Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“I can’t believe you flew,” Gayle said.
I shrugged. “They’d downed Aleksei.”
“Wow. Really?” she asked, obviously having missed that part.
“He was down for less than five seconds,” Queen Calisa announced. She narrowed her gaze on me. “If it wasn’t so magnificent what you did, Laura, I would be lecturing you on how tremendously foolish it was, you doing it without a hint of training.”
“What it was, was fucking epic,” Timothee muttered.
The queen whirled on him and snapped, “Timothee.”
“Mom, you said it yourself,” he retorted.
Although I felt the breakthrough Tim and I had in the mural room strengthening, and I thought that was awesome, there were other, more important things afoot.
“What’d you do?” Cat asked me.
“One of the trolls that downed Lex is fish food, for starters,” Tim told her.
Cat, Gayle and Monique all gaped at me.
We’d get into that later.
“Um, can we talk about the trolls”—and not me—“for a bit?” I requested.
“I would like to talk about that too,” Queen Calisa sniffed. “But since they haven’t been sighted in nearly eight hundred years, until tonight, I don’t have that first clue what to say.”
“Credits to croissants, those demons up at the Edge have been breeding them for forever,” Cat remarked.
This would be my guess.
But wouldn’t Tanyn have known about that?
Though, perhaps not, considering he was banished from Berg Castle when he was only a year old and confined on an island until he was old enough to go to school. And he’d famously never been let back into the Castle, or his father’s orbit, even if he’d been given a prince’s education, and he and his mother lived in a citadel on the island that wasn’t a castle, as such, but it was nothing to sneeze at.
“Timothee, your mother needs a brandy, if you would be so kind,” Queen Calisa ordered.
“And I need a whisky,” Tim muttered. “Anyone else?”
“Shot of tequila,” Cat said.
“Times two,” Moniqe put in.
“Snifter of almondine,” I requested.
“I’ll help,” Mrs. Truelock said.
“No need. I have it,” Tim told her.
Yeah.
He just said that he’d make a bunch of females some drinks.
I stared at him because…
Who was this male?
“I need something to do, sweetheart,” Mrs. Truelock told him.
Tim jerked up his chin.
“Can you make me a martini?” Gayle asked. “Stiff. Olive.”
“I change mine to that,” Cat said.
“Me too,” Monique added.
Tim and Mrs. Truelock headed to a bureau that had the makings of a full bar on top of it and got to work.
They made our drinks, and we settled in, only for Mrs. Vinestrong to arrive ten minutes later on a massive eyeroll to her daughter and the words, “Your father commanded I remove myself from the melee.” She turned her attention to encompass Queen Calisa and Mrs. Truelock and griped, “Males.”
“Indeed,” Queen Calisa agreed.
“So things are still crazy?” Gayle asked.
Mrs. Vinestrong nodded as she collapsed into an armchair. “Not like at the beginning, of course. They’re restoring order. I think every constable in Nocturn is interviewing guests. And two banks of army dragons have arrived. There are beasts sitting sentry all around the island, and more flying overhead.”
Suddenly, Gayle asked, “Where’s Errol?”
I tried not to meet Tim and Queen Calisa’s eyes as they did the same to me, because he couldn’t shift, though he didn’t know he couldn’t shift, and now he probably wondered why, which was not good.
They far more successfully avoided my gaze without looking like they were, and Queen Calisa answered breezily, “Helping, I’m sure.”
Under the guard of some defense bots so he wouldn’t put two and two together and make an escape, I was sure.
“Okay, is it only me who noticed that King Arnaud didn’t show his gross, smarmy face at the Masque?” Cat asked.
More eye avoidance from the royals, and Queen Calisa waded in again. “As Elayne said, there is what I have no doubt will be a thorough investigation already underway. We’ll learn what there is to learn when there’s something to know.”
“Perhaps we should turn on the screen?” Mrs. Truelock suggested.
Before the queen could stop him, Tim, who was leaning against the front of the king’s desk, said to the room, “Screen engage. Play latest newsfeed.”
A large screen unfurled from the ceiling and a human female newsreader appeared on it.
“We’ve received reports of a massive malfunction of the ground level fireworks display at the Midnight Masque this evening,” she was saying.
Sounded like Germaine hadn’t missed a beat, as usual.
At least it was good to know she was fine and functioning on all cylinders.
“There may be casualties, but we haven’t received official word,” she went on. “Emergency forces were dispatched to the Sceptred Isle. We await further news on developments.”
“Screen mute,” the queen called.
The newsreader continued to be displayed, her mouth yapping, but we couldn’t hear her.
“They can’t possibly think hundreds of people who saw, and even battled, trolls are going to keep their traps shut about seeing and battling freaking trolls,” Mon remarked.