Her delicately pointed eyebrows rise. “Spying? What does that entail?”
“Sneaking around and getting information. Killing people. And before you say anything else, I was good at it.”
“Okay,” she says. She knew something was up with me, but from her face, I can tell that in a million years she wouldn’t have guessed this.
I go on. “And I discovered that Madoc is going to make a political move, one that involves Oak.” I explain once more about Liriope and Oriana and Dain. By this point, I have told this story enough that it’s easy to hit only the necessary parts, to run through the information quickly and convincingly. “Madoc is going to make Oak king and himself regent. I don’t know if that was always his plan, but I am sure it’s his plan now.”
“And that’s why you’re not coming to the human world with me?”
“I want you to take Oak instead,” I tell her. “Keep him away from all this until he gets a little older, old enough not to need a regent. I’ll stay here and make sure he has something to come back to.”
Vivi puts her hands on her hips, a gesture that reminds me of our mother. “And how exactly are you going to do that?”
“Leave that part to me,” I say, wishing that Vivi didn’t know me quite as well as she does. To distract her, I explain about Balekin’s banquet, about how the Court of Shadows is going to help me get the crown. I am going to need her to prep Oak for the coronation. “Whoever controls the king, controls the kingdom,” I say. “If Madoc is regent, you know that Faerie will always be at war.”
“So let me get this straight: You want me to take Oak away from Faerie, away from everyone he knows, and teach him how to be a good king?” She laughs mirthlessly. “Our mother once stole a faerie child away—me. You know what happened. How will this be any different? How will you keep Madoc and Balekin from hunting Oak to the ends of the earth?”
“Someone can be sent to guard him, to guard all of you—but, as for the rest, I have a plan. Madoc won’t follow.” With Vivi, I feel forever doomed to be the little sister, foolish and about to topple over onto my face.
“Maybe I don’t want to play nursemaid,” Vivi says. “Maybe I will lose him in a parking garage or forget him at school. Maybe I would teach him awful tricks. Maybe he would blame me for all this.”
“Give me another solution. You really think this is what I want?” I know I sound like I am pleading with her, but I can’t help it.
For a tense moment, we look at each other. Then she sits down hard in a chair and lets her head fall back against the cushion. “How am I going to explain this to Heather?”
“I think Oak is the least shocking part of what you have to tell her,” I say. “And it’s just for a few years. You’re immortal. Which, by the way, is one of the more shocking things you have to tell her.”
She gives me a glare fit to singe hair. “Make me a promise that this is going to save Oak’s life.”
“I promise,” I tell her.
“And make me another promise that it’s not going to cost you yours.”
I nod. “It won’t.”
“Liar,” she says. “You’re a dirty liar and I hate it and I hate this.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
At least she didn’t say she hated me, too.
I am on my way out of the house when Taryn opens her bedroom door. She’s dressed in a skirt the color of ivy, with stitching picking out a pattern of falling leaves.
My breath catches. I wasn’t planning to see her.
We regard each other for a long moment. She takes in that there’s a bag over my shoulder and that I’m in the same clothes I wore when we fought.
Then she closes her door again, leaving me to my fate.
Never have I walked through the front doors of Hollow Hall. Always before I have come skulking through the kitchens, dressed as a servant. Now I stand in front of the polished wood doors, lit by two lamps of trapped sprites who fly in desperate circles. They illuminate a carving of an enormous and sinister face. The knocker, a circle piercing its nose.
Cardan reaches for it, and because I have grown up in Faerie, I am not entirely surprised into a scream when the door’s eyes open.
“My prince,” it says.
“My door,” he says in return, with a smile that conveys both affection and familiarity. It’s bizarre to see his obnoxious charm used for something other than evil.
“Hail and welcome,” the door says, swinging open to reveal one of Balekin’s faerie servants. He stares openmouthed at Cardan, missing prince of Faerie. “The other guests are through there,” the servant finally manages.
Cardan tucks my arm firmly through his before striding into the entryway, and I feel a rush of warmth as I match his step. I can’t afford to be less than ruthlessly honest with myself. Against my better judgment, despite the fact that he is terrible, Cardan is also fun.
Maybe I should be glad of how little it will matter.
But for now, it’s immensely unnerving. Cardan is dressed in a suit of Dain’s clothes, stolen from the palace wardrobes and altered by a clever-fingered brownie that owed the Roach a gambling debt. He looks regal in different shades of cream—a coat over a vest and loose shirt, breeches and a neckcloth, with the same silver-tipped boots he wore to the coronation, a single sapphire shining from his left ear. He’s supposed to look regal. I helped choose the clothes, helped make him this way, and yet the effect is not lost on me.
I am wearing a bottle-green gown with earrings in the shape of berries. In my pocket is Liriope’s golden acorn, and at my hip is my father’s sword. Against my skin, I have a collection of knives. It doesn’t feel like enough.
As we cross the floor, everyone turns to look. The lords and ladies of Faerie. Kings and queens of other Courts. The representative from the Queen of the Undersea. Balekin. My family. Oak, standing with Oriana and Madoc. I look over at Lord Roiben, his white hair making him easy to find in the crowd, but he does not acknowledge that we have ever met. His face remains unreadable, a mask.
I am going to have to trust that he will keep his part of the bargain, but I mislike this kind of calculation. I grew up thinking of strategy as finding weaknesses and exploiting them. That I understand. But making people like you, making people want to take your part and be on your side—that I am far less skilled at.
My gaze goes from a table of refreshments to the elaborate gowns to a goblin king crunching on a bone. Then my eyes settle on the Blood Crown of the High King. It rests on a ledge above us, a pillow beneath it. There, it glows with a sinister light.
At the sight, I imagine all my plans coming apart. The thought of stealing it, in front of everyone, daunts me. And yet, having to search Hollow Hall for it would have been daunting, too.
I see Balekin move from speaking with a woman I don’t recognize. She’s wearing a gown of woven seaweed and a collar of pearls. Her black hair is tied to a crown festooned with more pearls, appearing like webbing above her head. It takes me a moment to puzzle out who she must be—Queen Orlagh, Nicasia’s mother. Balekin leaves her and crosses the room toward us with purpose.
Cardan catches sight of Balekin and steers us in the direction of the wine. Bottles and carafes of it—pale green, yellow as gold, the dark purple-red of my heart’s own blood. They are redolent of roses, of dandelions, of crushed herbs and currants. The smell alone nearly makes my head spin.
“Little brother,” Balekin says to Cardan. He is dressed head to toe in black and silver, the velvet of his doublet so thickly embroidered with patterns of crowns and birds that it looks as heavy as armor. He wears a silver circlet on his brow, matching his eyes. It’s not the crown, but it is a crown. “I’ve sought high and low for you.”
“Doubtless so.” Cardan smiles like the villain I’ve always believed him to be. “I turned out to be useful after all. What a terrible surprise.”
Prince Balekin smiles back as though their smiles could duel without the rest of them even being involved. I am sure he wishes he could rail at Cardan, could beat him into doing what he wants, but since the rest of their family died at swordpoint, Balekin must have learned his lesson about needing a willing participant in a coronation.
For the moment, Cardan’s presence is enough to reassure people that Balekin will soon be the High King. If Balekin calls for guards or grabs him, that illusion will dissipate.
“And you,” Balekin says, turning his gaze to me, viciousness lighting his eyes. “What have you to do with this? Leave us.”
“Jude,” Madoc says, striding up to stand beside Prince Balekin, who immediately seems to realize I might have something to do with this after all.
Madoc looks displeased but not alarmed. I am sure he is thinking me a fool who expects to get a pat on the head for finding the missing prince and cursing himself for not making it more clear that he wanted Cardan brought to him and not to Balekin. I give him my best blithe smile, like a girl who thinks she has solved everyone’s problems.
How frustrating it must be to come so close to your goal, to have Oak and the crown in one place, to have the lords and ladies of Faerie assembled. And then your first wife’s bastard throws a spanner in the works by handing the one person most likely to put the crown on Oak’s head to your rival.
I note the evaluating look he’s giving Cardan, however. He’s replanning.
He rests a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You found him.” He turns to Balekin. “I hope you’re intending to reward my daughter. I am sure it took no small amount of persuasion to bring him here.”
Cardan gives Madoc an odd look. I remember what he said about it bothering him that Madoc treated me so well when Eldred barely acknowledged him. But the way he’s looking, I wonder if it’s just weird to see us together, redcap general and human girl.
“I will give her anything she asks for and more,” Balekin promises extravagantly. I see Madoc frown, and I give him a quick smile, pouring two glasses of wine—one light and the other dark. I am careful with them, sly-fingered. I do not spill a drop.