surprise to me. While she and I have known each other only for a short time, I would have thought she would have informed me of her plans, but she did not.”
That pleases him, although he tries not to show it. He splays one hand on the desk, straightening a corner of the letter with his finger. “Perhaps she did not trust you, just as I do not trust you.” His fingers curl in on themselves. “Or perhaps you are lying. It would not be the first time you have lied to your king.”
“I am sorry circumstances forced me to lie to you, but I would do so again to protect those I love.”
He makes a dismissive gesture. “You only want your sisters for political gain, as does your brother. You are as ruthless and political a creature as he is.”
His words probe roughly at a bruise that has not yet healed. “Only because life has forced me to be.”
He reaches for one of the map weights and begins rubbing it with his fingers. “I am sick of your entire family.”
Would that you were sick enough to banish me from court, I think, but the gods never make it that easy.
As if in rebuke, the small black pebble in my pocket grows warm. It is not too late to provoke him to such an act. I lift my chin in defiance. “I have done everything I can to meet your queen’s needs. I do
not know what else I can do to persuade you that I have only her best interests at heart.”
He closes his hand around the map weight, capturing it. “Leave.” The word bursts from him like an overripe fig from its skin and my heart fair dances a jig in my chest. He leans forward, warming to the idea. “The only way you will ever convince me you are not the political creature I believe you to be is to love the queen enough to leave court. The sooner, the better.” His heart beats rapidly with the intensity of his emotions.
I bow my head. “If only I could be assured of the queen’s safety, I would do so at once.”
My words displease him. “Safe from what?”
“The regent. She is the only one who has moved against her.”
He studies the map weight in his hand. “Then you will be most pleased to know that I have ordered her to remove herself from court for the time being. She has her own family to see to, after all.”
It is hard, so hard, to keep my jubilation from my face. I incline my head in thanks. “You are correct, Your Majesty. I am comforted knowing that is the case.”
“Then you will have no issue leaving as soon as possible? Although I suppose today is too much to hope for.”
“Not impossible, no. Not if that is what you wish.”
He carefully sets the map weight on the table. “It is. Now go.”
* * *
That very afternoon, the same day the regent was to expose Gen, browbeat the king, and try to reclaim his power for her own, I leave the palace. Not, however, before I see her own entourage ride out. “We have not seen the last of her,” the queen says, standing at my side as we watch the departure from her solar.
