A Guide to Charming Royals

Chapter Twenty: ARIAH

There are two types of royals: the ones who like to watch a scene, and the ones who create a scene. As a royal, it doesn't matter what category you belong to, only that you respect each individual, and never point fingers to their face.

Especially, when the person causing the scene is your uncle. We have no right to undermine him outright, when we are a whole drama ourself. But it doesn't hurt to learn what type of a person he is from the items he owns.

It occurred to us last night that Uncle Rami hadn't looked at the available rooms before picking one, he'd simply claimed which room he wanted, and knew exactly where to go ever since we walked into the safehouse. He'd known exactly where to go.

Just like he'd known to show up at our house, exactly when necessary.

Now as we stifle through his belongings, searching for anything that stands out, there is nothing that screams an answer to the questions we seek. If we ask him outright, we give away our position, our doubts and we'll push him away. Because that's what he does. He shrivels up in his shell and hides when he feels the world turning on him.

Newspaper clippings sit on his nightstand, about juvenile delinquents and fires. We flip through them, in search of one that would make sense. We stop flipping, our fingers hovering over the name Kalen, skimming over the fading words that speak of his disappearance and connecting to Uncle Rami. We snap a picture of a couple of the papers. Later, we'll sort through them and find their link.

Outside the room, Deen hollers, startling us. "Uncle Rami, how are you this morning?"

Uncle Rami must be close, because his muffled voice grows louder as he approaches.

That's our signal to leave, but just as we begin to put the newspapers away, we notice the journal below. At first, it seems they're just numbers and appointments he's saved, but the further we flip, the more writing we see. They're diary entries.

Our finger inches toward our camera button, considering taking pictures of the pages and reading them later.

But, no, that's not right. We're already crossing a boundary by being in his room, looking through his belongings. Taking pictures of the pages would be breaking another limit. This is Uncle Rami, the man who taught us to be better than the people around us, who supported us even when we didn't ask, who played with us when none of the other kids wanted to.

No, we can't do that to Uncle Rami.

So, we shut the journal, and hurry over to the window. Opening it, we climb through, jumping down onto the bushes. And just as the knob turns, we push the window down and run. We sprint around the corner, making sure to avoid the guards, just as Deen had instructed us this morning when we'd created the plan.

Our face smacks against a body, causing us to stumble back. It isn't romantic at all, to bump into someone and then finding yourself staring into their eyes. It's quite the opposite, especially when the person is Madyan, whose face twists, as if he is disappointed we met this morning.

I smile at him, eyes raking over his blue blazer and grey turtleneck. "Looking good in blue, May. The combination was a great choice. Have you considered wearing deep red or forest green? It would definitely bring out the green in your eyes."

"We don't recall asking for your fashion advice." His eyes travel past us, in the direction we came from before they fall down. We follow his gaze, noticing the leaves stuck to our pants.

"You must have spent all these years avoiding advice," we say, reaching down to remove the leaf, twisting it between our fingers. "That's why you're so..." we rummage our brain for a word, drawing short and going with the first word we can think of. "Conceited."