Nice try. You’re going down.
He let out a breath through his nose, resting an arm on the back of my chair so he could lean in and whisper, “Not on you.”
CHAPTER 8INWHICHI SUSPECTTHEPRINCESSINTHEDUNGEONWITHTHECANDLESTICK
COURTNEY
When the final course came out, I sat up in my chair with newfound interest. Dessert was some kind of melty chocolaty affair without an ounce of red meat in sight. Despite my full stomach, my mouth watered in anticipation. A servant had just scraped a generous helping of the stuff onto my plate when the dining room door opened with a bang.
“Your Majesty!” A page boy stumbled inside. “I come bearing somber news indeed.”
Everyone fell silent, immediately sobering and forgetting all about the heavenly food before them. I inched my fork toward the mound of chocolate on my plate. Byrce noticed and smacked my hand, gentle enough not to hurt, but firmly enough that my fork clattered to my plate. A few people glanced our way, so I tucked my fingers under my leg and smiled innocently.
“Speak, my boy,” said the king.
“Winston, he’s…” The boy panted. “He’s missing!”
Gasps filled the dining room.
I looked around in confusion. “Did you guys really expect the chicken guy to stick around after you canceled him?”
“He did not leave of his own accord, Lady Courtney,” the boy said. “Once his punishment was over, guards were keeping him contained until one of his family members could fetch him from the dungeon. A guard heard Winston scream, and when they went to check on him, he was gone.”
“So he broke out?” Bryce asked.
The page boy shook his head. “Why would he, Sir Bryce? He was about to be released. We think… we believe he was kidnapped. It could very well be the work of the Evil One.”
A kidnapping? I hadn’t known people were going to bekidnapped. This was more than I’d signed up for.
Surely, everyone was just catastrophizing, and Winston had simply broken out, like Bryce said. Constantly going on and on about the Evil One had everybody paranoid. There was no need to panic.
Shakily, Amy got to his feet. “This is troubling indeed. Come. We must go to the prison and investigate.”
It took me several long seconds to realize Amy was talking to Bryce and me, so unaccustomed was I to being the responsible adult in the room. With one last longing look at dessert, I sighed and stood before Bryce had a chance to take charge.
This wouldn’t be so bad. I’d prove to everyone this kidnapping business was just some Scooby-Doo nonsense, and there was no real threat.
“I will get to the bottom of this.” I turned to Bryce and added generously, “Along with the help of my sidekick, Bryce, who is generally useless but occasionally attempts to provide comedic relief.”
The look Bryce gave me promised he wouldn’t let that snub go without repercussion, but he let it go for now. The heat in his gaze sent an odd shiver through me, but I shrugged it off.
The entire dinner party accompanied us down to the dungeons as though Winston’s disappearance were a fun murder mystery party. I wasn’t really surprised by their morbid curiosity,though, since these people considered a famine to be prime entertainment.
Grand halls narrowed to dark, musty staircases as we descended. Torches lit our path. The flickering flames cast eerie light over the group’s faces, giving them the look of slumber partygoers with flashlights under their chins, telling ghost stories. Despite myself, I shuddered. I still wasn’t convinced a kidnapping had taken place, but one time, I fell down an Internet rabbit hole about medieval torture devices, and I didn’t really want to witness those horrors in person.
I glanced at Bryce to see if he was displaying similar reluctance as we descended into the bowels of the castle, only to discover him holding a piece of dessert in a napkin and digging in with a fork he’d apparently brought from the dining room. I slowed my pace, falling to the back of the line beside him.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Stress eating,” he said honestly.
Well, at least I wasn’t the only one with the creeps. “I can’t believe you preemptively grabbed your dessert in case you needed comfort food.”
“I didn’t. I preemptively grabbedyourdessert.”
Ah. Here it was. The payback for my comedic relief comment. He’d seen how badly I wanted my dessert, so he’d taken it. “Sometimes you’re a real penis, you know that?”
He laughed, his teeth flashing in the dim light. “Asshole tax,” he said, referencing our term for when we stole a bit of the other’s DoorDash order whenever it was delivered to the wrong door.
