Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (45 page)

She frowned at him.

“What? I’ve almost had a few of them myself over everything we’ve found out recently. I’m honestly not sure how you’re doing it.”

“Do you
want
me to freak out?”

Across from them, Thomas chuckled. “We sort of do, Quinn. The rest of us feel like we can’t until you’ve had a turn first.”

She rolled her eyes.

“So what do we do now?” Linnea asked. “Just wait?”

“Yes, I think we just stay in here and act like everything is normal, except we stay inside,” Thomas said. “I think I’ll go find us some snacks and some cards, actually.”

“And I should go check on the Halperns,” William said, looking at Quinn apologetically and squeezing her shoulders. “Will you be okay without me for a few minutes?”

She nodded, calmer now. “Now that I know you’re safe.”

Linnea was quiet as William and Thomas walked out of the room. Once the door closed, Quinn looked at her friend, noticing her silence. The pendants were in Linnea’s hand again, and she was examining them, a strange look on her face.

“Really crazy, isn’t it?” Quinn asked.

Linnea nodded, not looking up from the pendants. “I never would have guessed something like this … Nathaniel … you.”

“Are you mad at me for not telling you?” Quinn heard the small shiver in her voice; she wasn’t sure she could handle a battle with Linnea on top of everything else that was going on.

Linnea’s eyes flashed up, a strong emotion burning in their gray depths, but it wasn’t anger. Quinn could see that instantly.

“Of course I’m not mad at you. I mean, I’m sure there was some anger in my first reaction, but mostly I was just stunned. It’s a lot to take in – I’m sure it’s a lot more for you.”

Quinn shrugged, not really knowing how to elaborate on her feelings about it – not entirely sure what her feelings
were
.

Linnea stood, holding the newer, shinier pendant in her hand. She walked over and reached up around Quinn’s neck, securing the chain with a twist of her fingers.

The cool, smooth weight of the pendant against her skin made her gasp.

“When are you going to stop pretending you haven’t decided anything?” Linnea asked, in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“What?” Quinn breathed, her heart pounding. “I
haven’t
decided anything, Nay.”

Linnea didn’t answer for a long moment; she curled herself into one of the armchairs and eyed her contemplatively. She frowned. “Okay, so maybe
pretending
wasn’t the right word. But honestly, Quinn, what are you going to do? You really think you’re going to go back to your other life in your world and just be okay with that?”

Had she even thought about it? She swallowed hard, trying to imagine it now. “I don’t know. I was happy before. I have a good life there, you know, Nay.” Her throat constricted as she thought about home, her mom, Owen, Annie, everything she had in her own world.

“Yes,
before.
You have a childhood there, Quinn. You have a good family, I’ve heard. You have school, a couple of friends, you’ve had a boyfriend. I’m sure it’s all very nice. Do people in your world still live with their parents and their little brothers and sisters once they’ve reached adulthood?”

Quinn sank down onto her couch, absorbing Linea’s question. There were times that Linnea still seemed to be younger than her, still underage and carefree. And then there were times when it was obvious that even if she was younger, Linnea’s life was different than hers; she’d been raised to think differently, and she
had
lived more days, experienced more things that Quinn had.

“I don’t know, Linnea. It all changes when I graduate, but I don’t
lose
it all. I’ll still have my mom, my family. I was never even sold on the idea of going far away to college. There’s a decent school an hour away from home. Besides, I’m
not
an adult yet, in my world.”

“What’s the age of adulthood there?”

“Eighteen – for men and women.”

“So that’s what? Two more cycles for you? Years? Whatever you call it?”

Quinn sighed. “About one more year. I’ll be seventeen in … I don’t know not quite two weeks in my world, I think.”

“Wait a minute. It’s almost your birthday, and you haven’t told anyone?”

“It hasn’t exactly been the biggest thing on my mind, Linnea,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“But, it’s your
birthday.”

She narrowed her eyes, and Linnea held up her hands. “Okay, we’ll talk about that later. But still, you wouldn’t lose all of that coming here, either, you know.”

“What are you suggesting? That I just disappear from my life and go back and visit on the weekends? People would ask questions. Besides, if I took the throne…” her voice shook just saying the words, “if I took the throne, I’m sure I’d be living in Philotheum, nowhere near the gate.”

Linnea’s eyebrow formed a sharp v. “Haven’t thought about it at all, huh?”

She sighed. “Of course I’ve
thought
about it, Linnea.” More lately than she cared to admit. “But nowhere in those thoughts have I even come close to a decision.”

“Meaning – you also haven’t decided to go home and stay there.”

She reached for the pendant around her neck, rubbing her fingers over the etched surfaces, looking down at her name, engraved in the gold. “No,” she sighed. “I haven’t decided that, either.”

“We have a serious problem,” Stephen said, his eyes heavy and dark.

Quinn’s heart sank to the bottom of her ribcage. After a long afternoon of being kept inside the castle, keeping the younger children entertained, Stephen and Nathaniel had finally come upstairs and asked to speak privately with William and Quinn in her room. She’d asked if Thomas and Linnea could join them as well, but Stephen had refused, making her wonder what else could be going on that was a secret now.

“Have you found Paul?” she asked, starting the conversation, because both Nathaniel and the king seemed to be reluctant.

“No, we haven’t. We sent some guards to his house in the city a little while ago and they found it deserted. The neighbors informed them that his wife and children left a few days ago; they’d heard they were going to visit relatives but they didn’t know any details. Paul was quite obviously there at some point today. He reported to the castle this morning.”

“And now he’s just gone?”

Stephen’s eyes were on the floor as he began his answer; his hands clenched tightly together. “Marcus led the search of Paul’s home. While he was there he discovered some very ... disconcerting letters.

Stephen stopped talking then for long enough that Quinn and William both looked over at Nathaniel in concern.

“Apparently,” Nathaniel said, “Paul’s wife has family in Philotheum, a twin sister it sounds like. Recently – since around the time we brought Thomas back, they’ve been getting some very distressing messages from her. The details are fuzzy – the letters of course don’t tell everything, but between the letters and what little information we’ve been able to get from Gavin, it appears that Paul may have agreed to intentionally leave that gate unguarded.”

“Why?”

Stephen looked up now, as shaken as Quinn had ever seen him. “Tolliver has been attempting to orchestrate a way to kidnap Linnea.”

“What? Why? What does he think that would accomplish?” Quinn was almost shouting; her hands were shaking now.

“I can’t pretend to understand the motivations of that ...” he paused, closing his eyes, “I don’t know. I can only guess that if he actually got his hands on her, got her back to the castle, that he thinks I would agree to the marriage, to keep her from being harmed.” He looked down at the floor again. “I probably would.” His voice was quiet and small.

“So is there someone in the castle? On the grounds? Is Linnea in danger?” William had stood, was pacing frantically back and forth to the window, glancing down onto the wide lawn below.

Stephen cleared his throat. “The thing is ... from everything we can tell, this was supposed to happen tomorrow. Paul wasn’t actually supposed to leave; he was just supposed to let someone in. They know you’ve all been using the back gate a lot to visit the birds.”

“What happened to change the plan?” Quinn’s heart was still beating erratically.

“We don’t know. We’re rather hoping that he may have disappeared today as a way of warning us. Paul has worked as a castle guard for many years. This is a very difficult situation. It seems that Tolliver is not above threatening the families of every guard in the castle if it would get him what he wants.”

“How many guards have families in Philotheum?” Quinn asked.

Stephen shrugged. “What does that matter? I’m not going to go through my guards and clear out those who do. That’s probably more than half my guards, and it’s unfair to them. Most are completely trustworthy, like Marcus and Ben, who are among those with family in Philotheum. I’ll be more careful. I’ll double them up; no more situations where anyone is working alone for now. Trade them off more frequently, maybe. But I’m not going to sink to his level, Quinn.”

She nodded. “So what are you going to do?”

He sighed heavily, and when he answered her, his expression was grave. “Right now, I’m going to do what I need to do to protect my daughter. Until all of this is sorted out and I can figure out exactly where Tolliver is trying to go with this, and where all of our vulnerabilities are, I am going to send Linnea where she’ll be safe, where all of you will be safe until we know what how we’re going to proceed. The gate opens again tomorrow evening. Nathaniel will be taking you, William, Thomas, and Linnea back to Bristlecone.”

Quinn swallowed hard as she tried to wrap her mind around all of this. She was going back home tomorrow? It startled her to realize that she hadn’t even been keeping track of the days; she wasn’t even sure how long she’d been here. Finally, she looked back up at Stephen as William came to sit back down next to her. “You need me to make a decision, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, meeting his eyes even though her entire body was trembling. “Is it all or nothing?”

Stephen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is it I either decide to take my place as the heir to the throne or I stay in Bristlecone?”

His eyes widened. “Of course not, Quinn. You obviously know what I hope you will choose. I’m sure you know what I wish your father would have chosen – if he had, you wouldn’t be in this position right now. None of us would. I will stand behind you with either – whatever – choice you make.”

His eyes met William’s now, and Quinn could see the enormity of the emotions reflected there. “That goes for you as well, Son.” His gaze drifted for an instant to William’s and Quinn’s hands, twined tightly together now. “I know what I’ve done, and the position I’ve put you in, but the final choice is yours, and I will respect whatever you decide to do.”

Quinn hadn’t realized how much that question had been weighing on her, how trapped she’d felt by the possibility that by not choosing what everyone wanted her to, she’d lose everything she’d come to care about, this family of hers that she’d come to know and love – William.

She really was free to choose. The fact was both infinitely freeing and crushingly heavy.

“However,” Stephen added, “with the heightened danger to the four of you in particular – in the absence of a decision from you that will change our course of action, I am asking you all to remain in your world until further notice.”