At least I have a knife.
The parlor is as I remember it from Council meetings. It carries the scent of smoke and verbena and clover. Cardan himself lounges, his booted feet resting on a stone table carved in the shape of a griffin, claws raised to strike. He gives me a quicksilver, conspiratorial grin that seems completely at odds with the way he spoke to me from his throne.
“Well,” he says, patting the couch beside him. “Didn’t you get my letters?”
“What?” I am confused enough that the word comes out like a croak.
“You never replied to a one,” he goes on. “I began to wonder if you’d misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.”
This must be a test. This must be a trap.
“Your Majesty,” I say stiffly. “I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.”
A single eyebrow rises, and his smile deepens. “I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don’t mind.”
“What are you doing?” I say finally, desperately. “What are you playing at?”
He’s looking at me as though somehow I am the one who’s behaving strangely. “Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”
I shake my head, reeling. “That’s not possible.” If he knew it was me, then I wouldn’t be here. I would be imprisoned in the Tower of Forgetting. I would be preparing for my execution.
But maybe he’s pleased I violated the terms of the exile. Maybe he’s glad I put myself in his power by doing so. Maybe that’s his game.
He stands up from the couch, his gaze intense. “Come closer.”
I take a step backward.
He frowns. “My councilors told me that you met with an ambassador from the Court of Teeth, that you must be working with Madoc now. I was unwilling to believe it, but seeing the way you look at me, perhaps I must. Tell me it’s not true.”
For a moment, I don’t understand, but then I do. Grima Mog. “I’m not the betrayer here,” I say, but I am suddenly conscious of the blade in my sleeve.
“Are you angry about—” He cuts himself off, looking at my face more carefully. “No, you’re afraid. But why would you be afraid of me?”
I am trembling with a feeling that I barely understand. “I’m not,” I lie. “I hate you. You sent me into exile. Everything you say to me, everything you promise, it’s all a trick. And I, stupid enough to believe you once.” The sheathed knife slides easily to my hand.
“Of course it was a trick—” he begins, then sees the weapon and bites off whatever he was about to say.
Everything shakes. An explosion, close by and intense enough that we both stumble. Books fall and scatter over the floor. Crystal orbs slip off their stands to roll across floorboards. Cardan and I look at each other in shared surprise. Then his eyes narrow in accusation.
This is the part where I am supposed to stab him and run.
A moment later, there’s the unmistakable sound of metal striking metal. Close by.
“Stay here,” I say, drawing the blade and tossing the sheath onto the ground.
“Jude, don’t—” he calls after me as I slip into the hall.
One of his guard lies dead, a polearm jutting out of her rib cage. Others clash with Madoc’s handpicked soldiers, battle-hardened and deadly. I know them, know that they fight without pity, without mercy, and if they’ve made it this close to the High King, Cardan is in terrible danger.
I think again of the passageway I was planning to slip through. I can get him out that way—in exchange for a pardon. Either Cardan can end my exile and live or hope his guard wins against Madoc’s soldiers. I am about to head back to put that deal to him when one of the helmeted soldiers grabs hold of me.
“I have Taryn,” she calls gruffly. I recognize her: Silja. Part huldra and entirely terrifying. I’d seen her carve up a partridge in a way that made her delight in slaughter very clear.
I stab at her hand, but the thick hide of her gloves turns my blade. A steel-covered arm wraps around my waist.
“Daughter,” Madoc says in his gravelly voice. “Daughter, don’t be afraid—”
His hand comes up with a cloth smelling of cloying sweetness. He presses it over my nose and mouth. I feel my limbs go loose, and a moment later, I feel nothing at all.
When I wake, I am in woods I don’t recognize. I don’t smell the ubiquitous salt of the sea, and I don’t hear the crash of the waves. Everything is ferns, leaf mold, the crackle of a fire, and the hum of distant voices. I sit up. I am lying on heavy blankets, with more on top of me—horse blankets, albeit elegant ones. I see a solidly built carriage nearby, the door hanging open.
I am still in Taryn’s dress, still wearing her gloves.
“Don’t mind the dizziness,” says a kind voice. Oriana. She is sitting nearby, dressed in a gown of what appears to be felted wool over several layers of skirts. Her hair is pulled back into a green cap. She looks nothing like the diaphanous courtier she’s been the whole time I’ve known her. “It will pass.”
I run a hand through my hair, come loose now, the pins still in it. “Where are we? What happened?”
“Your father didn’t like the thought of your staying on the isles to begin with, but without Locke’s protection, it was only a matter of time before the High King came up with an excuse to make you his hostage.”
I rub a hand over my face. By the fire, a spindly, insectile faerie stirs a big pot. “You want soup, mortal?”
I shake my head.
“You want to be soup?” it asks hopefully. Oriana waves it off and takes a kettle from the ground beside the fire. She pours the steaming contents into a wooden cup. The liquid is redolent of bark and mushrooms.
I take a sip and abruptly feel less dizzy.
“Was the High King captured?” I ask, recalling when I was taken. “Is he alive?”
“Madoc was unable to get to him,” she says, as though his being alive is a disappointment.
I hate how relieved I feel.
“But—” I start, meaning to ask how the battle ended. I remember myself in time to bite my tongue. Over the years, Taryn and I have occasionally pretended to be each other at home. We mostly got away with it, so long as it didn’t go on for too long or we weren’t too obvious about it. If I don’t do anything stupid, I have a good chance of pulling this off until I can escape.
And then what?
Cardan was so disarmingly casual, as though sentencing me to death was some shared joke between us. And talking of messages, messages I never got. What could they have said? Could he have intended to pardon me? Could he have offered me some kind of bargain?
I cannot imagine a letter from Cardan. Would it have been short and formal? Full of gossip? Wine-stained? Another trick?
Of course it was a trick.
Whatever he intended, he must believe I am working with Madoc now. And though it shouldn’t bother me, it does.
“Your father’s priority was to get you out,” Oriana reminds me.
“Not just that, right?” I say. “He can’t have attacked the Palace of Elfhame for me alone.” My thoughts are unruly, chasing one another around. I am no longer sure of anything.