Finding Her Magical King novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What Maeve Knew

"How long have you known?" I said.

Maeve took off her reading glasses and held them in both hands.

"Since the morning of the yard," she said.

"I was standing at the back of the crowd, in a hat."

"Say it."

"The moment your mother spoke, the stones went white under the rope."

"You saw it."

"I saw all of it. I saw her look straight at the balcony."

My stomach turned over.

"And you knew what it would do to me."

"I knew she'd done something to the crown. I didn't know it ran on you until the first winter."

She looked at me.

"Your window, Sorrel. The frost on the inside, in July."

"I scraped it myself the first night you slept at the Starlite."

"Eight years," I said. "You watched me scrape my own window for eight years."

"Yes."

"You could have told me."

"You were ten years old and your parents were dead."

"I was eighteen on my birthday."

"I know what day it was."

"You gave me a letter that said I was the weapon, six weeks late."

"And only because I was about to walk into the palace."

Maeve's chin came up.

"If I'd told a ten-year-old that her hate was killing a boy, you'd have hated harder," she said.

"Or you'd have hated yourself. I thought if you grew up warm, it would fade."

"It didn't fade."

"No."

"I carried a knot to a coronation, Maeve."

"I know. I should have burned it in the stove."

The window behind her cracked from corner to corner.

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