The Edge (Book 5 of The Claiming Series)

Chapter Twenty

A/N: I'll fix typos later--my brain hurts -_-
Thanks for your patience, my friends!

Eli-being Eli-refuses to return to the hospital now that he's been out of it for the first time in weeks.

Instead, he paces our bedroom back and forth while Charlie, Oliver, and the nurse all three watch him like hawks. Eris sits on the bed with me, texting on her phone.

"Ruth's coming on up," she says, setting her phone down in her lap. "She'll have more information."

Eli pauses in his tracks. "I'm surprised Lily's letting her out of her sight. She's trying to turn everyone against us."

"This doesn't make any sense," Charlie says. "Hasn't Lily always been... I don't know... decent? Like before she came back, she wasn't like this."

I fall back on the bed and cross my arms over my eyes. "That was before I screwed up her life and happened to end up as queen instead of her." I throw an arm up in the air. "I didn't plan that, you know." I let my arm hit the bed with a thump.

Eli finally sits down beside me. "Her change in demeanor began when I told her about Dad being killed. The more I told her, the worse it got. I had to tell her in bits and pieces on the way back, but I don't think it helped in the slightest. With Michael crying off and on during the trip and Adrian being more or less clueless about taking care of his own child, she was bound to explode at some point. I just didn't think it'd keep happening."

"And it's getting worse," I mumble. "She did just miscarry."

"It's the worst feeling in the world," Eris whispers.

We fall into a pained silence.

A knock on the door makes us all flinch. I push myself to sit up as Ruth shoves the door open. She glares at us. "Don't tell me you're trying to make up excuses for my witch of a sister."

"Ah, Ruth. Always a pleasure," Charlie says.

"Shut up," she says, striding past him. She manages to wedge herself onto the bed between Eli and me. "Lily's absolutely lost it. She's having a complete mental breakdown as we speak."

"Should we-?" Eris starts.

"No. There's nothing we have to do for her," Ruth says. "Mom and Adrian are with her. I think she feels guilty but also believes she's doing what's best."

"Can she actually overthrow Eli and Mave?" Charlie says.

"It depends," Eli says. "That's one of the reasons why we have the court in place. They can ultimately decide whether or not a king or queen is deemed fit to rule over the kingdom. But there has to be certain criteria in place. One of those being that the ruler has to be mentally sound."

"She had no business telling everyone about Eli's situation," I say. "We all knew that this is temporary and so we decided to treat it like when he and the others were missing. I'd take care of the kingdom and whenever Eli's better, he'd step right back into his place."

"Now that the court's gotten involved, the media is sure to follow," Ruth says. "You guys are about to go through absolute hell."

"What about Bayfell?" Eris says.

Eli snorts. "That's what I'd like to know. Lily has no idea who she's dealing with when it comes to Adressa. Hardly any of us do. Creating a peace agreement with Bayfell was already going to be difficult, but with Lily acting so unpredictably, everything might fall apart."

"You could ask to tag along with them," Ruth says. "But I'm not sure if she'd agree."

"Is she even still going to go?" I say. "It's like she hadn't thought that part through."