A Christmas Prince; The Royal Wedding
Chapter 6: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Summary: Dawn is missing and Quincey and Evander both face challenges of their own.
A/N: It's the customary Quincey chapter! This time with a little Evander twist... It's way past Christmas at this point but this is the second to last chapter and I'm hoping to post the last one as soon as I'm able. This story had a lot of moving parts and I've had to leave many things out simply because I haven't had the time to write. If you're sick of Christmas stuff already, I acknowledge your suffering but I do not apologize😂
Words: 2.8k
Characters:
Dawn Harvelle, Rosa Yaxley, and Evander Alderly by @potionboy3
Quincey, Olympia, and Isabella Alderly, Tess Brandon
Rocky Weasley by @magicallymalted
Pandora Lovelace by@gcldensnitch
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Want to read the first fic in the series, A Christmas Prince? Click here!
Chapter 6: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Quincey
Quincey could safely say that he was not having a good day. Of course, he understood that Dawn wasn’t used to the kind of rigorous protocol that life at court demanded but what he couldn’t understand was why he had insisted on going out on some crazy adventure the previous night. Anything could have happened. After the unpleasant meeting at Pince’s office, Quincey went through the notes his mother had made to his speech and resolved to deal with it later. He really had to talk to Dawn. Nothing had gone according to plan ever since Dawn had arrived. He came to the smaller sitting room, holding out hope that Dawn would be there when he heard Olympia’s voice.
“Still at it?” she was asking.
“Silence, cousin,” came Evander’s voice as a reply. “I’m getting there.”
“Are all those coffee mugs yours?”
“And mine,” said Dawn’s aunt Tess.
“Anything I can do?” Olympia asked.
“Develop malware for me to drop into their RDP…” said Evander and that was when Quincey decided to stop eavesdropping and enter the room.
“Good morning,” he said, and all three people suddenly jumped, like there’d been an explosion.
“Quincey!” said Olympia. “How lovely to see you.”
Quincey frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Oh,” said Evander. “I was just introducing your dear sister and Miss Brandon to the intricacies of cryptocurrency so maybe we could all come together and save the kingdom.”
Quincey ignored the sarcasm in his voice. “Have any of you seen Dawn?”
“Not since last night,” said Tess.
“Well, damn,” said Quincey.
“Is everything alright?” Olympia asked.
“I don’t know…”
That’s when the double doors were pulled open with haste and Miss Pince came in, Miss Yaxley in tow.
“Has anyone seen Mr. Harvelle?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” mused Quincey.
“You mean to tell me he’s not here?” asked Pince.
“Well, I’m not hiding him in my pocket,” said Evander but Pince did not find this amusing.
“He has to be found,” said Rosa. “The queen is going ballistic over the wedding preparations.”
“I’m half of the equation, maybe I can help,” Quincey offered.
“No, the queen said Mr. Harvelle must be there,” said Pince.
“It’s almost like it would be her wedding…” said Quincey with a sigh.
~
Quincey found his mother in the room reserved for wedding planning, outfitting, and all those other things that his mother seemed to think she had some sort of control over. The outfit Quincey assumed Dawn was supposed to wear was on a mannequin. It was very traditional, nothing like he’d imagine Dawn would pick for himself. He realized he hadn’t the foggiest idea what his mother, Miss Yaxley, and Dawn had been up to with the wedding preparations. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“Dawn’s missing?” he asked his mother as he entered. There was nobody else in the room but them.
“He did not show up for his fitting.”
“I’ll call him,” said Quincey.
“His phone is offline.”
That was worrying. Quincey tried it anyway, but true enough, he only got a message saying the phone had been turned off.
“Well,” said the queen. “I sincerely hope we won't have to cancel the wedding.”
“Stop,” said Quincey.
“Maybe he has finally realized that the pressures of court are too much for him,” said Isabella, forlornly.
“You’re certainly not helping,” Quincey sighed. “Is that what he’s supposed to wear?”
“Yes. I had a hand in its design.”
“I’ll ask Flitwick to look into Dawn’s whereabouts,” said Quincey. “And mother?”
“Yes?”
“You can forget about that costume. I’ll have a word with Miss Yaxley. I sincerely hope that it’s not too late to make this wedding mine and Dawn’s, and not whatever you’ve been doing behind my back.”
Isabella looked shocked. “Quentin, I’ve only been trying to help you.”
“I know, and I truly appreciate the help,” he said. “Especially when it comes to the financial situation. But I never asked your help in this.”
“Alright,” said Isabella. “I admit, I did get a little carried away.”
“A little?”
“Fine,” said Isabella. “A lot.”
“But you can help me find Dawn now,” said Quincey.
“I would be glad to.”
~
The palace had its fair share of hiding places and so, a lot of the staff were requested to keep an eye out for the run-away groom, but Quincey had an idea of his own of where to look. He headed to the courtyard.
“Dawn!” he called out between the hedges.
“No such luck,” said Olympia, dressed up against the cold in her light pink winter coat. “I figured I might also look here.”
“Oh, hey,” said Quincey but his spirits were immediately lowered.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
“I’ve been such a fool,” said Quincey.
Olympia walked up to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“I screwed up,” he said, miserably.
“What happened?” asked Olympia.
“Dawn’s been having a hard time adjusting to everything here and I’ve been too invested in my duties as king to be supportive.”
“You’ve had a falling out?”
“Just when he needed me most, I caved in to the crown.”
Olympia sighed, seemed to think about something for a while, and then said: “After father died, and you left us to go soul-searching, I was so angry with you…”
“O, I…”
“…At first. But then I realized this life we find ourselves in, the titles and responsibilities we bear, can overwhelm any person, especially a good-hearted one.”
“I've allowed it to happen,” said Quincey.
“You accepted your title with eyes wide open, with the best intent. And that's the brother I love.”
“I've made such a mess of everything.”
“Thanks to Dawn, and I can’t believe I have to say this, Evander, I think we have an actual shot at fixing the country’s problems,” Olympia said.
“What?”
“I’ll explain later,” Olympia said. “Just trust me. All you should focus on right now is finding your fiancé.”
Quincey thought about it. The thing was that he did trust Olympia with his life, but this wasn’t just about him. He had been the one to swear an oath to serve and protect all of his subjects and right now he was doing a piss-poor job of it.
“Please, Q,” said Olympia.
Quincey sighed. “There is one more place he could be in.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to need Archimedes.”
~
His father’s old hunting cabin’s windows were lit when Quincey and Archimedes arrived. He stabled the horse and entered the cabin, finding Dawn sat in front of a small fire, drinking hot chocolate.
“Dawn,” he said when Dawn didn’t make a move at the sound of the door.
“I'm so sorry,” he tried again. “Talk to me.”
Finally, Dawn turned around, demanding: “Now you want to talk? You had nothing to say when I needed you in Pince's office.”
“I know.”
“They want me to give up everything, Quincey. My voice, my career.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a journalist anymore,” said Quincey.
“That’s not the point!” said Dawn. “The point is that I’m supposed to act like a goddamn ornament in one of your over-the-top Christmas trees and that’s not me!”
“Forget about everyone else,” said Quincey. “This should be about you and me.”
Dawn got up from the armchair. He didn’t look pleased. “I always thought that you would support me, and this week has just been so tough.”
“Dawn, please…”
“Just let me finish, okay?” said Dawn and Quincey shut up. “Everything is changing. I feel like I'm losing control and… I'm not used to living like this. This fishbowl, this distance between us,” he finished, taking a deep breath.
“I know it's hard,” said Quincey. “Trust me, I know.”
“It’s not the same for us, though,” said Dawn.
“Everything is changing. For both of us,” said Quincey, stepping closer to Dawn. When Dawn didn’t pull away, he took his hands. “But there is one thing that will never change: My love for you.”
“Shut up,” said Dawn. “You’re not sweet-talking your way out of this one.”
“I don’t want you to have to sacrifice anything to be with me,” Quincey continued. “Your talent, your creativity, your determination… But some things are out of my control.”
“Like my little mission last night?” Dawn asked.
“You could have been hurt,” said Quincey. “The country isn’t exactly approving of us at the moment.”
“That might have been a miscalculation on my part.”
“But I need you,” said Quincey. “And Alderly needs you, too.”
“Well, it has a funny way of showing it,” Dawn said. “I’ve been nothing but a glorified wedding planner–, no not even that. I’ve been standing in the sidelines while our wedding has been planned for us.”
“Yes,” said Quincey. “About that. I had a chat with mother. The wedding’s going to see some changes.”
“What?” asked Dawn. “You did?”
“Well, it all got a bit much, don’t you think?”
“I very much do think that, yeah,” said Dawn.
“How come you came here?” asked Quincey. They hadn’t been back together since the snowstorm last year, though Quincey had visited on his own.
“I just wanted something to feel Christmassy,” Dawn explained. “So I stole some of the biscuits meant for our wedding and came here.”
Quincey laughed. “Okay, that’s actually fair enough.”
“It hasn’t really felt too festive here, recently.”
“I know.”
Dawn bit his lip. “I’d like to have an active role in the family. I don’t want to be just an ornament.”
“You won’t be. I don’t want that either.”
Dawn sighed and reached to touch Quincey’s face. He hadn’t entirely forgiven him; Quincey wasn't foolish enough to believe that. But at least he hadn’t told him to fuck off, so he considered it a start. “Alright, we need to get back to the palace, now and see if Evander has saved the country.”
Quincey decided not to question it, for now.
~
Evander
Evander had commandeered a couch after his back began to protest, sitting at the table. Dawn’s little laptop was putting in the works and Evander sincerely hoped it wouldn’t give out now. He decided to give Dawn a proper laptop as a wedding present, until he remembered he was pretty much broke. Maybe he could sell the ugly cabin in the mountains his mother had gotten him one Christmas. Evander looked up when he heard someone enter the room, but it was just Tess, bringing another round of coffee. The table was starting to fill with mugs.
“Here,” she said, handing the other to him.
Evander took it. “Oh, thanks…”
Tess was pretty much the only person who had been nice to him this entire time, which was odd, since she had no reason to. Unless she was secretly adding poison to his coffee, or that weird herbal tea she had made him the other night. He had slept like a baby the first time in months after it but that had only made him doubly suspicious. He sniffed the coffee, cautiously.
“No herbs,” said Tess. “Just coffee.”
“So just like the previous three.”
Tess nodded. “Just like them.”
Evander eyes her and then the coffee. “Okay.”
“How are you doing?” she asked, still standing up.
“I found a promising lead, but I can’t crack it,” said Evander. “At least, not yet.”
“Damn.”
Evander resolved that the coffee probably wasn’t poisoned. He took a sip. “You make surprisingly good coffee.” Considering the tea tasted like shit, but he didn’t say that part out loud.
Tess chuckled, quietly. “Thanks, though I think it’s probably just that you people have quality coffee here. I don’t normally drink it an awful lot.”
“Could be,” said Evander. “You should consider adding coffee to your selection.”
Just as a suggestion. For all the other people who didn’t like suspicious herbs. He didn’t know much about Tess’s business, other than that he found all the herbal teas horrid but for some reason it was relatively successful.
“I’ll consider it,” said Tess. “If we don’t go to jail for this.”
She motioned vaguely at the computer on Evander’s lap.
“Don’t worry, if I get caught, I won’t bust you.”
“I appreciate that,” Tess mused. “But I think we’re sort of in this together, now.”
Evander didn’t say anything while Tess sat next to him, pulling a blanket on her legs. He thought she was pretty but pretty in a way his mother wouldn’t approve of. Kind of like Rosa was but somehow, he had a feeling like his mother would approve of Tess even less. The only person he could conceive of his mother approving was Diana Somerset but that had been doomed from the start, and Evander was happy she’d turned down his proposal.
He hadn’t spoken to his mother in months and in a way, he missed her a little. It had been about time to cut the cord, though. To find out what he actually wanted for himself. One thing he had learned was that it sucked to be poor and lonely. He missed his family. Especially his entitled royal cousins who he’d never even really liked before. And he knew that he couldn’t trust the country to Quincey’s hands alone when the man had gone to a fucking liberal arts school. Deep down he felt bad, too. Bad about what he had done to him and how he’d left things. He had put himself first and not Alderly, as he should have done. The right thing to do would have been to be there for Quincey and help him, instead of listening to his mother, but that was a lesson learned.
Tess leaned in closer so she could see the computer screen better. Evander was pretty sure she didn’t have experience on the hacking front, but he appreciated another pair of eyes, and maybe he also appreciated her presence. She smelled nice. He felt immensely tired. It had been almost ten hours and they still had pretty much nothing. He felt his focus drift and drank more coffee. He wasn’t exactly sure how much time passed, when Tess suddenly grabbed his wrist and pointed at the screen.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Evander examined the piece of code. “If I just follow this strand…” he said quietly.
Tess let go of his hand so he could continue typing.
“Is this…” he started as the computer did exactly as he had wanted it to.
“Oh my god,” said Tess.
“I think I’m in!” said Evander and jumped up from the couch in excitement. He had almost given up hope so he couldn’t quite believe this plan might actually stand a chance in hell at working.
Tess got up as well and said: “Holy crap,” with a delighted laugh. She did a little jump and clapped her hands together. Evander, high off of his achievement, kissed her cheek before thinking better off it. The pair looked at each other for a fraction of a second. Then Evander cleared his throat and sat back down, grabbing the computer.
“It’s not over yet,” he said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “This is pretty time sensitive.”
“Right, yeah, of course,” said Tess. She also sat back down, and Evander was careful not to look at her. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe his mother would like her. Tess was pretty smart, after all.
~
Half an hour later Olympia, Rocky, and Pandora returned, presumably from searching for a certain run-away groom.
“We're in,” Evander said.
“What?” asked Pandora. “Seriously?”
“I honestly didn’t think you had it in you,” said Rocky with a yawn. It seemed Evander and Tess weren’t the only ones in need of a nap.
“Shut up and come see,” he said, and the newcomers gathered around the couch Evander and Tess had occupied, to see the screen. All the information pertaining to the companies was there for them to see. Silently Evander echoed Rocky’s sentiment though. After almost ten hours he’d begun to think that maybe he had overestimated his abilities.
“What does it say about those three companies?” asked Rocky.
“Each are listed as a division of this... Glockenspiel Consortium,” said Evander.
“Glockenspiel?” wondered Olympia. “What's that?”
“It could be a parent company, or a shell, used to funnel the money to a foreign entity,” Evander said. It would make sense why neither he nor Olympia had ever heard of it, despite being Alderlian.
“You have a disturbing knowledge of underhanded activities,” Olympia said but there was distinctly less venom in her voice than there had been before, so Evander didn’t take it too personally.
“That would explain why so little of the money's staying in Alderly,” said Tess, who had a much more comprehensive grasp of how businesses worked than dear cousin Olympia.
“Perhaps if we dig a little bit deeper into Glockenspiel…” said Evander, clicking further into the files. “Oh, shit…”
Everyone had seen it; Evander could tell from their shocked expressions.
“I can’t believe it,” said Olympia.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Pandora.
“Quincey’s gone to look for Dawn. He might be a while,” said Olympia.
“We’re going to wait for the king to get back,” said Evander. “He needs to hear this before we do anything.”
tag list: @lifeofkaze, @gcldensnitch, @endlessly-cursed, @cursed-herbalist, @magicallymalted
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