Faina blinked a few times and looked directly at Dinah. A moment of clarity lit up her eyes as the black marks left by the roots faded into her skin. Her arm reached out and clutched Dinah’s fingers roughly. “She’s not who you think she is, she is a good girl, be merciful, please . . . the one you call the Duchess. . . .”
Vittiore? Dinah’s heart skipped a beat. This was about Vittiore?
“Are you talking about Vittiore?”
“He came in the night. With the devil steed, and many men. He was looking for something, looking for the yellow and the blue, looking for something he would never have again, something he only had once.” Her voice lifted in a song. “Blond, blond like the sun on the shore she was. . . .” Her eyes widened. “The wrong crown waits for her. The strings will tighten around her arms, and she will dance, oh she will dance for her head, strings around her wrists like roots. Curls in blood, curls in blood. . . .”
The woman was making no sense. It reminded Dinah of every conversation she had ever had with Charles. She took Faina’s hand in her own. “Please try not to speak in riddles. I need you to remember what you know.”
Faina blinked. “Have you seen my baby? She was here, once, inside of me. Now there is nothing but the black, the roots; they show me things. I know things. She will find her death under the heart, trampled under the devil steed, just like me. The palace from his story will break her.”
“She’s mad!” hissed Wardley.
Faina raised her head to look at Wardley and licked her lips. “You must have been mad,” she said, “or you would not have come here.”
Dinah pulled Faina to her feet and rested her on the stone platform that served as her bed. “What do you know? I need you to tell me. THINK. How did you get here?”
Faina’s lower lip trembled and black tears that looked like ink began rolling down her face. “We did nothing but serve Wonderland, all our lives. Catching clams and oysters for the King’s pleasure and table. I have seen the beauty of a fiery sunset over the Western Sea, of shells in my baby’s hand. And then it was all gone, in the flash of a silver blade. All because of you. The Queen’s cold bed was for naught, but she will, oh yes, she will rise like the sun, my own little sun . . . she will possess all that you desire.”
She leaned against Dinah, who held her breath against the wave of nausea that passed through her. Faina smelled like nothing she could ever describe—the smell of the tower itself, an ancient evil, filth and death.
“Please, Your Grace! Please don’t let them tie me to the tree. The root shows me things, horrible things, beautiful things. . . .” She started babbling incoherently.
“That’s Yurkei,” hissed Wardley. “She’s speaking Yurkei!”
Dinah listened closely but all her language lessons were useless. The Yurkei that Faina was speaking was a strange blend of sounds and random words. Faina’s body gave a jerk, and then another. Dinah held Faina’s head gently with her hands as she thrashed in the darkness.
“I know,” she murmured. “I know it hurts. I know it feels horrible to not have control.”
She flashed to Charles, how his mind was a wild, unknowable thing, always seeing but never sharing, straining but always failing to make a human connection. With a loud scream, Faina’s seizing ended and she laid her head on Dinah’s lap. Her bright-blue eyes shone with a new clarity, her voice unwavering. The madness had retreated. “You have to go,” she whispered. “Straddle the devil. And when the time comes, do not open the marked door. Please!” She grabbed Dinah’s arm, long nails ripping into her pale skin. “Please! Do not heed the blood of secrets.”
“What do you mean?” Dinah heard the faint sound of marching from down below. The Clubs were changing their watch.
“It’s time to leave, right now, we have to go!” insisted Wardley. “We will not be so lucky with the night Clubs coming in.”
Dinah leapt up. “We can’t leave her here like this—they’ll bind her to the tower again!”
“What did you think went on in the towers? Tea and tarts? That isn’t our choice to make! She is a prisoner here, and you are the Princess. We need to leave. You won’t get any more information from her!”
He was right. Faina was clawing her way toward the back of the cell. Wardley reached into his baldric and pulled out a thin dagger, barely the width of a finger. He placed it on the ground and kicked it across the floor toward Faina’s blackened hand.
“What are you doing?” demanded Dinah.
“A kindness,” snapped Wardley. He yanked Dinah to her feet. She tore away from him and knelt beside Faina, covering her with her cloak.
“I’ll come back for you, I will,” she insisted.
Faina closed her eyes. “Not this time. There will be a bloody end for Faina, no baby at her breast.” She looked up at Dinah, a peaceful contentment passing over her features. “Oh, my poor Queen. Your heart will sway your hand.”
“CRAY!” Wardley shouted, banging his sword against the lock. “Open this cell at once.”