Page 84 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“Everyone is okay with this sharing?”

“The exchange works for everyone in different ways,” Unguis said after a lull.

My brow cleared. “In the payment of information and favors.”

Twelve nods. Twelve princes who waited to see how I might process such news. They’d wait a long time as I had no idea how to process it either.

“I will be alone now,” I told them. “Go back to your lieges today.”

The princes looked crestfallen, even suspicious Huckery who attempted to cover his pity and curiosity with a scowl.

Has Been bowed. “Lady, King See will wish to know whether you are taken up in a jealous rage over this.”

I wasn’t sure yet. “Your liege can go on wishing.”

Has Been’s jaw dropped, and he picked it up, slotting jaw to skull once more.

“King Change will be happy at the promise of ruin. You will be in his good graces again,” Loup stated, then tilted his werebeast head. “Are you okay, Lady Patch?”

How had the princess been with King See? In what physical ways? My younger mind wanted to know. The ancient side of me expected that a matter of the flesh could be just that, only a matter of the flesh. The ancient me understood that a woman did not need to be first, but there was victory in being last. The young in me shied from the magnitude of being last for an immortal king and didn’t wish to consider this matter in much depth.

This information had achieved fresh imbalance between me and See, for I saw that, though he’d been my first in every way—my first arousal and seduction and self-pleasured thought—I’d been none of those for him.

“The parts of me must talk and figure this out. They feel differently about the news,” I said honestly. “Go now. Do not return until tomorrow’s dusk.”

The princes bowed one after the other, even Huckery, and trickled away through my wall of bars. They pressed their faces, each monstrous in its own way, against the bars to peer back in on me. Clearly they believed this was enough distance, and I found the audience unwelcome tonight.

I trailed up to my new conservatory to be away from them, and I felt the tension drain from my shoulders. I paused in the shadows at the base of the beautiful new stairwell to properly appreciate how the night illuminated it. Halfway up, icy moonlight bathed the steps.

I blinked.

Then frowned.

I was standing in moonlight. “I?—”

I shut my mouth, then glanced down the stairs to the shadows at the base. “I was standing there a moment ago. I could swear it.”

My slippered feet teetered on the edge of this step. I’d certainly been in the shadows and not the moonlight. I’d been standing… six feet away.

“Goodness,” I breathed.

I peered down the stairwell again to the shadowed place. I thought hard of it.

Blink.

Lifting my head, I looked up from my shadowed spot to the moonlight-bathed steps above. I’d moved back six feet. Exactly. Now wasn’t that curious indeed?

Wasn’t that the puzzle piece I’d needed?

I blinked in six-foot jumps to the center of my copper conservatory. Laughter spilled from my stitched lips after the second blink, and the sound jolted, disappearing and reappearing with my body. How vastly enjoyable to travel this way. The sensation was akin to stepping in and out of a bubble. The world was there one moment, then gone again. A monstrous game of peek-a-boo. Yes, enjoyable indeed. I wouldn’t have expected such.

I lurked before the heavy burgundy drape and twisted a smile in the darkness. “Four snuffing shares returned, four sets of princes earned, their powers in my slumber burned.”

Slumber alone had not caused the changes in my power and hotel. Rather, the return of the snuffing shares had also triggered such transformation. There was a reason for my obsession after all, and my monsterdom made some sense at last because my obsession had gained the reek of purpose.

Of what my purpose might be, I couldn’t say, but a mind didn’t need to be ancient to figure out what came next.

I still had one snuffing share to get back.

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