Page 48 of The Abandoned Princess

Lori relaxed, clearly relived I wasn’t suggesting we go charging in immediately.

“Eulalie doesn’t know what I look like or that I’m under her enchantment,” she said, “but she’ll recognize either of you. Which means you both need to stay out of sight.” She gave us both a stern look. “If we’re going to be traipsing around the kingdom after Eulalie during the day, you’d both better get some sleep.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m sending you back to the bedrolls to sleep so don’t let me find you sneaking off for any more of your so-called adventures.”

“Yes, Lori,” I said so meekly that she added, “I’ll be coming past every few minutes to check you haven’t done something reckless.”

I laughed. “That really isn’t necessary.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she muttered, and my smile slipped away, replaced by guilt. Apparently doing reckless things really was in my nature, and even five years in a tower couldn’t beat it out of me.

CHAPTER 16

We did sleep, in my case because exhaustion overtook me despite my churning thoughts. The sun and noise of the village woke me early, though, and the three of us were soon huddled in the main street again.

We were just discussing positions for the day’s watch when the inn door opened and Eulalie walked out, a bag over her shoulder. Lori instantly thrust us both behind her, her presence enough to shield us given our secluded corner.

As Eulalie’s eyes swept over the street, I held my breath. Did she have some way to tell that someone was linked to her enchantment—some hidden sign we didn’t know anything about?

Her gaze didn’t pause, however, passing over Lori as it did the other villagers in view. I let out a sigh.

“She doesn’t recognize you,” I whispered to Lori. “We can be grateful for that, at least.”

“Personally I’m just grateful I don’t have to sit on this street all day watching a door,” Lori said, making me swallow a laugh.

“If the people my parents assigned to watch over Xavier and me had been more like you, Lori, I might not have been such a rebellious child,” Xander murmured from where he was crouched behind Lori, trying to remain unseen.

She snorted. “Pretty thoughts make pretty tales. But I wasn’t born yesterday nor the day before neither.”

Eulalie turned onto the street, moving southward. She was heading toward the rest of Northhelm, not my tower. I released another anxious breath.

“How long should we wait before following her?” I asked, unsure how to trail her without being seen.

No one replied, so I looked away from Eulalie’s retreating back to discover Xander was no longer beside me.

“Where’s Xander?” I asked sharply.

“Right here.” He appeared at Lori’s side with a smile.

When he handed me my bag, I noticed he had another one slung over his own shoulder, this one with all three bedrolls attached.

“That was fast,” I said while Lori gave an approving grunt.

“We should move quickly,” he said. “We’ll want to stick fairly close to her in the village. It’ll be easy enough to do since there are so many more people moving around than usual thanks to the tour group, plus we have buildings and objects to conceal ourselves behind. But once she moves out of the village, we’ll have to fall back and follow out of sight, trusting that she’ll keep to the road.”

I grimaced, and he shrugged in response. “There’s no way she won’t notice us if we follow within her sight line.”

Begrudgingly I was forced to admit that was true. Hopefully she wasn’t planning any side trips into the forest.

But as we finally moved into the street to follow Eulalie through the village, I squinted at Xander’s back. “You seem to know a lot about trailing someone.”

“I may have done it once or twice before,” he admitted, grinning back at me.

“Why am I not surprised?” I rolled my eyes but finished on a sigh. “I really wish I had a twin.”

“Whereas I’ve always been glad there’s only one of you,” Lori muttered, making Xander laugh.

He’d barely fallen silent when he took my arm and whisked me behind a stationary cart.

“Wha—?” I managed to start before realizing Eulalie had stopped. I peeked around the edge as she started moving again. “I see why we can’t do this on the forest road,” I acknowledged.

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