They’ll probably show highlights of my most humiliating moments. A bitter grimace stretches my lips. Prunella might even get the Amstraadi girls to pelt me with tomatoes on my way back to Rugosa.
Carolina’s ring buzzes on my finger. EXCELLENT DINNER. FLIRT AND GO TO PALACE. My throat convulses as though trying to swallow away my failure. She’s probably just seen snippets of tonight’s dinner party.
Prince Kevon turns his head toward me a fraction, and his lips part. My heart flips. Without meaning to, my arms flinch to protect my front. It’s the position I adopted each time I suffered a public whipping.
Instead of driving into the building, he stops at its side.
“Perhaps I’m not the great leader you envisaged,” he says.
He’s right, but I don’t know if there’s anything I can say to salvage the mission.
Something heavy and white drops on the bumper with a bang that lurches the car forward. Cold panic explodes through my veins, a scream tears from my lips, and I clap my hands over my mouth.
In the blink of an eye, it rolls off with a thud. The door flies open, and Prince Kevon jumps out of the car. I fumble with the latch with sweaty, trembling fingers, but eventually prise it open.
My pulse booms in my ears, and I walk around to the front of the car on legs that won’t stop trembling. That had been a girl, but who?
“No,” Prince Kevon rasps.
The headlights illuminate a figure wearing a white nightgown. She lies on her side with her dark hair splayed out on the ground.
“Who is that?” I whisper.
He stares up at me, his dark eyes stricken with grief. “It’s Rafaela.”
Chapter 18
I drop to my knees in front of the prone body and place both hands on the warm ground. The car’s headlights shine in my eyes, and I have to squint to focus on Rafaela’s face. She stares straight ahead, and blood streams from her nose and parted lips.
We don’t have buildings or even trees as high as the Royal Navy barracks in Rugosa, but even I know that she couldn’t survive such a fall.
Rafaela’s eyes open and close. The movement is slow, but it proves my assumption wrong.
My head snaps up. “Call for help. She’s alive.”
“It’s already on the way.” Prince Kevon kneels at my side, staring at the girl’s long and twisted limbs.
“How could you possibly know that?” I ask.
“Her health monitor.”
Nodding, I remember what Gemini said about the footage her father gave to the queen.
Still crouched, I glance up at the seven-story building for clues. There are no open windows, and I can’t tell how Rafaela managed to fall from a height. I’m not sure what time it is, but most of the lights are off. My gaze darts to the roof, where a figure stares out of the window. We’re too far down to identify the person, and he or she disappears out of sight.
I turn back to the injured girl, who blinks again.
“Rafaela,” I reach out to touch her hand, but her arm lies at an unnatural angle, and the bone in her forearm is bent. Any touch might worsen her injuries. “Someone’s coming to help. Can you hang on until then?”
When she blinks in response, it’s the first balm of hope to calm my frazzled nerves. In Rugosa, falling from the tallest tree means death, broken limbs, and permanent confinement to a bed. Even if a healer managed to relocate the joints and set the bones, that person would suffer a lifetime of disability and pain.
I lie on my side with my head on the ground, babbling nonsense at the girl. Prince Kevon should be doing this, but he’s gone rigid. I’m sure Rafaela doesn’t even remember me from tonight’s dinner and isn’t interested in anything I’m saying, but I can’t stop. If I stop and she fades away, it will be my fault.
“How far is the hospital?” I say in a louder voice.
“What?” Prince Kevon whispers.
“Hold on,” I say to Rafaela. “I’m going to check on the help.”
She blinks again, and I push myself off the ground to kneel. When my hair falls on my face, it’s wet with Rafaela’s blood.
“The hospital,” I say in a voice loud and sharp enough to cut through his trance. “How far?”
Prince Kevon’s brows draw together as though he’s lost all sense of geography. A pang of sympathy strikes my heart. I know that helpless feeling when the mind goes blank, the body stiffens, and terror seizes the ability to act.
A quick shake of my head pushes away memories of Mr. Wintergreen, and I draw in a shuddering breath. “Is the Royal Hospital near the palace?”
His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Yes.”
“Garrett’s guesthouse is behind the palace gardens. That means the Royal Hospital is nearby.”
“That’s right,” he whispers.
Gemini’s explanation about the Amstraad health monitor rush to the forefront of my mind. “If Rafaela got hurt somewhere up in the building before falling, the monitor would send an alert with her location.”
“Yes.”
“Then why is there no sign of an ambulance? It should be here by now.”
He glances from side to side. “You’re right.”
“Can you call the Royal Hospital with your Netface?”
He nods.
“Get inside the car, then!”
With a jolt, he scrambles to his feet and rushes to the driver’s side. I lower myself back to the ground. Rafaela’s eyes are closed.
“Hey.” I use the same sharp tone. “Don’t fall asleep.”
She doesn’t respond.
My throat thickens, and pressure builds up in my lungs as my breaths become shallow. How old is this girl? Eighteen, nineteen? She’s far too young to die. “Rafaela.” My voice shakes. “Rafaela, wake up.”
Her eyes open, and the biggest sigh of relief surges from my lungs.
Even though she’s probably been there a hundred times with Prince Kevon, I tell her about the botanical gardens and ask her to hang on for a moment longer for the ambulance. I tell her about the ice rink I never got to
