Attending lectures is harder than ever. For one thing, I am sick, my body
fighting the effects of the fruit and the poisons I am forcing down. For another, I
am exhausted from training with Madoc and training with Dain’s Court of
Shadows. Madoc gives me puzzles—twelve goblin knights to storm a fortress,
nine untrained Gentry to defend one—and then asks for my answers each
evening after dinner. The Roach orders me to practice moving through the
crowds of courtiers without being noticed, to eavesdrop without seeming
interested. The Bomb teaches me how to find the weak spot in a building, the
pressure point on a body. The Ghost teaches me how to hang from rafters and
not be seen, to line up a shot with a crossbow, to steady my shaking hands.
I am sent on two more missions to get information. First, I steal a letter
addressed to Elowyn from a knight’s desk in the palace. The next time, I wear
the clothing of a faerie bride and walk through a party to the private chambers of
the lovely Taracand, one of Prince Balekin’s consorts, where I take a ring from a
desk. In neither case am I allowed to know the significance of what I stole.
I attend lectures beside Cardan, Nicasia, Valerian, and all the Gentry
children who laughed at my humiliation. I do not give them the satisfaction of
my withdrawing, but since the incident with the faerie fruit, there are no more
skirmishes. I bide my time. I can only assume they are doing the same. I am not
foolish enough to think we are done with one another.
Locke continues his flirtation. He sits with Taryn and me when we take our
lunch, spread out on a blanket, watching the sun set. Occasionally he walks me
home through the woods, stopping to kiss me near a copse of fir trees just before
Madoc’s estate. I only hope he doesn’t taste the bitterness of poison on my lips.
I do not understand why he likes me, but it is exciting to be liked.
Taryn doesn’t seem to understand it, either. She regards Locke with
suspicion. Perhaps since I am worried over her mysterious paramour, it is fitting that she seems equally worried over mine.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I overhear Nicasia ask Locke once, as he
joins them for a lecture. “Cardan won’t forgive you for what you’re doing with
her.”
I pause, unable to pass by without listening for his answer.
But Locke only laughs. “Is he more angry that you chose me over him or
that I chose a mortal over you?”
I startle, not sure I heard him right.
She’s about to answer when she spots me. Her mouth curls. “Little
mousie,” she says. “Don’t believe his sugared tongue.”
The Roach would despair of me if he saw how badly I fumbled my
newfound skills. I did nothing he taught me—I neither concealed myself nor
blended in with others to avoid notice. At least no one would suspect me of
knowing much about spycraft.
“So has Cardan forgiven you?” I ask her, pleased by her stricken look. “Too
bad. I hear a prince’s favor is a really big deal.”
“What need have I for princes?” she demands. “My mother is a queen!”
There’s much I could say about her mother, Queen Orlagh, who is planning
a poisoning, but I bite my tongue. In fact, I bite it so hard that I don’t say
anything at all. I just walk to where Taryn is sitting, a small, satisfied smile on
my face.
More weeks pass, until the coronation is mere days away. I am so tired that
I fall asleep whenever I put my head down.
I even fall asleep in the tower during a demonstration of moth summoning.
The susurration of their wings lulls me, I guess. It doesn’t take much.
I wake on the stone floor. My head is ringing, and I am scrambling for my
knife. I don’t know where I am. For a moment, I think that I must have fallen.
For a moment, I think I am paranoid. Then I see Valerian, grinning down at me.
He has pushed me out of my chair. I know it just from the look on his face.
I have not yet become paranoid enough.
Voices sound from outside, the rest of our classmates having their luncheon
on the grass as evening rolls in. I hear the shrieks of the youngest children,
probably chasing one another over blankets.
“Where’s Taryn?” I ask, because it wasn’t like her not to wake me.
“She promised not to help you, remember?” Valerian’s golden hair hangs
over one eye. As usual, he’s clad entirely in red, a tone so deep that it might
appear black at first glance. “Not by word or by deed." Of course. Stupid me to forget I was on my own.
I push myself up, noticing a bruise on my calf as I do. I am not sure how
long I was sleeping. I brush off my tunic and trousers. “What do you want?”
“I’m disappointed,” he says slyly. “You bragged about how you were going
to best Cardan, and yet you’ve done nothing, sulking after one little prank.”
My hand slides automatically to the hilt on my knife.
Valerian lifts my necklace of rowan berries from his pocket and smirks at
me. He must have cut it from my throat while I slept. I shudder at the thought
that he was so close to me, that instead of slicing the necklace, he could have
sliced skin. “Now you will do what I say.” I can practically smell the glamour in
the air. He’s weaving magic with his words. “Call down to Cardan. Tell him he’s
won. Then jump from the tower. After all, being born mortal is like being born
already dead.”
The violence of it, the awful finality of his command, is shocking. A few
months ago, I would have done it. I would have said the words, I would have
leapt. If I hadn’t made that bargain with Dain, I would be dead.
Valerian may have been planning my murder since the day he choked me. I
remember the light in his eyes then, the eagerness with which he watched me
gasp. Taryn had warned me I was going to get myself killed, and I bragged that I
was ready for it, but I am not.
“I think I’ll take the stairs,” I tell Valerian, hoping I don’t seem half as
shaken as I am. Then, acting as though everything is normal, I go to move past
him.
For a moment, he just looks confused, but his confusion quickly morphs
into rage. He blocks my escape, moving in front of the steps. “I commanded you.
Why don’t you obey me?”
Looking him dead in the eye, I force myself to smile. “You had the
advantage of me twice, and twice you gave it away. Good luck getting it again.”
He’s sputtering, furious. “You’re nothing. The human species pretends it is
so resilient. Mortal lives are one long game of make-believe. If you couldn’t lie
to yourselves, you’d cut your own throats to end your misery.”
I am struck by the word...