The Dinner Party

The day of the dinner party came and along with it, a huge amount of food and wine.

I separated everything out on the large table and began to prepare, leaving enough for me too. This time, I’d be able to have a full meal rather than the tiny morsels I managed to usually grab. It was much easier to take a bit from eight plates without being noticed than it was with two.

I was no chef, but I’d taught myself a lot in the past week and felt confident that I’d do a good job. Uncorking a bottle of wine, I poured myself a glass and sipped at it as I stirred a sauce I’d made from scratch.

By the time I’d finished ladling the food out onto nine plates, I was a little tipsy. I was also incredibly proud of myself for the feast I’d prepared. Putting one of the unopened bottles under my arm, I carried the first two plates upstairs, with the intention of going back down and bringing the rest up after. When I walked through the dining room door, I nearly dropped the bottle in shock. There, alongside Luca and his girlfriend was his family. His parents and brother sat at one side while Seraphia and her children took the other next to the blonde.

Luca watched me carefully as I placed his plate in front of him. I could see in his expression that he was daring me to say something, but what could I say? I didn’t look like me. His family thought I was dead. If I shouted out I was really the queen, he’d have me in the basement as quick as a shot and this time, I’d never be let out. He’d already planned for his family to be in my palace when it blew up, so he obviously thought nothing of killing them.

I made two more journeys to the kitchen to bring the rest of the food and wine up, and all the time, my brain whirred as I tried to think of a way to communicate to them the truth without being caught first.

It was only as I entered the kitchen for the last time, that I realized I could have slipped Seraphia a note, but it was too late. They already had their food. Luca wouldn’t expect me to go back now.

Crying out in frustration, I sat at the table and poured out the last of the bottle of wine.

There must be something I could do but what? I picked up my fork and began to eat. The food was delicious. Even better than I’d hoped, but that did nothing to make me feel any better about the situation I was in. I’d spent all week trying to think of a way to escape, and now that the opportunity had presented itself, I’d blown it.

After finishing my meal, I washed up the pots and pans and stacked them neatly in the cupboards. I spent the rest of the evening pacing the floor, trying to get my brain to come up with something, anything to tell his family what he’d done.

It occurred to me that they already knew and were in on it, but I brushed it off. Seraphia had been welcomed into their home as a mage. If they were anti-mage, she’d never have been able to marry Tomas. No. They didn’t know. Luca, after all, was great at keeping secrets and fooling people with his lies.

He’d kept me fooled long enough.

I thought back to my time at his parents’ castle. Most of it, I’d not thought about since leaving as my departure had been somewhat hurried, but I’d spoken with Seraphia about him.

She’d mentioned that he’d not liked her to begin with but had eventually come around, changed his ways so to speak. Coincidentally, this was around the time that the invites had opened to the ball where I was supposed to pick a husband. I sighed. Everything that had gone wrong had started at that party. Out of the four men I’d picked, one was a half-mage who’d wanted to rid Silverwood of the Magi, another was hugely anti-Magi and had kept me in his basement, Daniel was a member of the Freedom of Magic and had only come to the party to overthrow my father. Only Leo was there for the reason we threw it, to marry me for love. He’d found love alright. He’d found it with my sister. As parties went, I couldn’t think of a worse one. If I ever decided to have children, I’d let them marry who they wanted without a big show and without me telling them what to do. I’d let them find love themselves as I had with Cynder. I’d been so worried about being with a mage, a kitchen worker no less, that I’d carried on the charade that I loved Luca, even though deep down in my heart, I knew I was in love with Cynder. If Luca had lied to me, it was no worse than what I’d done to myself.

The door opening broke me out of my melancholy.

“They want whiskey up there,” barked one of the guards. I opened the cupboard where an unopened bottle of whiskey sat and put it on a tray along with six glasses and a bucket of ice from the freezer. As an afterthought, I took one of the whiskey glasses away and replaced it with a champagne flute. Seraphia, like me, was not a fan of whiskey.

I opened the champagne and added the bottle to the ice bucket before hastily writing a note for Seraphia and tucking it into my pocket.

Taking the lot upstairs, I headed back into the dining room. I placed it in the center of the table and handed them each a glass. I was just about to hand Seraphia her champagne flute along with the note when she stood up.

“I’m taking the kids to bed.”

“Aw, mom!”

“Aw, mom, nothing. It’s late.” The two boys reluctantly stood up as I poured a generous measure of whiskey into the other glasses. As Seraphia headed out of the door with the kids, I put the bottle down and slowly walked after her.

She’d just reached the top of the stairs. Glancing around to make sure there were no guards, I tiptoed up after her.

At the end of the corridor, she opened a door and ushered the complaining boys in. I followed quickly and waited outside.

Opposite, was another door. I opened it to check, only to find it was a small room full of unopened boxes. Luca obviously used it for storage.

Keeping the door open to listen out for Seraphia, I peeked inside one of them. It contained jewelry. My jewelry! Luca must have been stealing it before he blew up the palace. What else did he have in here? I checked another box to find a stack of the palace china.

My blood boiled yet again at the brazenness of his actions. There was so much stuff here that it would have taken weeks to pack up. He’d been stealing it for weeks, ready to take it out just before the explosion. He must have counted on me being too wrapped up in wedding planning to notice, and he was right. I’d not noticed half the palace finery disappearing.

“I don’t want to hear a peep out of you,” I heard Seraphia closing the door to the children’s room. Running out of the storage room, I grabbed her arm and pulled her back in with me, closing the door behind us.

“What are you doing?” she shouted in alarm.

I held my forefinger to my lips to quieten her, but she wasn’t scared. She was angry at a servant girl grabbing her. Good! Anger I could cope with. Petrified screaming would have been a lot more difficult.

“Seraphia, it’s me! It’s Charmaine.” I looked her straight in the eye, hoping for a spark of recognition.

“What are you talking about? Don’t be ridiculous.” She turned as if to leave.

“You prefer champagne to whiskey, you didn’t know what shoes would go with your red dress at the ball last year. You were the one that told me to advertise jobs within the police force to the Magi. I did that Seraphia. I did it because it was a brilliant idea and it worked. So many Magi signed up.”

Seraphia turned to me slowly.

Her face showed an expression of incredulity “You can’t be Charmaine. The Queen is dead.”

I looked at her, desperate for her to believe me. “I’m not dead. I’ve had a spell put on my face, so I don’t look like me, but I am who I say I am. Take a good look at me.”

Seraphia gazed at me. Pulling out her wand she waved it past my face. My cheeks began to feel warm as whatever spell she was weaving was working. I felt my face return to normal for the first time in over a week.

“Oh, Charmaine,” she cried, running towards me and enveloping me in a hug. “This is wonderful. We have been beside ourselves with sadness. We have to tell Luca. He still thinks you are dead.”

She turned to leave once again.

“Wait!” I hissed.

“What?”

I took a deep breath. I knew that she wasn’t aware of what Luca had done, but knowing what I was about to tell her, I was worried she wouldn’t believe me.

I took a deep breath. “Luca knows.”

Seraphia shook her head. “No. Of course, he doesn’t. He’s been talking about you all dinner time. His PA had to fetch him a box of tissues at one point because he was tearing up.”

I laughed without any humor. His PA. That’s what he told them she was.

“First of all, that’s not his PA, or at least if it is, he’s also sleeping with her, and secondly, why do you think I’m here in this house? He’s been keeping me prisoner for over a week.”

Seraphia shook her head again as she struggled to take in everything I’d just told her.

Pulling out an old chair, I bade her sit in it as I took one out for myself and started from the beginning. She was silent as I told her about the MDS and the fact that Luca was the leader. His sudden love for the Magi last year was only because he saw it as a way to rule Silverwood. His plan had worked, because now he was the king or at least would be soon.

I told her that he’d been known as The Regent and had come up with the plan to kill me by blowing up the palace after the wedding.

“He timed it so that the bombs would go off right in the middle of the wedding reception. There were so many explosives in the palace that the whole thing went up. No one would have gotten out alive. The staff working that day were all killed.”

“I was supposed to be at that reception,” she replied in a daze. “My children were going to be there.”

“He was going to murder us all. Maybe he had plans to get you out first. I don’t know.”

Her face contorted into a look of horror. “My children! How could he do this?”

I waited while Seraphia processed everything I’d told her, keeping my ears open for footsteps along the corridor. If she took too long, Luca or a guard might find us, and then Seraphia would be in as much trouble as I was.

“We need to tell the world,” she raged. “This can’t be happening. I need to tell Tomas. I need to tell his parents.”

“No! Don’t tell anyone yet. The media is being controlled by him. Frederick Pittser is his right-hand man, and no one can get anything past him. I just need to get out of here to figure out what to do next. I had a plan to find a media outlet that isn’t controlled by him, but I’ve not had the chance. I’ve been with the Freedom of Magic hiding out down south. Cynder is with them along with my family.”

Seraphia sat up straight. “You need my help, right? What can I do?”

“I don’t want to get you into trouble. If you can get me out of here tonight, I think you should feign illness and get yourself out too.”

“I can’t leave tonight.”

“Can you leave early tomorrow? The quicker you are back in Thalia, the better.”

She thought for a few seconds, her face screwed up in concentration. “I’ll see what I can do, but first, let’s break you out of here.”