Page 40 of The Stolen Princess
Drake looked away, unsure if he wanted to tell her. The operatives had never said that their goals were a secret.
When he didn’t answer, she pressed again. “What was in the letter you sent back to Tolsten House?”
Drake swallowed. “We want the weapons. Your life in exchange for your father’s weapons.”
She leaned in. “There aren’t any weapons.”
“Yes, there are, the illegal ones that your father built without the Council of Essential’s knowledge.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
“How is that impossible?”
“My father never did that,” she said, lifting her chin.
“He did do it. He built weapons.”
She shook her head again, more emphatically this time. “Just prototypes. Everything else is a rumor.”
“It’s not a rumor. He built them, and he’s hiding them, and now we want them so that we can destroy them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How can my father bargain with something he doesn’t even have?” Myka shook her head. “You can’t base my entire life on a bunch of rumors.”
Her hypothetical question wasn’t even worth answering, but Drake couldn’t help himself. “It’s not a rumor. Weapons like the ones your father created could destroy all seven kingdoms if he used them. It would be like another Desolation. Is that what you want?”
She leaned forward, contempt bright in her eyes. “How dare you? You don’t know me. You don’t know my father.” Her words were paired with genuine emotion, and it made Drake uncomfortable. “I don’t condone weapons of mass destruction. I would have to be crazy to do that. So when I tell you the weapons don’t exist, I’m not saying that to cover up for my father. I’m saying that because it’s the truth.”
“Does your father not tell you anything, or are you a really great liar?”
“What if he can’t make the trade?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“If you’re as valuable to your father as we think you are,” Drake said, “then it shouldn’t take too much to persuade him to save your life.”
“Iamvaluable to him. He’ll do anything to save me.”
“That’s what we hope. Once we get the weapons, you can go home,” he said behind her.
Myka laughed in her mocking way. “What are you going to do when you discover that I’m right? That there aren’t any weapons?”
“You’re not right.” His voice remained calm.
“What if I am?”
He shook his head as he watched her.Drake didn’t get the feeling that she was lying. She looked like a girl who truly believed her father was a good man. Would she admit that her father was sick?
“Why do you sneak out of Tolsten House all of the time?” Drake asked.
Her expression wavered, then hardened. “Everyone knows that a young girl who sneaks out is only going one place.”
“And where’s that?”
“To her lover’s house.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
She raised her chin. “You don’t believe that I have a lover?”
“No,” he said firmly.
