The Last Princess (12 page)

“It looks like a loch where we used to swim in Scotland,” I said, thinking of the lake where Mary, Polly, and I had spent
so many carefree summer days. We would pack a picnic and play games, and practice diving off a high tree branch that hung over the water. Jamie would sit, a blanket covering him because he shivered even in the summer, scoring our dives.

“Let’s stop here,” Wesley
said. “We need water anyway.” He dismounted and tied Caligula’s reins to a branch. “And we should put some cold water on your burn,” he added, making his way down the path.

A ripple in the water dipped, then vanished before I could even be sure I had seen it. Was it a fish? I hadn’t seen a live fish in years. I could spear it and cook it over the fire—Polly’s father, George, had taught me how
to spear salmon when I was little. I followed Wesley down to the edge of the lake, watching for another ripple. As I moved closer I saw the water was a strange and beautiful silver, reflecting the light as if it glowed from within.

Wesley knelt down and cupped his hands to drink. I suddenly realized why the water had a silver sheen.

For a split second, I considered letting him drink. One sip
was all it would take to poison him, and I still didn’t know whether I could trust him or where he was leading me.

“Wait—stop!” I cried out at the last moment. “That’s a mercury pool! It will kill you if you drink it. We shouldn’t even be breathing this close to it.”

Wesley stepped back quickly, his eyes wide as he looked at the silver poison. At the water’s edge I saw what I had missed: the
deformed and dead bodies of water creatures floating in the shallows. Fish with fins where eyes should have been, frogs with no legs, eels with heads at both ends.

I looked up through the woods across the lake. Hidden within the overgrowth of vines was a windowless cinder-block structure with the enormous
CX
logo. One of the thousands of Chemex plants, where everything from shampoo to lawn fertilizer
to Death Clouds had been manufactured before the Seventeen Days. In the wake of the destruction, their deadly chemicals had leaked out to poison the earth for miles around.

“I was thinking that it was the most beautiful water I’d ever seen,” Wesley said, his voice quavering. “I would have drunk it if you hadn’t warned me.” He looked up. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” I said, ashamed I had even considered
letting him drink. “Thank you for…” I wanted to say
sparing my life
, but instead I said, “For keeping my secret.”

I looked out at the lake. Wesley was right. It was the most beautiful water I had ever seen. Beautiful, yet deadly. Like so much of the world.

My face still hurt, but it was now my hands that were throbbing with a deep and painful intensity. Blood was seeping
slowly from the places
where small shards of glass and bits of steel mesh had dug into my skin. We had been riding for at least an hour since the mercury pool. I hoped we didn’t have much longer to go.

“Almost there,” Wesley said, answering my unspoken thought. He leaned to the left and pushed aside a thick clump of bushes, revealing a narrow path between the heavy walls of vines. Caligula walked through carefully,
her breath making small puffs in the frosty air.

In a clearing ahead was a stone cottage with a thatched roof. Moss covered the outside walls, the paint peeled in sheets on the front door, and the iron casement windows were covered in spiderwebs and vines.

“Does anyone… live here?” I asked quietly. I’d heard that the Roamers had a dark, isolated house where they kept their captives alive, locked
up and waiting to be eaten, like a human refrigerator.

“No one’s here. It’s safe,” Wesley assured me. But I held tight to the gun, ignoring the pain in my hand, as he tethered Caligula to a post and drew her a bucket of water from the stone well.

“How did you know this was here? How can you be sure no one is hiding inside?”

“No one else knows about it.” Wesley took a key from
his pocket and
unlatched the front door. I hesitantly followed him inside.

The air in the cottage was cold and still and smelled of mildew and damp earth. I stood in a small sitting room, where a faded, rose-patterned loveseat and two wicker chairs faced a stone fireplace. Wesley reached down to light a wax candle sitting on the coffee table. A few brown moths circled the firelight, flying dangerously close
to the flame.

“I’m going to make a fire,” he announced. “It’s cold in here.” I held my hands in front of me, nervous about being in the woods at night. I looked at the windows and door. The glass panes could easily be broken, the door smashed with a few blows of an axe. I still clutched the gun, almost for comfort, the way a child might hold their mother’s hand.

“You can put down the gun, you
know.” He gestured to my hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I hesitated a moment, then set it on the table. “I know.” And I realized that I believed it. I was safe here with him. “I was worried the Roamers might come.”

Wesley looked at me thoughtfully, as though considering whether I was telling the truth. “They won’t come. I promise.”

I sat down on the worn loveseat, glancing around for some
clue as to where we were. Cheerful cherry beams crossed the low ceiling and a warm oval rug covered the floor.
The windows were hung with dusty, pale yellow half-curtains trimmed with lace. In the circle of candlelight, I saw small rosebuds on the tablecloth.

“Whose house was this?” I asked.

“My mother’s,” he replied as he fed twigs and branches into the fire. I waited for him to go on, but
instead he looked at my hands. “You should wash out those cuts. I’ll heat some water—go look in the kitchen cupboard and see if there’s any salt.”

When I came back into the sitting room holding a box of salt, Wesley had drawn another pail of water from the well and was heating it in a pot over the fire. The shadows cast by the red and yellow flames danced around the room. Even though it was clear
that the cottage hadn’t been used in years, it seemed lived in and well loved.

“Did you read the Peter Rabbit books when you were young?” I asked. “That’s what this place reminds me of—the Rabbits’ burrow.”

“I’m glad.” He began to smile. I realized it was the first time I had ever seen him smile.

“You look different when you smile,” I said softly.

His eyes caught mine, resting on them for
a moment before looking down at my bloody hands. “Come here.” He gestured for me to sit on the carpet in front of the fireplace.
“This is going to sting, but it’s the only way to clean out those cuts.” He poured salt into the now-hot water and crouched down behind me, reaching around to circle my wrists and lower my hands slowly into the pot. I gasped at the shock. I closed my eyes and tried to
shut out the pain. As the clear water reddened with blood and the bits of glass and metal loosened from my skin, I began to feel acutely aware of Wesley, still kneeling there behind me, his breath tickling my ear.

He stood up abruptly. “Stay here. I’m going to see if I can find us anything to eat.”

After some searching, Wesley returned with several cans of vegetable soup. “Expired, but they
should still be good,” he said quietly. He moved aside the pot of water to place the soup over the flame. When it was hot, he ladled it into two wooden bowls. I wrapped my hands in the makeshift bandages he’d cut from a sheet, hopeful at how clean the wounds looked, and sipped the steaming broth directly from the bowl. Already I felt stronger.

Wesley was heating a fresh pot of salted water over
the fire. When it was just about boiling, he dipped in another strip of the torn bedsheet. “Okay,” he said. “Now the burn.”

He reached out and cleaned my cheek with the warm
cloth, his touch gentle. “I can’t believe Portia did this,” he said quietly.

I paused and then spoke evenly. “You were together once, weren’t you?”

Wesley started to laugh, a sad, bitter laugh, and shook his head. He looked
me squarely in the eye. “Portia and I were never together,” he said slowly. “Eliza, she’s my sister.”

My mouth opened in surprise. I thought suddenly of their matching dark green eyes, dark blond hair, high cheekbones. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. “But you’re so… different.”

He reapplied the warm cloth. “We were inseparable as kids. But after my mother died, Portia changed.”

I looked around, a wave of understanding washing over me. This cottage was the last thing he had of his mother. “I’m sorry,” I managed.

“Portia thought our mother had abandoned us. But she didn’t. She would never leave us.” His expression hardened. “My father killed her and made it look like a suicide.”

I blinked at him, startled by his honesty. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be—truly
unthinkable—to know that your father killed your mother. He turned away from me, balling his hands into such tight fists that when he opened them, his palms were dotted with blood.

“But why?” I whispered, unable to stop myself.

“She… found out things about him.” He began poking at the fire, the flames jumping out in vicious reds. “I come back here sometimes, to think, and be alone. Portia never
does. I’m not sure if she remembers it at all. I’m sorry,” he interrupted himself. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I’m glad you did.” I laid my hand upon his. I recognized a sadness in him, the same sadness I felt. The kind that finds you as a child and sits there forever, never leaving you.

“Did you tell anyone?” I asked quietly.

“No, not even Portia. If my father was put in prison, we
would have been all alone. I wanted to spare her from the pain. But…” He trailed off, staring into the fire.

“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “That must have been a terrible choice.”

“You know the strangest part?” His voice sounded bitter. “I still love my father, even knowing what he did. And at the same time I hate him, for who he is, and for what he did to Portia.”

I said nothing.

“I grieved
for my mother, but it was worse for Portia. She thought our mother didn’t love her enough to live for her and take care of her. She went to the barn where she had a family of baby rabbits she’d been taking care of, and broke all their
necks. That was the start of the new Portia.” He gripped his hands together. “She was eight years old.”

I sat in silence, looking into the fire and thinking of
my own siblings. I wondered once more where they were buried. Were they with our parents in heaven already? As I thought of all that my family had been through, all the pain and grief and fear, the drive to hurt the man who had done this to us rose up in me once more. “Do you know where Cornelius Hollister is? Do you know where I can find him?”

Wesley looked up at me sharply. “He’s in the Tower
of London. Why?”

“He killed my mother and father,” I said softly, “and probably my brother and sister. He’s taken everyone I love from me.”

Wesley stared down at his hands, a grim look on his face. “Do you understand how many soldiers are protecting him? How many weapons they have?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I know I’ll die in the attempt. I’m prepared for that.”

“Don’t you understand?” he exclaimed
in sudden frustration. “He wants your entire family destroyed! If you die, he can finally crown himself king.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” I sat upright and took the
cloth away from my cheek. “I haven’t forgotten that we’re on opposite sides just because you saved my life.”

“We aren’t on opposite sides,” he protested, his voice low.

“As long as you’re in Hollister’s army, we’re on opposite
sides.”

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“There’s always a choice.” I shook my head. “I understand what it’s like to be cold and starving, now, I do. But if you really don’t believe in his cause, couldn’t you have found another way for you and Portia?”

“That’s not it, you don’t—” He stopped. “Please just promise me you won’t sneak off on some suicidal mission.”

My eyes met his, and this time I didn’t
look away. Instead I let myself study him in the dim firelight. Something had shifted. The hard mask of the soldier had vanished, revealing a sad and lonely boy. I looked at the soft curls of his hair, shining like dark gold, his glittering green eyes, his broad shoulders.

I must look so ugly to him, with my hair cropped close to my skull and the red welt on my cheek. I covered my face with my
hands. “Just stop,” I said. “I don’t—”

“Eliza,” he interrupted. He took my hands in his, gently lowering them from my face, lifting my chin to gaze at me in the flickering light. “You are beautiful.”

He moved closer to me. I felt his breath on my lips, warm and soft. Then our lips touched. His hand moved tentatively from my cheek to the back of my head, his fingers resting softly in the hollow
of my neck, just touching my hairline.

He hesitated for a moment, and I knew that he was giving me a chance to pull away. I answered him by leaning in, opening my mouth to kiss him back, consumed by a strange and restless hunger. In this moment, everything fell away. The brand on my cheek, the sign of the New Guard, the knowledge gnawing at the back of my mind that Cornelius Hollister lived in
the Tower of London. All that mattered was that we were here, falling back against the pillows, kissing as the fire turned to embers and slowly grew cold.

Wesley pulled me into his arms, wrapping me in a cocoon of warmth. “It’s late,” he said. “You should get some sleep. Take the bedroom—I can sleep here.” He gestured to the sofa.

I nodded, but didn’t want him to let go of me. “Come with me?”

He stood and led me into the bedroom. I lay down under the covers, still in my uniform, pulling him down with me. He placed the lantern on the bedside table, turning the wick low so the room went dark. He wrapped his arms protectively
around my waist as he settled in. His skin smelled sweet and fresh, like water. I closed my eyes, pretending for a moment that this could last, that we could always
be like this, together in the warmth of this tiny cottage in the middle of a poisoned forest.

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