If You Leave, I Leave novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Cell

The Crown cells ran under the east wing, down a stair so narrow that my shoulders touched both walls.

I carried a blanket and my own pillow.

The guard at the bottom was the one whose voice had shaken in the atrium.

"The King said nobody goes in," he said.

"I'm not nobody. I'm his wife."

"My lady, the orders were very clear."

"Did the King say anything about a wife who walked through twelve spears?"

The guard looked at the blanket, and at my face, and at the keys on his belt.

"No," he said slowly. "He didn't say that."

He unlocked the door and locked it behind me, and I heard him climb the stair two steps at a time so he would not be asked.

The cell was stone, with a cot, a slit of a window and bars across the door.

The bars were silver, and Corwin stood against the far wall so that he would not brush them.

His coat was gone and his hands were wrapped.

"You should be in the west wing," he said.

"I'm staying here."

"Aveline."

"Nineteen nights, Corwin. I'm not spending them down the hall from you."

I sat on the cot and patted the blanket beside me.

He did not move.

"Say what you've been carrying," I said. "You've got the look."

He was quiet for so long that I thought he would refuse.

"The year after the wedding, I walked into the orangery," he said. "You were behind the lemon trees with Tilda."

"I know that orangery."

"You said you'd have married a fence post to get your father out of that debt. You said a fence post at least stays where you put it."

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