Chapter 128

“Julian?” I prompted. “You must have come for some reason?”

“Right,” he said, then rubbed his forehead. “That’s true.”

He cleared his throat again, then stood straighter. When he started forward once more, his usual smirk slipped back into place. Whatever weakness that had taken over him was long gone now.

“I thought we could utilize our time for more mental self-defense, but I had not considered you would be so indisposed.” As Julian approached, he glanced at Charlotte, who still held up the fabric like a shawl. “I’m not sure that works.”

“No,” Charlotte said, frowning. “But she might get cold with her arms bare. Even with the gloves.”

“Perhaps a lighter fabric. Or a white lace.”

“Lace? Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Charlotte nodded critically, then seemed to remember who she was talking to and jumped. “Uh, Prince Julian, sir.”

“No need for such formality,” he said. “Simply Prince Julian would do.”

She nodded, but her cheeks were turning red. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll look through the rest of the fabrics.” She scurried away.

I gave Julian a chastising look. “You shouldn’t tease her.”

“Who’s teasing?” Julian shrugged innocently. “I don’t need to be both sir and Prince Julian at once.” His smile sharpened as he leered in my direction. “Unless you’d prefer to use both, Piper.”

I rolled my eyes. On a different day, any of them before last night, his teasing me would have made me smile. As it was, the drama with Jane weighed heavy on my heart, shackling me only to misery no matter how hard I tried to feel other emotions.

For Elva’s sake, I was putting on a façade. But even she eyed me warily now and again. She was intuitive, I needed to remember that. I had to do better.

Then Elva was suddenly there, tugging at Julian’s sleeve. My breath caught as he looked down at her. They’d met before but only interacted a handful of times.

Unlike Nicholas, who had made clear he adored children and wanted many of his own, Julian seemed entirely indifferent to the matter. And though he’d been courteous to Elva in the past, I had no idea how he would respond to her in a more relaxed atmosphere.

One where she would ask a lot of questions.

Elva looked up at Julian with her wide eyes and asked, “Do you like Mommy too?”

“’Too?’” Julian asked.

“Nick-lass likes Mommy. I can tell. He stayed here last night. All night.”

“Elva!” My face burned in embarrassment. I had thought she slept the whole night through. Apparently not!

“Oh, he did, did he?” Julian cast me a playful look, waggling his eyebrows.

I covered my face with both hands. I would likely never live this down.

Elva tugged on Julian’s sleeve. “Do you like Mommy too?”

“I’m quite fond of her, yes,” Julian said.

I waited for him to add a teasing caveat. Something like, Not as much as Prince Nicholas, or, She constantly makes a fool of herself to my endless amusement.

But he doesn’t say either of those things. He doesn’t add anything at all, actually. He just lets the small sentence hang there, like it is a full and complete thought.

My mind reeled. I had no idea what to think. Ever since he touched my cheek, and we almost kissed, I hadn’t been able to find level footing around Julian.

I believed he cared for me, as a friend if nothing else, but sometimes I swore he maybe felt more. It felt foolish to even consider it. He’d always enjoyed teasing me. He was likely teasing me now.

Yet something felt different when he looked at me. Like he’d leave his eyes on me a beat longer than necessary. Or his smile would soften ever so slightly when he was speaking to me, compared to anyone else.

Maybe I was imagining it. I shook my head, trying not to think of it now.

Julian kneeled down onto one knee to be at Elva’s level. A pulled a quarter from his pocket and showed it to her. “Watch this,” he said. He held the quarter up, clear as day. With one swoop of the hand, the quarter entirely vanished from his palm.

Elva gasped. “How did you do that?”

Julian laughed. “Sleight of hand, my dear. Would you like to learn?” In a flash, the quarter was back in his hand. He held it out for Elva, who greedily accepted it.

“Yes!” she said excitedly.

“No,” I said a second later.

Elva turned her doe eyes on me. “Mommy! Please?”

I placed my hand on my hips. “Julian. I can’t have you teach her these bad skills.”

“No skill itself is bad, Piper. It’s how you use it.” He winked at me, and I was as charmed by him as Elva’s doe eyes. With the two combining forces, I didn’t stand a chance of telling them no. “It’s actually incredibly useful and could even save a life someday.”

“Really?” Elva asked. “I could be a hero.”

Julian made his smile kinder as he looked at her. “Absolutely.”

Elva cranked up the doe eyes, turning to me with renewed determination. “Please, Mommy! I want to be a hero!”

I sighed. “Okay. Fine. But no thievery.”

Julian crossed his heart with one hand. I imagined his other was behind his back, fingers crossed.

“I want to support animal conservation,” Susie said later, as we talked during lunch. “I was thinking of something like that for my cause at the fundraising gala.”

That sort of cause suited Susie well. She’d seemed more at ease in the company of animals rather than people.

“You should probably find one specific charity to represent,” I suggested. “If you narrow your focus, it might make it easier to talk about with the potential benefactors.”

She worried her hands together nervously. “I’ll do that. Though I worry even if I had notecards I wouldn’t be able to talk to them.”

“You only have to be yourself,” I said. “Tell them how much you love the animals. That will convince them.”

“I hope so.” She still seemed unsure.

Elva, in the chair beside me, was trying to palm a dinner roll off of her plate. While I didn’t necessarily approve of Julian’s training, her effort was admirable.

I lifted a wrapped peppermint from a dish on the table and placed it on her plate, pushing back the roll.

“Try something smaller,” I told her. “Work your way up to the rolls.”

Elva nodded. She tried again with the peppermint. While her actions were not nearly so smooth and practiced as Julian’s, she was still able to lift the peppermint into her palm without using her fingers.

She gasped in excitement, but then huffed when the peppermint dropped back onto the plate.

I leaned over and kissed the side of her head. “You’ll get it,” I said, while I added in my head, but hopefully not too soon.

“Piper,” said Tiffany from behind me, shaking me from my thoughts. When I looked at her, she said, “Can we speak for a moment?”

The last time we had spoken, she had told me about the strange behavior of someone who looked just like me. She wore a similar dire expression now. I wasn’t about to let whatever she wanted to say wait.

I glanced at Susie.

“I’ll watch Elva for a minute,” Susie said.

With that confirmation, I rose and followed Tiffany to a far corner of the room, out of earshot of the others. From here, I could still see Elva, which set me at ease.

I trusted Susie, but with everything going on, I wasn’t yet ready to let Elva out of my sight.

“I saw her again,” Tiffany said. “The girl who’s impersonating you.”

Wait. She said impersonating. She wasn’t accusing me anymore.

“You believe me, then. That I wasn’t the one sneaking around?”

Tiffany nodded. “I saw her outside in the hallway, and then I walked in here, and here you are. You can’t be in two places at once.”

I blinked, startled. “You… saw her? Just now?”

“Yeah.” Tiffany motioned back toward the door. “She was walking into the courtyard.”

No. That couldn’t be. The tunnel was sealed. Jane shouldn’t have been able to get over here.

The floor of my stomach dropped.

Jane had another way inside.