If You Leave, I Leave novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Boathouse

At a quarter to midnight, Tilda and I crept across the palace lawn in the dark, dressed entirely in black.

"You look like a cat burglar," I whispered.

"I look like a woman who is owed an explanation."

She had also put on a black woolen hat with a bobble on top, and she had a bag of crisps in her coat pocket.

"Why do you have crisps?"

"Spying is hungry work. Shush."

The boathouse stood at the far end of the palace lake, a low wooden building on stilts with a narrow dock running along one side.

A single lantern burned inside.

We crouched in the reeds under the dock, where the planks left a gap between boards, and the cold water soaked through my shoes.

Above us, boots crossed the wood.

"You came," Verity said.

She was not using her warm voice.

It was lower and flatter, and it made the hair rise on my arms.

"I came to tell you no," said Piers. "I'm not doing it, Verity."

"Of course you are."

"I'm not going to be king. I never wanted to be anything but an actor, you know that. You were there when I wanted it."

"I was there when you wanted it, and I'm here now," Verity said. "You don't have to do anything, Piers. That's the beauty of it. You only have to stand where you're standing."

Beside me, Tilda put a hand over her own mouth.

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