Rise An Eve Novel

was too late now. I moved quickly into the bathroom and stepped onto the edge of the tub. Caleb’s shirt was still there, just inside the grate. I zipped everything into the bag and left.
    On my way out I stopped at the Palace kitchen. It was empty, the workers still crowded by the parlor windows. The shelves were only half full, the supplies depleted from so many days without deliveries. I went through each cabinet and drawer, packing a few bags of dried figs and apples, along with the thin, salted boar’s meat that was pressed in paper. I hadn’t been able to stomach it in the past weeks, but I brought it anyway, knowing it would be good to have. I ran water from the tap, filling up three bottles’ worth before tucking them away. When I turned back into the hall, there were two soldiers standing beside the elevator, their eyes moving from me to the bag.
    I walked toward them, meeting their gaze. “I’ll be right back,” I said, pushing the button beside the elevator. “I promised Charles I’d leave this in his office. He’d asked for some papers from the suite.” I pointed at the metal doors, waiting for them to step aside, permitting me through. But they didn’t move. Instead the older of the two, a man with a chipped front tooth, adjusted his stance, filling the doorframe.
    “Your father needs to speak with you,” the other said, clamping down on my wrist. I’d seen him before, stationed at the end of the hall. He had a permanent five o’clock shadow, his skin so pale you could always see the dark hair just below the surface.
    “I need to go downstairs first,” I said, pulling free. “He can speak to me when I’m finished.” But the other soldier grabbed my arm. I studied his hand as it clutched my biceps, waiting for him to let go, but instead he pulled me back, toward my father’s suite.
    “It can’t wait,” he said. He didn’t meet my eyes.
    I felt the knife pressed inside my belt, tucked tightly against my hip. He held my right arm, the other soldier flanking me on my left, with no room for me to maneuver. They led me down the hallway to my father’s suite. As we approached the door I could hear Charles’s voice from the other side, his words hurried.
    “I can’t say,” he finished, as we walked in. “I don’t think that’s true.”
    The soldier he was speaking to turned to face me. The Lieutenant. My father was up, looking stronger than I’d seen him in days. There was one other man, his back toward me, his hands tied together with plastic restraints. I could tell by the short, graying hair and tarnished gold ring that it was Moss.
    “Genevieve,” the Lieutenant said, “we were just trying to put this all together. Were you the one who put the oleander extract in your father’s medication, or did Reginald do it himself?” Moss turned to me, his dark eyes meeting mine. There was nothing decipherable in his expression—no fear, no confusion, nothing.
    “I told them I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Charles said. His blue eyes narrowed, as though he didn’t quite recognize me.
    I rearranged my features, trying to catch my composure, to turn my face into something that would inspire trust. “Why would Reginald do that?”
    My father glanced sideways at the Lieutenant before speaking. “There’s no point in lying. One of the rebels gave him up. The only question is how the poison found its way into the medicine, considering Moss hasn’t been in this suite in months. That day you came here, the day we found out you were pregnant. I want to know—did you do it then?”
    “I could barely stand up that day. I’ve never been so sick.”
    At this, my father exploded. His neck strained as he spoke. “You cannot lie to me anymore. I won’t have it. And if you think that you are somehow immune because of your pregnancy, you are mistaken.”
    “Immune from what?” I asked. “Immune from being killed, like all the other rebels? Like anyone who doesn’t agree with you?”
    My father didn’t look at me. Instead he nodded to the Lieutenant, then to Moss. The Lieutenant grabbed Moss by the arm and turned him around. The soldiers twisted my left wrist behind my back. “This doesn’t have to happen,” Charles said as he stepped forward, trying to block the door. “I’m sure this is a misunderstanding—why would Genevieve be involved in this? Where are you taking them?”
    The King didn’t respond. Instead he turned away, toward the window, looking down