Chapter Four: The Palace and the Lower Town

She found Cain senior in his son's room. She felt like a pressure on her chest and a dull ache in her heart. She'd asked him... directly... to his face! And to her face he'd lied to her. Angry thoughts whipped through her head faster than she had time to register them.

'Why lie to me?' she'd expected herself to yell. There was a yell in her but it just wouldn't come out. It remained firmly lodged in her chest, rattling her ribs. The whisper that came from her lips felt thin, girlish and pathetic.

'I didn't need you to come back outta pity.' Cain spoke evenly. He hadn't looked at her, he was looking at Jeb. He must have heard her burst into the room but taken no notice. Cain hadn't moved from his spot on an old wooden stool, hands in his lap, watching his sleeping son. DG couldn't guess at his expression.

'What about my coming back out of concern?'

'Not concern for me.' He still wasn't looking at her. He stood up though, leaving the wooden stool beside his son's sickbed. He walked up to the window.

'What has this got to do with you? It's about Jeb! He's my friend!' DG wished the yell would come. The shrieking whisper that was her voice still felt foreign to her.

'I had my reasons.' He finally turned. His face was cold and closed off- his mouth set. He spoke with a deep finality, as if he'd dismissed a lower officer or a servant.

'But...' DG barely spoke a word before Wyatt Cain turned his back on her again, shutting her out of his world and ending the conversation.

A variety of things rushed through DG's mind. Scream at him, slap him, cry. None of them seemed to be right. All she could bring herself to do was turn around and walk away.

She went to her study. Of all the rooms in the palace, it was this room that she felt most comfortable in. It was in a different part of the palace than her living suite and whereas her rooms were beautiful and luxurious, this room was practical. Practical was the perfect the word... every single piece of furniture had a specific purpose and fulfilled it exactly.

There were the chairs. They were simple chairs but comfortable, the same royal blue as the other furnished things. They fitted neatly in semi-circle around the desk. The desk was perfect too- beautiful, made of dark old wood. It was flat fronted but it curved around at the back so DG could be almost surrounded in papers if needed- which was often.

There was a small sofa, a book case, a shelf and a huge table too. The table was wide and heavily made, topped in cork so the map pinned into its surface stuck properly. There were a variety of pins and notes in the map, a map of the O.Z.

Behind the map was the room's largest window. There was a small window near the desk but this one was large, low and showed a view not of the gardens but of the bustling lower town. It had taken DG a few weeks to realise why she couldn't ever find the window when looking up at the building- it was hidden. Lost from prying eyes by pillars, plants and maybe even a little magic.

Whatever it was just made the fabulous window seat even more inviting.

Sinking into the seat she reached out for the pencil and paper she'd left there before she'd ran. Someone had moved them- probably trying to work out where she'd gone. There weren't any clues in the sketch pad. It was full of pictures of the people of Central City. Nameless and part of the crowds, DG loved to draw them. It absorbed her attention away from the piles of paperwork on her desk, away from the bustle of the palace, from the noises outside, from Wyatt Cain.

Cain. He stood there looking at her. She looked up and met his blue gaze. Anyone else would have said something. Not Cain, he broke their gaze to take in the drawing in her lap. How long he'd been there she didn't know, but she knew better than to wait for him to speak. Or apologise.

'You wouldn't ask me to come back to try to save your own son.' The yell still wasn't coming but at least, DG thought, she sounded like herself now.

'That's too much pressure for a person.'

'But being dragged in shackles, kicking and screaming isn't being pressured then?'

'I knew you wouldn't come. You didn't want to come back. I knew it when I saw how you'd tried to fix up that rotting piece of timber in the forest.'

'If you'd said...' DG felt the strong desire to yell or scream rising in her chest again.

'Then I'd have been the reason you were back.' Cain met her stare again for a moment. In that moment he said way more than his words did. He was telling her that he knew how much she hated it as a Princess, and how he couldn't be the reason for dragging her back into it... how he'd dragged her back to stop people dying.. how terrified he truly was about his son.

'Oh.' DG looked away. Bile rose in her throat. As Cain moved across the room to the desk she knew the matter was over. She wasn't mad at him anymore. She wasn't running away now... not while Jeb was sick. It was like the click of a door shutting. It felt absolute. However it didn't remove the empty feeling she had.

'Has the sickness spread since you... we've been away?' DG stood, putting the drawing aside. She went round to her side of the desk. Cain moved with her.

'Yes, there are nearly 70 people infected now.'

'Where?'

'They are mostly from the outer and lower town. There are also few from the palace… and Jeb. They've all been moved into the wards downstairs.'

'Apart from Jeb?'

'He isn't as far along as the others.'

'Right.' She paused, looking down at the notes she'd made as they had talked. 'When did it start?'

'About five days after you'd gone, the first case was a girl in the lower town.'

'Is she still alive?' the question was painful... DG bit her lip as she asked it.

'Yes.'

'How is she?'

'They told me her fever went and she turned this morning.'

'Can I see her?'

She was pretty. Her hair was brown and wavy, and at that moment she seemed perfectly fine, if tired. But DG guessed that somewhere on her body would be the creeping black rash.

'Are you really DG?' she asked.

DG nodded smiling. The girl – Caydie - was only about eleven.

'Yup. How are you feeling?'

'Wow! I can't believe the Princess is actually here... we thought you'd been quarantined in Finaqua.' The younger girl stared at DG, wide eyes brown were questioning.

'Nope still here.' So, DG thought, her parents had chosen not to tell the public she was missing... Surprisingly DG felt very little about this news.

'Why did you want to see me? Aren't I catching? Contagious, I mean?' Caydie asked, her forehead wrinkled.

Cain laughed, he was stood a little way off looking at some notes a healer had given him.

'Apparently not...' DG said smiling.

'That's what Raw said... but how come so many other people are sick if I'm not contagious?'

DG shrugged and looked to Cain.

'The Malady is magical, we're not sure how it's transferred.'

'So I could be contagious! You shouldn't be here DG... I mean, your Majesty!' Caydie struggled in her bed clothes to sit up.

'We do know it's not from breathing the same air.' said Cain chuckling again.

'Oh...' The girl stopped squirming and looked up, curious. "Then why are you here?'

'I want to help.' DG said, taking the notes from Cain and beginning to read through them.

'You're not a healer.'

'I know that.'

'So how can you help me?'

DG grinned, it had been so long since anyone had been so up front with her. It was refreshing.

'I don't know, but I want to try.' This seemed to satisfy the girl who sighed and nodded.

'Ok. Thank you.'

'You're welcome. Can we ask you some questions?' Caydie nodded.

'Did you know the other girls who got sick at the same time as you?'

'Not really. We went to class together in the evenings but they're older than me.' DG scribbled some notes as Caydie answered her questions…

DG looked at her notes. Caydie spent most of her time at home helping look after her baby brother, or in the Lower Town either shopping or attending class. This was the O.Z's new attempt at schooling, DG thought it was kind of like night school on the other side.

Neither Caydie or the others had been anywhere unusual recently, they weren't in any kind of trouble and they hadn't eaten anything strange. There wasn't anything different in their lives at all over the last few weeks except that they were sick, and dying.

DG fought back tears. Caydie was so young, so wonderful, and yet there was nothing she could do to stop her dying. Jeb too! Ozma knew who else if she couldn't think of anything to fix it!

'It's not your fault, Princess. You didn't make the cursed thing.' Cain said. They had returned to her study and Cain was now sitting in a chair opposite her.

'Neither did Az!' DG said hotly.

'I never said she did. The witch and your sister were two very different people. The witch however did create it. It's her evil we're fightin', not yours.'

'If I...' But she didn't say anything else. There was no use pondering her choices as a child.

There was a long silence. Wyatt Cain, DG knew, could be silent like no one else. He could probably give a rock a run for its money in the business of solemnity. But this silence felt quite comfortable. Not completely but more so than it had since he'd hauled her off over the neck of his horse.

DG continued to read her notes. Cain continued to be silent. Eventually she pushed the papers away, and sighed.

'What are we going to do?'

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading! Very much appreciated. And big thanks to my awesome Beta too!