The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) by Marina Finlayson Read Free Book Online Page B

scrubbed one hand across his eyes. “They’ll say, ‘hey Lachie, we’re glad you’re not really dead’.”
    Ben laughed. I smiled too, some of the tension leaking out of me. “Well, sure, but after that? They’re going to want to know why Dad tricked them—and then they’ll start asking how he tricked them—and then all sorts of things are going to come out that we’d rather they didn’t know.”
    He was a perceptive kid. “About dragons and stuff, you mean?”
    “Yeah. About dragons, and who killed Valeria, and why. I might have to go to jail if the police find out it was me. There’d be people following us around with cameras all the time like they do with movie stars, and scientists asking questions and wanting to do tests on us.”
    And probably an assortment of religious nutjobs trying to save us or kill us, depending on their particular brand of nutjobbery. It would be a nightmare. It didn’t take much imagination to see why Elizabeth wanted to keep the shifter world under wraps.
    If I won the proving, the whole headache would land in my lap. And I had to succeed: the only options were win or die. Running a shifter kingdom sure wouldn’t be any easier with every man and his dog on my back about Lachie’s miraculous return from the dead.
    “So we can’t ever go home?” The tremble was back in his bottom lip. “But my Lego …”
    He burst into tears. I leapt up, scraping my chair across the tiles, and rounded the table, feeling like the world’s worst mother. You were supposed to protect your kid from the kind of trauma that he’d been through. The poor little guy had been so brave, but there were limits to even the bravest ten-year-old’s endurance. It wasn’t fair, and I could never make it up to him, but I’d walk across broken glass just to try. I swept him into a hug, feeling his bony little arms clutch me tightly, his thin frame heaving with sobs.
    “I’ll get your Lego, okay? Don’t cry, Monster. It’ll be all right.”
    Garth’s ears pricked up. “Not a great plan, going back there.”
    I glared at him as Lachie sobbed harder. He stood on the other side of the long island bench that separated the kitchen from the eating area, leaning forward in unconscious menace. Well, probably unconscious. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to strong-arm me into doing what he thought best. “Too bad.”
    “There could be—” He glanced at Lachie and changed whatever he’d been about to say. “Other people might have been there.”
    Well, clearly other people had been there. My next-door neighbour, Tanya, for one, and the police who responded to her panicked call the night Garth attacked me in my own kitchen. It took a minute to realise what he meant.
    Someone could have set a trap for me in the hope I’d return.
    I sighed. Would life always be this screwed up? “It’s not very likely, Garth.”
    Neither Elizabeth nor Alicia would waste a moment shaking the dust of a place like our old home off their feet, if they even deigned to set foot in it at all. It would never occur to them that I might want to go back there.
    “Still possible, though.”
    God, he was nearly as stubborn as Ben. If only Luce were here I’d have the trifecta. Why did I seem to be surrounded lately by people who insisted on arguing with me?
    “Then you can come with me and frighten people off with that scowl.”
    He shook his head. “You need someone like Blue to check it out. Disarm anything magical.”
    “We’ve already established that Blue is missing in action, and I doubt there’s another goblin mage this side of Brisbane.”
    “I can find him,” he insisted.
    “Fine.” I was sick of arguing already and it was only breakfast time. “Go find him. You’ve got twenty-four hours. If you’re not back by then, I’m going without you.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Finding a single goblin in all of Sydney was never going to be an easy job, however good Garth’s werewolf nose or however many dodgy connections he