All That Glows

Nine

It doesn’t take long for things to change. Not two days after the funeral, Richard is walking around his room, tearing rock-band posters from the walls and rolling them into tight tubes. Faded shades of men walking across Abbey Road and swirling neon colors that bubble into words like who and doors join the growing pile of boxes by the doorway.

The oil paintings stay, but the walls seem lesser, mined of meaning. Richard moves on to his record collection. He picks through each individual album, inspecting its sleeve before nesting it away into a box. He does all of this sorting with strangely attentive detail.

I sit on the bed and bear this process. Everything is silence. The turntable was the first thing to be packed away.

Since that night of fresh loss, when our hands locked and I held him there, I’ve said nothing. I don’t know what to tell him. Richard hasn’t eaten and his night hours are more pace than sleep. He’s retreated into himself—to some inner sanctum I cannot reach. I know that when the time is right he’ll emerge back into some semblance of his old self.

For now, all I can do is be here. Watch and wait.

The box of exquisitely organized records is almost full when the door swings open. Richard starts. A copy of The White Album drops between his legs.

The woman who walks in is the image of pristine—a mirror of Anabelle in future years. Her silvering hair is swept up flawlessly with unseen clips. Her skirt and blouse are immaculately pressed and her heels trod with the confidence and grace of someone two decades younger. They leave a trail of camouflaged indents all over the rug. Holes where no one can see.

“Mum,” Richard speaks his first word of the day, his voice hoarse, rusted from hours of disuse.

“What are you doing?” His mother’s question is sharp. She glares at the boxes by her feet.

Richard retrieves the fallen record and tucks it gently into the rest of his collection. “Packing.”

“The maids can do it for you.” She flips her wrist, catching a flash of her silver watch face. “We’ve got to go.”

The prince selects another album from his slimming pile. His fingers brush over it with tender familiarity, wiping away dust and memories as he prepares it for its journey.

His mother’s eyes train in on him like a stalking tiger’s. There’s nothing close to Richard’s grief behind her gaze. It’s all hardness. She’s like a diamond—all the pressures of her life, her lover’s death, have crushed her into something terrifying, unforgiving.

“Didn’t you hear me? We have a meeting with the prime minister and your uncle today to discuss your preparations for the crown.” She stops, just now catching sight of Richard’s garb—jeans and a white V-neck. “You’re not even dressed?!”

“Sorry. I forgot.” Something in Richard’s sullen words makes it obvious that he’s lying. That and the fact that Lawton reminded him of the meeting at breakfast this morning.

“They’re expecting us in fifteen minutes, Richard!” His mother grits her teeth. “This meeting is of the utmost importance. You can’t be late.”

“Tell them to reschedule. I’m busy.”

“Reschedule! Don’t you get it? There is no rescheduling! This is the prime minister, Richard, not one of your Eton chums. You’re going to become king in one month! You can’t just ignore it or pretend it’s not going to happen! You have to grow up!” With every word, her voice pitches into a shriek. It’s amazing how, with so much brokenness inside her, she still resembles a perfect, slightly aged porcelain doll.

“I don’t want to go, Mum.” Richard’s words are all the same tone, robotic despite his mother’s awakening temper. “I’m not ready yet. I just need a few days. I thought you’d understand.”

“You see. This. This is what did it—” She stops short. “You can’t keep acting like this. It’s time to grow up.”

But the prince doesn’t let her previous statement go. “This is what did what?”

His mother’s cheeks pale, her mouth pinches with regret. I can tell by watching the curve of her chin that she’s shaking. “Nothing. Forget it. I’ll reschedule the meeting for tomorrow.”

Richard stands. The album he’s sorting tumbles onto the rug. “What did you mean, Mum?”

“I told you to forget it,” she says, eyes flashing. “Tomorrow at noon. Don’t be late.”

She strides out almost as quickly as she exploded in. The door slams behind her, startling and final. Richard stares at it, deadpan.

He turns to me after several seconds. The look behind his eyes is devastated. Smoking ruins. “She thinks I killed him.”

I swallow, not knowing what to say. I want to tell him she didn’t mean it. But it doesn’t take magic to read the thoughts that ran through his mother’s mind.

“I didn’t—” Richard catches his breath. “I never got a chance to apologize. I never got to make things right.”

I slide off the bed, closer to him.

“It’s not your fault he died.” As soon as I say this, I see the danger in my words. Looking at Richard now, his hair dull and shoulders slumped, I know he isn’t ready to know about the Old One. There will be a time to reveal the truth, to inform him of the assassins out for his life. For now, he needs to focus on living itself.

But the prince is so swallowed in his mother’s inference, so drenched in his own guilt, that he doesn’t realize the significance behind my statement. That I know why King Edward died.

“The doctors were always telling him he was putting himself under too much stress. At least, that’s what Anabelle used to tell me. She was always better at talking to him. . . .” His laugh has no joy in it. It’s a breathless thing, blowing stale in the air between us. “The last time I talked to Dad . . . I probably upped his blood pressure by ten points.”

“You didn’t do this,” I say, firmer now.

But he’s not listening. He’s not even here really. He’s back in the turquoise dining room, staring at flower arrangements and fighting off his father’s yells.

My hand finds his. It’s surer this time. The soft skin of my palm absorbs his knuckles. The touch breaks him out of his daydream.

“They want me to take his place, Embers. They want me to be king.” His grip twists and writhes, becomes deathly in mine. So hard my fingers turn numb. “I can’t, I can’t be him.”

“You don’t have to be him,” I tell him, trying to ignore the twinges in my crushed knuckles. He’s stronger than I thought. “You’ll become the king you’re written to be.”

“I can’t—” He stops short, looking all around the room. At the landslide of boxes, the four-poster bed covered in shirts still buttoned on their hangers, the tumbleweeds of hair and dust hovering on the rug’s borderlands. Everything, even the angels on the ceiling, with the paint of their smiles breaking into hairline cracks, feels in shambles. “I have to get out of here.”

Visions of the Darkroom and The Blind Tiger lurch through my head. Light, sweat, nausea, hungry soul feeders.

And now assassins.

No. I have to put my foot down. No more bars. No more watching Richard lose himself to drink.

Before I can tell the prince this, he’s tugging my hand. Pulling me through his piles of unpacked possessions, toward the door.

“Let’s go for a walk. Get some fresh air.”

A walk. Feeling his frantic pull, the way my joints stretch and strain to keep up, I suspect it’s more of a run. Tearing for any chance he has to get away.