Oh, that Mrs. Abercrombie. Ben hadn't known her name, but he assumed this must have been the same sister of Ellory that had sent him the howler. Either that, or the princess had gotten his letter and then immediately told all of her relatives, which seemed... well, a little insane. Of course, her family was the insane sort--her mother had threatened to disown one of her daughters for failing to follow societal rules and she had apparently banished the chaperone who'd lost Ellory to somewhere outside the country--but he hadn't really pictured the princess as the type of girl who fit into her crazy family. Maybe he'd been wrong.

"She sent you my letters?" he repeated incredulously, though he couldn't help but be a little nervous at that prospect. Which letters? All the letters? Shit, did Ellory still have all the letters? They were all incriminating, though all in dramatically different ways. "She's—that's insane," he said, then his brain caught up to what Aldous had said last.

"What choice?" he asked. Something told him he wasn't going to like the sound of this.