“HOW COULD YOU FUCKING LOSE HER?” Kieran roars.

“I was gone for fifteen seconds to investigate—”

“You don’t fucking leave her, you sock-headed moron!” he shouts. “That was a fucking distraction, a goddamn trap!”

He’s right. Jesus, I know he’s right, the knowledge burning its way through my chest in a fiery flood as we stand in the middle of this street, shouting at each other. There’s a small ring of people around us, all a good twenty feet away, just waiting to see what happens next

“I evaluated the surroundings and felt that my attention was best spent elsewhere,” I growl through gritted teeth. “Maybe if we focused on finding where she went rather than figuring out whose fault this is—”

“Yours,” he grits back, jabbing one finger into my chest. “This is your fault, you blithering—”

I grab his finger, jerk his hand away from me.

“We can fucking do this part later,” I snarl. “I’m gonna go find Bianca. You coming?”

Kieran steps back, glaring, and I turn on my heel, striding down the street.

We check the doors on both sides, townspeople pointing us on, my blood still boiling, nerves writhing. As we make our way through town I’m more and more nervous, less and less angry at Kieran.

He’s right, I think, over and over again.

I should never have let her out of my sight, that’s the oldest trick in the book.

What if she’s gone forever? What if I never see Bianca again?

What if...

“Clear,” Kieran calls from the opposite side of the street, his voice grim.

“Clear,” I answer back.

The forest is looming close, right at the edge of town, and the fact is weighing heavily in my gut. We’ve only spent a few minutes looking for her in town, but what if it was too long?

They could be miles away by now, I think, my hands balling into fists. We should just sound the alarm and go, not bother checking this last store...

But Kieran’s already crossing the street, scowl etched on his face, so I walk toward the cheerful chalkboard sign on Isabelle’s Bookstore, heave the door open, and peer in.

Sitting in a chair, a head snaps up, and I frown. The guy’s wearing a black cloak lined with blood-red satin, but he can’t be more than nineteen or twenty, and he’s got the open, guileless face of a child.

“Have you seen a woman?” I ask, somehow unnerved by the scene.

He nods, and I realize he’s also wearing a tuxedo. The fact only unnerves me more.

“Belle’s here,” he offers. “She’s a woman. And there was the pretty girl who...”

“Beckett?” Bianca’s voice asks.

My knees nearly go weak with relief as she suddenly appears between two bookshelves.

I don’t say anything, just stride toward her and wrap my arms around her slight frame, hugging her so tight that I’m not sure she can breathe.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps out. “He was chasing me, and I just got so freaked out that I—”

“It’s fine,” I murmur, my lips against her hair. “I should have never left you there alone, I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted, it’s completely my fault.”

The bells on the door ring behind me, and I turn my head to see Kieran come through. The instant that he sees Bianca in my arms, his face changes completely, from worried anger to total relief.

Wordlessly, I let her go and she goes to him, letting him envelop her in his arms.

“I’m fine,” I hear her whisper. “I was about to come look for you, but I wasn’t sure where you’d be...”

The other woman in the store is just watching the three of us, face slightly amused, arms crossed in front of her chest. She’s pretty, brown eyes and brown hair, kind of a bookish look about her. When she sees me looking at her, she raises her eyebrows and walks over to me.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she says. “The guy in the cape is Günther, he had an accident as a child and right now he’s obsessed with thinking he’s a vampire. I swear he’s not dangerous, it’s just this game he likes to play. When he catches you he just laughs and then goes to catch someone else, I swear. But I know it’s easy to get freaked out by a guy in a cape chasing you...”

I look over at Günther, and I feel a little bad for the guy. That does explain the look of childlike confusion on his face, or why someone is wearing a tuxedo and cape in the middle of town at all.

“Thanks for letting her in,” I tell the woman.

“Of course,” she says.

Bianca and Kieran finally separate, and then the three of us just look at each other.

Then we look at the woman who owns the bookstore, who’s very slightly raising one eyebrow.

“Oh, Belle, these are my... friends,” Bianca says, in a way that makes it clear that friends is not at all the right word. “Kieran and Beckett.”

Belle clearly doesn’t believe the friends bit, but she shakes our hands very pleasantly anyway.

“Well, now that you’re here, feel free to look around,” she says. “This vampire should be out of here shortly, I’ve called his grandpa to come fetch him.”

In his chair, Günther sighs.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Kieran and I are both waiting at the counter with huge stacks of books. Probably at least a few hundred euros’ worth — it’s the least we can do for the woman who helped Bianca out.

As Belle rings us up, I peruse the books on a table behind us. It seems to be the political area.

And it’s very... opinionated, with titles like Why Griskold Doesn’t Need a Monarchy or Viva La Parliament!

I shrug to myself. It’s always good to have a lively discussion about how we’re governed.

But then one more catches my eye.

The Hidden Beast in the Tower: Why Julian of Griskold Should Not Be the Next King.

I bristle. Not just at the suggestion that Julian wouldn’t make an excellent king — he made a fucking good commander, after all — but at the beast moniker.

The man’s got some issues. Fighting in Griskold’s military — serving his country — left him a little fucked up, sure. We all have mental scars from it — it just so happens that his are physical, too, and that means his public appearances are rarer than a polar bear in the Sahara.

But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a good king.

“What’s with the anti-Prince-Julian nonsense?” I growl at Belle.

She raises one eyebrow as she scans a book.

“You disagree?” she says coolly.

“I think that refusing to be constantly in front of the cameras doesn’t disqualify you from being king.”

“But the King of Griskold is our representative to the world,” she says. “And if he refuses to fill that role...”

“That role can be filled in lots of ways,” Kieran suddenly adds, glancing over his shoulder at the book, his face darkening again. “You don’t need to call a solider and patriot a beast.”

Belle laughs. I frown, taken aback, as she scans the last book.

“I don’t actually agree with that one,” she says. “I think Lamont rests far too much of his case against the monarchy on hearsay and rumor, and I agree that it’s rude to call the Prince a beast. It’s just there to rile people up, and riled up people buy books.”

Kieran and I exchange a glance. Beside me, Bianca’s grinning.

“So it worked,” Kieran says.

Belle just shrugs, still smiling.

“Are you riled up?”

I sigh.

“And buying books,” I say.

“Three forty-five sixty-seven,” Belle says.