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I glanced at the clock. “You’re here before noon. Had a fun night last night?”
“Yeah. Which you would have known if you had come out with us,” Lex said, flopping down on his desk chair.
“You know that—”
“You don’t want to come out on group dates because you’re jealous as fuck. We get it.” Jagger put his feet up on his desk, accepting coffee from the aide.
My neck heated. He wasn’t wrong. “Some gossip column got a photo of you three at Elixir, you know. Lucas has wasted his whole morning having it covered up. And Lex, you’re going to lose everything if you keep toeing the line of our spell like that.”
“Can you blame me? Did you see her in that dress?” Lex dumped sugar into his coffee and dropped the container of sugar down on his desk with a heavythunk, his eyes uncharacteristically irritated. “We have to reverse the spell.”
“No. You agreed to it. It’s done,” I said.
I needed that spell. If I was able to have sex with her, my jealousy was going to get even more complicated.
“And it can beundone,so we don’t die of sexual frustration,” Lex shot back.
“Wait, you had the article pulled?” Jagger asked, frowning. “It’s a gossip column. Who cares? Do you know how many of them have made shit up about our love lives over the years? A fuck ton of them. We can play this one off as another one of those.”
“Not this time.” I grabbed a book from a big stack on the corner of my desk. It was old, held together with centuries’ worth of spells. “Do you remember hearing about the total solar eclipse? The one that occurs along with a certain star alignment?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Lex asked.
“Apparently, it’s traditional for the Royal families to have a two-week-long event leading up to it, ending with the eclipse holiday. We need to start arranging it.”
“Fuck.” Jagger let his leg fall to the floor. “And we can’t get out of it?”
The brightness in Lex’s eyes had faded completely, his mouth tight. He hid his expression behind his mug, looking out the window.
“No. It only happens once every thousand years, anyway, so it’s not like we’ll have to do it again any time soon. It’s important for our connection to the Mystic, or so the priest who brought me this book on the event said.” I ran my hand over the cover. “So our families—our extended families—will be coming here whether we want them to or not. I’d rather tell them about Arden in person than letting them find out like this.”
“Okay, fine, that makes sense.” Jagger tugged at his beard. “So, we’ll eventually tell them about what we have going on, but still keep her powers a secret?”
“Yes. The Moon Oracle is still out there somewhere. With so many new people coming in and out of the palace, someone could slip in and take her. Even with all of our security.”
“This is going to be a fucking mess.” Jagger rested his hands on his desk and straightened up. “We should get started on figuring out how this event is going to go.”
“Might as well start to get it over with faster,” Lex mumbled. “We have a lot to cover.”
I opened up the old book to the section on the eclipse traditions. The section was so thick and dense with text that I sighed. Whatever this event was going to bring us, it was going to be complicated.
Chapter40
Lex
Iwas the kind of person who got up every morning excited—or at least curious—about what was to come that day. But ever since Flint dropped the news of this eclipse event, I dreaded all the things I had to do. The planning wasn’t difficult, especially since our aides were efficient in executing our plans, but mentally? It was a burden.
I sighed, standing in the doorway of the massive temple on the palace grounds. The white stone subtly sparkled in the sunlight, making it look just as mystical as it felt. The magic radiating from the building was strong and comforting, like someone had placed a heavy set of armor over my shoulders. Magic had always felt that way to me, ever since I was dragged to the temple for ceremonies as a kid.
But that connection was part of the problem, at least to the rest of my family.
I took a few steps inside. The magic vibrated under my skin like an electrical current. Had I been drawn here by it, somehow? I needed a break, so I’d taken a walk to clear my head. I’d ended up here.
“Hello, Your Highness,” a young priest said when he noticed me. He bowed his head. “May I be of help to you today?”
“No, it’s fine. I was just wandering.” I tucked my hands into my pockets.
The priest bowed his head even lower. “I’ll be over here if you need anything at all.”
