THE CONMAN AND THE MAID // Harry Styles

Heavy Is The Crown

This chapter contains smut.

Before you start, I'd like to explain a few things since some of you are still confused about the 'transaction' that resurrected Jo in the previous chapter.

***For those who didn't already know: Maggie is a character from my other book called In Another Life and I decided that it'd be fun to connect the two worlds (without affecting the plots), so you may as well check it out :)

So from what we've learned throughout the book, Maggie was a witch and she could read a person's mind and tell their future, but only the big events related to the matter of life and death, and pregnancy wasn't one of them (unless the person died from it). Maggie said that she needed a pure soul of an unborn child, and since she knew Reyna had already lost her virginity to Harry, she was sure that Reyna was going to be pregnant soon, if not already. 

Before the duel, Reyna told her maid to tell Maggie that she could have the soul of that soon-to-exist baby in exchange for Jo's life. Maggie would never have mentioned that story to Reyna if Reyna had been a virgin, because then Maggie wouldn't have known if Reyna would stay a virgin (like Queen Elizabeth I) or marry someone else and produce an heir. 

The thing about magic is that there's always a price. You can't just be like, "Oh, I'll sacrifice this baby for a ticket to the other world (which, if you haven't already figured it out, is our world, aka the In Another Life AU), because I can always have another one." It's not that easy. The 'fee' for this 'transaction' is that you will never be able to get pregnant again.

So why didn't Reyna just trade the soul of Jo's baby instead of her own's since Jo was already pregnant? She couldn't. Because Jo's baby had died with her. You couldn't trade a dead person for another dead person. It wouldn't make sense. And even if it'd been possible, Reyna would never have made the decision to take someone's child without the mother's consent. Would Jo ever forgive her if she'd made a bargain to bring Jo back to life and killed her baby? The reason she'd done it was because she'd thought it'd bring both Jo and the baby back, and also because Reyna didn't want to have a child for it to grow up in court and suffer the same life she had.

This was all explained in her inner monologue before the duel and her conversation with Lance in the garden. If you'd missed it, you could always go back and read it :)

Sorry, that was a looooong explanation. Now, enjoy the last chapter and let me know your thoughts!

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Kenny started at the sound of the door creaking open and whipped her head around to find Stefan peering in. The fire cast an eerie shadow of her upon the wall, making him look more like a small and helpless child than the master of his own house.

"Sorry, I should have knocked," he said.

"It's okay." She sat up straight and folded her hands on top of her knees. Stefan still idled at the door. She nodded her head toward the other seat in front of the fire, trying to suppress a smile. "Come sit with me. This is your house, Stef."

"It is, yeah," he chuckled, kicked the door close and shook his head as if he hadn't meant to forget this was his house. She watched as he dropped heavily into the chair facing hers. They both started talking at the same time and both looked away. It had been a long time since they'd seen each other in person. She stifled a laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Y-You first."