Page 41 of Ruling Destiny

As she continues to hurl accusations, I conduct another quick sweep of the dance floor, only to confirm that Mason really is gone. And I can only hope that Elodie managed to find him, because after what I’m about to do next, staying behind is no longer an option.

25

People are starting to notice.

They’re pointing, staring, looking over their shoulders as they whisper in a way that threatens to go viral if I don’t do something quick.

Deciding to go with the fainting ruse, my knees begin to buckle, my hands fumble under my dress in search of my dagger, when Elodie steps in.

“Please,” she says, “give her some space.” She immediately drops to my side, fanning me with the back of her hand as she whispers into my ear, “Don’t even think about pulling your blade.”

The man looks on in confusion. The woman squints with obvious skepticism.

My lids fall heavy, my mouth slack, and as Elodie circles an arm at my waist and hauls me to my feet, my body slumps onto her like a sack of dead weight. “My friend is unwell and in need of rest,” she says. “So please—”

She gestures in a way that instantly clears the space, and the second we’ve made it outside, I push Elodie away and say, “I’m not leaving without Mason!” I start to head back in, but Elodie pulls me back to her side.

“Mason is waiting on you,” she says. “Everyone is. Turns out, you’re the one we should’ve been worried about.”

I’ve barely had a chance to digest that when the numbers switch from green to red, and when they begin to blink, I know the final countdown is on. We’re down to the last ninety seconds before the portal closes for good.

Elodie must’ve clocked it as well, because the next thing I know, she hitches her dress to her knees and starts running.

Less than a second later, I set off behind her, frantically chasing the flashing green arrow projected before me as the number above steadily drops.

We race across a meticulously kept lawn and down a gravel pathway.

We cut through a flower bed and skirt around a fountain.

Before me, Elodie is a vision—a streak of powder-blue lightning blazing a path I dutifully follow. Her long-legged gait is powerful, sure-footed, and seemingly tireless compared to my own gasping, reckless plodding and plunder.

With all pretenses of breeding and comportment abandoned, we run like the wind, run for our lives, ignoring the spectacle we leave in our wake. Both of us spurred on by the horror of being stuck here forever, with no money, no resources, no good way to explain our outlandish behavior.

Elodie shoots me a look from over her shoulder, and I could swear I catch a ghost of a smile, a gleam in her gaze.

My God—she’s actually enjoying this!

As much as I wish I could find the fun in this nerve-fraying race against time, I don’t expect that to happen until much later, if it even happens at all.

Because the truth is, Elodie’s right. I really did make a fucking mess of this Trip.

With fifty-seven seconds left on the clock, I’m starting to panic, which does nothing to help my overtaxed lungs. And in the midst of this frantic, sweaty event, I swear to myself that if—no, correction:when—whenI make it back to Gray Wolf, I will hit the gym, I will run track, I will take the fitness part of the Gray Wolf curriculum a lot more seriously than I have.

But first, I need to make my way back. And with forty-four seconds left on the clock, it’s not looking good.

Elodie is way ahead of me, and I wonder what it will be like for her, seeing me, red-cheeked and desperate, gasping my way toward the finish line, only to fall tragically short.

Then again, it’ll hardly be the first time.

Back in Versailles, Elodie watched from the safety of that circle of light as I fought off my attacker—the groundskeeper, she called him, though later, after Killian killed him, he referred to him as a Timekeeper. Either way, I clearly recall Elodie standing at the portal’s edge, clicker in hand, more than willing to leave me stranded in time should it come to that.

But would she really do that again?

Would she really risk her own safety by coming to find me if she’d planned to leave me behind?

But then I remember that ghost of a grin—that unmistakable gleam in her eye—and the fact that Elodie’s never met a risk she didn’t want to kiss, or make out with, or have sex with. That’s just who she is.

And this way, she can prove to all the others she tried.

---