Page 120 of Wickedly Ever After
Thirdly, you are right about Happily-Ever-After. Always remember that, no matter how tough things get. They might, but I hope my resignation and suggestions to the Council for the future will alleviate that somewhat.
But just in case I don’t see you again after today, I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your companionship, not just over the last week, but over the last thousand years.There was a time when I thought that I alone sacrificed everything for Happily-Ever-After, which I did gladly given the world we lived in. But I was wrong. You were always there with me. This is my way of returning the favor. I will never forget your kindness, your compassion, or the way you loved a man who has always, although he never would have admitted it until now, loved you.
Yours wickedly ever after,
Hector
Tinbit said they should all go back to the capital together. Hector said no. He put his foot down so sharply that Tinbit, sitting at the skullery table supervising Hari as he flipped eggs and turned bacon, shut his mouth and didn’t say any more about it. But Hari wasn’t so easy to shut down.
“We ought to be there,” he said, serving Ida first. “Let us come—we can tell them what we saw. No one should judge either of you until they hear from eyewitnesses.”
“We have an eyewitness. Cear will tell them everything they need to know.” Hector rubbed the small of his back painfully. He’d wrenched it on one of Adair’s sharp turns rescuing Ida, and it was plaguing him this morning, largely because he’d been up most of the night trying to put his thoughts into words and failing utterly. The library fireplace was full of bits of charred paper.
“But Cear can’t tell them all that we could,” Hari said. “We’d tell them how hard you both worked to fix Happily-Ever-After—”
“Which wouldn’t help anything,” Ida interrupted. “Hector and I will handle this together. You stay here with Tinbit. He needs you to take care of him, and Hector is right. Nothing youcan say will help.” She winced, twisting slightly as if her shoulder still bothered her. Hector noted this with concern. He’d wanted to take the coach, but she’d refused. They would have two days’ hard ride to the city on his constructs, and it wouldn’t be a comfortable one, even with extra padding.
Hari didn’t look pleased, but appealing to his love for his husband-to-be worked. He dropped his protests, gazing with doe-like adoration at Tinbit’s frowning face.
“Are the horses ready?” Hector asked the skeleton who passed through.
The grating reply assured him they were.
“Areyouready?” He turned to Ida.
“As I’ll ever be.” She drained her teacup and rose.
His uneasiness increased. Ida couldn’t do much to sabotage him on the way to the city. But all matter of things might go wrong when they got there. She was too compliant, too subdued. Moreover, she’d said he wasright. That alone would keep him up tonight if his back didn’t.
***
He was right. It did keep him up. Nothing went wrong on the trip, however, other than Napoleon deciding he was a young colt and shying at every fluttering leaf, jumping deer, or manticore scat they encountered. He unseated Hector once, and only a quick grab around the horse’s bony neck column saved him from a ridiculous spill. Ida’s horse, Scary Mary, behaved herself. Periodically, she gazed at Napoleon out of large, crimson eye sockets like she couldn’t believe he was being so silly.
They camped in the woods that night, far enough away from the road to avoid bandits, or so Hector thought untilfour highwaymen came into their camp determined to rob and steal. But one of them was the innkeeper’s son. He recognized Hector before Hector could turn all four men into stone as a reminder that not all travelers were helpless. The affair ended with the robbers sharing their supper and begging a bag of everlasting salt, which Ida gave them with good grace. After that, they both settled down to sleep with the two skeleton horses piled in comfortable heaps under the leaves, but Hector couldn’t get comfortable, although he did his best not to toss and turn. As far as he could tell, Ida didn’t move all night. But she didn’t snore, and that let him know she was as wakeful as he.
They rose as soon as the morning sunlight began to seep into the gray beneath the trees, and were on their way again, with nothing to prevent them from reaching the capital that afternoon.
Ida sighed and slowed down when the turrets of the castle came into view. After a few more steps, she pulled up completely and stared down at the shining buildings, clasping Cear’s firepot in her arms.
“What is it?” Hector asked, turning around in the saddle. “Is your wound hurting? I knew I should have changed your bandage last night.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, rubbing her shoulder ruefully. “Well, it does hurt, but that’s not it. I was only thinking how different everything looks now.”
“How so?”
“Ever since I was a girl, I’ve thought that castle was beautiful, even back when it wasn’t much more than a stone fortress and a moat. It always sparkled, like something out of a fairy tale. I usedto dream about living there. But today it doesn’t look so lovely. It needs something, I think.”
“I believe the king intended to request some magical renovations later this year, to celebrate the prince’s marriage. A new treasury building, singing windows in the queen’s quarters, upgrade the nursery with some screens to keep malicious fairies out—that sort of thing. I suppose those will be on hold until they sort out how they want to handle succession.”
“I suppose you’ll say I need to visit the king and queen this evening to talk about that.”
“It would be a good idea. It might go a long way toward getting them ready to accept change.”
She folded the reins into one hand and brushed her hair back with the other. “Somehow, I don’t think it will. But I don’t suppose it can be avoided.” She lifted the reins and her mare broke into a gallop.
Napoleon bucked, and Hector had to get him under control as he raced to catch up.
***
