Page 54 of Tower of Tempest
My jaw ticked.
“And by schmuck,” Driscoll said, “I mean our most wonderful and kind prince.” He cleared his throat, setting the bottle down on a small table.
Bloody waters. I hadn’t even thought of it like that. I was just tryingto protect her, keep her safe, and in the process I’d taken away her freedom. Even if I was only planning on keeping her there for a day or two while we planned our next move—I couldn’t imagine how that must’ve made her feel.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
Driscoll ran a hand over his coiled black hair. “I thought schmuck was better, but idiot works well, too, actually.”
Leoni stalked around the room, checking behind curtains, under the bed, lifting pillows. “I’m not seeing any evidence of a kidnapping.”
I blew out a breath. “Did you find any information out yesterday? Anything at all about her gran, about who might be looking for her?”
Leoni and Driscoll shot uneasy glances at each other.
An icy cold gathered at the base of my spine. “What?”
“We found something, and it isn’t great,” Leoni said.
I could barely swallow. “Go on.”
“We think it might have been the royal guard who broke into her room the other day. We overheard patrons saying they saw a royal guard here, and they speculated that he was meeting a mistress. They said he went to the third floor and were combing through all the possible guests he might’ve been here to see. Some of them mentioned the pretty brown-haired maiden as a possibility.”
My blood ran cold. “What could the royal guard want with Poppy? Do you think they know about her gran, think Poppy is somehow in league with her?”
Spirits below, what had that old woman done that was so terrible both the sky court and the shadow court were after her?
Leoni shrugged helplessly. “The good news is you’re the prince of Apolis. You have an established relationship with the king and queen of Valoris. You can request an audience with them, explain this is all a big mistake.”
I started pacing. “I don’t have an established relationship with them. My sister does. My mother does.”
My father did. Before he died. And Mal would certainly be reaching out soon as his coronation approached.
“Still, you’re royalty,” Leoni said. “They won’t deny you an audience.”
“Are we sure that’s who kidnapped Poppy, though?” Driscoll asked. “Are we sure she even was kidnapped?”
I stopped. “What do you mean?”
Driscoll gestured to the room. “Personally, I have a hard time believing someone came in here and took her while you were sleeping. She would’ve fought. There would be signs of a struggle. Think about what she did to you in her tower.”
He was right.
Leoni wrinkled her nose. “Did you say it was Poppy’s idea to drink?” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen her take a single drink of liquor on our entire journey.”
“Me neither,” Driscoll said. “When we invited her the other day, she declined. And I brought out a flask one night, and she sniffed it and nearly gagged.” He shrugged. “More for me, so I wasn’t offended.”
My brows furrowed, and a memory of the night before surfaced: me asking her how she handled her liquor so well. Her smiling and saying I’d drunk most of it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I think she may have wanted to get me drunk,” I said, voice resigned.
“I think you’re right.” Leoni stared into Poppy’s open wardrobe. “Her clothes are gone, her cloak is gone, her boots are gone. Do you think if she’d been kidnapped, she would’ve had time to grab all her things?”
I groaned. “She left on purpose. She wanted me to get drunk so she could sneak out.”
I’d played right into her plan. Poppy was smart, I’d give her that. But now she was also in danger. Exposed. Alone.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
