“When we return to Elfhame, we won’t be able to see each other often,” he says, as though this is something I will greatly miss.
I am so jumpy that I do not trust myself to speak.
“You will come to Hollow Hall when you can.”
I wonder at the idea that he anticipates living in Hollow Hall, that he doesn’t expect to be put in the Tower. I suppose his freedom is part of the price of my release, and I am surprised all over again that Cardan agreed to pay it.
I nod.
“If I need you, I will give you a signal, a red cloth dropped in your path. When you see it, you must come immediately. I expect that you will be able to fabricate some excuse.”
“I will,” I say, my voice coming out too loud in my ears.
“You must regain the High King’s trust, get him alone, and then find a way to kill him. Do not attempt it if people are around. You must be clever, even if it takes more than one meeting. And perhaps you can find out more of your father’s schemes. Once Cardan is dead, we will need to move fast to secure the military.”
“Yes,” I say. I take a breath and then dare ask what I really want to know. “Do you have the crown?”
He frowns. “Very nearly.”
For a long moment, I do not speak. I let the silence linger.
Into it, Balekin speaks. “Grimsen needs you to finish your work before he can make it. He needs my brother dead.”
“Ah,” I say, my mind racing. Once, Balekin risked himself to save Cardan, but now that Cardan stands between him and the crown, he seems willing enough to sacrifice his brother. I try to make sense of that, but I can’t focus. My thoughts keep spiraling away.
Balekin smiles a shark’s grin. “Is something the matter?”
I am almost broken.
“I feel a little faint,” I say. “I don’t know what could be wrong. I remember eating. At least I think I remember eating.”
He gives me a concerned look and calls for a servant. In a few moments, I am brought a platter of raw fish, oysters, and inky roe. He watches in disgust as I devour it.
“You will avoid all charms, do you understand? No rowan, no bundles of oak, ash and thorn. You will not wear them. You will not so much as touch them. If you are given one, you will cast it into a fire as soon as you can conceal doing so.”
“I understand,” I say. The servant has brought no more fresh water for me, but wine instead. I drink it greedily with no care for the strange aftertaste or how it goes to my head.
Balekin gives me more commands, and I try to listen, but by the time he leaves, I am dizzy from the wine, exhausted and sick.
I curl up on the cold floor of my cell and for a moment, right before I close my eyes, I can almost believe I am in the grand room they have been conjuring for me with their glamours. Tonight, the stone feels like a feather bed.
The next day my head pounds as I am once again dressed, and my hair is braided. Merfolk put me in my own clothes—the silver dress I wore to Taryn’s wedding, now faded from exposure to salt and frayed from being picked at by Undersea creatures. They even strap Nightfell onto me, although the scabbard is rusted, and the leather looks as though something has been feasting on it.
Then I am taken to Balekin, dressed in the colors and wearing the sigil of the Undersea. He looks me over and hangs new pearls in my ears.
Queen Orlagh has assembled a huge procession of sea Folk. Merfolk, riders on enormous turtles and sharks, the selkies in their seal form, all cutting through the water. The Folk on the turtles carry long red banners that fan behind them.
I am seated on a turtle, beside a mermaid with two bandoliers of knives. She grips me firmly, and I do not struggle, though it is hard to keep still. Fear is terrible, but the combination of hope and fear is worse. I careen between the two, my heart beating so fast and my breaths coming so quickly that my insides feel bruised.
When we begin to rise, up and up and up, a sense of unreality grips me.
We crest the surface in the narrow stretch between Insweal and Insmire.
On the shore of the island, Cardan sits in a fur-lined cloak, regal on a dappled gray steed. He is surrounded by knights in armor of gold and green. To one side of him is Madoc, on a sturdy roan. To the other is Nihuar. The trees are full of archers. The hammered gold of the oak leaves on Cardan’s crown seems to glow in the dimming light of sunset.
I am shaking. I feel I may shake apart.
Orlagh speaks from her place at the center of our procession. “King of Elfhame, as we agreed, now that you have paid my price, I have secured the safe return of your seneschal. And I bring her to you escorted by the new Ambassador to the Undersea, Balekin, of the Greenbriar line, son of Eldred, your brother. We hope this choice will please you, since he knows so many customs of the land.”
Cardan’s face is impossible to read. He doesn’t look at his brother. Instead, his gaze goes impossibly to me. Everything in his demeanor is icy.
I am small, diminished, powerless.
I look down, because if I don’t, I am going to behave stupidly. You have paid my price, Orlagh said to him. What might he have done for my return? I try to recall my commands, to recall whether I forced his hand.
“You promised her whole and hale,” says Cardan.
“And you can see she is so,” Orlagh says. “My daughter Nicasia, Princess of the Undersea, will help her to the land with her own royal hands.”
“Help her?” says Cardan. “She ought to need no help. You have kept her in the damp and the cold for too long.”
“Perhaps you no longer want her,” Orlagh says. “Perhaps you would bargain for something else in her place, King of Elfhame.”
“I will have her,” he says, sounding both possessive and contemptuous at once. “And my brother will be your ambassador. It shall all be as we agreed.” He nods toward two guards, who wade out to where I am sitting and help me down, help me to walk. I am ashamed of my unsteady legs, of my weakness, of the ridiculousness of still being dressed in Oriana’s utterly unsuitable dress for a party long over.
“We are not yet at war,” says Orlagh. “Nor are we yet at peace. Consider well your next move, king of the land, now that you know the cost of defiance.”
The knights guide me onto the land and past the other folk. Neither Cardan nor Madoc turn as I pass them. A carriage is waiting a little ways into the trees, and I am loaded inside.
One knight removes her helm. I have seen her before, but I do not know her. “The general has instructed me to take you to his home,” she says.
“No,” I say. “I have to go to the palace.”
She does not contradict me, neither does she relent. “I must do as he says.”
And although I know I ought to fight, that once upon a time I would have, I don’t. I let her shut the door of the carriage. I lean back against the seats and close my eyes.
When I wake, the horses are kicking up dust in front of Madoc’s stronghold. The knight opens the door, and Gnarbone lifts me bodily from the carriage as easily as I might have lifted Oak, as though I am made of twigs and leaves instead of earthly flesh. He carries me to my old bedroom.
Tatterfell is waiting for us. She takes down my hair and strips off my dress, carrying away Nightfell and putting me into a shift. Another servant sets down a tray holding a pot of hot tea and a plate of venison bleeding onto toast. I sit on the rug and eat it, using the buttered bread to sop up the meat juices.
I fall asleep there, too. When I wake, Taryn is shaking me.
I blink hazily and stumble to my feet. “I’m up,” I say. “How long was I lying there?”
She shakes her head. “Tatterfell says that you’ve been out for the whole day and night. She worried that you had a human illness—that’s why she sent for me. Come on, at least get in bed.”
“You’re married now,” I say, recalling it suddenly. With that comes the memory of Locke and the riders, the earrings I was supposed to give her. It all feels so far away, so distant.
She nods, putting her wrist to my forehead. “And you look like a wraith. But I don’t think you have a fever.”
“I’m fine,” I say, the lie coming automatically to my lips. I have to get to Cardan and warn him about the Ghost. I have to see the Court of Shadows.
“Don’t act so proud,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. “You disappeared on my wedding night, and I didn’t even know you were gone until morning. I’ve been so frightened.
“When the Undersea sent word it had you, well, the High King and Madoc blamed each other. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Every morning, I went to the edge of the water and looked down, hoping I could see you. I asked all the mermaids if they could tell me if you were okay, but no one would.”
I try to imagine the panic she must have felt, but I can’t.
“They seem to have worked through their differences,” I say, thinking of them together at the beach.
“Something like it.” She makes a face, and I try to smile.
Taryn helps me into my bed, arranging the cushions behind me. I feel bruised all over, sore and ancient and more mortal than ever before.
“Vivi and Oak?” I ask. “Are they okay?”
“Fine,” she says. “Back home with Heather, who seems to have gotten through her visit to Faerieland without much drama.”
“She was glamoured,” I say.
For a moment, I see anger cross her face, raw and rare. “Vivi shouldn’t do that,” Taryn says.
I am relieved not to be the only one to feel that way. “How long have I been gone?”
“A little over a month,” she says, which seems impossibly brief. I feel as though I have aged a hundred years beneath the sea.
Not only that, but now I am more than halfway through the year and a day Cardan promised. I sink back on the cushions and close my eyes. “Help me get up,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Let the kitchens send up more soup.”
It isn’t difficult to persuade me. As a concession, Taryn helps me dress in clothes that were once too tight and now hang on me. She stays to feed me spoonfuls of broth.