The Lost Princess - A 'Selection' spinoff

CHAPTER 39

"Is that... Ashley Thompson?" Adelaide asked, squinting at the screen.

"It is," she said.

"What is she doing?" Elena asked.

Aurora zoomed a few of them and they all inhaled a deep breath.

She was sticking miniscule cameras and audio recorders all around the palace - in various rooms, Aurora's room, Elora's office, the gazebo, outside the hospital wing, in Edward's office, the music room, everywhere.

Everywhere except the inside of the hospital wing and Elora's inner chambers.

"We need to arrest her," Eric said, already scrambling to his feet.

"No can do," Aurora said, "Because she died the day she left the palace. Suicide. Or rather, what looked like suicide".

"How did we not hear about this?" Adelaide asked.

"We were all busy with her," Kate said.

"Kate's right," Aurora said, oblivious to Kate's tone. "We were all so busy with the Ball preparation, and the lessons and other stuff, that this piece of news didn't reach our ears".

"So she's the reason the Illuminati knows everything going on in the palace?" Elena asked.

"Yes. That's how they knew when what happened, and when to release the information for the articles," Aurora replied. "I was going through a few other clippings and saw that she tried to enter these chambers, but heard someone coming that way, and quickly slipped out. The hospital too - I don't think she saw the point of keeping cameras inside, so she just placed them outside".

"How come no one found these cameras?" Lucian asked.

"I'm sure the servants would have come across them," Elora said. "But you must remember, Luke. The Selection is still going on. We have cameras everywhere too, but they're vetted by people we know. The servants would have seen Ashley's cameras and assumed that they too were part of the cameras installed for the Selection".

"And look at how she is moving as she installs them - she looks natural, almost as if she's just trailing her fingers on the wall. Only if you zoom in can you truly see what she's doing," Adelaide said, shaking her head in disgust. "To think that I was once friends with her".

Eric squeezed her hand.

"Poor Ashley," Aurora said, and everyone stared at her. "It would have been safer for her in the palace, but now look where she is".

"Rora. She practically placed cameras everywhere and let out news that you were a murderer," Eric said.

"Who knows how they'd blackmailed her," Aurora said, shrugging. 

"How do you know she was being blackmailed?" Lucian asked her.

"If she truly was a part of the Illuminati, they wouldn't have killed her," Elora said, answering for her daughter.

Aurora nodded.

"What are the rest of the screens here for, Aurora?" Adelaide asked.

"I was just coming to that," she said. "I was thinking about what Queen Mei had said - she had mentioned that nothing was a coincidence. So I began digging through a few... suspicious things I had seen, realizing that this whole thing went deeper than I thought".

"Deeper by meaning?" Eric asked.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please take seat, for we'll be travelling nineteen years back in time!" Aurora said dramatically, before looking around and asking, "That didn't really work, did it?".