W
hen Oak returns to the bedroom in the tower, two servants are waiting for him. One has the head of an owl and long, gangly arms. The other has skin the color of moss and small moth wings.
“We are to ready you for bed,” says one, indicating the dressing gown.
After weeks wearing the same rags, this is a lot. “Great. I can take it from here,” he says.
“It is our duty to make sure you’re properly cared for,” says the other, ignoring Oak’s objections and shoving his arms into the positions necessary for the removal of his doublet.
The prince submits, allowing them to strip him down and put him in the robe. It’s a thick blue satin, lined in gold and warm enough that he doesn’t entirely begrudge the change. It is strange to have spent weeks being treated as a prisoner, to now be treated as a prince. To be pampered and bullied just as he would be in Elfhame, not trusted to do basic tasks for himself.
He wonders if they do this to Wren. If she lets them.
He thinks of the rough silk of her hair slipping through his fingers.
All that matters is that I do want you.
As he sat for those long weeks in the prisons, he dreamed of her speaking words like those. But if she truly desired him only to be a handsome object with no will of his own, sprawled at her feet like a lazy hound, he would come to hate it. Eventually, he would hate her, too.
He goes to the mantel and takes the key. The metal is cold in the palm of his hand.
If she wants more from him, if she wants him, then she has to trust that if he leaves, he’ll return.
Taking a deep breath, he walks to the bed. The dressing gown is warm but won’t be once he hits the wind. He takes the thickest of the blankets and wraps it over his shoulders like a cloak. Then, ragwort stalk in one hand, he opens the door and peers out into the corridor.
No guard waits for him. He supposes Hyacinthe made sure of that.
As lightly as he can with his hooves, he goes to the stairs and begins to ascend. Up the spiraling structure, avoiding the landings until at last he comes to the top of the parapet. He steps out into the cold and looks out on the white landscape below.
As high up as he is, he can see beyond the trolls’ massive—and as yet unfinished—wall. He squints as he spots what appears to be a flickering flame. And then another. A sound comes to him with the wind. Metallic and rhythmic, at first it sounds like sheeting rain. Then like the early rumblings of thunder.
Below him, behind the battlements, guards shout to one another. They must have spotted whatever it is that Oak is seeing. There’s a confusion of footsteps.
But it isn’t until the prince hears the distant blare of a horn that he finally identifies what he’s been looking at. Soldiers marching toward the Citadel. The snake promised that in three days’ time, someone would rescue him. What he didn’t expect was that it would be the entire army of Elfhame.
Oak paces back and forth atop the cold parapet, panic making it impossible to focus. Tink, he tells himself. Tink.
He could use the ragwort steed and fly to them—assuming they would know it was him and not shoot him out of the sky. But once he got there, then what? They marched here for a war, and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe they would merely turn around and go home once he was safe.
No, once he was safe, they would have no reason to hold back.
He grew up in a general’s home, so he has a sense of what’s likely to happen next. Grima Mog will send ahead riders to meet with Wren. They will demand to see him and offer terms of surrender. Wren will reject that and possibly unmake the messengers.
He needs to do something, but if he goes there with the bridle cutting into his cheeks, that will end all hope of peace.
Closing his eyes, Oak thinks through his options. They’re all terrible, but the sheer mad audacity of one has a particular appeal.
Is there no situation you’re not compelled to make worse?
The prince hopes that Hyacinthe isn’t right.
He doesn’t have a lot of time. Dropping the blanket, he heads down the steps, not bothering to care how loud his hooves are on the ice. Any guard that hears him has bigger problems.
Halfway down the spiral stairs, he almost crashes into a nisse with hair the green of celery and eyes so pale they are almost colorless. The faerie is carrying a tray with strips of raw venison arranged on a plate beside a bowl of stewed seaweed. Startled, the nisse takes a step back and loses his balance. The whole tray crashes down, plate cracking, seaweed splashing onto the steps.
The terror on the nisse’s face makes it clear that the punishment for such a mishap in the old Court of Teeth would have been terrible. But when the nisse realizes who is standing in front of him, he becomes, if anything, more afraid.
“You’re not supposed to be out of your rooms,” the nisse says.
Oak notes the raw meat. “I suppose not.”
The nisse starts to move away, stepping down a stair, looking behind him in a nervous way that suggests he will run. Before he can, Oak presses his hand over the nisse’s mouth, pushing the faerie’s back to the wall, even as he struggles against the prince’s grip.
Oak needs an ally, a willing one.
Hating himself, the prince reaches for the honey-mouthed power that stretches languorously at his summons. He leans in to whisper in the nisse’s ear. “I don’t want to frighten you,” he says, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “And I don’t intend to hurt you. When you came here, I’ll wager it was because of a bad bargain.”
That’s how it was in Balekin’s house. And he didn’t think anyone would stay working for Lord Jarel and Lady Nore if they had any other option.
The nisse doesn’t respond. But something in his expression and his stance makes Oak understand that the servant has been punished before, has been badly hurt, more than once. No wonder Oak scares him.
“What did you promise? I can help,” Oak asks, pulling his hand away slowly. The burr is still in his voice.
The nisse relaxes some, tipping his head back against the wall. “Mortals found my family. I don’t know what they thought we were, but they killed two of us and caught the third. I got away and came to the only place I knew could get back the lover that was taken—the Ice Needle Citadel. And I promised that if they were returned to me, I would loyally work in the Citadel until one of the royal family thought I had repaid my debt and dismissed me.”
Oak lets out a groan. That’s the sort of desperate, foolish bargain he associates with mortals, but mortals are not the only ones who grow desperate or who can be foolish. “Is that exactly what you promised?” Again, his voice has lost its honey-tongued power. He became too distracted to maintain it, too interested in what he wants to remember to say the right thing.
The nisse winces. “I will never forget.”
Oak thinks about being a child and reckless about magic. He thinks about Valen and how furious he was after he realized Oak was enchanting him.
When he speaks, he can feel the air thicken. “I am one of the royal family. Not the one you meant, but you didn’t specify, so I ought to be able to free you from your debt. But I need your help. I need someone to act as a messenger.” Oak can feel the moments his words sink in, like a fish biting a worm, only to have a hook sink through its cheek.
He remembers the feeling of his body betraying him, the feeling of his limbs fighting against his will. There’s none of that here. This is the opportunity the nisse has been looking for.
“We could both get in a lot of trouble,” he says with a nervous glance down the stairs.
“We could,” Oak says in his regular voice.
The nisse nods slowly, pushing off from the wall. “Tell me what you will have me do.”
“First, I need something other than this to wear.”
The nisse raises his eyebrows.
“Yes, yes, you find me to be vain,” says Oak. “But I’m afraid I still need to discover wherever it is that they keep Lord Jarel’s old clothes.”