“Hi, Nora. Hm, well, you are not going to like it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve just been kidnapped. They gave me some cookies, and well, I got pretty drowsy after that...”
“Liam Black, are you telling me you just let someone poison you?”
“Not poison, sleeping drugs! I still feel drowsy, actually.”
“Where are you?”
“No clue... It’s all dark in here. It smells nice, though.”
Who cares if it smells nice! This idiot just got captured and he doesn’t sound alarmed at all! And we just left him alone for barely twenty minutes or so! How careless can he be?
“Liam, I’m so going to kick your—"
“Wow, language, Princess. Plus, my brother has already been yelling in my head for five minutes straight, and he’s still scarier than you. Hey, are those brownies?”
“Stop eating the damn food, Liam! Damian is coming in ten minutes! You have to come with me!”
“Release Liam. Why would you keep him?” I ask William.
“As a token of goodwill from Black. The oldest brother, I mean.”
A token of goodwill? He just literally captured Liam! This is bad, not funny, and giving me too big of a headache right now. How will I explain this to Damian? The three of us came here secretly, and now Liam is supposed to stay there? I can’t let Liam be captured now!
I unleash my exasperation at William. “What goodwill! We never agreed to this!”
William frowns and walks up to me. When he is close enough, he reaches out his hand to me, and Bobo growls, but there is no animosity in his gesture. I wait to see what he will do, but to my surprise, he just takes one of my curls between his fingers. He stays silent and looks at me eye-to-eye.
I can tell he is detailing me, looking for any facial feature that may betray me. I don’t have anything to hide, I’m not fake. I look like Queen Diane, and that’s not a trick. I even look a bit like William.
After a while, he sighs and whispers, so low only I can hear it, “Consider it an exchange, then. Our princess against his brother.”
I look at him, surprised. So, he acknowledges it? That I am from the Blue Moon Clan? It’s... I don’t know what to think of it now, but this is big. His blue eyes don’t leave me, and I can tell he has made his decision. He really does think the same. That, wherever I came from, I am a descendant of Queen Diane.
I slowly step back and get ready to leave. I’m too choked up by my emotions to add another word right now. I grab Bobo’s fur, pulling him to come with me so he will stopgrowling at William. We have to leave this place for now, before Damian causes havoc.
“Nora.”
I stop and turn around, surprised. William is standing at the door of his office, his hands in his pockets. He’s staring at me with an indecipherable expression. Gosh, he really does look a bit like me, with his curly dark hair that stops at his shoulders, and his blue eyes. He waits for a few seconds and suddenly blurts it out.
“Lilyan.”
“...What?”
I look at him, confused. What is he talking about?
He sighs. “Your birth mother, Queen Diane’s daughter. Her name was Lilyan.”
I’m speechless.
Lilyan. My mother’s name was named Lilyan. I finally know who she was! At least... I think I do. If this woman really was my mother. I suddenly remember Elena— Daniel said our parents had to be siblings! Which means... I turn to William.
“What about the boy? Her twin?”
“Gabriel. Lilyan and Gabriel Blue Moon.”
So, I have Elena’s father’s name, too. Our parents. Lilyan and Gabriel Blue Moon, Queen Diane’s miraculous children. Did they really have no father? It’s so hard to believe... I nod. I’m too shaken up to even utter some thanks. Bobo pushes me, and we leave this place in a hurry.
As we exit the mansion, I try to calm down and think of what to do next. We are supposed to leave the Sapphire Moon territory to find Damian, but what about Liam?
