Finding Her Magical King novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Letter

Ivor drove with the heater off and the windows cracked.

The cold was coming off my hands, and the glass kept fogging white.

I sat in the back seat with my fingers tucked under my arms.

Every few miles frost crept across the dashboard, and he wiped it away with his sleeve.

He did not say a word.

At three in the morning the Starlite sign came up out of the rain, one letter dead, buzzing as it always did.

I had never been so glad to see an ugly thing.

Maeve was standing in the office doorway in her slippers before the car stopped.

She looked at Ivor, and then at me.

Her face did something I had not seen it do since I was ten.

"He's alive," Ivor said. "For now."

"Get in," said Maeve. "Both of you. Get in out of the wet."

The office smelled of burnt coffee and carpet cleaner.

I stood at the check-in desk where I had stood a hundred nights.

I left a pale handprint on the counter, and it did not melt.

Maeve looked at the print.

She looked at the frost on the backs of my hands.

Then she sat down very slowly on the stool.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said.

"You knew," I said. "You knew about this."

"Read the letter first."

"Maeve."

"Please. Read it first. Then ask me anything you like."

Ivor reached inside his guard's coat.

"I took this from the chair in your room, when I went back for the book," he said. "It was in your cardigan."

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