Page 57 of A Petal in the Crown

Erik laughed. "Good luck with that." he leaned against the wall, pointing up towards the storm clouds.

"I don't have a choice." Lea turned to Janelle and tilted her head. "Erik, close your ears," she ordered.

"Not happening."

"Then don’t blame me for what you’re about to hear." She waved him off and grabbed Janelle’s hands. "I have a tiny, basically insignificant favor to ask you," Lea said, her voice sweet and calm.

Erik straightened. "No. The two of you scheming isnevera good thing. Not once has it ended well. Do you remember the trial? That's stupid satchel you had her sneak in?"

"We’re running out of time, Erik, and you know it." Lea snapped, pointing to her crown. "I'm not trying to save Thomas with some half assed plan. I’m not a stupid, naive girl anymore. I'm a woman—a queen—put in an impossible situation, working with the only thing I have. I’m desperately trying to save our people the only way Evangeline sees us winning." She stopped, taking a deep breath. "Alaric’s magic has to be diminished, and until we can find another way to make that happen, we have no choice. I have to learn how to take his magic, even if it hurts me."

"Sounds reasonable to me." Janelle shrugged. "You can practice on me."

"No. She will not," Erik said, his chest puffing out. Janelle held up a hand.

"Not your decision," she quipped, winking at him. "That territorial Fae shit? It doesn’t work on me."

Erik sighed heavily, running his hand up his face and through his hair. "Gods above. Maybe you two need to take Alaric out together. You'll kill him out of sheer frustration."

"That's an idea. We’re open to any and all reasonable suggestions that don’t involve Lea not practicing on me," Janelle said, and Erik glared at her.

"Listen," Lea said, standing. Janelle chuckled, knowing Erik was dying to tell her to sit back down, just as Gray had, but choosing to keep his mouth shut.

"Smart man," she whispered to him, but he ignored her, the only indication he’d heard her at all the slight tipping up of his lips.

"Gray is too blind with fear trying to keep me safe. I love him, but at this point, I don’t know if he can make unbiased decisions. And you know it, too. If we fail, we die anyway. I'm not going beyond the veil again without knowing that I did everything I could to save us. I'm doing this, and as your queenandyour friend, I'm asking you not to tell Gray."

"Fuck me," Erik said, huffing and shifting from side to side. Janelle opened her mouth, a joke on the very tip of her tongue.

"Not now." His eyes flashed with heat.

"Later," Janelle mouthed, and Erik couldn't help but laugh. Booming, bubbly laughter, that made a few nearby villagers turn.

"I’m so sorry," he said to them, his face turning red.

"Can you not take anything seriously?" Lea asked Janelle, but there was no anger or bite to her words.

Janelle tilted her head. "I mean, you're the one saying we're all probably gonna die. If that's the case, I wanna get laid as much as I can before we go."

"Gods, I don'tthinkwe're all gonna die. That's what I'm trying to prevent. And I can only do that if I practice. Okay?" Lea quirked an eyebrow at Erik, and his demeanor turned serious again.

"If anything goes wrong, you need to tell me. And if it becomes too much, you have to promise me you'll stop. We’ll keep searching for another way to end this." He sighed. "But you're right. If Evangeline thinks it’s the only way, then this might be our only hope."

Chapter 35

Lea

Just as they’d discussed, Evangeline surprised them all when it was time to leave. They spread out their departures, just by a minute or so, in hopes that it would confuse Eudora were she to try to see what their plans were. But Evangeline wasn't the only one with a secret.

Lea had the beginnings of one herself. Her own plan. A way that she could maybe take Alaric’s magic without it killing her. Or, at least, to keep death from coming for her until she had taken every last drop and stabbed a blade through his heart.

And the first step in that plan was speaking to Evangeline. Lea volunteered to leave after her birth mother, knowing Gray would take the tail of the caravan to ensure no one was left behind. It was the perfect opportunity for a private conversation, and one she might not get again anytime soon.

They traveled northeast, through tall, skinny trees with fat pinecones and long, spindly leaves. But Lea tried not to focus on where they were going as she urged her horse forward, moving next to Evangeline.

"Do you mind if I ride next to you for a while?" Lea asked, and a bright smile spread across Evangeline's face, her shoulders loosening.

"I would like that very much," she said, moving her horse over to the left to allow them a bit more room. They rode in silence for a while, Leawondering how she was able to navigate the forest without her eyesight, and unsure how to have the conversation with her that she needed to. Lea shared her own blood and bone with this woman, but knew virtually nothing about her, and she was at a complete loss for what her life had been like. Where she’d traveled and what she’d experienced. Why she’d been so afraid the Black King would find her.

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