Way of No Return (Champions of the Crystal Book 8)

Chapter 26: Presenting the Princess

Two months later, Sabrina was beginning to wonder if her life was ever going to make sense again. What were we thinking? she wondered, mostly to herself since Ford was involved in a full-on, no-holds-barred shouting match that she had no chance of penetrating.

"Hold on," she said to Cynthia and Aurora, who were gathered around the new desk in Sabrina's still mostly bare office, puzzling over a hologram seating chart. "Ford is beginning to think he's figured out how to avoid prosecution for killing the caterer. I'll be right back."

Aurora smiled as Sabrina left the room, so Cynthia decided the statement had been a joke, at least partly. Ford had certainly been in a murderous mood today. "This is nuts," Cynthia sighed, straightening up and rubbing at her neck. "If I could get Ford to share his strategy for getting away with murder, I'd kill the person who scheduled the presentation and reception two days after moving back in."

"It was a week after the original move date, I believe," Aurora pointed out. "I must say, the palace looks better than I expected."

"I gather it has a long way to go to get back to normal," Cynthia said.

"Yes, but the staff must have been doing the work of a small army to come this far," Aurora said, looking around. "It hardly smells like dead fish at all anymore."

"The paint smell covers it," Cynthia agreed.

From a fair distance away, they heard Sabrina shout, "Seuréa! Come put Snowball back in your room and put Trixie back in the nursery before they kill each other or trip someone!"

"It's not princessly to yell," Seuréa yelled back, and Cynthia grinned, though Aurora looked less amused.

"I'll get her, ma'am," Pinsi called breathlessly from farther away.

Aurora said, "I dread to think what the Guardian would say if she walked in on this chaos."

"It's good she's not here, then, isn't it?" Cynthia said, then wished she'd held her tongue at the expression on Aurora's face. "Um. Sorry. Still no word?"

Aurora shook her head, a shadow passing over her expression. "Let us see if we cannot figure this out before Sabrina returns. The baby will be hungry soon."

"I still don't see what was wrong with just having a buffet," Cynthia complained.

"Then you have never met the Bathiran legislature," Aurora replied. "Sabrina says the principality pays good money for having a royal family and they expect a good show in return. I find it a distressingly accurate summary of the situation."

Cynthia thought it sounded more like something Scotty would say, but she knew better than to say so. The uncertainty over Scotty's fate was wearing on both Aurora and Sabrina, but Aurora was the one facing single parenthood of three small children if the worst was true. "Yes, I'm beginning to get that. Well then, I know we can't put the progressives next to the conservatives, but what about the centrists in the middle?"

"Then we will have an evening dominated by politicking," Aurora pointed out.

"And you think we can really avoid that?"

Aurora was prevented from replying as Trixie leapt onto the desk, blurring the hologram as she passed through it. Seuréa raced into the room, narrowly avoiding a collision with Cynthia as she tried to corner Trixie. The cat clawed her way up the drapes to the cornice and launched herself over Seuréa's head, not missing a beat as she landed and zoomed back out into the hall, the Inheritor on her heels.

"At least they're all getting their exercise," Cynthia said.

Aurora sighed. "We must hope they can shut the cats into the nursery before the rest of the guests arrive. Or, for that matter, before it is time for us all to get dressed for the presentation."

"Or instead of an evening of politicking, we'll have a cat-astrophe," Cynthia joked, but Aurora merely looked puzzled. Cynthia realized the pun didn't translate into Praxatillian, and sighed.