The Cruel Prince Page 16

  My cheeks heat, thinking of the way it had felt to wake up with his body stretched out beside mine. To get the attention off me, I start speculating about her. “Ooooh, maybe it’s Prince Balekin. Are you going to marry Prince Balekin? Or perhaps it’s Noggle and you can count the stars together.”

  She smacks me in the arm, a little too hard. “Stop guessing,” she says. “You know I’m not allowed to say.”

  “Ow.” I pick a white campion flower and stick it behind my ear.

  “So you like him?” she asks. “Really like him?”

  “Locke?” I ask. “Of course I do.”

  She gives me a look, and I wonder how much I worried her, not coming home the night before.

  “Balekin I like less well,” I say, and she rolls her eyes.

  When we get back to the stronghold, I find that Madoc has left word he will be out until late. With little else to do for once, I look for Taryn, but although I saw her go upstairs just minutes before, she’s not in her room. Instead, her dress is on the bed and her closet open, a few gowns hanging roughly, as though she pulled them out before finding them wanting.

  Has she gone to meet her suitor? I take a turn around the room, trying to see it as a spy might, alert for signs of secrets. I notice nothing unusual but a few rose petals withering on her dressing table.

  I go to my room and lie on my bed, going over my memories of the night before. Reaching into my pocket, I remove my knife to finally clean it. When I bring it out, I am holding the golden acorn, too. I turn the bauble over in my hand.

  It’s a solid lump of metal—a beautiful object. At first I take it only for that, before I notice the tiny lines running across it, tiny lines that seem to indicate moving parts. As though it were a puzzle.

  I can’t screw off the top, although I try. I can’t seem to do anything else with it, either. I am about to give up and toss it onto my dressing table when I glimpse a tiny hole, so small as to be nearly invisible, right at the bottom. Hopping off my bed, I rattle through my desk, looking for a pin. The one I find has a pearl on one end. I try to fit the point into the acorn. It takes a moment, but I manage, pushing past resistance until I feel a click and it opens.

  Mechanized steps swing out from a shining center, where a tiny golden bird rests. Its beak moves, and it speaks in a creaky little voice. “My dearest friend, these are the last words of Liriope. I have three golden birds to scatter. Three attempts to get one into your hand. I am too far gone for any antidote, and so if you hear this, I leave you with the burden of my secrets and the last wish of my heart. Protect him. Take him far from the dangers of this Court. Keep him safe, and never, ever tell him the truth of what happened to me.”

  Tatterfell comes into the room, bringing with her a tray with tea things. She tries to peek at what I am doing, but I cup my hand over the acorn.

  When she goes out, I set down the bauble and pour myself a cup of tea, holding it to warm my hands. Liriope is Locke’s mother. This seems like a message asking someone—her dearest friend—to spirit him—Locke—away. She calls the message her “last words,” so she must have known she was about to die. Perhaps the acorns were to be sent to Locke’s father, in the hopes Locke might spend the rest of his life exploring wild places with him rather than be caught up in intrigues.

  But since Locke is still here, it seems as if none of the three acorns were found. Maybe none of them even left her bower.

  I should give it to him, let him decide for himself what to do with it. But all I keep thinking about is the note on Balekin’s desk, the note that seemed to implicate Balekin in Liriope’s murder. Should I tell Locke everything?

  I know the provenance of the blusher mushroom that you ask after, but what you do with it must not be tied to me.

  I turn the words over in my mind the way I turned the acorn in my hand, and I feel the same seams.

  There’s something odd about that sentence.

  I copy it out again on a piece of paper to be sure I remember it correctly. When I first read it, the note seemed to imply that Queen Orlagh had located a deadly poison for Balekin. But blusher mushrooms—while rare—grow wild, even on this island. I picked blusher mushrooms in the Milkwood, beside the black-thorned bees, who build their hives high in the trees (an antidote can be made with their honey, I learned recently from all my reading). Blusher mushrooms aren’t dangerous if you don’t drink the red liquid.

  What if Queen Orlagh’s note didn’t mean that she’d found blusher mushrooms and she was going to give them to Balekin? What if by “know the provenance,” Orlagh literally just meant that she knew where particular blusher mushrooms had come from? After all, she says “what you do with it” and not “what you do with them.” She’s cautioning him about what he’s going to do with the knowledge, not the actual mushrooms.

  Which means he’s not going to poison Dain.

  It also means that Balekin may have uncovered who’d caused Locke’s mother’s death, if he found out who had the blusher mushrooms that killed her. The answer could have been there, among the other papers that I, in my eagerness, had overlooked.

  I have to go back. I have to get back into the tower. Today, before the coronation is any closer. Because maybe Balekin isn’t going to try to kill Dain at all and the Court of Shadows has the wrong idea. Or, if they have the right idea, he isn’t going to do it with blusher mushrooms.

  Gulping down my tea, I find the servant garb in the back of my closet. I take down my hair and arrange it in an approximation of the rough braid that the girls in Balekin’s house wore. I tuck my knife high on my thigh and shake out some of my silver box of salt into my pocket. Then I grab for my cloak, toe on my leather shoes, and am out the door, palms starting to sweat.

  I have learned a lot more since my first foray into Hollow Hall, enough to make me understand better the risks I was taking. That does nothing for my nerves. Given what I saw of him with Cardan, I am not at all confident I could endure what Balekin would do to me if he caught me.

  Taking a deep breath, I remind myself not to get caught.

  That’s what the Roach says a spy’s real job is. The information is secondary. The job is not to get caught.

  In the hall, I pass Oriana. She looks me up and down. I have to resist the urge to pull the cloak more tightly around myself. She is wearing a gown the color of unripe mulberries, and her hair is pulled slightly back. The very tips of her pointed ears are covered in shimmering crystal cuffs. I am a little envious of them. If I wore them, they’d disguise the human roundness of my own ears.

  “You came home very late last night,” she says, annoyance pulling at her mouth. “You missed dinner, and your father was expecting you to spar with him.”

  “I’ll do better,” I say, then instantly regret the declaration because I am probably not going to be back for dinner tonight, either. “Tomorrow. I’ll start doing better tomorrow.”

  “Faithless creature,” Oriana says, looking at me as though through the sheer intensity of her gaze she might ferret out my secrets. “You’re scheming.”

  I am so tired of her suspicion, so very tired.

  “You always think that,” I say. “It’s just that for once you’re right.” Leaving her to worry what that might mean, I go down the stairs and out onto the grass. This time, there’s no one in my way, no one to make me reconsider what I am about to do.

  I don’t bring the toad this time; I am more careful. As I walk through the woods, I see an owl circling overhead. I pull the hood of my cape to cover my face.

  At Hollow Hall, I stow my cloak outside between the logs of a woodpile and enter through the kitchens, where supper is being prepared. Squabs are lacquered with rose jelly, the smell of their crackling skin enough to make my mouth water and my stomach clench.

  I open a cabinet and am greeted by a dozen candles, all of them the color of buffed leather and accented with a gold stamp of Balekin’s personal crest—three laughing black birds. I take out nine candles and, trying to move as mechani
cally as possible, carry them past the guards. One guard gives me an odd look. I am sure there is something off about me, but he’s seen my face before, and I am more sure-footed than last time.

  At least until I see Balekin coming down the stairs.

  He glances in my direction, and it is all I can do to keep my head down, my step even. I carry the candles into the room in front of me, which turns out to be the library.

  To my immense relief, he doesn’t seem to truly see me. My heart is speeding, though, my breaths coming too fast.

  The servant girl who was cleaning the grate in Cardan’s room is blurrily putting books back onto the shelves. She is as I remember her—cracked lips, thin, and bruise-eyed. Her movements are slow, as if the air were as thick as water. In her drugged dream, I am no more interesting than the furniture and of less consequence.

  I scan the shelves impatiently, but I can see nothing useful. I need to get up to the tower, to go through all of Prince Balekin’s correspondence and hope I find something to do with Locke’s mother or Dain or the coronation, something I overlooked.

  But I can’t do anything with Balekin between me and the stairs.

  I look at the girl again. I wonder what her life is like here, what she dreams of. If she ever, for a moment, had a chance to get away. At least, thanks to the geas, if Balekin did catch me, this could not be my fate.

  I wait, counting to a thousand, while piling my candles on a chair. Then I look out. Thankfully, Balekin is gone. Quickly, I head up the stairs toward the tower. I hold my breath as I pass Cardan’s door, but luck is with me. It is shut tight.

  Then I am up the stairs and into Balekin’s study. I note the herbs in the jars around the room, herbs I see with new eyes. A few are poisonous, but most are just narcotic. Nowhere do I see blusher mushrooms. I go to his desk and wipe my hands against the rough cloth of my dress, trying to leave no trace of sweat, trying to memorize the pattern of papers.

  There are two letters from Madoc, but they just seem to be about which knights will be at the coronation and in what pattern around the central dais. There are others that seem to be about assignations, about revels and parties and debauches. Nothing about blusher mushrooms, nothing about poisons at all. Nothing about Liriope or murder. The only thing that seems even a little surprising is a bit of doggerel, a love poem in Prince Dain’s hand, about a woman who remains unidentified, except by her “sunrise hair” and “starlit eyes.”

  Worse, nothing I can find tells me anything about a plan to move against Prince Dain. If Balekin is going to murder his brother, he’s smart enough not to leave evidence lying around. Even the letter about the blusher mushroom is gone.

  I have risked coming to Hollow Hall for nothing.

  For a moment, I just stand there, trying to corral my thoughts. I need to leave without drawing attention to myself.

  A messenger. I will disguise myself as a messenger. Messages run in and out of estates all the time. I take a blank sheet of paper and scrawl Madoc on one side, then seal the other with wax. The sulfur of the match hangs in the air for a moment. As it dissipates, I descend the steps, faked message in hand.

  When I pass the library, I hesitate. The girl is still inside, mechanically lifting books from a pile and placing them on shelves. She will keep doing that until she’s told to do something else, until she collapses, until she fades away, unremembered. As if she were nothing.

  I cannot leave her here.

  I don’t have anything to go back to in the mortal world, but she might. And yes, it’s a betrayal of Prince Dain’s faith in me, a betrayal of Faerie itself. I know that. But all the same, I can’t leave her.

  There is a kind of relief in realizing it.

  I walk into the library, setting down the note on a table. She does not turn, does not react at all. I reach into my pocket and cup a little salt in the center of my palm. I hold it out to her, the way I would if I were coaxing a horse with sugar.

  “Eat this,” I tell her in a low voice.

  She turns toward me, although her gaze doesn’t focus. “I’m not allowed,” she says, voice rough with disuse. “No salt. You’re not supposed to—”

  I clap my hand over her mouth, some of the salt tipping out onto the ground, the rest pressed against her lips.

  I am an idiot. An impulsive idiot.

  Locking my arm around her, I drag her deeper into the library. She’s alternating between trying to shout and trying to bite me. She keeps scratching at my arms, her nails digging into my skin. I hold her there, against the wall, until she sags, until the fight goes out of her.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I hold on. “I’m winging it. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to save you. Please, let me do this. Let me save you.”

  Finally, she has been still long enough that I take a chance and pull my hand away. She’s panting, breaths coming fast. She doesn’t scream, though, which seems like a good sign.

  “We’re getting out of here,” I tell her. “You can trust me.”

  She gives me a look of blank incomprehension.

  “Just act like everything’s normal.” I pull her to her feet and realize the impossibility of what I’m asking. Her eyes are rolling in her head like a mad pony. I don’t know how long we have until she completely loses it.

  Still, there is nothing for me to do but march her out of Hollow Hall as fast as I can. I stick my head into the main chamber. It’s still empty, so I drag her from the library. She’s looking around as though she’s seeing the heavy wooden staircase and the gallery above for the first time. Then I remember I left my fake note on the table in the library.

  “Hold on,” I say. “I have to go back and—”

  She makes a plaintive sound and pulls against my grip. I drag her along with me anyway and grab the message. I crumple it up and stuff it into my pocket. It’s useless now, when the guards could recall it and connect a servant girl’s disappearance to the household of the person who stole her. “What’s your name?”

  The girl shakes her head.

  “You must remember it,” I insist. It’s terrible that instead of being sympathetic, I am annoyed. Buck up, I think. Stop feeling your feelings. Let’s go.

  “Sophie,” she says in a kind of sob. Tears are starting in her eyes. I feel worse and worse still for how cruel I am about to be.

  “You’re not allowed to cry,” I tell her as harshly as I can, hoping my tone will scare her into listening. I try my best to sound like Madoc, to sound as if I am used to having my commands obeyed. “You must not cry. I will slap you if I have to.”

  She cringes but subsides into silence. I wipe her eyes with the back of my hand. “Okay?” I ask her.

  When she doesn’t answer, I figure there’s no more point in conversation. I steer her toward the kitchens. We’ll have to pass by guards; there’s no other way out. She has pasted on a horrible rictus of a smile, but at least she has enough self-possession for that. More worrying is the way she can’t stop staring at things. As we walk toward the guards, the intensity of her gaze is impossible to disguise.

  I improvise, trying to sound as though I am reciting a memorized message, without inflection in the words. “Prince Cardan says we are to attend him.”

  One of the guards turns to the other. “Balekin won’t like that.”

  I try not to react, but it’s hard. I just stand there and wait. If they lunge at us, I am going to have to kill them.

  “Very well,” the first guard says. “Go. But inform Cardan that his brother demands he bring both of you back this time.”

  I don’t like the sound of that.

  The second guard glances over at Sophie and her wild eyes. “What do you see?”

  I can feel her trembling beside me, her whole body shaking. I need to say something fast, before she does. “Lord Cardan told us to be more observant,” I say, hoping that the plausible confusion of an ambiguous command will help to explain the way she’s acting.

  Then I walk on with Sophie through the kitchens,
past the human servants I am not saving, aware of the futility of my actions. Does helping one person really matter, on balance?

  Once I have power, I will find a way to help them all, I tell myself. And once Dain is in power, I will have power.

  I make sure to keep my movements slow. I let myself breathe only when we’ve finally stepped outside.

  And it turns out, even that’s too soon. Cardan is riding toward us on a tall, dappled gray horse. Behind him is a girl on a palfrey—Nicasia. As soon as he gets inside, the guards will ask him about us. As soon as he gets inside, he will know something is wrong.

  If he doesn’t see me and know sooner than that.

  What would be the punishment for stealing a prince’s servant? I don’t know. A curse perhaps, such as being turned into a raven and forced to fly north and live for seven times seven years in an ice palace—or worse, no curse at all. An execution.

  It takes everything I’ve got not to break and run. It’s not as though I think I could make it to the woods, especially not hauling a girl with me. He would ride us both down. “Stop staring,” I hiss at Sophie, harsher than I mean to. “Look at your feet.”

  “Stop scolding me,” she says, but at least she’s not crying. I keep my head down and, looping her arm through mine, walk toward the woods.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan swing down from his saddle, black hair blown by the wind. He looks in my direction and pauses for a moment. I suck in my breath and don’t run.

  I can’t run.

  There is no thundering of hoofbeats, no racing to catch and punish us. To my immense relief, he seems to see only two servants heading toward the forest, perhaps to gather wood or berries or something.

  The closer we get to the edge of the woods, the more each step feels fraught.

  Then Sophie sinks to her knees, turning to look back at Balekin’s manor. A keening sound comes from deep in her throat. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No no no no no. No. This isn’t real. This didn’t happen.”

  I jerk her up, digging my fingers into her armpit. “Move,” I say. “Move or I will leave you here. Do you understand me? I will leave you, and Prince Cardan will find you and drag you back inside.”