Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (43 page)

Quinn looked over at Linnea, who shook her head, her eyes growing wide as she looked at her twin brother. Although he was still the sweet, lighthearted Thomas that they loved, there were times they all had seen how his time in Philotheum had affected him more deeply than anyone wanted to admit. This was one of those times.

Linnea moved over toward him, hovering close by, but they could all sense that he wasn’t ready to be touched, and they waited.

Next to Quinn on the couch, William had gone rigid; his breathing was shallow as he waited to see how his brother was going to react to this news.

She didn’t know how many minutes passed before Thomas looked up again, but it felt like a long time. When he finally spoke, though, it wasn’t about Dorian and James – not exactly anyway.

“Why were you included in all of this Quinn?” he asked. “It’s not because the two of you are courting that you were allowed in that room,” his eyes darted between William and Quinn. “If anything, he was included because of
you.
Why?”

A cold sensation rippled through her body, sliding from the top of her head, all the way to her toes, enough to make her shiver. Her still-damp hair now felt like a hundred icicles. She looked up at William, pleading in her eyes as she struggled to decide what to do.

The look he gave her in return told her that he understood what she decided either way, but that the choice was up to her.

She wasn’t even quite sure why it was so hard for her to tell them – why it had been hard to tell William. It wasn’t as if she liked keeping secrets. And she loved and trusted all of them. As she’d thought about it during the past several days, the only explanation she could come up with was that telling them made it real – made it something she couldn’t just walk away from and pretend it never happened.

But hadn’t she just decided last night that she couldn’t do that, anyway? This was real, and regardless of what she decided in the end, these people she cared about – who cared about her – deserved to know.

“Quinn? Are you all right?” Thomas finally asked, and she wondered just how long she’d been sitting there, staring into space.

Nodding, she closed her eyes for a moment, and held up one finger. Then she stood and crossed the room to her night table, and pulled open the little drawer where she’d stowed the cloth pouch before she went to sleep last night. It hadn’t yet made it into her pocket today.

Linnea’s gasp when Quinn held up her pendant was audible. “Bole splick!” she spluttered.

“Linnea!” William said sternly.

Quinn frowned, confused.

“It’s impolite. Trust me,” he said, though a grin teased at the corners of his mouth.

“And entirely appropriate for the occasion,” Linnea countered, taking the pendant into her hand to examine it more closely. “How long have you been keeping this from us?” she narrowed her eyes.

Quinn swallowed hard, and tried to keep her voice from shaking, hoping desperately that Linnea wasn’t going to be extremely mad at her over this.

“She found out when she went back to Bristlecone this last time,” William answered for her. “And Nay, I know you love Quinn, so think for a minute before you decide what you’re going to say next.”

Linnea nodded, her eyes on the pendant as she turned it over in her hand, examining every detail closely. “Wow,” she breathed, when she finally looked back up at Quinn. “This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

Quinn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re the second person who’s said something like that to me – and I still don’t know whether it does or not.”

She felt William’s arms around her waist, and when she finally opened her eyes, the look on Linnea’s face had changed from one of shock to one of sympathy.

“Yeah, I can see where that would be difficult,” Linnea said. She was trying, and it made Quinn smile.

“It’s still a secret,” William said. “Quinn still doesn’t know exactly what she’s going to do now that she knows, and it’s not exactly something that needs to be advertised to everyone.”

“Not to mention the incredible danger she would be in if this became public knowledge.”

They all turned to look at Thomas, who was still sitting in the armchair across the room – they’d almost forgotten he was there, too.

His face was pale, but he didn’t look quite as shocked as Linnea. Something about his expression made Quinn feel cold again, like a block of ice had formed in the pit of her stomach. “Did you know something about this, Thomas?”

He sighed. “Not exactly, no. But I had some suspicions … wondered...”

Quinn frowned, remembering her conversation with Mia, wanting to know exactly what Thomas’ suspicions were ... “Wondered
what
?”

“Whether Nathaniel was actually King Jonathan’s son – and whether you were
that
Samuel’s child.”

A noise somewhere between a cough and a choke exploded from William’s throat? “What? You didn’t tell me you suspected
that,
Thomas – only that you thought maybe Nathaniel and Quinn’s father were Philothean. Why would you have even thought Samuel
had
a child? He was supposed to have died when he was a teenager. Nobody knew he was still alive!”

The shadows underneath Thomas’ eyes grew darker. “There are people who know, William. And there are even more who believe that it’s possible. Samuel’s body was never recovered, at least not enough of it to convince everyone. Tolliver fears that the man his father hired to follow Samuel into the woods that day and murder him wasn’t completely trustworthy – if you can imagine. After the funeral, that guard was executed.” Thomas paused while the rest of them absorbed the impact of that statement. 

“He’s been afraid for many cycles now, actually, that Samuel is still alive and will show up to challenge his claim to the throne.”

When all three of them stared at him in stunned silence, Thomas shrugged, answering their silent question. “No. I don’t think Tolliver ever expected me to make it back here alive. Not once I was injured – he knew what sending me back in this condition would do. He wanted to get as much information out of me as he could, and then make it look like an accident – like I’d done something stupid while I was in Philotheum and gotten myself killed. I’d probably have been dead before Dorian and James got to me if he hadn’t wanted to investigate rumors that people might have known I’d been captured.”

“Those weren’t rumors,” William said. “People did know.”

“Yeah – and I wonder how many of them have been arrested, besides Dorian and James?”

“Why haven’t you shared any of this, Thomas? Don’t you think some of this information would be helpful to have?”

“I’ve shared some of it Will. And … I am sorry I haven’t shared it with you. It’s just – you all have had so many things on your minds lately, and you were all so upset about what happened to me, anyway…”

“Have you told Father?”

Thomas closed his eyes. “I’ve told him some of it. But, I don’t know … I can’t explain why I haven’t shared everything. It’s just … a feeling I’ve had.”

“Yeah, Thomas,” Quinn said, irritation rising in her voice. “Keep following those feelings. Look where it got you last time.”

His eyes met hers, one eyebrow pointed up in a v-shape. “Was I wrong, Quinn? Unaware of the danger, yes, I’ll give you. But wrong? Was there really nothing going on with Lily to be concerned about?”

A loud knock on the door startled them all, and the door opened before Quinn could even catch her breath to say, “Come in.”

King Stephen strode purposefully into the room, followed closely by Nathaniel, who closed the door behind himself. “I had a feeling I would find you all in here,” Stephen said. As he walked toward them, his eyes fell on Quinn’s small coffee table, where the pendants now sat. “Have you told them everything?” he asked, cocking his head toward Thomas and Linnea.

“Depends on what you mean by everything,” she answered warily. “I told them everything I know.”

Stephen smiled, though it didn’t reach all the way to his eyes. “I’m not keeping secrets from you any more, Quinn. There isn’t any reason to. Did you tell him them what we learned last night?”

“Yes.”

Nodding – Quinn wasn’t sure if the look on his face was relief over not having been the one to share that information – Stephen looked over at Thomas now; they could all see in the paleness of his face, his stoic expression, how much the news of James and Dorian’s arrest really had impacted him. “I’m sorry, Son. The news we’ve just received isn’t much more promising.”

Quinn and William both looked up at him in alarm. There were dark circles underneath Stephen’s eyes; she wondered if he’d slept at all last night. Just thinking the question felt like swallowing a rock. His position right now was the same one she contemplated putting herself in every time she looked at that pendant and considered what it really meant.

“What’s going on now?” she asked.

“We’ve just received another message from Ellen,” Nathaniel said, with darkness in his voice that made Quinn shiver. William’s hand found hers again. They discovered yesterday afternoon that Tolliver planned to send soldiers to raid her house, looking for ‘fugitives’. Ellen, Henry, their guard, Ryan, and two couples who were staying with them all managed – barely – to get across the border safely late last night.”

“Would Tolliver have actually done something to Ellen? His own sister?”

“I’m sure he would have no problem having her killed, Quinn, if he could get away with it. Right now, I think he still has a public image to maintain, and I don’t know that he would actually have had her arrested, but the rest of them – Ryan, Natalie and Andrew Gramble and their new baby...”

She clutched William’s hand tightly at that image, remembering the sweet young couple whose baby girl William had delivered while they were all hiding together in Ellen’s basement with Tolliver upstairs. He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb in a way that was probably supposed to be reassuring, but since his palm was sweating as badly as hers, it had the opposite effect.

“They’re safe now,” Stephen said. “They’re in Anwin with Charles and Thea. “It does mean, though, that we’ve lost our most important contact with the Friends of Philip inside Philotheum. Ellen and Henry are planning on traveling here to the castle in the next couple of days.”

“And what else?” Quinn asked. She could tell from Stephen’s expression that there was more.

He sighed. Nathaniel pulled one of the chairs from the table under Quinn’s window over near the couch, and Stephen sat down in it, looking like he had no idea where to start. Finally, he cleared his throat. “We heard some things this morning that give us reason to believe that sensitive information has been passed to Tolliver.”

“What kind of information?”

“Information about you, Quinn.”

The room suddenly started spinning. “What
kind
of information about me?”

A dark shadow passed across Stephen’s face. “It’s my fault, really. I should have seen it, should have been more careful, I just thought my own family, my own sister’s son would never cross such a dangerous line ...”

“Gavin.” Thomas said, acid coloring his voice to a tone that in different circumstances would have shocked Quinn. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Stephen said, his own voice low. “If we hadn’t have been watching so closely for birds, trying so desperately to keep any communications from Ellen secure, he would probably have never been caught. He’s been messaging Tolliver directly.”

“Why?” William exploded off the couch, fury in his voice. “He’s always been kind of a jerk, yes, but
this?
What’s in it for him?”

“I don’t know, William. I don’t understand it myself. I haven’t spoken to him yet – haven’t even told his parents anything. I need some time to think, to figure out what I am going to do.”