Canes of Divergence (21 page)

“Now we throw it at the…”

“Pegs.” Ben nodded. “But carefully. You get five points for every peg you knock to the ground, but zero if you drop the bar
that’s hanging there.”

He frowned.
“If it drops at all?”

“No, only if it drops to the ground. If it dro
ps and stays on the platform you lose ten points.”

It sounded easy enough, but it wasn’t.
They had to stand behind a line several feet back from the platform. The balls were just large and heavy enough to be too awkward to throw with one hand, and throwing with two made it difficult to aim only for the pegs. On his first throw, Zander hit the bar hard enough to knock the two sides of it down, and sent the whole thing crashing to the ground.

“So what were you hoping to accomplish wit
h that remark to Quinn, anyway?” Ben asked as he reset the pegs.

It wasn’t “Her Majesty” now – it was Quinn. He almost commented on it, but quickly decided
not to. “I don’t know if I was trying to
accomplish
anything. I was shocked.”

“You were angry.”

Zander watched as Ben carried the ball back behind the line and drew it back to his chest with both hands, and then threw it in a perfectly straight line, sending it right under the bar, knocking all of the pegs to the ground without disrupting the frame. Twenty-five points.

“All right. Yes, I was angry.” This time, he went to reset the pegs himself. “Wouldn’t you be angry if a girl broke up with you, and then two months later you found out she had a baby with someone else?” The bar wouldn’t stay balanced on the top of the frame for him. He knocked down the whole thing twice before he stepped back and allowed Ben to do it.

The bar didn’t move an inch when Ben placed it. He made it look effortless.

“I courte
d a girl a couple of cycles ago, Mila. She was – is – the daughter of one of the other castle guards. We were friends for a long time and then… Anyway, I could see all of it, asking her to marry me, a wedding, all of it was there in my head. I was getting close to speaking to her father about it.”

While he talked, he demonstrated for Zander the correct way to hold the ball before throwing it. This time, when Zander tried, he knocked down a couple of the pegs on the side. The bar still fell, but not to the ground.

“And then one day, she came to me. She told me that she still cared about me, but that she didn’t want the kind of life she’d grown up with – didn’t want a husband who was on duty all the time or who had to travel for weeks at a time with the king. And she didn’t want to live in the castle.”

“Ouch.”

“At the time, yes. I hadn’t even proposed to her yet, but there I found myself, telling her that we could always get a little house in the city – that I could ask for a transfer into a regular regiment, instead of guarding the king or his family.”

“Wouldn’t that have been a demotion?”

Ben nodded as they worked together to set the pegs again. This time, when Zander set the bar on the frame it wobbled, but stayed. “At that time, I didn’t think I cared. It would have been worth it not to lose the girl I thought I loved. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to be married to a soldier at all – the idea of never knowing whether I’d come home at night or not was too much for her. She talked about it like it was all hypothetical, but … she married one of Queen Charlotte’s nephews eight moons later.”

“And you’re telling me you weren’t angry?”

“The day we heard the announcement of her betrothal, yes, I was. I thought about going and finding her – confronting her and asking her if she’d lied to me, if she had broken things off between us because of him. Fortunately, my father was around to stop me from doing that.”

Ben’s second turn resulted in another perfect score.

“Why fortunately?” Zander had to know. “Don’t you think you deserved to know whether she left you for that other guy or not?”

“No.”

“No?” This time, Zander got the bar to stay on the rack with almost no trouble.

“
No. My father pointed out – correctly – that Mila didn’t owe me anything. She ended it with me. What else was she supposed to do? Ask my permission for every relationship she wanted to have for the rest of her life?”

Ben wasn’t talking about his ex-girlfriend now. They both knew that.

“She just barely broke up with me, Ben.”

“Even if time worked the same in both of our worlds – and it isn’t Quinn’s fault that it doesn’t – so what? How does her relationship with William – her
marriage
– have anything to do with you?”

“Well if she cheated on me…”

“Then what? Then she’s obligated to walk away from him and marry you instead?”

“Obviously not.”

“So, then it just means you get a free pass to hurt her? To wound her as deeply as you possibly can with your words or your actions? Now you can undermine her relationship with William, insult her, question the legitimacy of her child?”

Zander was silent.

“Because how you treat her is not about her. It’s not about whatever you think she did to you. How you treat her is about
you.
And I don’t know exactly how old you are, but you look old enough to start being a man rather than a boy.”

Zander
launched the ball at the pegs again, this time, missing completely and hitting the platform. The pegs fell and rolled, and the bar dropped in
front
of the platform.

Ben chuckled, and went to go start picking up the pegs. “I did go and see
Mila eventually. I congratulated her, and brought her a gift. My father and I attended her wedding. Linnea and I invited her to ours. She didn’t come; apparently she’s just had her second child.”

“Maybe you’re just a better person than me,” Zander said.

“I doubt it. Whoever you are, you were friends with Quinn. You were someone she thought it worthwhile to try and have a relationship with. Just because it didn’t turn out to be the right one doesn’t mean you’re not the person she thought you were. And it doesn’t mean you won’t find the right relationship with someone else.”

“You managed to find a princess, right?”

“No.” The withering look Ben gave him made his insides all wobbly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. I managed to find a girl who loves me, and is willing to make the sacrifices that she has to make to follow me in my work. A girl who shares my values and wants the same things I want – and who understands and accepts the potential sacrifice my calling entails. The right girl, in other words. She also happens to be a princess. Which is not somehow magically easier, by the way. For her to follow me to Philotheum and be the wife of a guard means giving up a lot more than if she’d been someone more ordinary, like Mila.”

“Sounds like you were very lucky.”

“I
am
lucky, very much so, but I believe there’s more to it than just that. If I
had
married Mila, I wouldn’t have been the person I’m supposed to be. And she wouldn’t be as happy as I know she is, either.”

“So, what, like, fate or something?”

Ben shrugged, just before throwing the ball again. This time, the last peg on the right side didn’t fall right away. It fell a few seconds after the others, and nearly bumped the frame when it hit the platform, but the bar stayed up.

“Not fate, really. Over time, as I’ve had the chance to look back at it, I see it more as
Mila being brave enough to make a decision that had to be hard on her – and braver still to do the right thing and tell me about it. I would probably have given up everything I cared about for her if she hadn’t had the courage to do that.”

“You don’t think it’s worth giving things up for someone you care about?”

“That’s not it at all. You
always
have to give something up to make a relationship really work. That’s in the definition, I think. But they have to be the right things, and you have to be able to be happy with those choices outside of the other person. Eventually, I wouldn’t have been happy taking that kind of demotion, or with not being able to take the job I have now – this is who I am. Sometime down the road, I wouldn’t have been able to keep her happy, because I would have been pretending to be something I’m not actually, and it would have shown.”

“And you think Quinn was courageous, too?”

“I’m not saying she’s perfect, Zander. I don’t know everything that happened between the two of you – and it’s none of my business, really. But I am saying she made her choice, and she told you about it, which is all she owed you. And she married William – committed to him for the rest of her life. She had to give up a
lot
– the entire world she grew up in, her family, just about everything.”

“She didn’t
have
to give all that up. If she would have stayed with me, she wouldn’t have given up any of it.”

“And that’s exactly what makes you the wrong man for her.”

Zander had almost managed to make the bar stay on the stands again, but it fell at Ben’s words. “And William’s the
right
one because she had to give up all of those things for him?”

“She didn’t give up any of those things
for him, Zander. She gave them up for herself. She gave them up to free her hands to take hold of the things that really matter to her, to her birth family, to an entire kingdom. William is the man who didn’t
make
her give up anything in either world. He’s the man who sacrificed the things in his own hands so that they would be free to put under hers, to support her and work with her. More importantly, he’s the right one because he’s the one she chose.”

“And you think I need to just get over it.”

Ben was silent for several moments as Zander threw the ball again. This time, he managed not to drop the bar, but he didn’t drop any pegs, either. The ball went right through the space in the middle.

Ben nodded and went to retrieve the ball. “Here’s what I think, Zander. I’m just going to say it. I think you’re probably a good guy.
Like I said before, at one point, Quinn was willing to vouch for you. I don’t care if you get over her or not in your own mind. But you absolutely need to stop, right now, thinking you have some right to hurt her. It won’t be allowed.”

He threw the ball, landing another clean, perfect score. The frame didn’t even twitch.

If anyone else had talked like this to Zander, he would have probably gotten angry, he might have lashed out and argued, but somehow Ben – this strange guard he’d met only yesterday – had the opposite effect on him. Right now, he felt small and ashamed.

This time, Ben didn’t go immediately to reset the frame. He stood in front of Zander, making eye contact with him.
“I also think that you really care about Quinn, and you would find yourself able to still have a friendship and be at peace with her if you decided to accept her decision with grace. There’s not any reason it has to be like this between you. You have ten days here. You can either spend them being angry and thinking this is all about you and whining about how hurt you are, or you can experience something new.”

The words stung – mostly because he knew how true they were.
“There’s a reason Quinn trusts you, isn’t there?”

“I hope so.”

Rosewood Castle, Eirentheos

Z
ANDER AND BEN
were kneeling on the ground, stacking the pegs back into the wooden crate when Ben suddenly looked up, over toward the entrance to the gym. Zander followed his gaze.

Quinn and William were both standing there, just inside the door.

“Excuse me, Zander,” Ben said, standing and walking toward them.

Zander’s insides slithered down toward the pit of his stomach.

The door was too far away to hear what the three of them were saying to each other, but he could see them chatting and nodding, and then, making his insides drop further, this time to his feet, Quinn started walking toward him, alone.

He silently counted to ten, wiling himself to be calm, to not say anything to her – anything
else
to her – that he was going to regret.

“Hey,” she said, when she finally reached him.

“Hey.”

“We didn’t know you guys were out here. It took us a while to find you.”

He shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. It surprised him they’d been looking – he was grateful they hadn’t found him before he finished his conversation with Ben.

“Look, Quinn. I’m sorry for what I said to you
earlier … upstairs. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes you did.” She didn’
t look as angry as he expected her to.

He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, I guess right at that moment, I kind of did. That was a pretty big shock.
I am sorry, though. It was a mean thing to say.”

“It wasn’t as bad as what I imagined I’d hear if you or anyone else from school found out I had a baby.”

“Abigail would lose her…”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Where is the little squish, anyway? You have a nanny and everything, too?”

“I don’t. Apparently I have to find one. I am a queen, I need help. I’ve been ‘borrowing’ one of the ones who works for William’s parents for the last couple of days. She’s a friend of mine, too, and she’s amazing. Wish I could take her back with me.”

“Maybe you should ask. Offer her a raise. I’m sure she’s dying to leave here and go live somewhere without electricity.”

She laughed. “It’s not quite as simple as that, Zander.” Her expression told him she was thinking about it, despite her words.

“People can’t change jobs here?”

“Yes, they can. She’s not a slave or anything.”

“Well … you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”

“Maybe.”

“Does the baby have a name? How old is he, anyway?” He’d looked tiny, not much more than a newborn. Now that he wasn’t in quite as much shock and he was looking, he could see the small changes in Quinn’s body, too. He didn’t know how he’d missed it yesterday, actually – though her clothes were different today, too. Her long skirt and dressy blouse had been replaced by much more normal-looking clothes today – soft gray cotton pants and what he could only describe as a t-shirt. She looked like she belonged here in the gym.

“He’s two weeks old, and he doesn’t officially have a name yet. It works differently in our world. We’ll have a crazy huge celebration and ceremony where he’ll officially be named.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded. “
There will be parades. Hundreds of people. Thousands maybe. There might be more than there were for my coronation, which was … it was something. If we were home, it would have happened already, but his arrival sort of put a kink in our traveling plans. Everyone is so paranoid about his health and safety that I’ve been forbidden to travel with him until he’s a full moon old.”

“I don’t suppose I can get you to talk with normal words to me, can I?”

“Sorry. I know it’s weird, but I’ve gotten used to it already. At this point, I think it would be strange to go back to Bristlecone. I’d slip and say the wrong thing there.”

“Well, you’d have to live without a bodyguard.” He glanced over at Ben and William. They’d moved inside the gym, but they stayed over by the wall where all of the equipment was, and they were talking, clearly trying to give him and Quinn some privacy.

“That part I think I could manage. I love Ben and Marcus, but…”

He l
aughed. “I’m actually surprised they’re all the way over there. I mean, what if I slipped and said something rude to you?”

“Like
that
?” she snickered, raising an eyebrow.

“See? And they didn’t even hear it to come running.”

“Out of the three of us, I’m
the only one who’s killed somebody,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

His head snapped around. “What? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Holy sh… What do you mean, you killed somebody?”

“It’s a long story. I should not have started it that way. But the man who murdered my father was pointing a gun at me. So I threw my dagger at him. Marcus threw his, too – I can’t say for sure that mine was the one that killed him. But yeah. I can defend myself if I have to. Although,” she patted her lower leg, “I’m not currently packing my dagger – don’t tell them. If they knew that, they might hover.”

Zander had no idea what to say to that. She was looking at him like she’d just said something completely normal. “I suppose that kind of thing isn’t illegal here?”

“I’m the law.”

He couldn’t help it. He started laughing. This was entirely too absurd not to be funny.

Quinn must have agreed, because the next thing he knew, they were both laughing so hysterically that he found it hard to breathe, and tears were running down her cheeks.

It was like that for several minutes. He saw both Ben and William turn at different times to watch them, but neither of them intervened.

Finally, Quinn calmed herself for long enough to pull out a handkerchief – from where, he didn’t know – and dry her eyes. “I hate fighting with you, Zander.”

“Me too,” he sighed
. “I never…” he looked around. “ You realize how ridiculous all of this is, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. It was crazy enough discovering this place the first time I came through the gate. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I’d come through and found you here, married to someone and with a baby.”

He almost started laughing again.

“I never meant to hurt you, you know. I didn’t know all of this was going to happen. I broke up with you because I didn’t want to lie to you to you anymore. I couldn’t explain any of this, and I couldn’t walk away from it anymore. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

“So it really wasn’t because you were cheating on me with William.”

She looked down, playing with the
hem of her shirt. “I’d kissed him. I know everyone here is probably defending me, and telling you that we weren’t courting before I broke up with you – and that’s true, we weren’t. But I hate lying and hiding things, and I don’t want to do it even in a small way when I don’t have to. I didn’t break up with you because I was already with him, but we had kissed, the last time I was here, and I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know anything. I was confused, and scared, and I was lying to you … it wasn’t fair to put you in the middle of that anymore. I’m sorry.”

And somehow, seeing her like this, so vulnerable and honest … he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be angry with her anymore. Ben was right. What Quinn had done really didn’t have anything to do with him, even if she had kissed another guy.
But …

“
William Rose
, Quinn? Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“He’s so…”

“
So… what, Zander? You’ve been in the same class with him since third grade, and I dare you to tell me one thing about him.”

“He reads a lot.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “
I
read a lot.”

“
He’s crazy smart – he was always doing work that was like three grades higher than the rest of us. And he never talked, to anybody, unless you count when the teachers called on him. Otherwise, I really don’t remember him saying anything.”

“His life was never there. What was he supposed to say?
Hi, I’m William. I’m a prince from an alternate universe. Will you play with me at recess?
”

He snickered, which made her laugh again.
“You might have a little bit of a point.”

“Anyway, you might feel different about him if you did get to know him.”

He rolled his eyes. “All right, then, are you going to introduce me to him for real, or what? If he’s this fantastic guy, and I’m going to be stuck here for ten days…”

Giving Zander an appraising look, she shrugged, and then called across the gym, “Will!”

The
“Will”
bit got to him. Like Quinn had said, he’d been in the same classes as William Rose since third grade. In all of that time, nobody had ever shortened his name. Most of the time, nobody even called him just William. It was always William Rose.

But here he was,
Will
, jogging across the gym to them. “You okay?” he asked, when he reached Quinn.

Zander had to force himself not to roll his eyes at that.
Yes,
she was okay. Jeez.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Zander and I were just talking, and he was saying how he’d never really been properly introduced to you, and that he’d like to get to know you better.”

“Oh, okay.”

Zander had to hand it to the guy, really. He could
see it – the way William’s fingers twitched, how he wanted to put his arms around Quinn, maybe kiss her head again or something to mark his territory – but he didn’t do it.

Instead, he smiled – had he
ever
seen William Rose smile before? – and he held out his hand. “I know it seems strange, Zander. You know my name, and I know we’ve spent a lot of time in the same rooms, but, I guess this sort of is our first real conversation. Welcome to my world.”

Zander accepted the handshake.

“I’m sure it must be difficult for you to come to terms with landing here and seeing all of this. I can only imagine how overwhelming it all is. But I want you to know how grateful we are – how grateful
I
am – that you were willing to help Owen and bring him here. It would take a special kind of person to put that kind of trust in a little boy. Because you did, you saved my life. There isn’t any way I could ever repay you for that, but I will start with my sincere thank you.”

Whatever he’d thought William would say to him first, that wasn’t it. “You’re welcome.” That sounded weird, but what else was he supposed to say?

“Were you comfortable last night? Did you have everything you needed?”

“I
was fine, thank you.”

Suddenly, William frowned. “You haven’t had breakfast yet, have you?’

He shook his head. Even the apple he’d grabbed was probably still lying on the ground in that yard.

“I could get you some eggs and
toast if you’d like, with butter and strawberry jam – those all taste about the same here as they do in your world, and I’m thinking you might prefer something familiar right about now.”

It wasn’t fair. After all of this, William was going to turn out to be someone he
liked
? He was going to have to ask about the unicorn.

He nodded. “That sounds really good, actually. Thanks.”

“No problem. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Once William
was gone, Zander turned to Quinn again. “Does it really taste the same as home?”

“Yes.
I think the bread’s actually better here – don’t tell my mom.”

He chuckled.
Quinn’s mom had always baked her own bread. “I’ll keep it quiet. Although, I do think I’ll be having quite the conversation with your mom after I get back.”

“
Yeah, wish I could be there for that.”

“You could come, you know. If the gate’s open, or whatever, you’re not stuck here.”

She shook her head. “I made the decision to stay here when I didn’t even know it was possible to close the gate, Zander. I’m not here because of that.”

“Are you really happy here, Quinn?”

She looked him straight in the eyes and nodded. “Yes, I am. Not every second of every day, obviously, but nobody’s that happy anywhere. I wish for things like cell phones and television – and tomatoes – please tell me you brought a tomato with seeds in it…”

He turned the pockets of his pants inside out, which made her giggle again.
“Uh, no.”

“Dang it. This world is severely
lacking in pizza and spaghetti.”

“And you
live
here?”

She chuckled. “Seriously, though, Zander. I know there’s probably no way you could understand this, but this world is my home now. As much as I would like to be able to go back sometimes, and as hard as it is to be separated from my mom and Jeff and Annie and Owen … I
couldn’t
go back there to live. It’s not even who I am anymore. I don’t think it was ever who I was supposed to be.”