Chapter Eleven

Sandringham Estate has gone into lockdown this morning after multiple ambulances and law enforcement vehicles were seen speeding onto the grounds. No further information is available at this time.

—Breaking news alert from the BBC, 9:41 a.m., 24 December 2023

I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG we lie there on the forest floor, Kit's body covering mine as he presses his hand to the wound in my chest, trying to stanch the blood that flows with horrific ease. Time doesn't seem to mean much anymore, and even though I'm aware of the pain spreading through me, deep and unyielding and unlike anything I've ever felt before, my mind is strangely blank.

Eventually, almost like an afterthought, it occurs to me that the gunshots have stopped. Kit's brown eyes are locked on mine, and his lips are moving, but even though I can hear the low murmur of his voice, my brain can't comprehend what he's saying. Maybe I'm panicking, or maybe I'm dying, or maybe it's something in between. Either way, I don't move, and neither does he.

The protection officer who escorted us into town is the first to reach us, and he radios his colleagues as he kneels beside us, the rush of air sending an agonizing tremor through me. Within seconds—or at least it feels like seconds—more officers appear, and when I blink, the forest is suddenly alive with red flashing lights. More people surround us now, but even as several paramedics try to usher Kit out of the way, he stays right where he is.

I blink again, and I'm suddenly in what I think is the back of an ambulance, but something is off. There's a wall of noise around me, and I catch sight of a cloud floating even with us through a small window. My thoughts are so muddled that I can't figure out what this means, but then Kit is there, his mouth moving even though I can't hear him, and I don't care about the cloud anymore.

This time, when I open my eyes, the oppressive sound is gone, replaced by a soft beeping. I'm in a dimly lit room with moss-green walls, and though a pair of curtains are covering the nearby window, a faint ray of gray light sneaks through a gap in the fabric. My body is heavy and numb, but my thoughts are clearer now, and when I notice the IV sticking out of my arm, I realize that this is a hospital room.

"Kit?" I manage, trying to sit up, but whatever medication is dripping through the plastic tube stops me from moving too much.

"Evie?"

Alexander's hoarse voice floats toward me, and he and my mother are beside the bed in an instant, both of them looking like they've aged a decade. My mother's eyes are red and swollen, and Alexander looks gaunt with worry. Which is ridiculous, because I'm fine.

"Where's Kit? Is he okay?" I say, and even though my mind is scrambling to form a coherent picture from the fragments of my memories—the gunshots, the smear of blood on his coat, the whirling of what must have been helicopter blades—I sound incredibly drugged.

"Kit's in the hallway," says Alexander as my mother slides her hand into mine. "He's all right—grazed in the arm, but nothing a few stitches won't fix."

Grazed in the arm. By a bullet. The same kind of bullet that somehow hit me. Maybe even the same one. None of this feels real, and I shake my head, trying to…I don't know. Make it stick, maybe. Find something solid among all this haze.

"I'm so very sorry, Evie," continues Alexander, and he covers our hands with his. With a sharpness that's in stark contrast to the rest of this soft reality, I notice he isn't wearing a wedding ring, and I can't remember if he ever did. "Police and royal security are combing through the estate as we speak, but we've no idea how this happened."

"It was Ben," I mumble, and even though I haven't actually thought about who pulled the trigger, I'm absolutely sure it was him. "Where's your ring?"

"My—what?" says Alexander, taken aback.

"Your wedding ring. Don't you have one?" There's a signet ring on his pinky, but otherwise his left hand is bare. And it's only now, with the way both he and my mother are looking at me, that I realize how strange this question is, all things considered.

He clears his throat. "Er, yes, but I haven't worn it in private in years. Evan, it wasn't Benedict—he was with me and the rest of the hunting party, and we were miles from the house. There's simply no way it could've been him. But I swear to you, we will find whoever did this."

Alexander's voice catches, and my mother touches his arm with her free hand. He turns toward her, his face mostly hidden from me, and for the briefest of moments, she rests her forehead against his. Before it occurs to me that I probably shouldn't be staring, it's over, and Alexander steps back as my mother shifts closer to me.

"How do you feel, sweetheart?" she says, touching my cheek with her cool hand.

"I don't know. Weird." My body feels like it's made of cement, and the harder I try to get a handle on my drifting thoughts, the more they turn into smoke. With a faint and unsettling jolt, I realize that between the loss of control over my own limbs and the disjointed confusion, this feels like the night Jasper drugged me. Except this time, danger isn't hovering nearby, whispering in my ear as he tells me to relax. It's everywhere, and the part of me that trusts the world—that believes in my own survival—has cracked.

"The doctor said that will wear off soon," she says. "You lost a lot of blood, and you'll be sore for a while. But surgery went well. The—the bullet missed your heart and lung, and there's no major damage."

I nod slightly, flexing my fingers. These, at least, still work. "When can I go home?"

"If you're feeling up to it, we'll take you back in the morning," she promises, and belatedly I realize I should've been more specific. Sandringham isn't my home. Maybe Windsor is, or maybe in my stupor, I mean Virginia. But when I think about it, all I really want is her and Kit.

"You should talk to Ben," I say, my gaze sliding to Alexander again. "He'll know what happened. He was disappointed I wasn't going hunting this morning." At least I think it was this morning. But with the curtains blocking the window and my sense of time out of whack, I can't be sure. "I think I messed up his plan."

"Security told me the two of you had an…encounter," says Alexander thickly, and he hastily wipes his cheek. "I promise, Evie, I had my eye on him the entire time. He never slipped away."

"Doesn't mean anything," I mumble. "He has other people do his dirty work for him."

My parents exchange a look I don't understand. "We'll talk about it more when you're feeling better," says my mom, squeezing my hand again. "Why don't you rest?"

I know I should. My eyelids are growing heavy, and it won't be long before whatever the doctors are pumping through my system wins. But I take a deep breath, or at least as deep as I can manage right now, and I glance at the door. "Can I see Kit first?"

I have the vague sense that I could ask for the world right now, and my father would move heaven and earth to give it to me. Sure enough, almost as soon as Alexander steps out into the hall, Kit appears in the doorway. His sweater and coat are gone, and he wears a white T-shirt instead, with gauze wrapped around his right bicep. But even though he's clearly washed away the worst of the carnage, I can see a few smeared drops of blood on his neck, now dried to a sickening brown.

He says nothing as he crosses the room to my bedside, and my mother slips away as Kit carefully embraces me. His wet cheek presses against mine, and his shoulders shake as he cradles me, his breath coming in soft gasps.

I've never seen him really cry before, not like this. He's always so damn calm and stoic, taking everything life throws at us in stride, as if he can absorb any hit no matter how hard. But this is his breaking point, and I clumsily rub his back with my good hand, wishing I knew how to make any of this better.

"Are you okay?" I say, and he nods.

"How do you feel?" he says hoarsely. "Do you need anything?"

"Not anymore." The stubble on his jaw is scratchy against my skin, and I nuzzle his cheek. Kit's shoulders shake a little harder at that, and as I hold him, rage burns within me. Rage at the gunman for doing this to us, rage at the terror and pain Kit and my parents must have felt, but especially rage at myself, irrational as it may be, for letting this happen in the first place.

"I'm so sorry, Ev," he whispers at last, his voice thick with guilt and grief. "I should've—I should've done more. I should've protected you."

"My memory's a little fuzzy," I say, "but I'm pretty sure you stepped in front of a bullet for me." I touch the edge of the gauze. "Several bullets, possibly."

He clears his throat, and his fingertips brush against the pulse point of my neck like he's trying to reassure himself I'm really still here. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Live a long and happy life with Rosie," I say, and he lets out a choked laugh that sounds more like a sob.

"You have no idea how important you are to me, do you?" he says, burying his nose in my hair and breathing in my scent—which can't be terribly attractive right now, all things considered. But he doesn't seem to care.

"Almost as important as you are to me?" I guess, and he manages another halting laugh. Finally he pulls away, just enough to gaze at me, and for a split second, I think he's going to say it. But as he brushes a stringy piece of hair from my eyes with aching tenderness, I decide he won't. Not because he wouldn't mean it, but because he doesn't have to for me to know.

"Stay with me?" I ask, and he nods.

As he settles on the very edge of my mattress, excruciatingly mindful of my injuries, I finally look past him and notice the table on the other side of my bed. It's flush against the wall and difficult to see from my vantage point, but someone has arranged several bouquets of flowers along the imitation wood.

Most feature a variety of roses and lilies and poinsettias—the kinds of flowers that are easy to find at the height of the Christmas season. But the plastic vase set closest to my bed is full of daisies. Not bright, cheerful daisies, with sunny yellow centers and crisp white petals—these daisies, like the ones Ben sent to Wimbledon, have black eyes that seem to sink into the darkness, and even in the faint gray light, I can make out the red petals, so deep and vivid that all I see when I stare at them is blood.

I reach for the small paper card among the gaping flowers, and though my fingers fumble at first, I manage to pluck it from its plastic holder. And there, in scarlet ink and Ben's spidery handwriting, are three innocent words that chill me to the bone.

Thinking of you.