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“No!” I said very quickly. Too quickly. I laughed awkwardly. “I’m a bit scared of doctors. Never mind. I will take some aspirin after eating.”
“Parsworth, have aspirin brought,” the queen ordered the head butler, who bowed to her and moved to go.
“It’s all right, Your Grace, I can get it—”
“We wasted much of our time yesterday. There is still a lot for you to do before tonight,” the queen replied sternly, her softer tone from yesterday gone.
“Right,” I whispered, drinking my juice slowly. I didn’t mean to, but I finally met Gale’s eyes.
He offered a slight, tight smile to which I returned.
“Your aspirin, miss,” Parsworth said, bringing it out on a small tray.
I stared at them for a second before slowly taking it. Could you take aspirin when you were pregnant? I’m not pregnant, just stressed!
“Thank you,” I said to him, moving to take my glass of orange juice. However, as I thought about taking it, I started getting nervous. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I already had, so I did what I did when my mother used to give me vitamins I didn’t like to take as a child. I tossed them back into my mouth, and lifting the juice, slipped the drugs back into the cup, not finishing it. Setting down the cup, I kept eating as if nothing had happened.
I just needed a free moment. Gelula would be back with a test. I’d take it, settle this once for all, and then get back to whatever I was supposed to be doing.
“Your Grace, may I be excused?” Sophia asked.
“Of course, yes, dear.”
Sophia curtsied before exiting, giving no one else a single glance.
“Odette, we should go as well,” the queen replied, rising.
“Go?” I questioned rising, as well.
“You shall see. Come,” she ordered.
With no other choice, I put down my napkin and walked out of the room with her. Gelula was already outside waiting. She gave me a look, and I knew she had been able to get a test, thank God. Now I just needed a moment to escape.
“Your Grace—”
“Do you wish for me to speak out here in public?” she questioned, the look in her eyes sharp.
There would be no escaping. “No, ma’am.”
There was silence as we walked down the hall, up some steps, then down another hall before going down other steps. However, I didn’t recognize where we were going. Not because I wasn’t shown this part of the palace, but all Wolfgang had told me was that they were security rooms.
“You all will wait here,” the queen said, speaking to Gelula and everyone else who followed the queen.
They nodded and stepped back. When the doors opened, it looked like any other portraits room. However, the wallpaper was a more cream-gold color, and the portraits on the wall were all of queens.
The live queen in front of me walked up to a portrait of herself. She was much younger, her red hair shorter. She wore a soft-pink ruffled gown and crown of white diamonds on her head, a cross in one hand, and scepter with another large diamond on the top. In the background was a picture of the capital.
“I regret that dress now. It makes me look like a cupcake,” she said as she looked up.
“It kind of does, but it is still nice.”
She glanced over at me, frowning as she stepped forward before lifting a small remote I hadn’t noticed she had been holding. What she needed it for since there was no television—well, no furniture at all—I wasn’t sure until she pressed a few numbers and all of a sudden, a humming noise sounded it. Slowly rising from the ground, before her portrait, was the same crown she wore in the painting. Turning back, it wasn’t just hers but in front of everyones. Crowns in glass cases rising from the ground like resurrected queens was something I’d never thought I would see.
“I wish to yell at you,” the queen said, drawing my attention back.
“What?”
“I said, I wish to yell at you. To scream. To tell you how inconceivable it is to me that you married my son without my blessing, presence, or even a proper wedding. I wish to throw things and vent at how much of an utter mess everything has been from the beginning. We are flung from mayhem to mayhem. It is all very upsetting, and I wish to take it out on you and scream,” she said it all very calmly and stood poised and elegant as if she were not bothered at all, which was a bit scarier actually.
