The Heir Apparent Read online

  It was true, though he wasn’t about to agree with her out loud. But if her first request as his adviser was that her betrothed be married off to an angry bramble fly, that would be just fine.

  “What did Papa want to speak with you about?” she asked. He knew that she was jealous, but she wouldn’t let it show.

  “Official business,” he said. “Nothing you need to know about.”

  She stepped on his foot.

  “Ow! Leste!” He glared at her. “It was all very boring. He walked me through the woods with the patrolmen and he went on about the kingdom. That’s all.” He was impressed with the ease of his lie. Celeste sulked but she didn’t press the issue. Not for now, at least.

  “And he did agree that you’d make a good member of my council, I’ll have you know,” Azure said.

  She perked at that. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  They never saw a deer that afternoon, much less caught one. They hadn’t really expected to. It was a game they played, trying to convince themselves and each other that they could do something impossible if only they approached it with logic.

  The sun began to sink in its sky and their mother’s voice called out for them to come home. Arm in arm, they made their way back to the clock tower.

  They didn’t talk about what had happened with Celeste’s betrothed. They knew that for all their fantasies about how the kingdom might be under Azure’s reign, there were many things that were best left unsaid.

  About the Author

  Lauren DeStefano is the author of The Internment Chronicles and the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden trilogy, which includes Wither, Fever, and Sever. She earned her BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut. Visit her at LaurenDeStefano.com.

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  The Internment Chronicles

  perfect ruin

  burning kingdoms

  no intention of dying

  The Chemical Garden Trilogy

  wither

  fever

  sever

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Lauren DeStefano

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  ISBN 978-1-4424-8068-1 (eBook)