Someday, when they found the Gwyrach who had killed her mother, her Hand would join the others. Wasn’t that what Mia wanted?
A servant girl stood quietly in the shadows, watching. She was wide-eyed and coltish, her thick hair woven into a long yellow braid that hung down her back. She raised her gloved hand in a tentative wave, and Mia tipped her head. When she did, her eyes fell on a fresh Hand encased in a glass box. The skin was caked with grime, nails torn to shreds and still rimmed with blood. Surely this Hand had belonged to the Gwyrach she heard screaming.
It troubled her how thin the wrist was, how frail. Child size. Mia saw the angry fingernail grooves in the palm where she had clenched her little fist.
Demon hand, she thought as she picked up her pace. Demon flesh.
But for the Hand of a demon, it was painfully small.
Chapter 7
Smoldering
MIA WAS ALMOST THROUGH the Hall when she heard music. A fragile, haunting melody, one she was sure she’d heard before. She followed it.
The notes led her down the castle’s glossy black corridors, past the buttery and the watching chamber, through the sunken indoor gardens with their twisting vines and blooms. At every turn Mia saw herself reflected in the glassy walls.
She came to a halt outside the library. It was her favorite room in the Kaer; she’d spent many hours there, happily ensconced in books. The library boasted an impressive collection of anatomy plates and medical journals, with far more volumes than the Roses kept in their mountain cottage.
Now she peered in from the corridor. In the eastern alcove, the prince sat at a satiny black piano. She’d never even noticed there was a piano in the library—but then, her head was always in a book.
Quin’s head was bent over the keys, Beo and Wulf curled around the pedals at his feet. He was singing softly.
“Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.”
He had a beautiful voice, light and pure. She’d never seen him look so peaceful. Though he had lit no torches, a shaft of silver moonlight threaded through the narrow loop window, and his hair glinted like spun gold.
She recognized the song. Once, when she was a child in the forests of Ilwysion, a troupe of traveling musicians from Luumia had performed a play in the village square. This was the ballad the knight sang to his fair maiden. For months afterward, Mia and Angelyne donned their mother’s fancy lavender and lemon-yellow gowns and whirled through the cottage, belting out the words to “Under the Snow Plum Tree” and making proclamations of undying love. Back then, Mia had been happy to read dreamy novels and play dress-up with her sister. It was only after their mother died that she decided she had no use for fairy tales.
Now, as she stared at the prince, her mind wandered back to those stories. Quin was as handsome as any knight. A few years ago, she might have swooned over his flawless face. If he had even a kernel of warmth, the smallest spark of passion, perhaps it could be coaxed into a flame, the flame into a fire. But all she had ever felt from Quin was ice. How was one supposed to kindle heat from an iceberg?
As she stood in the doorway, ruminating over this impossible alchemy, the dogs gave her away.
Wulf and Beo loped toward her, happy to press their noses into her knees. They must have picked up her scent.
The music ceased abruptly as the prince rose from the bench.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Your Grace. I thought you were in the Gallery discussing politics.” How had he managed to bypass the Hall of Hands without her seeing him? She answered her own question: because he’d lived in the castle his whole life. He knew the labyrinth passageways far better than she did.
“I’ve never cared much for politicking,” he said.
Mia stifled a groan. He caught it.
“Have I said something to amuse you?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . .” She hesitated, wondering how much to say.
“Speak your mind.”
“Of course you’re not interested in politics. Politics is about power, and yours has never been in dispute.”
To her surprise, he didn’t contest the point. “You think I’m a spoiled brat.”
“I think you’ve been coddled. Your Grace,” she added quickly. She hadn’t meant to be quite so surly. But then, she had no interest in being charming, either. To charm someone was just a watered-down version of enthralling them.
Second only to murder, enthrallment was the form of magic Mia feared most. The Gwyrach could entrance a victim’s heart with passion, spike his blood with desire, and—most unsettling—strip him of his consent. She could hear her father’s voice in her head: To enthrall someone is to enslave them, little rose. You’ve stripped them of their consent, robbed them of their choice. And without choice, what are we?
She stooped to pet Beo. “Do your dogs like the music?”
Silence. Then, “Beo does. Like any woman, she has excellent taste. Her brother is a wholly different matter, the uncivilized beast. Wulf prefers the clavichord.”
Was he making a joke? His face was unreadable. Prince Quin, master of deadpan. Who’d have thought?
She waited for him to say something else, then realized he was waiting for her to say something. Her mind was as blank as the pages in her mother’s book.
“Well then. I’ll leave you in peace.” She turned to go.
“Wait.”
He looked different, standing there at the piano, with Wulf at his feet whining to be petted. The top buttons of his emerald jacket were unbuttoned, revealing a triangle of smooth golden skin. She forced her eyes back to the bookshelves.
“Do you agree with my sister?” he said. “About magic?”
Her internal organs were listing again, a fleet of ships canting against her bones. Even if she had agreed with Karri—which she didn’t—she would never confess it to Quin. To disagree with King Ronan was tantamount to treason.
“Your father understands the import of the Hunters,” she said. “For that I am very grateful.”
It was difficult to see in the moonlight, but she thought she detected disappointment on Quin’s face. He stiffened.
“I know you want nothing to do with me. You’d rather join your father’s merry band of assassins and go hunt Gwyrach for sport.”
“You think we hunt for sport?”
“You should know I’m not pleased about this marriage, either. Not that my father cares one whit about what I want. Not that he’d ever take my personal desires into account. Our union is an alliance between powerful houses. If magic roils and bubbles under the meniscus of assent, your father will find it and choke it out. You offer a constant reminder that, for a Gwyrach, death is never far behind.”
She’d never heard the prince speak so many consecutive words. Meniscus of assent. Who talked like that outside of books?
Pretentious coddled princes, that was who.
Her anger was a soft tapping from a distant room. So the prince would never love her. Fine. She would never love the prince. Love was a gambit, and a bad one at that. The only love she trusted was her love for Angelyne. For her sister, she would die a thousand deaths. To save her sister, she was about to.
“On this we are agreed,” she said. “Our union is purely transactional. An unfortunate symptom of our parentage, nothing more.” She marched briskly to the piano and extended her gloved hand. “Are we of accord?”
For a moment, Quin paused. Then he reached out and shook her hand.
Heat poured over her like honey. Steamy, sticky warmth, spilling across the soft skin of her arms and shoulders. Her fingers were ten bars of chocolate, slowly melting into paste. Good enough to eat.