Free Almost Everything by Tate Hallaway Page A

the last person I wanted to see right now. In fact, the only thing I wanted to see at the moment was a bubble bath. At least today he’d forgone the cloak. Instead, he wore a T-shirt under a suit coat and jeans. It looked kind of
Miami Vice
, especially with his dark curls, but at least it was a fashion out of this century.
    My eyeswere gritty with lack of sleep and tears. I almost told him to come back later, until I noticed that the hand stretched out to me held a paper coffee container. The sleeve displayed the logo of my favorite shop too.
    “The barista told me this was your ‘usual,’” Luis said. The coffee bobbed in his hand as he waited for me to take the peace offering.
    My mom must have been true to her word and significantly turned down the wards for Elias, because my feet only tingled slightly when I came up to stand beside where Prince Luis sat on our stoop. A little skeptical but too desperate to resist, I snatched the coffee container.
    As Itook a deep draft of the chocolaty caffeine goodness, Luis glanced at my feet and jeans. “What happened to you?” he asked.
    I didn’t think Elias would be happy if I told an “enemy” prince that the kingdom was completely falling apart because my dad was crazy with hunger and I’d nearly been eaten by a zombie horde of his subjects. Besides, I didn’t think I was up to it, emotionally, so I shrugged and changed the topic of conversation. “Look at you, out in the sun. What are you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have an army to, I don’t know, command, or something?”
    “I don’t suffer from the allergy,” he said. He squinted in the sun to look at my pants legs again. “Do you?”
    “No, the blood isn’t mine. Someone else yakked on me.”
    “Is everyone okay?”
    Of course he’d worry about the vampires! It was strangely refreshing since so many of my friends were witches. “I don’t know. I was too busy—” I was going to say trying to survive, so I took another irritated sip of my espresso drink. My head was far too fuzzy to keep from spilling the beans much longer. All I could think about was the bath I wasn’t taking. “Why are you here?”
    He stood up, stretching. Joints popped as he cracked his knuckles. The sound made me want to yawn. I barely held it in check. He said, “I’ve spoken to my advisers.”
    Somehow I doubted he’d waited on my doorstep with a mocha if what he had to say was a declaration of war. “And?”
    “Captain Constantine is so well associated with the Northern Kingdom that he still makes an acceptable bargain. The other kingdoms will see ours as linked, which is all we need this union to provide politically. Also, my spymaster tells me that she has heard no whispers of his exile anywhere.” He gave me a sidelong glance that lingered on the bloody calves of my jeans. “She also assures me that we negotiated with the correct Ramses.”
    I sipped mymocha, hoping that with enough caffeine, I’d follow all the politics a bit better. I had the feeling my dad had just been insulted or dismissed, but I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to respond to that. I mean, there really
wasn’t
any talking to Dad right now. I didn’t like the idea that Luis’s people knew how little control my dad had. Did he know what the hunger was doing to everyone?
    I squinted at him questioningly but held my tongue.
    Standing next to Luis, I noticed he wasn’t that much taller than I was. I was fairly tall for a girl, but he was noticeably shorter than most of the boys I hung out with. The breeze rippled the leaves of the maple beside the house, and shards of sunlight danced in the gaps.
    “Just to be one hundred percent clear,” I said, taking another swallow of the warm drink, “you want Elias.”
    Luis nodded. “Yes. I accept the exiled Captain Constantine in exchange for Lieutenant Khan. Once the ceremony takes place, we will leave your people in peace.”
    I didn’t fancy the idea of Elias’s marrying someone else, even