Chapter 94 - In A Novel (2/2)

There. It was all out.

I sniffled and wiped my eyes, feeling rather emotional after getting that off my chest. I dared to peek up at Al and he looked shocked but also like he was thinking over what I had said. He didn't think I was crazy. Yet.

He didn't speak for a while and when he did it was simply to ask ”You've been carrying all of this on your own ever since you got here?”

Yes. I had. Mariela knew about my world but didn't know we were inside a novel or how hard I had tried to make things go according to the author's wishes. Telling her about my home had been nice but I didn't feel as free then as I did now.

”Mariela knows about my world…but not about my knowledge of the future or this being a novel. She guessed I wasn't actually Catherine du Pont pretty early on because I don't act the way noblewomen are supposed to act,” I admitted.

Al surprised me by smiling. ”No, you do not. But that's part of what I love about you. Um…can you tell me what the original plot was? It might help having someone else know about it.”

I could not believe he was taking me so seriously. The level of trust he had in me was astounding. But I supposed it was warranted, since I was the first person to ever show him kindness. If he couldn't believe in me, he couldn't believe in anything.

So I told him.

I told him about how he was supposed to end up with Marcy and everything that I had messed up by coming here. I told him all of the things I had discovered that didn't match up with the plot already, like his true identity and how Marcy was a spy.

As embarrassing as it was to admit, I also confessed that finding that out was why I finally abandoned sticking to the plot and decided to give him a chance. How I had felt indignant on his behalf that she hadn't even loved him.

I finished with what happened to Sigmund. ”…he gets killed in the revolt and Franz becomes king. You marry Marcy and everybody lives happily ever after. It was why I wanted to get out of here as soon as the new bill was passed; to avoid the aftermath.”

Al took a few minutes to process this. I watched him nervously but saw no signs of him thinking I was crazy now either. Maybe he was a little too trusting but I couldn't deny I was touched.

”Well that certainly explains your behavior when we were engaged a lot…I can't believe you were trying to push me off onto someone else the entire time,” he said with a shake of his head. ”But Sigmund dies? Really? What a fitting end for a tyrant like him.”