Chapter 45

"Kill her!" Louise screamed, spinning away from Seth to point an accusing finger at me. I wondered if, as her mother's knight, she could override the order not to harm me. Somehow I doubted vermin had complex thought processes beyond, Queen say no bite, knight say bite. I hoped the queen's orders prevailed and offered me a small measure of immunity.

"Jack?s close," Jake whispered from beside me, and then he disappeared into the sea of vermin. After this was over, I was going to ask how he had done that. Why did they not bite him?

Seth raised his foot and booted Louise from behind. She lurched forward and hit the ground. I was outraged and proud at the same time. An ignoble act from my aristocratic suitor, but I cheered that the horrid bint finally ate dirt. Seth jumped past Elizabeth and leapt up onto the queen's throne, giving him the higher ground as he cast around for a weapon.

Elizabeth looked somewhat bemused, as though a serious dinner party had turned into drunken charades. S