The first trap goes unsprung. The decoy climbs out with my family while Oak and I duck down in the carriage. He grins at me at first, when we huddle down in the space between the cushioned benches, but the grin slips off his face a moment later, replaced by worry.
I take his hand and squeeze it. “Ready to climb through a window?” That delights him anew. “From the carriage?” “Yes,” I say, and wait for it to pull around. When it does, there’s a knock. I peek out and see the Bomb inside the estate. She winks at me, and then I lift up Oak and feed him, hooves first, through the carriage window and into her arms.
I climb after, inelegantly. My dress is ridiculously revealing, and my leg is still stiff, still hurting, when I fall onto Locke’s stone floor.
“Anything?” I ask, looking up at the Bomb.
She shakes her head, extending a hand to me. “That was always the long shot. My bet is on the maze.” Oak frowns, and I rub his shoulders. “You don’t have to do this,” I tell him, although I am not sure what we do if he says he won’t.
“I’m okay,” he says without looking into my eyes. “Where’s my mom?” “I’ll find her for you, twigling,” says the Bomb, and puts her arm over his thin shoulder to lead him out. At the doorway, she looks back at me and fishes something out of her pocket. “You seem to have hurt yourself. Good thing I don’t just cook up explosives.” With that, she tosses me something. I catch it without knowing what it is, and then turn it over in my hand. A pot of ointment. I look back up to thank her, but she’s already gone.
Unstoppering the little pot, I breath in the scent of strong herbs. Still,
once I spread it over my skin, my pain diminishes. The ointment cools the heat of what was probably imminent infection. The leg is still sore, but nothing as it was.
“My seneschal,” Cardan says, and I nearly drop the ointment. I tug down my dress, turning. “Are you ready to welcome Locke into your family?” The last time we were in this house, in the maze of the gardens, his mouth was streaked with golden nevermore, and he watched me kiss Locke with a simmering intensity that I thought was hatred.
Now, he studies me with a not dissimilar look, and all I want to do is walk into his arms. I want to drown my worries in his embrace. I want him to say something totally unlike himself, about things being okay.
“Nice dress,” he says instead.
I know the Court must already think I am besotted with the High King to endure being crowned Queen of Mirth and still serve as his seneschal.
Everyone must think, as Madoc does, that I am his creature. Even after he humiliated me, I came crawling back.
But what if I actually am becoming besotted with him?
Cardan is more knowledgeable than I am at love. He could use that against me, just as I asked him to use it against Nicasia. Perhaps he found a way to turn the tables after all.
Kill him, a part of me says, a part I remember from the night I took him captive. Kill him before he makes you love him.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I say, because if the Undersea is going to strike then, we must not give it any easy targets. “Not tonight.” Cardan grins. “I hadn’t planned on it.” The offhand implication that he’s not alone most nights bothers me,
and I hate that it does. “Good,” I say, swallowing that feeling, though it feels like swallowing bile. “But if you’re planning on taking someone to year and a day. He’s too angry for any of that. “At last, I finally understand. Orlagh and the Undersea we will vanquish together. But when they are gone, it will be us staring across a chessboard at each other. And when I best you, I will make sure I do it as thoroughly as I would any opponent who has shown themselves to be my equal.” Before I can think of what to say to that, he grabs hold of my arm,
marching us together onto the green. “Come,” he says. “We have roles yet to play.” Outside, blinking in the late afternoon sun, Madoc leaves me to go speak with a few knights standing in a tight knot near an ornamental pool.
He gives me a nod when he departs, the nod of someone acknowledging an opponent.
A shiver goes through me. When I confronted him in Hollow Hall after poisoning his cup, I thought I...