Destined for Doon (18 page)
With those words tears began to stream down her face. Faster than you could sing, “Get me to the Church on Time,” she flung herself into Fergus’s arms.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Vee poke Jamie in the middle of his chest. She leaned in and hissed something, her head bobbing toward Fergus and Fiona. Jamie shrugged, doing his best to play the part of a maligned, bewildered boyfriend, but he wasn’t half the actor that his brother was. His I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on face was as flimsy as a Halloween mask. And twice as fake.
Duncan, on the other hand, hadn’t batted an eye over Fiona’s abrupt change of heart. He might’ve been a better thespian than his big brother, but something told me that he had
beans to spill. Taking his hand, I gave it a gentle tug. “Let’s go get some air.”
His eyes devoured mine in a familiar way that made my insides shout “Huzzah!” I wasn’t sure whether the look was real or staged, but before I could figure it out he replied, “You’re wish is my command.”
As we headed back toward the darkness of the battlement, Gabriela Rosetti intercepted our path. “You two look so perfect when you’re dancing together,” she trilled.
“Thank you.” Nice to know the act was working.
I started to excuse us, when Gabby said to Duncan, “Mackenna told me about your Calling. How as children you used to meet on the Brig o’ Doon.”
“Did she?” He peered at me, and even though we were in a fully lit room, a shadow crossed his face. “I met her on that bridge every day of every summer she spent in Alloway. Those were the happiest days o’ my boyhood.”
Was he speaking the truth? When I’d first shown up in Doon, had he known me from our lifetime of summers? If so, why hadn’t he said anything?
My neck felt hot. I rubbed it with ice-cold fingers as the room began to tilt. “Sorry,” I mumbled, pressing past Gabby. “I really need air.”
I staggered into the night, not stopping until I reached the wall at the far side of the battlement. Unlike the other end, which opened onto the gardens and lake, this side faced the mountains of Doon and ended in a wall overlooking a thirty-foot drop onto jagged rocks.
Leaning far over the ledge, I gasped in mouthfuls of crisp air. The wind tore at my hair, turning my curls into miniature whips that lashed my face. It hurt, but in that good takes-your
-mind-off-other-pain way. Already, the icy onslaught was making me feel calmer.
Just when I thought I knew where Duncan stood, he mixed it up. One moment, he hardly wanted anything to do with me, and the next he kissed me like he meant it. He showered me with compliments that felt sincere, but it was an act. He looked at me like I was the one, and then whispered confidences in another girl’s ear. Now it seemed that he knew we shared a Calling as children but never said one word about it.
I sensed Duncan’s presence before he spoke. He surrounded me. I felt his warmth to my right, my left, up my back — everywhere at once. He sheltered without embracing me, and I began to shiver.
“Dinna jump.” His husky whisper tickled against my ear.
Unable to face him, I continued to stare out toward the desolate terrain. “Why did you say those things to Gabby . . . about us?”
He angled his face toward mine to compensate for the howling wind. “I was just following your lead. Improvising.”
My heart caved. I wanted to look into his eyes, but was afraid I’d see nothing more than his shadow self. Either it really was a crappy coincidence, or he didn’t want me to know he remembered because it was no longer relevant. “You’re better than I thought.”
“Thank you.” Duncan backed off the tiniest bit so that the wind rippled between our bodies. The resulting chill felt shocking. “Mackenna, we’re friends, right?”
Right. Friends. I nodded, unable to say the words out loud.
His large hand gently turned me around to face him. Despite the tiny bit of space between us, he filled my senses, leaving room for nothing else. “Then tell me — is something wrong?”
“I suddenly didn’t feel so good. The heat maybe, or something I ate.”
He shook his head. “But you didn’t eat. At least not since I arrived.”
Our close proximity made it difficult for casual chitchat. “You’re right. I forgot to eat . . . that’s probably it.”
“Tell me, as your friend, how can I make you feel better?”
If he wasn’t going to talk about us, I could at least get other answers. “Explain to me what just happened with Fergus and Fiona. And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I know you do.”
Duncan stilled and looked over my shoulder at the black mountains. After what felt like an eternity, he sighed, shedding part of his shadows. “I’m guessing that Fergus told her.”
“Told her what?”
His low voice was barely discernible over the windstorm. “The truth about the limbus.”
“Which is?”
He cocked his head to the side in an effort to gauge my reaction. “It’s attacking our borders. Soon, we’ll be completely surrounded.”
“How can you know?”
“Because we took one of the Destined with us — a lad named Adam who studied environmental science at Oxford. He’s setting up a temporary base of operations at the hunting lodge. Based on the limited data, Adam estimates the Eldritch Limbus will encircle Doon in less than a fortnight.”
That was bad, sure — but the way Fiona and Fergus were acting you’d think we were on the verge of another Doon apocalypse. Duncan knew me well enough to sense where I was headed, because he said, “Tha’s not the worst of it . . . The
limbus is also expanding. If it keeps up, it’ll overrun the whole kingdom in less than a month. And then . . .”
The final curtain call.
A short while after Duncan escorted me back to my suite and left without so much as a peck on the cheek, Vee came knocking. Wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top, she looked like her old self. Once again, I was reminded of how incomplete life was without her.
Of course I ruined the moment by telling her about the limbus first thing. Although she listened without interruption as I recounted my conversation with Duncan, I could sense her growing agitation. When I got to the part about the final curtain, she pounded her fist into the comforter.
“The moment I saw Jamie, I knew something was wrong!” she exclaimed. “The way he hugged Lachlan — I adore the jerk, but emotional availability is not one of his selling points.”
She grabbed the brush from my dressing table, returned to the foot of my bed, and attacked her hair like it was a proxy for her boyfriend. “I begged him to tell me what was wrong and he just replied, ‘Nothing ye need ta worry about right this moment.’ Arrrrgh!”
Her Scottish accent had gotten really good — but this was definitely not the moment to point that out. Instead, I reached for the brush, hoping she would surrender it peaceably while she still had some hair left. “Don’t you have maids or henchwomen to do this? What kind of queen are you?”
“The kind who comes from Bainbridge, Indiana and is completely self-reliant.” She placed the brush in my hand and then shimmied forward so that I could scoot behind her. We’d done this countless times during sleepovers. “When I was back
home, I couldn’t even afford to get my hair done. I’d save up for months only to have Janet give me some sob story about how we were on the verge of being evicted.”
I laughed softly, but not because the memory was funny. “Then your mom would spend the money on box wine and Cheetos for Bob the Slob.”
“Did you talk to her — you know, Janet — when you got back?”
“Uh, yeah. I told her you met someone in Scotland and decided to stay for a while.”
I noted the tiny hitch in Vee’s breath. “And what did she say?”
“That the timing was perfect because Bob the Slob’s brother needed a place to stay.” Her mom had prefaced that statement by stating how she’d always known her daughter would turn out like her no-good daddy — but Vee didn’t need any more baggage from her train wreck of a parent. “On the bright side, she got rid of most of your stuff, so you don’t have to worry about Bob’s brother fondling your delicates.”
Vee emitted a halfhearted laugh and then fell silent for a bit. I continued to stroke her hair, getting it smooth and glossy in a way I could never achieve with mine. Eventually she relaxed and admitted the truth. “Sometimes I think Jamie keeps things from me because he knows I’m a fraud. I’m not a queen — I’m a cheerleader.”
“Shut up.” I tugged her hair just enough to get her attention. “You are the strongest, most stubborn person I know. If something is threatening Doon, you’ll find a way to save this place or die trying.”
“This time the whole kingdom might pay for my stubbornness.”
I touched her shoulder and swiveled her around to face me.
“Anyone who knows you can see this is what you were born to do.”
Her eyes dropped to the vicinity of the bedspread. “Except Jamie.”
“Nonsense. More likely he was trying to protect you. Put yourself in his shoes. You’re the ruler — the fate of the kingdom rests on your shoulders, and if the natives get restless, it’s your head on the chopping block. He probably feels pretty powerless when it comes to you.”
She looked up, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t need him to protect me!”
“Wouldn’t you — haven’t you — done the same? It’s human nature to need to protect those we love. Not respecting that need is the same as negating your love.”
Vee rubbed her face. “Is that what you were doing with Duncan when you abandoned him on the bridge, protecting him?”
“In a way. Anyone with half a brain can see how much he loves his kingdom and people. Until I came, he never thought about what lies beyond.”
“Still, don’t you think it was his choice to make?”
I stood and tossed the brush on the dressing table. Keeping my back to my best friend, I busied myself with straightening bottles of nail polish. “Here he has friends and family. In Chicago, he’d have been alone and miserable.”
“How can you be sure?”
I shrugged, placing a bottle of Peachy Keen polish between Ruby Red and Sunset Glow. “I’m not . . . but it doesn’t matter now. I made my decision and I have to live with the consequences.”
As I arranged Passion Plum next to Luscious Lavender, I heard Vee stand and braced for what I knew was coming.
“Kenna,” she urged. “Look at me.”
Adjusting the final bottle, Licorice Lust, I retreated deep within — to that place where actors lock their true selves away — and turned to face the person most likely to see through my act.
Her turquoise eyes bore into mine. “No one would fault you if you decided you made a mistake. You know, if you’ve changed your mind about staying.”
If I told her that I regretted my choice from the instant I walked away from the Brig o’ Doon and every day since, I would only get her hopes up. As much as I wanted a do-over, the dance had proven I couldn’t stay in Doon. I couldn’t watch Duncan be with someone else. Not even for the sake of my best friend.
I met her gaze with what I hoped would appear to be a confident, straightforward smile. “Thanks, but I’m happy with my life.”
And the Tony Award for the most miserable liar goes to . . . Mackenna Reid.
A
uthority, I’d found, did not make one a queen
. I closed the book, but the line from Queen Lynnette’s memoirs continued to play in my mind. I wished she’d been able to expound on that statement, but according to the timeline I’d constructed, it was likely the last she ever wrote.
I’d stayed up half the night searching for some way that we could do things differently and stop the limbus before it got out of control, but what I’d found had me more confused than ever. I rubbed the heels of my hands against my stinging eyes. Honestly, perhaps a tiny part of me had waited up for a knock on my door — for a certain blond prince to share what he knew about the increasing disintegration of the borders. Clearly, my wait had been in vain.
“Why doesn’t my suite have one of these?” Kenna asked as she plopped down on the window seat beside me and pressed her face to the diamond-paned glass. “You can see the entire kingdom from here.”
“Because yer not the queen, tha’s why.” Fiona set a plate of
assorted scones beside the tea and coffee that had already been brought up, and slumped into the seat across from us.
Kenna leaned away from the view and pinned our friend with a withering stare. “So glad you cleared that up, but not even a turret that looks like the inside of a genie lamp would make me want that staggering responsibility.” She reached for a cup and the pitcher of coffee. “No offense, Vee.”
“None taken.”
Staggering
was actually a perfect word for it.
Fiona leaned forward on her elbows. “I’m sorry, Mackenna!” she blurted, big tears swimming in her hazel eyes. “I dinna seem ta be quite myself these days. With the bans being announced this mornin’ . . . I . . . I love Fergus wit’ all my heart, but . . . I never pictured my wedding — ”
Being held as a last-ditch effort to distract the kingdom from its impending doom
, I finished for her in my head.