stands up and rubs at the back of his neck. "You left for the meeting almost five hours ago. I just now got this letter."
I lean away from her as if she's just told me she's going to kill me with that crumpled piece of paper. Five hours ago? I had only suspected that it could be possible. Lincoln and I... we'd stayed on that ship. We'd seen the sun rise and fall in the sky. We'd watched the stars together and escaped the pirates and the bandits. Unless I'm right. Unless time between the two worlds is drastically different. Unless an hour here is a day there...
"What letter?" Lincoln asks.
Violet huffs, her fingers frantically working to iron out the wrinkles in the paper she'd been carrying. "This." She holds it out.
Lincoln looks at me out the corner of his eye before he carefully takes it out of his sisters’ hand. He reads it over, flipping it to make sure there isn't more on the back.
"It's... from one of your spies?"
"Do you think I was going to let all three of my idiot brothers have a secretive meeting without me getting some information on it?" She crosses her arms, covering the slightest bit of cleavage shown by her glittering black slip of a gown.
"How'd you even known we were going to the meeting at all?" Kai had wanted it to remain as much of a secret as possible.
"It bodes well for me to know what everyone in my family is doing," she sneers.
"The letter says that he just saw the church go up in flames." Lincoln runs a hand through his hair, standing the black strands straight up and down on his scalp. "Did you know Kai was working with Cordelia!?" He grabs her shoulders, shaking her violently.
"Get off me!" She pushes him away, stumbling backward on her diamond studded heels. "What the hell are you even talking about?"
"Have you heard from Rowan?" I interject.
"Rowan?"
"He's the only one we don't know if he made it out or not." I say so that Lincoln doesn't have to. His face is downcast, tension riddling his body.
Violet's flush is quickly lost, her skin becoming nearly translucent as she stares back at me. "You're lying," she snaps, "Why would you say something like that to me?"
"It's the truth," Lincoln growls. "Look we can't... we can't keep having this conversation out in the open like this. Let's go to your room and we can explain more."
"No," Her heel digs into the ground. "tell me now. Right now. Is... is Rowan alive?"
Lincoln grabs her shoulders. She looks down at the touch with down turned lips. Ignoring her, Lincoln spins her around and begins wheeling her down the hall even as she presses her feet into the ground leaving large gouges in the checkered tile from her heels.
"We don't know yet, Violet," he whispers.
I jump as they get ahead of me and rush to catch up. The last thing I need right now is to get stuck in the halls by myself and run into King Dravid, or worse, Queen Avaleen. I’m vaguely aware of where I'm heading as he takes the stairs up to the second floor, where the royal bedrooms reside. I'd never come up here, never had the need to during my stay.
Violet shrugs Lincoln off and heads for her room. Annoyance seeps off her in tendrils of black heat. She twists the knob to her room, throwing the door open and waving us in.
In my time at the Iron Court, I'd never been inside of Violet's room. Never even set foot on the second floor. Every inch of her room is as expensive as she looks, and minimalist she is not...
Pops of color bring light to every corner of her room, from velvet chairs studded with sparkling gems to white painted statues and vases filled to the brim with greenery. Large fur rugs cover most of the tile floor, making her room feel softer and more inviting. The large bed with the elaborately carved wooden headboard is paired with a deep purple comforter, the large fluffy kind you'd expect at a fancy hotel. Even her walls can't be spared from the perfectly organized clutter.
Pictures of various shapes and sizes are hanging together in a hodgepodge of a design that makes them look purposeful. Mirrors both big and small are either propped against the walls or hung. Every wall has at least one mirror, except for the one that has about eight. Violet does