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And Leo had given him more than Archie could have even thought to ask for himself.
But it was like asking for a few drops of rain and getting a tidal wave. Ainsley was the princess, and now it seemed as though he was becoming more and more in her debt. Not like a proper courtship should be. So, if he ever didn’t like something she did or asked him to do—even something small—would he ever be able to summon the right words to tell her so?
Would she listen? Or would he always be a small and self-destructive mouse in the paws of a playful and high-minded cat?
She was a princess. And he was a miller’s son. Perhaps that was too big of a gulf to ever truly cross, no matter how many fine tunics and toe-pinching shoes he chose to wear. And he was halfway back to his house before he realized Leo was no longer with him.
What was that cat up to now?
He was a little afraid to find out.
* * *
Leo was brilliant, and thanks to their abrupt entrance into the castle, he had finally been set free.
His triumphant and vaguely brown-and-white blur streaked across the tile in the great hall, only to skid to a sudden stop in front of a familiar portrait. There was the king. The late queen. And Ainsley posed beside them at the awkward age of thirteen. But another person standing next to them had captured Leo’s attention. He knew that chestnut shade of brown hair, the hazel eyes he had inherited from his father, and even the pointed and haughty chin.
Painted the same year as his disappearance, that boy was nearly seventeen, carried a bow, and thought he was a man. An adventurer. A well-dressed and highly fashionable huntsman.
But above all else, he was the Crown Prince Leopold.
Several more memories flooded him in a rush. The scattered drops and pieces bound themselves together with so much force it almost seemed a physical blow. A dark forest, emerald eyes, and then the voice. “Kill the rats my little hunter, my little prince.”
There wasn’t any escape. Leo stayed by the portrait for so long a young footman tripped over him, and the cat soon found himself thrown out into the streets, but it didn’t matter.
He already knew far more than he did before.
He walked the streets of Castletown in a daze, as he often did whenever he needed to clear his head. After making sure his normal haunts were clear of rats—plagued or otherwise—he found himself at Tabitha’s shop again. She was speaking with the shop-owner.
“Make sure you sweep up the cat hair and blow out the lanterns before you turn in,” the elder woman said in a husky no-nonsense voice. “We want this place tidy enough to draw our customers in.”
Tabitha mutely ducked her head, hand on her heart. And when the woman left, Tabitha was still fidgeting and pulling at her long hair. Leo hoped she wouldn’t start to pull it out—not again.
But she smiled when she saw Leo.
She always smiled when she saw Leo.
“Don’t worry. She just fusses. It’s nothing like before. I just . . .” She shook herself, like shaking off something unpleasant. Something that made Leo want to growl and hiss and swallow a certain person whole. A woman from Tabitha’s past who was no better than any plague rat.
But Leo wasn’t a lion or any sort of monster-slayer. Not really. Not anymore. And all he could do was mew and rub against the girl’s ankles until she was back with him again.
“You will stay with me tonight?” she asked, as soft as a child’s plea, and Leo knew he had been away for far too long. Perhaps he would never leave again, now that his wanderings had reached their natural end and he had discovered the mystery at the end of a very long tunnel.
Leo might not be a lion or any sort of monster-slayer, but he wasn’t a normal cat.
And he couldn’t escape the growing terror that lived inside his mind as much as out.
He let Tabitha hold and even hug him, because he always let Tabitha hug him, but this was the first time he saw the truth of it—that he needed her as much as she did him.
That they were both broken together.
Leo was the Crown Prince Leopold, and everyone thought he was dead.
Chapter 16
Copycat
Archie was up before dawn the next day, and when he left the mill for the castle in his new clothes, he ran into Rupert. His brother frowned, but all he said was, “Ellie and her parents are coming to eat with us tomorrow night before the festival. Will you be there?”
