Page 162 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)

“Take your broken wings and learn to fly.” The line Margo was later repeating to herself in the yard.

She looked at me and asked why her wings were broken, and I hated to say it was because of us. What Amberly and I were doing to our families.

What I had already done.

What did I say? Something like, “You’re a pretty little bird, Margo. Our wings let us fly, but they’re also fragile. Protect your wings.”

She seemed to like that.

I shake my head. “She was scheming.”

“Pretty little bird,” Margo says. “From Lydia. From my mother.”

“Claire read it. The whole thing, probably. Whatever happened between our parents… I don’t think it was your dad’s fault. Or yours.”

“You’re right.”

I meet her eyes. “I… am?”

She sighs, tipping her head back. “Yeah. Let me tell you what really happened.”

37

Margo

Past

I fidgeted by the sink. Dad was at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper, but he kept glancing at me. It was rare that he wasn’t working in the middle of the afternoon. Nice, too. I crept back home. The door to Mr. Asher’s office was closed when I passed it, and Mom’s car was gone.

“You seem off, kiddo,” Dad said. “Everything okay?”

After Mom left me in Caleb’s room, Mr. Asher had rounded on me and demanded to know what I saw. I tentatively told him all of it.

And Caleb hadn’t been surprised. That was the worst part. He had a dead look in his eye while I spoke, and after…

He had come alive, grabbing my shoulders the same way Mom had. Please don’t say anything. It’ll ruin everything.

I shook my head, and then I remembered Mom’s plea.

“All good,” I managed.

He set down the paper and twisted toward me. “The truth, now?”

The gate opening drew my attention. Mom nudged it closed with her foot, her arms full of brown paper bags. Any minute now, she was going to walk in and see the expression on my face.

The look that was one hundred percent guilt.

Dad saw it. A flash of fear.

“You saw them?” he asked in a low voice.

I jerked toward him. “I d-didn’t mean to.”

Mom came in and stopped short. Her gaze went from my face to Dad’s. “Margo, what did you do?”

Dad stood. “Amberly.”

The bags fell from Mom’s hands in slow motion, but the way she moved wasn’t slow at all. She was suddenly in front of me, her hand on my chin. She forced my head up, until I met her eyes.