Page 153 of Carousel

I’m frozen.

Close to tears.

“He can’t be,” I murmur, hot. Dizzy. Like I’m sick.

“He must be. She just hid his existence. Had him raised in Lartos.” She lets go of me. Sort of spins on her heel. “Just think. He’s the right age. He’s clearly of noble birth and education – anyone who has lived in the Palace can see that. Sisters, why didn’t I see it sooner? He even has the look of her!”

Drake’s face flashes up like laser light in my mind.

And I can see it.

The smoothness of his skin. His strong nose and jawline. Dark, imposing features, like midnight just landed on them.

Sisters. That’s why I’d thought he looked so familiar when we first met.

I’d recognised his mother in him.

“And he’s her firstborn. That means he would supersede Princess Faye in line to the throne. You were promised to the Crown Prince!” she whispers, utterly gleeful.

Anyone passing might think the deities just granted all of her wishes.

I must look like they just destroyed all of mine.

CHAPTER 27

The Two Crane Flies

He’s a prince. He’s a prince. He’s a prince.

Not just any prince. The Crown Prince.

And the prince I was engaged to.

I’m barely aware of time passing, the other pilots and soldiers, the never-ending corridors, as Meg leads me back to her cabin. There, I immediately curl up under her crisp covers and, in my mind, reach for the only other person in the world who might be able to give me the information I need. The last memories I’m missing. Because I need them.

I don’t know if this will work – me finding her – but I have to try.

My eyes shut tight, I conjure up an image of Old Mother. She’ll be in our house, asleep in her bed.

I imagine creeping right over to her. Her mind stirs at my presence. I can hear the sound of it. A gentle, almost metallic tinkling sound, like a wind chime being played by a breeze.

She lets me in.

Her mind looks a lot like our house. I see our furniture. Her shawl over her armchair. But there is more of everything, and things we never even owned. Potions. Books. Globes. Birds in cages. All of this knowledge she has from over one hundred years on this planet.

Ara, she says to me. Her voice is quiet as a river. Ancient and knowing as a mountain. You managed to visit me. Entering the minds of others is not something easily done by those with magic – a link, of sorts, from our common royal ancestor, perhaps the Sisters themselves, when they walked the earth. Your magic must be getting so strong. I’m so proud of you.

Shock grips me. “You can speak.” I’ve never heard her voice, in all my life. She lost her voice in a blood magic accident decades ago.

You’re in my dream, child. Here, I can speak. And I can feel you are carrying pain. Tell me how I can help you.

In her head, my voice echoing as if in a cavern, I say, “You read the Queen a fortune, didn’t you? You picked up the Card of The Soulmates. She thought it related to her son, and to me. It changed my life. Ruined it.”

She looks at me solemnly. Maybe even, with pity. As if she thinks there are still things I don’t understand, and probably never will.

Your life wasn’t destroyed by that fortune. It was made by it. You would not be here today without it.

All at once, the room starts disintegrating. Things are floating away from me, churning around our heads. Candles, pages, splinters. The birds are shooting out of their cages and flying off. The walls and floors themselves are dissolving into nothing but slippery white smoke.