Page 30 of The Abandoned Princess

But instead he fell back a step. And then another. Eulalie advanced forward instead, keeping pace with his retreat.

Xander’s face was creased now, confusion in his expression. Something about his bearing was off, his leg muscles straining hard despite his faltering steps. Was he trying to advance and being driven back? Eulalie extended the hand wearing the ring, and he stumbled back another step.

Was the ring somehow repelling him?

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

She glanced sideways at me. “I’ve learned a few things about this ring in the last couple of years. It turns out it has more abilities than I initially realized.” She stepped forward and forward again.

Panic filled me as I saw her intention.

“No!” I screamed, lunging forward.

But Eulalie was positioned between me and the prince. As I approached her, an invisible force drove me off course, forcing me away from her, just it was pushing Xander.

I redirected my steps, running toward Xander instead. He didn’t appear to see me, his focus so intensely on Eulalie that he was oblivious to everything, including the approaching danger.

Three steps before I reached him, the back of his legs hit the window ledge. He started, twisting to look at the gaping hole behind him, but the movement only made him more vulnerable.

As I lunged across the remaining distance, Eulalie also stepped forward. Pushed by the force of her ring, he toppled backward through the window.

Screaming, I thrust my upper body after him, reaching with my right hand. To my shock, my reaching fingers found flesh, and I instinctively closed my fingers around his wrist.

I felt his hand close around mine in return just as his weight hit me, nearly pulling me out the window after him. I braced myself against the windowsill, straining to hold us both in place.

But a futile sense of horror was growing inside me as I felt his hand slowly slipping through mine. His weight was too much for me to have any hope of pulling him back inside. It was too much for me to even hold him in place.

Hands grasped my shoulders, shaking me and causing my grip to slip even further. Whatever effect Eulalie had managed from the ring earlier, it was gone now, no barrier preventing her from wresting me away from the window.

“Now, now,” she said. “I can’t have you go over as well. I don’t like intruders and thieves, but I take care of my things.”

I shivered at her words, but I was in no position to fend her off. She shook me again, pulling me backward as she did so, and Xander’s fingers slipped the rest of the way out of my grasp. I screamed, but it was too late. He was gone, and I was being dragged back into the tower room.

I thrashed around, successfully managing to pull myself out of Eulalie’s grip. I whirled to face her, too enraged to think clearly. Throwing myself at her, I clawed at her with outstretched arms and curled fingers.

She dodged around me, shaking her head and tutting. “Now that the influence of that unpleasant prince has been removed, I think it’s time you went back to being the old Daisy.”

She gave no appearance of realizing how deranged her words sounded, making it even more obvious how much her mental state had deteriorated since I first met her. Was this also an effect of overusing the ring, a companion to the strange, leathered skin?

My attack faltered, and it gave her time to whip something out of her satchel. My eyes widened as I caught a whiff of a scent I had only smelled once before but would never forget.

I tried to pull back, but it was too late. I had inhaled the gas and the world was already fading away.

* * *

I woke up to find myself laid out on the bed, resting on top of all the layers of sheets and blankets. I sat up so abruptly my head spun, and I had to wait a moment for my vision to settle.

My first thought was of Xander and my second of Eulalie. There was no sign of either in the still, silent room. Only the open chest and the lumps beneath me gave any sign it wasn’t a perfectly ordinary morning.

I jumped out of bed and rushed to the chest to peer inside. Xander’s sword lay at the bottom, apparently missed by Eulalie in the rapid sequence of events. It hadn’t all been one of my strangely realistic dreams, then.

I hesitated by the chest for a moment longer, not wanting to face what came next. But I forced myself to shake off the cowardice and cross to my window. Bracing myself, I peered down at the distant ground.

It was clear.

I frowned and leaned further out the window, ignoring the beautiful day and clear blue sky. On more careful inspection, the grass at the base of the tower wasn’t quite as clear as I had initially thought.

It didn’t hold a motionless body as I had feared, but small twigs and branches were scattered across the ground. Had there been a storm overnight? I couldn’t remember the sound of wind, but I had been drugged, so that didn’t mean anything.

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