The Hidden Route Picked the Friend novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: The Boathouse
"Tomorrow," Briony said.
"Briony."
"Please, Clem.
Tomorrow.
I can't hear it tonight."
Clem looked at her for a long moment.
Then she nodded, once, and her blue eyes were wet.
"Tomorrow," she said.
"At first light.
I'll wait in the archive."
Briony did not go to the archive.
She did not sleep, either.
She lay in the dark with her heart thudding.
She thought about a cup, and a green dress, and a girl who had known too much from the start.
If Clem knew, then Clem was like her.
And if Clem was like her, had the scullery been chance?
Had anything been?
At four in the morning she got up, dressed in the dark, and climbed down the laundry roof.
Sevrin was waiting at the foot of the wall with two horses.
"I didn't send for you," she said.
"I know."
"How did you."
"You always come at four when you can't sleep," said Sevrin.
"I've been standing under that window every night."
She stared at him, and her throat closed.
"Take me somewhere," she said.
"Where?"
"Anywhere that isn't here."
He took her to the lake.
It lay a mile north of the palace in a bowl of birch trees, silver in the dawn.
On its edge stood an old boathouse with a sagging roof and a rotted dock.
He tied the horses.
He opened the boathouse door with his shoulder.
Inside were a flat-bottomed boat, a heap of nets, and a loft with a dusty blanket.
Light came through the gaps in the planks in long gold bars.
She stood in the middle of it and shook.
"What is it?" he said.
"I need to tell you something."
"Then tell me."
"You won't believe it."
"I've believed worse.
Yesterday I believed the Prince was brave."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Hidden Route Picked the Friend are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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