Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles Book 4) (27 page)

“I’M SO SORRY, FATHER. I don’t know what I was thinking, I should have never…”

“I know, Max. You never meant for this to happen. It isn’t your fault – you aren’t the one who took her.”

“I just didn’t think…”

“None of us ever want to think something like that, son. That someone we trust could betray us like that.”

“The thing is, I don’t think I allowed that to happen because I trusted her, Father. I think it happened because I didn’t trust you.”

Stephen sighed, sinking down onto a chair across from his second-born son. “Maybe that’s my fault. I kept a lot of information from you, and there were a lot of things you didn’t understand about why I was making the decisions I was.”

“You had good reasons.”

Stephen nodded, looking Maxwell in the eyes. “I did have good reasons.”

“I know that now.”

“Perhaps it’s my fault, and I should have communicated with you more, Max. Or perhaps I’ve given you reason to doubt my judgment?”

“I don’t know, Father. I know I felt left out. I couldn’t understand why William would be allowed in meetings I wasn’t.”

“What would have happened if I had shared Quinn’s identity with you earlier than I did, Maxwell? If you’d been aware of it before we knew how willing Gavin was to betray us?”

The sudden widening of his son’s eyes told Stephen everything he needed to know. Maxwell had always had a greater desire to impress people than his other sons. He’d always been competitive with his cousins when it came to sports, and girls, and one-upmanship. The mortification he saw, though, told him that he didn’t need to lecture Maxwell about it. He’d gotten the point.

“How much information does Catherine Whittier have?” he asked instead.

“I’ve been trying to remember. She was so subtle. Everything just came out in regular conversation.”

“Does she know who Quinn is?” This was the one that terrified Stephen the most.

“No. She obviously knows that William and Quinn are married, though. Which is bad enough. You should have never allowed me to invite her.”

“I trusted you, Maxwell. And, in any case, you would have told her that anyway.”

Max’s face went gray. “I still don’t see how she could have gotten Linnea out of the castle.”

“I don’t know that either, although I can think of a few possibilities. I’m not going to focus on that, however. The fact is that she, and whoever was helping her, did. When –
when
– Linnea returns, we can ask her.” His voice broke on the end of the sentence, and he had to rest his forehead on his hands for a moment. His little girl…

“What can I do, Father? Will you allow me to help in the search?”

“No, Maxwell. I need you here at the castle, waiting for news. And right now, I want you to take some time and think. Think about every conversation you had with her, every question she asked, every single detail you might have told her, even if it seems small and insignificant. We need to know what they know about us.”

“Yes, Father.”

*          *          *

“This is what you call a place we can get across?” Quinn asked, looking down the steep gorge.

“There’s a ledge, just there,” Ben said, pointing. “We can walk along it until we reach that slope, where those trees are. From there, it’ll be slow going, but we can get down to the water. It’s mostly shallow there, and not moving fast enough to sweep us away.”

She stared down at the small waves breaking against the rocks. “Are you sure?”

“It isn’t going to be easy,” Marcus said. “But there’s good cover here, and we can do it.”

“We’re just not going to be dry by the time we get to the other side,” William said.

“All right, then,” she said, looking up at the afternoon sun. “I guess we’d better get to it, then, if we want to have a chance at drying off before sundown.”

Marcus and Ben led the way down the ridge. It was only the five of them now; Nathaniel followed her and William. Dangerous as it was, Quinn still felt this was better than waiting until all of them could cross together with the horses. So, yesterday after much discussion, the five of them had packed as much as they could onto their backs and headed to this spot.

They’d spent a long night camping outside, not wanting to cross the river in the darkness.

It had been an interesting debate, deciding who should come. Charles had wanted to, had almost insisted, but in the end he hadn’t wanted to be separated from Thea, and they just couldn’t send that many on foot, when they were leaving so many horses and supplies behind.

Part of Quinn was relieved at being away from Charles for a while, but there was another part of her that worried about what the consequences would be if anything important happened, and Charles didn’t get to be part of the decision. She’d been picking up on his intense need to know things and to be in the middle of them. More than once, he’d spent several minutes asking questions about every detail of a small decision, only to agree at the end with what had already been decided.

She was actually starting to suspect that his biggest problem with her – aside from the fact that he really didn’t trust her to know what to do or how to do it – was simply that he’d been left out of anything having to do with her, including being informed of her very existence. William hadn’t been so sure when she’d explained her theory to him, but the more she got to know Charles, the more she thought this was right.

She did know that to take the crown and bring peace back to Philotheum, she was going to need his support, and anything that could, even potentially, complicate that made her nervous.

The walk down the ridge was treacherous, but not as difficult as she’d been worried about; it was more time-consuming than anything. Their careful climbing down to the riverbank took over an hour.

Once they were finally at the bottom and standing at the edge of the river, she could see that Marcus had been right; the water didn’t look especially deep or dangerous here – though she knew from experience that the appearance of a current could be deceiving. She had been twelve the summer she’d ventured out into a river that looked calmer than it actually was. If her stepfather Jeff hadn’t looked up from his fishing line at the right moment…

“Climb on my back, Princess.” Marcus’ voice brought her thoughts back into sharp focus.

“What?” she said, suddenly noting that Ben was holding his father’s backpack, and that Marcus had his hands extended behind him. “I can cross just like everyone else.”

She looked to William for support, but he only shrugged. “I don’t see any reason for you to have to get wet.”

“I can’t let you carry me, Marcus. It just doesn’t seem right.”

“Then I will,” William said, shedding his backpack. “Get on, Quinn.”

His voice was light, but she heard the undertone. There was nothing to win here, but there was plenty to lose.

“I’ll carry your pack, Princess,” Ben said, reaching to help her remove it.

“And I’ve got yours, Prince William.”

Her face was red as she climbed onto William’s back, but she tried not to show her chagrin.

“Sorry,” she whispered into his ear as he hooked his arms under her knees.

He shook his head slightly, reaching up with one hand to gently squeeze her wrist as he waded into the water. He shuddered at the sudden cold, and she tightened her arms around him. “You did want me to carry you across the threshold,” he said. “I thought maybe a princess deserved something a little bigger.”

“You’re lucky I love you.”

“I couldn’t agree more; even if you are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

The trek through the water was almost uneventful, except for one time when William’s foot slipped against a rock, almost sending them both tumbling into the water, but Ben, who was walking right beside them, caught his arm and steadied him.

She still felt bad when they reached the other side and she was the only one who was dry. Everyone else was soaked, all the way up past their knees.

Although all four of the men were dripping, water sloshing out of their boots, Marcus didn’t think they could afford the time to stop and dry out if they were going to reach the Miller Estate before nightfall. Quinn reluctantly agreed, and they climbed up out of the riverbank and continued their journey through the thick woods almost immediately.

William caught her hand as they walked, and leaned down to kiss her hair. “It will get easier,” he promised.

She shook her head. “I’ll get better at it, probably, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be easy to just expect people to step in and do things for me.”

He squeezed her hand.

“You’re right about one thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m lucky you love me.”

He looked at her. “I very much do, Quinn.”

“Would you still love me even if I
don’t
get used to it; if at some point I freak out on everyone for treating me like such a girl?”

William’s laugh was loud enough that everyone turned and looked at them. They all turned back around quickly, though, when William gave them a shy, half-embarrassed look. Quinn got the feeling they were trying to give her and William privacy. Part of her appreciated that, but there was another part that found it even more embarrassing.

“Can I point out one thing to you?” William asked, once everyone was ignoring them again.

She raised an eyebrow.

“You are a girl.”

“So what? That means I can’t do the same work as everyone else? That I have to be carried around?”

He sighed, looking at her. “Quinn, you know how everyone is being patient with you, because you’re new at this, and you don’t really know how to behave in every situation, or what to do?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Is there any chance you could give the rest of us some of that same consideration? We don’t know what we’re doing, either. We’ve never had a firstborn daughter become queen.”

She nodded, thinking. “So do you just really believe that because I’m a girl, I’m weaker somehow? I need protection from things?”

“It’s not exactly like that.”

“Then what’s it like? I’m not trying to argue, Will, but I don’t understand.”

He looked up at the sky, clearly deep in thought. She had to tap his shoulder to point out that they were approaching a fallen log they needed to navigate around. “Thank you,” he said, chuckling.

“So, help me understand, please,” she said, when they were on solid footing again.

“I think part of the problem here is that we’re coming at this from different places. In our world – or at least in Eirentheos – while it’s true that we’ve always been led by men, there’s never been a divide like I think there is in your world, Quinn. I did study history there – which is an advantage I suppose you haven’t had about this world. If you would have
passed
history here,” he teased.

She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “I didn’t
always
do badly in history. I was a little distracted, you know.”

“I know.” He reached for her hand again, twining his fingers in hers. “Anyway, it was always so strange to me, to learn about the history in your world. How women weren’t allowed to make decisions, or own property. How, in a lot of ways, they’ve had to fight
against
men just to have the same kind of life.”

“And you’re saying it’s better here?”

He shrugged. “It’s not perfect here – you’ve seen that. You got an up-close view of how Tolliver sees women. But maybe you haven’t seen enough of the other side. My father rules the kingdom, sure, but he rarely makes a decision he hasn’t talked to my mother about, gotten her input on. And, often, she’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place. And everyone knows that, expects it. And if something happened to my father, my mother would have all of the power.”

“Just like Sophia really does in Philotheum.”

“Exactly. And outside of actually being the king, which is passed in a certain way through families, women in Eirentheos – and Philotheum, for that matter, can have the same jobs, and have the same rights as men do. Look at Essie and Jacob – she runs that clinic every bit as much as he does. Lily does more than Graeme. Back in their village in Philotheum, Lily was more influential in their council than Graeme was.”

“I haven’t seen any guards or soldiers who are women, Will.”

He paused for a moment. “I suppose that’s true. There aren’t many.”

“Are there some?”

“A few, actually. But they’re certainly not the majority, and I can see how it looks to you. Women are
allowed
to be soldiers and guards, here. If they want to do that, they can. They’re paid and treated the same, too.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just different here, love. It’s different than you’re thinking it is, coming from where you’ve been.”

“Well, nobody carried you across the river, and you’re just as royal as I am.”