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“I want you to see the physician too.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Too bad.” Felix wasn’t letting Rainier brush off his concerns anymore. “I’m going to run downstairs for a minute.”
“To do what?”
“I need to ask a servant something. I’ll stay out of your Mum’s way.”
He didn’t give Rainier a chance to speak before he ran off to the antechamber. The clank must have been a servant setting the dinner tray on the side table, so he brought that in and placed it on the table in front of the couch.
“Eat, and I’ll be back.”
Inky tagged along with his human pal. Felix took the back stairs down and had to guess how to get to the kitchen. If it was dinner, the servants that weren’t serving the Royal Family were probably eating in here. Some probably lived elsewhere and might be gone for the day if they’d already finished their duties, but maybe they stayed to eat.
The kitchen had a few people, and he recognized the older woman who cleaned Rainier’s rooms. She was seated on a stool at the enormous work counter with a plate, and a bag sat on the floor by her feet. The room quieted as Felix entered.
“What the hell?” he demanded. “Your Crown Prince looks ready to die upstairs, and nobody does anything?”
“What are you talking about?” asked a woman with a dirty apron, presumably the cook.
Felix looked at the servant who cleaned the Prince’s rooms. “He’s a twig now. You didn’t say anything?”
She looked away. “It’s not my place to be gossiping about them.”
“He’s obviously not well,” he said.
“What do you expect me to do about it?” she asked. “They’ve got a physician.”
“The Crown Prince is like Addy,” blurted one, and another smacked her arm.
“Shut up.”
“He has a stomach issue?” asked Felix.
“No,” said the first.
The second hissed at her. “Would you shut up? Do you want to get fired?”
“What?” Felix asked, and they all stared at him. “Well?”
They all looked like they knew something but weren’t about to spill it. Felix recognized a man from the stable who looked away. Inky padded closer and stood by the work counter to glare at everyone while he swished his tails.
Felix held back a frustrated noise. “One of you needs to get off your ass and fetch the physician.”
“He’s at home in the city.”
“Go get him. I don’t care if he’s in the privy with his trousers around his ankles. He’d better hurry up too. We’re leaving tomorrow, and I’ll pack his stuff myself since you lot can’t be bothered to say anything and don’t care. One of you should have already hauled the physician up here.”
He stomped out and was tempted to find the Queen and give her a piece of his mind too, but she’d likely tell the guards to kick him out. He wasn’t sure if the ones here would obey her or Rainier just because the ones at the prison took his side.
Talk broke out from the kitchen, but it faded as Felix hurried off and went back upstairs. Rainier’s plate was empty, and Felix squinted at it as he came around the couch.
“The physician’s coming. How did you eat that so fast?”
Rainier, laying down, shrugged and made a kissy sound to Inky who had returned with Felix.
“You didn’t eat that, did you?” asked Felix. “You barely ate when we went to Jolly Farms, and you picked at your food when you had it.”
