Page 69 of A Game of Veils

Rochelle is only a minor noble. She shouldn’t have to put her entire happiness aside over her father’s selfish power play, over the sadistic inclinations of the emperor and his heir.

If anyone should get to break the rules, it’s her.

“Maybe there’s still a chance,” I find myself saying. “Maybe we can uncover a way out.”

I just have no idea what that could possibly be.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bastien

Iprobably should have avoided the records room for the entire duration of Marclinus’s “trials.” Even though today passed without incident, the palace guards are twice as alert, not wanting to be blamed for any oversights.

But the events of the past few days have left an uncomfortably restless energy coursing beneath my skin. I need to do something—or to at least feel as if I’ve done something—to temper it.

I don’t want to find out what might happen if I let my agitation continue to build.

So I’m here in the library just shy of midnight, navigating the aisles between the shelves in the dark with the benefit of years of practice. The emperor and his staff trust their locks; they don’t bother to guard the records room otherwise.

It never occurred to them that I might have ways of getting around their basic protections. And I’m always careful to ensure there’s no evidence of my interference.

I ease open the door and am just stepping inside when a voice reaches me from several paces away. “What’s in there?”

With a lurch of my heart, I whirl around.

Princess Aurelia is just pushing herself out of one of the nearby armchairs with a swift swipe of her eyes. Had she… fallen asleep there?

What would she have been doing in the library in the middle of the night without even a lantern?

Curse it all. Now I have to answer her.

I’m not sure which is worse—that or the fact that I can’t stop my gaze from traveling over her, checking to confirm that all signs of her sickness are gone. Not that I could count on being able to tell anyway. The way she was striding around the palace last night, I had no idea she was remotely ill until she crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.

The memory makes my stomach twist all over again. Up until that point, I was berating myself for not sabotaging her better, annoyed that my gambit hadn’t affected her at all. Meanwhile I almost killed her.

Gods help me, I never would have outright poisoned her. Not purposefully.

There are only two people in this world I’ve ever wanted to murder, and both of them are untouchable. I did let my frustration get the better of me yesterday, let it cloud my mind so I forgot about the consequences of her sacrifice…

Does she even fully know that? I’m not sure how much of what I said she absorbed in her feverish state.

Why is she even talking to me if she does?

The knot of guilt in my gut doesn’t change that for all she impressed me with her fortitude, she’s still a potential enemy. I set aside my many questions and keep my tone as even as possible with my answer. “Nothing of much importance.”

If Aurelia was dozing, she’s snapped back to alertness quickly enough. She glances at the sign mounted over the door and then back at me. “I heard that’s where the imperial records are kept. Finances and trade and all that. You don’t consider them important?”

I clench my jaw to stop it from twitching with annoyance. If she already knew, why did she ask?

To find out what I’d say. Whether I’d lie.

We are still at odds, no matter how much Lorenzo insists that we should go easier on her—that she isn’t out to undermine the rest of us and our kingdoms. That she actually wants to help us.

The man’s closer to me than my own brother, but he gets so swept up in his fanciful notions sometimes.

She didn’t trust him enough to admit she was feeling unwell yesterday. Instead she lied and said she was merely tired.

And then she didn’t look even fatiged when we first encountered her afterward.

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