“-Lia! Wake up,” my mom says, sounding far a way. Something jostles my leg.

I bat it away.

“Five more minutes,” I mumble.

The shaking gets more insistent.Ugh. Every. Time. She drives me to school a whole hour before homeroom starts anyway. What does five minutes matter? I’m—

—Jolting up like a bucket of water’s just been thrown at me, my heart tight and painful in my chest.

I’m dead, I finish inside my head.

Funny what your mind thinks is important in bad circumstances. School and mom, I guess.

“Finally,” A too-familiar voice says.

I freeze.

Slowly, very slowly, so slowly every joint creaks—and God, my neck hurts, and my hands are stiff from pillowing my head all night, and when had I slid down onto the floor slumped in a C around Winfred?—I turn to my other side.

Alex Silverwood kneels in front of me, on his tip-toes in so narrow a space between two bodies that I’m impressed by his balance. The kids around him are still fast asleep. Above him, the hazy early morning sun streams in from the stained glass windows and illuminates just enough of his face.

He looks very different from the guy I’d met yesterday.

His once-fine clothes are stained with dirt like mine, but also brown splotches whose origins I refuse to think about.¹ Oh, you have a guess about what those brown splotches are? Please keep them to yourself, I don’t want to think about it.  On his right cheek is a nasty-looking gash, close enough to his eye that I’d bet that’s really what his enemy was aiming for.

The starkest difference, though, are his eyes. Yesterday, they’d been warm—annoyed, granted, but warm—as they’d looked at Aurelia. Today though, they’re rather guarded, like clouded ice.

“Why are you surrounded by kids?” he asks.

I let out a soundless groan.

I’m an idiot.

I knew I should’ve just pulled an all-nighter if I wanted to make sure I was the first one awake and out of here. But then I thought to myself, surely just a little nap won’t hurt? A little rest? I’d for sure wake up when the servants unblocked the door—and look where it’d gotten me.

I close my eyes. Open them again. Of course, Alex is still there.

“Why are you here?” I mutter back.

A flash of guilt runs across his features.

“Well, I was. My mother and father sent me to—“ Winfred, still half lying on my dress, stirs. Around us, the rustle of clothes and murmurs pick up. I look at Alex and put a finger to my lips.

Alex thins his lips. “Never mind. This isn’t the right place,” he says, his voice marginally quieter. “Can we talk outside?”

I’d rather not, personally. It’d be much better for me if he can just go away, and I can gather myself and run away.

However, it is rather too late for my plan. Literally.

I sigh, and push myself half-up. Carefully, I pull the caught fabric of my dress out from under Winfred.

He frowns and rolls over, but doesn’t wake.

Carefully, I stumble up. Ugh, more joint creaks, more aches. If it'd been my body and not Aurelia’s, I’d have been just fine on this patch of floor. Who knew there were downsides to being tall?

Alex considers me. But whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t say. He nods, then turns around and begins to weave through the tangle of people in a hopscotch pattern.

I look down at the floor, where the sword and the sad handful of Aurelia’s belongings lie. Everything seems distinctly cumbersome and unhelpful now.

I tie the pouch of gold coins to my belt, leave the other things where they are, and look back at Winfred.

Any minute now, his dad will be here to pick him up. His dad will has to.

I say a silent goodbye, and follow Alex out the chapel doors.

 

On the other side of the door… is a lot more people than I expected.

A few of the guards and servants I recognize from last night. More people walking to and from.

They all look pretty bad, if I’m being honest. No one seems to have gotten any sleep, and I spot multiple wounds still seeping blood and torn and dirty clothes galore. But everyone also look relieved, and very much alive.

Before Alex can direct me anywhere, a woman comes up and touches my elbow gently.

I recognize her from last night. She was one of the people that dragged the chapel doors closed and then later moved the pews into place [1].

“Thank you for helping keep the children calm last night, Aurelia,” she says.“I didn’t know you could tell stories like that.”

“It’s, uh, no problem?” I say, feeling Alex’s eyes considering me again. It seriously makes my neck prickle.

I move away from her touch and nod to take off the sting.

She gets the message. She smiles, curtsies to Alex, and walk away.

When she’s out of earshot, Alex jerks his head to a secluded corner of the courtyard. “Over there,” he says.

The moment we reach the spot, Alex whirls around, looking absolutely bewildered.

“You decided to stay in the chapel and tell the kids stories instead of joining me and Luke out front?” Alex says.

I mean… he should be, to be honest. Aurelia was a warrior who could fight toe-to-toe with Alex. She wouldn’t have hidden out in a chapel.

But I can’t exactly tell him the reason I did it was because I’m not Aurelia.

It’s too early in the morning, and the night’s chill hasn’t fully dissipated. I fight the urge to shiver.² I think this is like, the third time I’ve regretted not stealing a cloak from Aurelia’s cabin. Third? Fourth?

“Why not?” I say, trying to strike the right tone of careless and firm. I fold my arms. “Women and children need protecting too, don’t they?”

The frown on his face deepens. He folds his arms too. “Well, sure, but you hate kids. You’ve always said you don’t know how to talk to them. And you’ve always said you’d love the chance to prove that women make as competent a knight as men.”

Oh no. I’ve been underestimating Alex.

Even if I put aside that he didn’t become the Mage-King by being dumb, he’s always one of the people in this universe who know Aurelia best. And the best-positioned to figure out I’m not here.

I swallow. “It’s not that weird. I just thought that I could show I can be useful somewhere else.”

“But when we didn’t see you helping with the defenses last night and couldn’t find you, we thought—”

Alex breaks off. That guilty look passes through his expression again.

“Thought what?” Worms are starting to crawl in my stomach. I get the sense that I’m not about to like his answer.

Alex runs his whole hand across his face.

“I’m sorry, Aurelia,” he says. His voice sounds like it’s being weighed down by stones. “Father refused to believe us until Luke and I told him where the information came from.” He paused. “He has his own spies. It turns out he’s always known about your correspondence with the rebels. ”

… Rebels?

What rebels? The pro-magic, anti-nobility ones that oppose the Silverwoods?³ Which again, makes it doubly ironic that Alex Prime ended up joining them after his family died. But as I said, he did end up killing most of them once he became Mage-King, so. That’s what I call the long game.

I—Aurelia, that is—was in contact with them? But how can that be when she was that close to Alex?

And what does that even have to do what the attack?

“What do you mean my correspondence with them? And what does that have to do with the attack?” I repeat out loud.

By Alex’s expression, I realize immediately that’s the wrong tack.

Actually—Hadn’t he been asking about the rebels too, when I first warned him about the attack?

Then he and Aurelia must’ve had many, many conversations about the rebels before.⁴ But if that’s true then, like, what the heck, Andor K. O. Natter? How incompetent of an author can you be if that’s true but you never bothered to put it on the actual page! Like, sure, unwritten backstory, whatever—but this seems kind of important to know and understand about Aurelia Prime’s character? You’re telling me the dead childhood sweetheart might have had torn loyalties? Seriously, if Natter’s hiding this about Aurelia, then what else is he hiding from his readers (that is, me) about her, or anyone else?

“What do you mean what does it have to do with the attack?” Alex asks. “They launched last night’s attack on Silverwood Keep.”

The worms are like, dancing in my stomach now.