Oak bites his tongue. Hyacinthe has not yet come to the favor part.
“There’s something I want to know, but I am not crafty enough to discover it. Nor am I so well connected.” Hyacinthe looks as though he hates admitting this. “But you—you deceive as easily as you breathe and with as little thought.”
“And you want . . .”
“Revenge. I thought it was impossible, but Madoc told me something different,” Hyacinthe says. “You should care, you know? You owe her a blood debt as well.”
Oak frowns. “Prince Dain killed Liriope, and he’s dead himself. I know you want to punish someone—”
“No, he ordered her killed,” Hyacinthe says. “But he wasn’t the one to administer the poison. Not the one to sneak past my father as he guarded her. Not the one to leave you both for dead. That is the person I can still kill for my father’s sake.”
Oak assumed that Dain administered the poison. Slipped it into a drink. Poured it over her lips while she slept beside him. He never imagined that her murderer was still alive.
“So I find the person who gave her the poison. Or try, at least—and you remove the bridle,” Oak says. “I agree.”
“Bring me the hand of the person responsible for her death,” Hyacinthe says.
“You want a hand?” Oak raises both brows.
“That hand, I do.”
Oak doesn’t have time to negotiate. “Fine.”
Hyacinthe gives a strange smile, and Oak worries that he’s made the wrong decision, but it’s too late to question it.
“In Grimsen’s name,” Hyacinthe begins, and Oak jams his hand into the pocket of the cloak for the knife he found. His skin is clammy despite the cold. He cannot be sure that Hyacinthe won’t use the command to do something other than unbind him. If so, Oak is going to try to cut the falcon’s throat before he finishes speaking.
Probably there wouldn’t even be time. Oak’s fingers twitch.
“In Grimsen’s name, let the bridle no longer bind you,” Hyacinthe says.
Oak takes his blade to the strap, but it doesn’t cut. He nicks his own cheek for the effort. A moment later, though, he has unhooked the bridle with shaking hands. He pulls it off his face, throwing it to the ground. He can feel the indentations where the straps pressed into his cheek. Not sunken so deeply to scar, but tight enough to mark.
“A monstrous object,” Hyacinthe says as he bends to pick up the bridle. He wore it long enough to hate it, perhaps even more than Oak. “Now what?”
“We go to the Great Hall to meet the riders.” Oak traces his fingers over his cheeks, the cold of them a relief. He doesn’t like the idea that Hyacinthe has the bridle, but even if the prince could wrest it from him, he dreads so much as touching it.
Hyacinthe frowns. “And . . . ?”
“Attempt to seem convincingly happy to be Wren’s guest,” Oak says. “Then figure out how to send the army of Elfhame on its way.”
“That’s what you’re calling a plan?” Hyacinthe snorts. “We can’t be seen together, so give me a head start. I don’t want anyone to guess what I’ve done, in case it doesn’t work.”
“It would be a lot easier to get into the Great Hall with your help,” Oak points out.
“I’m sure it would be,” says Hyacinthe.
The falcon stalks off, leaving Oak to wait. To pace the Hall of Queens some more. Count off the minutes. Trace his fingers over his cheek to feel for any trace of the straps. There’s something there, but light, like the creases left from a pillow in the morning. He hopes these marks will disappear soon. Finally, he can bear to bide his time no longer. He pushes back the hood of his cloak and, head held high, walks toward the Great Hall.
If there is one thing he has learned from Cardan, it is that royalty inspires awe and awe can be cultivated easily into menace. It is with that in mind that he strides toward the guards.
Startled, they raise their spears. Two falcons, neither of whom he recognizes.
Oak looks at them blandly. “Well,” he says with an impatient wave of his hand. “Open the doors.”
He watches them hesitate. After all, he’s dressed well and clean. He doesn’t have on the bridle. And they must all know he is no longer being held in the prisons. They must all know Wren killed the last guard who put a finger on him.
“The emissaries of Elfhame are inside, are they not?” he adds.
One of the falcons nods to the other. Together, they open the double doors.
Wren sits on her throne; Bogdana and Hyacinthe stand beside her—along with a trio of heavily armored falcons.
And standing before her are four Folk—all of whom Oak recognizes. Unarmored, the Ghost appears to be playing the part of an ambassador. He’s dressed in finery, and the slightly human cast of his features makes him look far less threatening than he is.
An actual ambassador, Randalin, one of the Living Council, bites off his words at Oak’s arrival. Known as the Minister of Keys, he is short, horned, and even more beautifully dressed than the Ghost. As far as Oak is aware, Randalin can’t fight and, given the danger, Oak is surprised he came. Jude never much liked him, though, so he can certainly see why she allowed—and even perhaps encouraged—it.
Behind them are two soldiers. Oak knows Tiernan instantly, despite the helmet hiding his face. He assumes Hyacinthe knows him, too. At his side is Grima Mog, the grand general who replaced Oak’s father. A redcap, like Madoc, and the former general of the Court of Teeth. No one knows the defenses of the Citadel better than she does, so no one would have an easier time breaching them.
As Oak strides in, everyone becomes more alert. Tiernan’s hand goes automatically to the pommel of his sword in a foolish rejection of diplomacy.
“Hello,” the prince says. “I see you all started without me.”
Wren raises both her brows. Good game, he imagines her saying. Point to you. Possibly right before she tells her guards to pop off his head like a wine cork.
And then the Ghost stabs her in the back. And everyone cuts everyone else to pieces.
“Your Highness,” says Garrett, as though he really is some stuffy ambassador who hasn’t known Oak half his life. “After receiving your note, we expected you to be in attendance. We were growing concerned.”
Wren gives the prince a sharp look at the mention of a note.
“Hard to choose the right outfit for such a momentous occasion,” Oak says, hoping that the sheer absurdity of his plan will help sell it. “After all, it’s not every day that one gets to announce one’s engagement.”
At that, all of them stare at him agog. Even Bogdana seems to have lost the power of speech. But that is nothing to the way Wren is looking at him. It is as though she could immolate him in the cold green flame of her eyes.
Heedless of the warning, he walks to her side. Taking her hand, he slides the ring—the ring he was sent in the belly of an enchanted metal snake—off his pinkie finger and onto hers in the stealthy way the Roach taught him. So that it might be possible to believe she’d been wearing it the whole time.
He smiles up at her. “She’s accepted my ring. And so, I would be delighted to tell you that Wren and I are to be wed.”
CHAPTER
10
O
ak keeps his gaze on Wren. She could deny him, but she remains silent. Hopefully she sees that in the face of their engagement, it will be possible to avoid a war. Or, since she holds all the cards, maybe she finds it amusing to let him reshuffie a little.
A wordless growl comes from deep in Bogdana’s throat.
Hyacinthe gives Oak an accusatory look that seems to say, I can’t believe you talked me into helping you with such a stupid plan.
This was the gamble. That Wren didn’t want to fight. That she’d see the path to peace with Elfhame was through playing along with him.
“Quite a surprise,” the Ghost says, voice dry. Hyacinthe’s gaze drifts to him, and his expression stiffens, as though he recognizes the spy and understands the danger of his being here.