37. Adina

37

ADINA

W asn't royalty supposed to move at a glacial pace?

Weren't marriages supposed to take months to arrange?

I'd hoped ours would go quickly, but even I was taken aback by the king's intention to marry us before the week was out.

My panic must have shown in my eyes because James's expression softened, and he lifted my hand to his lips. "I know it's fast." He kissed my knuckles. "But it's going to be okay, you'll see."

"Is it?" We were alone again, ostensibly, but I knew we were still being monitored. It sounded like we were saying something innocuous, so I needed to keep my worry contained as best I could. "What if they get in touch with Edinbai? What if they find out I'm not Princess Aramar? That I'm no one?"

"You aren't no one!" James's eyes blazed with intensity. "You were never no one, not when I first met you and not now."

"Oh, James..." I closed my eyes and held on to his hand even tighter. "I love that you believe that, but the reality is that even with all my technological trappings and the things I got from the Vault, I'm still just an orphan from the streets. I don't even know how to be a rani, much less a queen!" I stared at him desperately. "Are you sure that we can't go back to our original plan and run away?"

He sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "I wish we could." He shared the conversation he'd had with his father, and the king's ultimatum.

Funny enough, seeing the flash of disappointment in James's eyes—disappointment I knew was tied to not being able to go beyond the damn palace walls, much less outside of Londabad—helped settle me. To heck with his agreement. I was going to be the best wife and partner ever, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I would find a way to show him more of the world. I had the means. I just needed to make it happen. And I would.

Later that day, the queen cornered me to talk about decorations and the like, and when I finally managed to excuse myself from the palace, I couldn't wait to return to the grand apartment I'd rented myself in one of the peerage buildings near the Promenade.

I saw myself up to my room, threw myself down on the bed, and took a cathartic moment to scream at full volume into the pillow beneath me.

At some point, Gene stopped projecting Aramar's face over mine and began projecting a hologram of himself instead. "I assumed you'd be happier," he said.

I rolled over and looked up at where he was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed. He looked like a completely real human being, except for the way he was hovering an inch over the blankets.

"I'm happy," I said. It was true; I was incredibly happy to be engaged to James. "It's just that things are happening so fast now that it almost seems surreal. I don't want it to all fall apart, or end up being a dream, or?—"

"Do all humans fall prey to such delusions so quickly?"

"Hey!"

"Adina." His voice was kind but firm. "You must maintain your perspective. Your goal was to ingratiate yourself with the palace and affirm your place in Prince James's life. You have achieved both objectives in a much shorter time than either of us expected. It's very admirable, I might add."

"That's true." Huh, he was right. I had done what I set out to do. "I think part of my problem is that it ended up being so relatively easy. I'm used to having to fight and scrounge for things, not for them to just work out in my favor." I smiled at Gene. "And they definitely wouldn't have worked out without your help. Amazing job on the language AI."

"It was my pleasure," he said, but I detected a bit of smugness in his voice. Whatever—he'd more than earned it. "I'll do better with the visual AI."

"Do we still need one?"

"We do if you don't want to have to wear me constantly." He coughed rather delicately into his hand. "For instance, while you and the prince are enjoying your wedding night."

Oh my?—

"They're not going to be watching us then, are they?"

"I think under the circumstances, it's better to be wary than trusting."

"I agree," said a tiny voice.

"Oh." I lifted my hand and looked down at Genie-D39. "I'm sorry. Of course I should have asked you about this, as well. You think we should play it safe?"

"Most certainly," the little genie projected. His voice sounded a bit scratchy.

"Save your battery, write it out," I told him. "I'll get you some time in the sun tomorrow to recharge."

"There is no need," Gene said. "Lay him on me, and I'll recharge his battery cells." I did so, and he frowned. "You're surprisingly low, considering the last time you recharged."

"I spent significant energy on Adina's self-defense," Genie-D39 said.

Gene lifted a brow. "What do you mean?"

"I have the capacity to deliver a small direct shock to someone making contact with me. I'm much better at hologram projection and mental biorhythm interference, but the shock was a skill my former owner insisted I develop."

"And who was your former owner?"

"It was Jeffry," I said to the little genie. "You shocked Lavanya for me. Is that something you've done before?"

Genie-D39 was silent for a moment. "Not for many years," he said at last. "The last time was 9.7 years ago when she was in her mid-teens. Her father saved it for when he was particularly irritated with her. After she turned fifteen, he sent her out of the palace to a peerage finishing school. He hasn't used me against her since then."

Well, that was both abominable behavior from a father as well as a wrinkle I hadn't anticipated. "Do you think she'll know what caused the shock? Will she recognize it?"

"She might suspect it," Genie-D39 extemporized. "But there are numerous devices which can deliver defensive shocks. If asked, you should pretend that I'm one of those devices. I can change my appearance if necessary."

"They have you on camera already," I pointed out. "As a sapphire, but..." I shrugged. "Let's assume that it's going to be all right. We have too many other things to figure out between now and the wedding. For example." I rubbed my hands along my temples, fighting off a tension headache as I contemplated the next part. "How are we going to keep up my cover story? If they contact the royal family in Edinbai, my cover will be blown."

"It isn't unusual for immense sandstorms to be stirred up in the deserts at this time of the year," Gene said. "When they come, they hinder all communications. If we can get out of the city, I can assess the likelihood of a sandstorm happening this week."

I pursed my lips. "There haven't been any reports of one coming."

"Many inclement events like sandstorms are suppressed from public knowledge," Genie-D39 piped up. "The king considers them to be nuisance occurrences that don't merit the concern they're treated with, as the odds of one of them creating an issue for Londabad are generally less than twenty-five percent."

"But even a smaller sandstorm would impact a signal meant to travel thousands of miles," Gene added. "That could be the cover you need, Adina."

I couldn't see a downside. If a sandstorm came in, my cover story would last longer. If there wasn't one, I'd push to have the wedding moved up and get married even faster. Plus, this meant I'd get to have another excursion outside the city, which for all that it had terrified me last time, thanks to Jeffry the ass, had also been pretty damn exciting.

It could be a great opportunity to revisit the things I enjoyed with James in the past. "Gene. What are the chances we could sneak James out of the palace to check the weather with us?"

He was silent for a moment. "The cameras the palace employs don't have an infrared setting. The possibility of getting him out of the palace at night, when the corridors are dark, is higher than it would be otherwise, but it still seems like an unnecessary risk."

"He deserves to do something fun," I insisted. "Can you override Ravana again? We can get him to lie in James's bed, so it will look like he's sleeping if someone randomly comes in to check on him."

"I suppose I could, but would he agree to such a thing?"

I grinned. "I think he'd love it. If we can sneak him out without setting off any alarms..."

"I know several other covert routes into and out of the palace," Genie-D39 said. "One of them is quite close to James's suite."

"Then let's do it!" It might not be the wisest course of action, but for the first time in over a month, I was letting Adina, thief extraordinaire, take the wheel. Princess Aramar could be polite and mindful of courtly courtesies, but Adina liked to take risks.

And this time, I was taking James with me.

As I began to formulate our daring escape plan, I felt excitement coursing through me. This was the Adina I knew and loved—the one who took chances, who lived on the edge. And now, with James by my side and the power of two genies at my disposal, I felt invincible.

"Alright," I said, sitting up and pulling my hair back into a tight bun. "Let's plan this out. Gene, I need you to map out the palace's security systems. Genie-D39, give me everything you know about the secret passages. We're going to pull off the heist of the century—stealing a prince right out from under his father's nose."