“We’re a blasted bunch of idiots,” Tips snarled. “Fools, snatching the low-hanging fruit without worrying that it dangled from our enemy’s hand. He’ll pay for this, mark my words.”
I could not deny my elation. I had the half-bloods – at least some of them – back on my side. I held up a cautionary hand. “We cannot act in haste.”
Tips’s brow furrowed, and the rest of his crew made angry exclamations demanding instant action.
“He’ll have predicted that this conversation would occur,” I said. “He’ll know I’m down here by now, and he will be expecting us to take certain actions.”
“Which actions?”
“I don’t know.” I sucked in a deep breath. “But I do know he will have planned for all contingencies.”
Tips crossed his arms. “So what do we do?”
I cast my gaze around the tunnel, meeting the eyes of every one of the young men and women. “We need to figure out his endgame, and we need to sabotage it.”
The mine echoed with shouts of agreement, but Tips was quiet. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘us’ and ‘we’ coming from you, Tristan, but what makes you think we want you as our leader again? You betrayed us once to suit your purposes, how are we to know you won’t do it again?”
The tunnel grew deathly quiet.
“You don’t,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Which is why I’m not asking to be your leader – I’m asking for you to let me help us accomplish this coup as comrades. As equals. And…” I hesitated, the cynical, logical part of my brain screaming that what I was about to do was absolute lunacy. That I would have cause to regret this action countless times in the future. But I needed their trust. No… I needed to prove that I could be trusted.
“I…” My throat felt tight, as though my very nature was trying to strangle the words forming in my mind. “I, Tristan of the Royal House of Montigny, do swear that I will never again use or speak the true name of a half-blood, or” – I glanced at Marc – “full-blooded troll for the rest of my days.”
My vision blurred, and I could feel myself lose control of the power of their names. It was still there, like a sword lying motionless behind an impenetrable shield of glass, forever out of my reach. I felt rather than saw a shudder run through Marc, Vincent, and the mining crew as my power over them was relinquished. Only Tips seemed unaffected, which was strange. Very strange indeed.
“A grand gesture,” he muttered, seeming to sense my scrutiny. “One we all appreciate.”
I leaned back on my heels, not taking my eyes off him. “Some more than others, perhaps.” A bead of sweat trickled down his face. He licked his lips, looking anywhere but at me. A dark and ugly suspicion grew inside me, an inkling of an idea that, if proven true, would rattle Trollus to its very core. Not possible, not possible!
I flicked my attention to the other half-bloods, but they showed no signs of Tips’s nerves. Perhaps they didn’t know? He was more human than any of them – it was possible the talent was unique to him, and if so, bringing it out into the open could be his undoing. And I needed him.
“I would speak with you alone,” I said softly enough that only he and Marc could hear.
Tips wiped the sweat off his brow. “No…” he replied, the word sounding like he’d torn it out of his chest. “Anything that needs saying can be said in front of my crew. I trust them.”
With his life? Because if what I suspected was true, his life would be very much in jeopardy. I’d have to speak to him about it later.
“I accepted your criticism of my previous actions. Of my… duplicity,” I said instead, leaning heavily on the word. “And have since dealt with you honestly and in good faith. I would have the same from you, should we agree to conspire together against my father.”
“A fair demand.” Tips closed his eyes for a long moment, and I watched his throat move as he swallowed hard. “We’ll need a moment.”
I nodded. Tips crutched over to where his crew stood, said a few words to Vincent, who started in our direction. Then one of the half-bloods erected a flimsy shield and they all began to talk in earnest.
“Why did you do it?” The words all but exploded out of Marc’s lips.
“Without free will there can be no equality, and while I held the power of your names, your will was always within my control.”
“But at what cost?” he demanded.
There was a wild tension about him, and I could feel the heat of magic ebbing and flowing through the tunnel. “How much it cost me?” I asked, then paused, realizing the true source of his anger. “Or how much it cost you?”
Marc spun away from us and slumped against the tunnel wall, his face entirely hidden by shadows. “It is all undone.” I had not heard such despair in his voice in a very long time. Not since the days following Pénélope’s death.