Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Genevieve

It took Evie several moments of heaving oxygen into her lungs and struggling through tears before she realised Julian had transported her back to Thorne tower.

“I – Louis!” she cried out, grasping at air where her brother had been. “Where’s Louis? And my mother! My –”

“He killed him,” Julian bit out, though going by the look on his face he had not meant to interrupt Evie. Rather, he was speaking to nobody in particular, his eyes caught somewhere between blue and yellow, glowing magic. When Julian collapsed to the floor the angry flames surrounding him dissipated in puffs of smoke which filtered out the window.

Evie scrabbled to her feet to reach him, all concerns for her family momentarily forgotten in the face of Julian’s desolation. But she tripped up on her hair in the process, falling gracelessly even as Julian held out an arm to catch her and pull her beneath his thick, billowing cloak.

He rested his chin on top of Evie’s head; she could feel the erratic beating of Julian’s heart against her right down to her bones. “He killed him, Evie,” he muttered. “Your father killed mine. He –”

“You couldn’t have done anything to save him,” Evie cried, though the words felt hollow.

Julian’s arms tightened around her. “I should have killed the king first. The moment I stepped foot inside that room I should have set his heart on fire, if he had one to set fire to at all.”

“You could never do something so brutal,” she replied, burying her head against Julian’s chest to hide her tears. “Never in a hundred years could you do something like that.”

“And look where ‘couldn’t’ got me. I regained and lost my father in the space of twenty-four hours. What cruel world tells a son his father is alive only to rip him away moments later?”

“A world where princesses get put in towers for twelve years when they did nothing wrong.”

The two of them were silent then, until finally Julian’s heart rate slowed back down to normal. Evie’s, however, continued to flutter as fast as a hummingbird, filling her stomach with nerves and foreboding.

“I have to go back, Julian,” she said, very quietly.

“No.”

“Julian –”

“I just lost my father, Evie. I’m not letting you go, too.”

Evie struggled against him, though Julian only tightened his grip on her until she could barely breathe. “I need to go back for my mother!” she barely managed to exclaim. “For my brother!”

“They’re both as good as dead,” he spat. “The king will murder them as he did my father, or he’ll let them continue to waste away to nothing.” Julian loosened his arms, allowing Evie to finally take a large gulp of much-needed air. He held her out in front of him, eyes wet with tears and blind to all reason. “Don’t you see, Evie? It’s all over for them. There’s nothing for you to go back to the palace for. Stay here.”

Evie shook her head. She clung to the front of Julian’s waistcoat miserably even as his hands dropped from her shoulders. “I need to save them. I need to do something. I can’t stay here.”

“…you would leave me?”

“Julian, you lied to me!” Evie cried, forcing her eyes back to his. Her previous fury at the man in front of her reignited as if he’d set her on fire himself. “You could have told me what was going on so many times, but you didn’t. Why should I stay with you?”

He frowned. “I was trying to protect you. You idolised your family; I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

“I’m an adult. I could have handled it.”

“Could you?”

“Why do you keep underestimating me?!” Evie raged, banging her fists against Julian’s chest in the process. “Do you really think a young girl sent to live alone with no explanation as to why – who survived half-starved for twelve years, who actively tried to escape her fate – wouldn’t be able to handle knowing that the people responsible for her misery were her family?”

Julian’s expression hardened. He laughed bitterly. “Well now you know. And what did it matter, anyway? Turns out your mother lied about who your father was all along! What a mess of a family. I hope the king is kicking himself for having sent you, his own daughter, away. I hope he –”

Evie slapped him. “You are grieving. You just lost what remained of your family. But that does not give you the right to say such things to me. Now let me go, Julian. Send me back to the palace.”

“No.”

“Julian!”

He ran a hand through Evie’s hair, pulling her face closer to his. There was a shine to his eyes that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with madness. “I’ll get revenge against the king for both of us. Just let him come, and I’ll obliterate him from the face of the planet. He’ll never bother either of us again. We’ll be free.”

Julian kissed her, a desperate gesture that caused Evie to stumble backwards and fall to the floor. Julian followed her down; climbing on top of her and deepening the kiss even as she struggled against him.

“Julian,” she cried, “stop it! Stop it!” Evie clawed at his clothes, trying to drag him off her, but it was only after she kicked him in the stomach that he recoiled enough for her to scramble free. Evie retreated to the other side of the room, clutching her arms around herself protectively.

Julian watched her from his position on the floor, expression all disbelief and incomprehension. It broke Evie’s heart to see him so twisted. “Why are you refusing me?” he asked, genuinely hurt.

“Because so long as you forbid me from leaving then you’re no different from my father,” Evie told him. She ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind her, for all the good it would do.

I can’t believe I ever thought for a moment I’d go to bed happy tonight, she thought miserably, crying for everything she had lost. Her mother. Her brother.

Julian.