Chapter 168: Forks to give 2

EDELINA

Johann said nothing.

He crossed to the sideboard and poured water from the crystal decanter. When he returned, he placed the glass in my hands, his fingers warm and steady against mine.

"Let him play."

I looked up.

There was something different in his eyes.

"It does not matter, Mother." His voice was quiet, but there was an edge beneath it that made me listen. "We have something against him. Remember? The abdication. The deal he made with you and the Elder Circle."

He paused, watching me carefully.

"If Bonnie so much as sneezes in the wrong direction, he loses everything. He is the one walking on a knife’s edge, not us. And she has."

I held his gaze. That was not the complete truth. I had pieced it together from bits and pieces. We could certainly use the cards now. But it wasn’t nearly enough, considering Lysander and Bradley didn’t take them all out. All we really had was the ’Willow of it all, ’ and that was not nearly enough.

That aside though... For the first time, I really looked at my son.

The boy who had once needed my guidance was disappearing before my eyes. So was the prince who had spent years measuring himself against nothing of substance and weight. In his place was someone harder to read, someone who had learned to observe before acting and to wait before striking.

A strategist.

A fucking survivor.

Someone who understood that power was rarely taken in one grand move. It was accumulated piece by piece, concession by concession, until the person holding it could no longer remember when they had started losing.

"With everything that has happened to him lately..." Johann leaned back against the sideboard, the faintest curve touching his mouth. "I am sure he simply wants to exercise his power. He needs to feel as though he is finally in control."

I said nothing.

"So we will let him."

His eyes met mine again.

"We will smile. We will sit at that table. We will eat that food and play the part of the dutiful family." His expression hardened slightly. "We will let him believe he has won."

"Because it is we who have won."

I reached up and touched his face, my fingers tracing the fading bruises along his jawline. "You are right," I whispered, and the pride I felt in that moment was a physical thing, warm and heavy in my chest. "You are absolutely right. I almost lost my mind there, but you... you have become so sharp, my son. So clever."

He covered my hand with his own, pressing my palm against his cheek. "I learned from the best."

We sat there for a moment longer, the fire crackling, the silence between us comfortable and charged with purpose. Then I stood, smoothing my skirts, adjusting the neckline of my dress, checking my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. I painted my face back into the mask of the Queen Mother, serene and untouchable, hiding the rage and the fear beneath layers of powder and poise.

"Shall we?" I asked, offering Johann my arm.

He took it, his grip firm, and together we walked toward the dining hall.

The corridor seemed longer than usual, the shadows deeper, the portraits on the walls watching us with painted eyes that seemed to judge our every step. I kept my chin high, my shoulders back, my arm linked through Johann’s as if we were attending a ball rather than walking toward a battlefield.

When we entered the dining room, the scene was exactly as I had expected, and yet worse. The table stretched impossibly long, gleaming under the chandelier’s light, and at the far end sat Lysander, looking far too comfortable in his uncle’s chair. Beside him, looking small and out of place in a dress that was probably borrowed from some random’s closet, sat Bonnie.

The healer. The rogue. The bitch who messed it all up.

She did not look up as we entered. Her eyes were fixed on her hands, folded neatly in her lap, her shoulders curved inward as if she could disappear into herself. She looked exhausted, broken, nothing like the terror she had been in the courtyard earlier. Good. Let her suffer. Let them both suffer.

"Your Majesty," Lysander called, his voice carrying across the length of the room with practiced ease. "How are you doing?"

He glanced toward Johann.

"I see my cousin is doing quite well too. Considering how quickly he has recovered, I assumed he would still be resting."

I felt Johann tense beside me.

So much for the wisdom he had displayed earlier.

I could only hope he remembered it now, because if there was one thing Lysander had always been good at, it was finding the precise wound to press until it hurt.

Johann lifted his head fully.

His expression was unreadable, but I caught the brief flicker in his eyes as they moved from Lysander to me, then back again.

"I heal quickly," he replied, his voice deliberately neutral. "Especially when I know there is work to be done."

He paused.

"Family matters to attend to."

Lysander’s mouth curved. He nodded as though Johann had said precisely what he expected. "I hope it does not bother you that I am sitting here."

He gestured casually toward the seat he had chosen.

"I thought I should try it out, considering it will be all I have soon. I might as well make myself comfortable." His gaze swept briefly around the table. "For myself and the family."

"Family." Johann repeated the word quietly. His fingers tightened around my arm.

I felt the shift in him before he even moved. He stepped forward, his gaze narrowing as it settled on the figure seated beside Lysander.

"Then I have to ask," he said, his voice still calm, "what is she doing at our table?"

Bonnie’s head snapped up, her eyes widening. Her mouth parted as though she meant to speak, perhaps to defend herself.

Lysander beat her to it.

"She belongs here." His voice had dropped into a lower register, the words carrying a quiet finality that made the threat beneath them unmistakable.

"Belongs?" Johann laughed.

It was a short, humorless sound that echoed beneath the high ceiling.

"She is a rogue. A traitor. An infiltrator who—"

"She is my mate." Lysander rose so abruptly that his chair scraped against the floor.

He planted both hands on the table and leaned forward, his posture radiating a threat that was barely contained beneath the surface.

"And you will speak of her with respect, cousin," he said, his voice dangerously quiet, "or you will find yourself dining somewhere else."

His eyes hardened. "Perhaps somewhere with bars on the windows."