Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
“Please, don’t go back. If you do and are captured, she will never trust you again.” Momma’s voice hardened. “She’ll never let you have a second of freedom—”
“I have to,” Papa interrupted. “You know that.”
“Is it because of her?” Momma’s voice softened.
He said nothing.
“She will never leave,” Momma whispered.
“I have to try.” He clasped her cheek as I struggled to hear what he said next. “And it’s not just her I must go back for.”
Her eyes slammed shut. “I know.”
Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Only they matter. You must get them away from her. I—”
“Don’t say that you don’t matter.”
“I’ll be fine,” Papa assured her. My heart started to pound.
She shook her head and kept her voice quiet. “You know what she wants. And if she succeeds in using you, the very realm itself will be in jeopardy.”
I couldn’t hear what either said next, but she finally looked at me. She took a deep breath and smiled, but it looked all wrong to me. “I’m going to check again.”
Papa nodded.
She spun, disappearing back through the doors. My grip tightened on his arm. “Is Momma mad?”
“No, my Poppy-flower.”
I nibbled on my lip, gaze darting back and forth between the shadows. “Are we…not safe?”
“Don’t be scared, baby girl,” he said, drawing my attention back to him. He lifted me into his arms. As tall as he was, I thought I could touch the exposed beams of the ceiling. “I will never let anything happen to you or your brother.”
I knew he wouldn’t. He never would.
Papa carried me over to a wooden bench and sat, placing me on his lap so my feet dangled high above his. “Did I ever tell you how you were named?”
I shook my head.
A faint smile crossed his lips. “Penellaphe is a…good friend of my mother’s.”
I frowned. “Penellaphe is a goddess.”
“Yes.” He tucked an unruly wave behind my ear. “She is.”
I stared up at him, confused. The Queen had named me.
“And your nickname? Poppy? That’s because of your grandmother, too.” He laughed then, the sound rough under his breath. “Well, it’s more so due to my father. I overheard him once comparing my mother’s…temperament to that of a poppy.” A drier laugh left him then. “Unsurprisingly, it became her favorite flower.”
“I don’t understand, Papa. How could her temperament be that of a flower?”
“Well, you see, this kind of poppy is not like the ones that grow here,” he shared. “They’re found in the far east.”
“How far in the east?”
“Far, far east, Poppy-flower.”
“Oh.” I played with the strap on his shoulder. “I thought the Queen named me.”
He shifted, and a heavy breath left him as he glanced at the heavy, wooden doors. He grew quiet. A current seemed to run through him, a charge of static like Ian and I got sometimes after rubbing our hands on a carpet to shock each other. It had happened before, often after speaking with the Queen.
“Papa?”
He focused on me. “I want you to remember this. She didn’t choose your name.” His lips thinned, and I thought I saw a flicker of the pretty silver light behind his pupils. “You were not named by the Queen. You were named in honor of the Queen.”
I wanted to ask why she would lie. I didn’t think she would. But I didn’t ask. Papa didn’t seem to like the Queen anymore.
But he started speaking again, telling me a story about how he and his brother used to play with giant, winged beasts. As he spoke of watching them fly high above, my eyes grew heavy, and I snuggled into Papa.
“He’s here. And he’s not the only one,” I heard Momma say. The sound of her voice roused me, the tone tight and strained. I pried an eye open to see her bending to whisper in Papa’s ear. All I heard was, “…she must’ve sent him.”
Papa muttered a bad word and then let out a long breath. He gently lifted me from his chest. “Stay with your momma, baby.” Papa touched my cheeks. “Stay with her and find your brother. I’ll be back for you soon.”
Momma took my hand and helped me hop down from Papa’s lap. I watched him stand and turn, then followed his gaze. A man stood by the door, staring out from the crack between the two panels.
Papa cradled the back of my head. “Do…you see him?”
The man, whose hair reminded me of the beaches of the Stroud Sea, nodded. “He knows you’re here.”
“He knows she’s here,” Papa said.
“Either way, he’s leading them here,” the man said. “If they get in here…”
“We won’t let that happen,” Papa said, reaching for the hilt of his sword. “They can’t have her. We can’t let that happen.”
“No,” the man agreed softly, looking over his shoulder at me with strange blue eyes. He then tugged the hood of his cloak up. “I won’t.”