Alabaster Cities (Kings and Thieves Book #2)

Chapter 47

**sooo, since this chapter is so long, I split it into two. I'll probably post the final one in a few days. Enjoy ;)**

Chapter 47:

12 hours previous

"Would you stop that wailing? No one can hear you."

Lyla ignored Camille's singsong and banged her fists once more against the wall. "Help!"

She had no idea who she was calling for. Lucien, perhaps. An innocent servant who could lend her aid. Anyone...

"Allow me to rephrase." Camille's head popped out from her immense closet, her sunset hair falling over her face like flame. "Stop that wailing, or I'll make you."

Lyla sat back on her heels. She raised her hands up to her eyes— her fingers were red and smarting from striking the wooden door.

Camille's menacing expression shifted into a self-satisfied smile in half a second. "Thank you."

Lyla felt herself getting choked up again, and forced it back down, squeezing her eyes shut. She refused to give Camille the satisfaction. "What did you do with my friends?"

The princess re-emerged in a lacy black gown with a scooped bodice and stood in front of her mirror. She held her hair up while two of her maids swarmed around her to fasten up the back. "They're safe," she said eventually, her reflection flashing Lyla a smirk. "Hell, every one of you could be free by the evening. But that all rests in little Aveline's hands."

"What are you talking about?"

Camille didn't respond— she was twirling happily before the mirror.

"I wouldn't pick that one," Lyla said with spite, crossing her legs underneath her lap and leaning her back against Camille's dresser. "It reminds me of a dead spider."

The princess disappeared back into her closet to switch gowns, a scowl pasted to her blood-red lips.

Lyla was fairly certain the city dressmaker had made four different dresses for Camille, just for this occasion. Lyla only knew this because she'd been trapped inside the princess's chambers for about twenty-four hours. If anyone was coming to help her, they would have by now.

There was a knock on the door, and Lyla perked up, though she didn't know what she was expecting.

"Come in," Camille sang, stepping out in her lace shift. She smirked at Lyla, swinging the bronze key that dangled tantalizingly from her fingers. "The door is only locked from the inside."

A male guard burst into the room, ruddy and out of breath, and bent over his knees. The princess gaped.

"Highness..." he wheezed. "The prisoners underground... they've escaped."

Lyla jolted up. Ari and Aveline. Hope yawned open in her chest.

"What?" Camille's eyes flicked worriedly to Lyla, and her voice rose to a near-screeching pitch. "How could you let them-" she stopped herself just in time. Shaking her loose tendrils of hair over her shoulder, Camille straightened. "Well, they couldn't have gone far. I want every last inch of the kingdom searched."

Damn. In another circumstance, Lyla would have been delighted at how close the princess came to losing her temper. Now, she only felt sorry for the guard who stood there awkwardly underneath Camille's baleful stare.

"Well, don't just stand there like a dolt, look for them!" She commanded. He scurried off, muttering apologies and tripping over his heavy boots as he went, and Lyla had to cover her giggle with her palm.