Down.

My hands hit the door to the cellar, my feet catching on the frame. Then I was falling. I had a heartbeat to contemplate what a strange twist of fate it was that I should die from the very same accident I had just fled when magic enveloped me.

I landed softly on the ground, and all around were startled half-bloods who were even now fleeing in all directions.

Then Marc’s face was above my own. “Stones and sky, Pénélope,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I burst into tears, and said, “I’m pregnant.”

Chapter 18

Marc

Those two words, those fateful two words explained everything. And yet I said, “What?”

Her expression crumpled. “I’m–”

I shook my head, forestalling the repetition. “I heard. I just… I don’t… How?” Another stupid question requiring another shake of my head to keep her from answering, because I damn well knew how.

Just as I damn well knew the consequences.

I sat down heavily next to Pénélope, the stone floor of the cellar cold beneath me. I felt a hand grip my shoulder and, looking up, I saw Tips. He was the lone half-blood who hadn’t fled, and his expression was filled with unexpected sympathy given his sentiments toward the aristocracy. But everyone knew who Pénélope was. Everyone knew the nature of her affliction.

And everyone, including me, knew there was little chance of her surviving this.

“I’ll tell them not to disturb you, my lord.” He inclined his head to Pénélope. “My lady.”

His boots trod heavily up the stairs, and then we were alone.

“He knows then?” I asked, staring at the toes of my boots, because it hurt to look at her. And because I could feel, ever so faintly, the sense of a third troll’s magic. My eyes burned, and I scrubbed at them furiously, keeping my hood pulled forward though I knew she hated it.

“Yes.” Her voice was toneless, hands smoothing the fabric of her destroyed gown. “He had Lessa try to kill me. I escaped, but…”

But there was no escape in Trollus.

“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” I said. “I’ll speak to the King again. Now that you’re pregnant, that has to change things.”

“Again?”

I bit the insides of my cheeks, not wanting to tell her but knowing I had no choice. “I spoke to him after I last saw you. He… My aunt…” I broke off. I didn’t want her to know about the foretelling, which all of a sudden made a great deal more sense. The fey saw all. They’d known.

“Then there is no point.” Her voice was chiding. “You know if he wouldn’t help before, he won’t help now. I’m not worth the cost. Especially not now.”

And in my mind’s eye, I could see the King’s face when I asked the boon: a mixture of irritation and scorn. The condescension in his voice as he explained that he had no interest in meddling in Angoulême interests for the sake of a girl whose death was already in the cards.