Alex leads me up the many flights of stairs and through the castle with purpose. I seriously contemplate trying to make a run for it again, especially when we pass rooms that I recognize.

Like, what had Alex meant by ‘less severe’ mean? Are we talking commuting a fine of ten gold pieces to a fine of five? Or are we talking commuting a punishment of execution into lifelong imprisonment?

Probably the latter, if I’m being honest right? I mean, they think I aided and abetted on Silverwood Keep. Definitely a sentence I want to avoid.

But the first time I linger too many steps behind, Alex stops walking.

“They were going to send soldiers to put you under arrest, but I told them to let me do it,” Alex says. “Have you decided what you’ll tell my parents?

So, okay. Try squirreling out of this, get a hunting party sent after you. Message received.

Really, I should’ve just kept walking west and never turned back around—

But even as I think the sentence, I know I never in a million years would have.

If I hadn’t gone back to the Keep, Winfred and all the other kids wouldn’t have been in that chapel last night. They would’ve been outdoors, never even knowing the people going after them.

No. It was better that I’d come back this way.

I just have to get myself out of this stupid situation now.

Think, Gemma, think. Put that AP English brain and that knack for remembering useless book canon to use.

 

This entire theory Alex and his parents have… is objectively sort of stupid. Like, okay, the rebels are their known enemies, and Aurelia was friendly with the rebels and knew about the attack, so maybe Aurelia and the rebels are colluding. Fine.

But that I’d try to murder people, then change my mind halfway through, then hang around to be caught and maybe executed for it? What idiot would even do that?

But I already tried showing Alex the logic flaws, and that’d had a zero percent success rate.

No, what I need is proof.

I know for a fact the King and Queen sent the attackers. Alex Prime had confirmed that from the source, and the attack was already in progress when I got to this universe. My presence couldn’t have changed anything.

But again, how do I prove that they’re responsible? And that I’m not involved in any way?

Can I just say I overheard it? From some scouts I came across while hunting in the forest?

But no, that’s dumb. What sort of meticulously-planned secret attack gets talked about in a forest? Even if some well-trained scouts slipped up so egregiously, surely they’d notice Aurelia eavesdropping before she can make her escape? She’s a hunter, not a spy.

The only real evidence I have is the truth.

But even I know that’s too fantastical to believe. What, am I supposed to say:: In fact, I’m Gemma Tran, not Aurelia, and you’re all not real but just some book people. So that’s how I know the future and let me tell you about how it’ll go?

Like, real helpful there. I’m sure that’ll convince somebody—

Wait.

Actually.

I obviously can’t say the first part—they’ll definitely lock me up for being crazy for that—but.

That second part.

As people always say: the best lies are built on the truth.

 

”Alex—“ I start, just as he says, “We’re here.”

I blink, look up at our surrounds, and find any thought about myself whooshing out of my head like they’d been sucked down a black hole.

It’s not that our walk so far has lacked signs of last night’s battle. We’d passed through lots of rooms in total disarray, and seen a lot of people that looked like Alex and thoseoutside the chapel—a little banged-up, wearing clothes that’s seen better days, but up and about. Moving with purpose.

The great hall is... another story.

Laid out on the stone floor in neat lines are bodies upon bodies.

Some of them are twisting and turning on the ground, making the most horrible groans. Others are not moving at all—and that’s even worst. Next to many of them are kneeling women, either silently tending to them, or weeping, or both.

A girl—only a little bit younger than me, maybe thirteen, fourteen?—moves through the web of bodies near me with a bucket hoisted in front of her. There’s a cloth hanging from the bucket’s wooden rim, colored a thick rusted red.

I look away with a shudder. ¹ Okay, child labor is one thing, I expect that from the pseudo-medieval settling. But making a child work where people are like, actively dying? Luke and Alex can’t just go saving kids on one hand and traumatizing them in the other, it’s a total waste of my effort! I’m bringing it up to them the next opportunity I get.

Alex, who’d stopped when I stopped, observes my reaction.

He keeps that careful, stoic expression he’s worn this entire way. “We’d initially put the injured and dead out in the outer courtyard, but we ran out of space,” he says.

That sentence jogs a memory. I was worried about some people being injured and dead. So much has happened this morning that all the things I was worried about last night had just flown straight out my head, but—

“Wait, Mrs—“ I start. That’s not what Aurelia would call her. I try again. “My mother. Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

Had I’d gone and changed the plot enough that she had lived? Obviously, all of the Silverwoods had. But that didn’t mean Mrs. Morrell would be spared too.

For a moment, Alex’s mask slips. He extends a hand like he’s going to clasp me on the shoulder to comfort me—but retracts it before it makes contact.

“Don’t worry, your mother’s fine. She came into the Keep like most of the women and children,” he says instead.

“Have you seen her with your own eyes though?” I press.

“A little while ago, coordinating medical care. She begged me to go look for you. She’s probably just in the outer courtyard or kitchen at the moment.”

That’s enough to make me relax a little. But she’s just one person I’m worried about.

“What about the conscripts? The festival goers you forced to fight? Did many die? I don’t know his name, but one of the chapel kids was looking for his dad. His name’s Winfred—”

“A few did die, but how I am supposed to know which ones?” Alex asks. “And we didn’t force them to fight. It was a fair exchange for providing shelter and protection. .”

The worst part is that he doesn’t Alex doesn’t even sound annoyed saying that, just befuddled. And sure, maybe the Lord Alexandrius can’t be expected to know some random kid’s farmer dad, but does he have to sound that careless about it? I can still see Winfred’s brave, teary face.

“You can just say you don’t know. There’s no need to sound so dismissive.”

Like, it’s one thing if I think their lives don’t matter. I know this is all just a book. But Alex is from here!

Although I don’t even think that anymore, so. What’s his excuse?

Alex’s jaw opens—and closes.

He crosses his arms. “Are we done here?” he asks. “Are you trying to distract me? It doesn’t matter how many people you ask me about, we’re still going to see my parents.”

I’m actually a little offended by this. Okay, so I am facing serious accusations. But isn’t he still supposed to be Aurelia’s best friend? I can’t ask after Aurelia’s own mother without having an ulterior motive?

“We’re not, actually,” I say, just to annoy him. “What about… Gordon? He should’ve come to you from the chapel yesterday?”

Alex unexpectedly gets kind of a pinched look around the mouth. “Did you send him to me? He almost messed up the battle plans! Just as the enemies were about to attack, he ran up to me and started babbling about how he’d be willing to do whatever I needed to protect the keep, fight, be a decoy, die, on and on. I barely got up to the watchtowers in time to give the archers their orders!”

“Oh,” I say, after a pause. “I thought since I was at the chapel, maybe one extra man might help.”

Or at the very least, not hurt anybody.²Look, he was a guard and looked all bearded and manly and stuff. When I sent him off, I thought he’d be helpful to the Keep’s defense. How was I suppose to know he’s incompetent? Maybe the Silverwoods shouldn’t hire people who are bad at their job in the first place!

“Gordon? After last winter?” Alex says. “Why’d you think he was stationed with the kids in the Keep chapel in the first place? I was trying to keep him as far away from the actual fighting as possible!”

“… Right. Last winter.”

Alex narrows his eyes at me. There must’ve been something weird in what I said.

“I wish you’d tell me what you’re hiding, Aurelia,” he says. “You’ve been acting strange all morning. Yesterday, too. And it’s not just the situation. It’s how you talk, how you act, how you move…”

He’s trailing off as he goes, his expression growing more wondering.

I thought guys were supposed to be unobservant? Does he have to be so familiar with Aurelia?³Yeah, yeah, Alex is supposed to be in love with me slash Aurelia or something. But why’d he have to exhibit the ‘in love’ trait of paying way too much attention to her? And lack the actually useful trait of overlooking their beloved's issues?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I rush out. But he’s still looking thoughtful, eyes not so much focused on me as on whatever he’s thinking.

Ugh, I need a distraction, like with the kids. What were we talking about? Oh, right—

“How else am I supposed to react to my best friend thinking I’m a traitor? I told you the truth, but you refused to listen.”

It works. Alex snaps his head up and clenches his jaw. “And I’ve already told you, how do you know? Where is your proof? If you can’t trust me with what you know, how am I supposed to—“

“Alex,” Luke’s voice rings out.

And then Luke himself was walking down an open spiral staircase at the back of the great hall and towards us.