Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)

Chapter Forty-Three: A Dangerous Conversation

News began to trickle in, piece by piece, of the rebel attacks. It was all distorted and confused and it so far only covered the attacks in Topaz, Citirne and Verena when Maia knew that by now if everything had gone to plan their forces would have taken Azul. From what Lysandra did hear, though, she managed to piece together a picture of the three sieges. From the sound of things, everything had gone to plan.

But as she waited for more news, she had read the books. Cover to cover. Every single page over and over again. It had taken forever because after so many years without studying her mind had forgotten all the technical terms and she had to flip back to glossaries or strain her memory to get

through a sentence. To her horror, she was rusty on reading anything at all, because the only thing she'd had to read was messages about the war or the rebellion so her vocabulary had shrunk. But she made it through all the textbooks in the end—they were mostly science, but there were ones about history and philosophy and pyschology and alchemy as well.

Her long hours alone in Lysandra's room were no longer nerve-wracking. She lost herself in the books every day, waking early in the morning to study and staying up late into the night. Lysandra had asked her once where all the books had come from, and when Maia had told her she'd simply pursed her lips and given her a stern look.

"Don't draw attention to yourself," the princess cautioned. "My brother...he's a good man, but he will report you to the Empress if he suspects. He's loyal to her."

"I don't plan on seeing him again, believe me," Maia had replied. "It was an accident and I know very well how dangerous it was."

"Good," Lysandra had replied, and that was that.

But then she turned her mind to the books. She'd already read them—twice—and she couldn't very well keep them here forever. The note had asked her to return them and not doing so would draw attention. She'd asked Lysandra to give them back to Aaron, but she'd said Maia had gotten herself into this mess and she should deal with the consequences. When she'd protested, saying the princess was being ridiculous and petty and reckless, Lysandra had kindly offered to hand her in to Medea.

So here she was, at the door to Aaron's rooms and half hoping he wouldn't answer her knock.

She was loathe to part with the endless volumes that had brightened her days here. With Layla unable to write her back after Lysandra had told her what happened and the princess away most of the time (not to mention antisocial and downright rude when she was there) and no escape in sight, the books had provided her with some sort of company.

Which was absolutely pathetic, when she thought about it, but nonetheless true. She supposed it was partly because science felt like a link—and her only one—to her mother. Whilst Layla had shared music with Orion and been closer to him, Maia had been closest to her mother because of their shared love of science. The books had been, in their own way, a reminder of her.

The door squealed open and Maia nearly jumped.

Aaron was just as disheveled as he'd been last time. His hair was unruly and wild, his shirt was stained and even burnt on the sleeve (it had likely caught fire or been corroded in one of his experiments, Maia thought) and in his eyes was a frantic sort of gleam that one associates with a mad scientist.

"Hi," he said, surprised.

"I came to return the books," Maia told him. "Thank you. For letting me borrow them, I mean."

"You're welcome," he said.

It took every inch of her self control not to lunge at him. She didn't care that she was being ungrateful, she didn't care that he was perfectly kind and polite. If anything that made it worse. He wasn't allowed to be nice, this son of a murderer.