“How long have you known?” the goblin asks.
For a moment, Oak isn’t sure what he means. “About what Garrett did? Not long.” Above them, the black bees of the Milkwood buzz, carrying nectar to their queen. Late afternoon sunlight turns the pale trees gold. He sets his jaw. “Someone should have told me.”
“Someone clearly did,” says the Roach.
Leander, he supposes, which hardly counts. And Hyacinthe, although he didn’t know the whole of it. Oak doesn’t want to blame either of them out loud, not to someone who will carry the tale to his sister. He understands what the Roach is doing, getting him alone like this, understands it well enough to avoid the trap. He shrugs.
“Did you poison him?” the Roach asks.
“I thought Garrett poisoned me,” the prince says, shaking his head.
“Never,” says the goblin. “He regretted what he did to Liriope. Tried to make it up to Locke by giving him his true name. But Locke’s not the person to trust with that sort of thing.”
Oak wonders if Garrett tried to make it up to him, too, in ways he never saw. Teaching him the sword, volunteering to go north when the prince was in trouble, going to Oak with information before taking it to Jude. He didn’t like having a reason to be anything but angry, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“There was something he needed to tell me,” Oak says. “Not about any of that. Something else.”
“Once you’re delivered to Insear, I’ll check out his part of the lair. If he had any sense, he wrote it down.”
At the edge of the Milkwood, they pass the Lake of Masks. Oak’s gaze goes to the water. You never see your own face, always the face of someone else, someone from the past or future. Today he sees a blond pixie laughing as she splashes someone else—a man in black with saltwhite hair. Recognizing neither of them, he turns away.
At the coastline, several boats await them, pale, narrow boats with high prows and sterns curving upward so that they look like crescent moons floating on their backs—all crewed by armored guards. As the sun dips beneath the ocean on the horizon, Oak looks across to Insear, outfitted with tents for the festivities to come, then to the sparkling lights of Mandrake Market, and beyond, to the Tower of Forgetting, stark black against the red-and-gold sky.
He and the Roach get into one of the boats, and Jack, having shifted into his bipedal form, gets in after them. A guard Oak doesn’t recognize nods to them and then puts up the sail. A few moments later, they are speeding across the short stretch of sea.
“Your Majesty,” says the guard. “There are tents for your refreshment. Yours is marked with your father’s sign.”
The prince nods, distracted.
The Roach stays in the boat. “I’ll find out what the Ghost knew, if I can,” he says gruffly. “You stay out of trouble.”
Oak couldn’t count how many times someone said that to him. He isn’t sure he ever listened.
On Insear, there is a small forest of pavilions and other elaborate tents. He looks among them for Wren’s, listening in vain for the sound of her voice or Tiernan’s. He doesn’t hear either of them, and he doesn’t see Madoc’s moon-and-dagger crest marking a tent for him, either.
Everything feels wrong. He can see individual threads but not make out the larger web, and there isn’t much time.
It may already be too late. Wasn’t that what Wren said?
Surely, she couldn’t have been referring to the poison.
I’m not the one who needs saving.
He pushes the thought from his mind. No, she couldn’t have been speaking about that. She couldn’t have a hand in murdering Lady Elaine and probably killing Garrett, too, for all that turning him into a tree might help.
As Oak and Jack walk on, the prince spots a tent with the flap open and Tatterfell within. But it isn’t Madoc’s crest that’s stamped on the outside. The prince frowns at the mark until he understands what he’s looking at. Dain’s crest. But people don’t generally refer to Oak as Dain’s son, even though at this point it’s well known where his Greenbriar blood comes from. If she sees this, Oriana is going to have a fit.
Oak puzzles over who arranged things this way. Not his sister. Nor Cardan, unless this is some kind of backhanded way of reminding Oak of his place. But it seems a little too backhanded. Cardan is subtle but not confusingly subtle.
He steps inside. The tent is furnished with rugs covering the rock and patches of grass. He spots a table is crowded with bottles of water and wine and the pressings of fruit. Candles burn to chase away shadows. Tatterfell looks up from spreading his change of clothes out on a low couch.
“You’re early,” the imp says. “And who’s this?”
Jack comes forward to take Tatterfell’s hand and bow deeply over it. “His steed and sometimes companion, Jack of the Lakes. It is my honor, lovely lady. Perhaps we shall dance together this evening.”
The little faerie blushes, looking very unlike her usual grouchy self.
Oak looks at the burgundy doublet, chosen hours earlier. He can still feel the disorientation of the blusher mushroom coursing through his system, but his movements are less stiff and more sure.
“You must dress for the festivities,” she says.
He opens his mouth to tell her that they’re probably not going to happen, then remembers her calling tonight a farce. Did she know something? Did she have a part in this?
He needs to think straight, but it’s so hard with blusher mushroom still addling his mind. Almost certainly, Tatterfell was not planning any assassinations. But he wonders if the poisonings had to do with stopping the ceremony.
That theory didn’t withstand much scrutiny, though. If they wanted it stopped, and had some power over Wren, couldn’t they pressure her to end it? Whoever they were.
As his mind runs in circles, he strips off his hunting clothes and puts on the new, more formal ones. In moments, Tatterfell is dusting him off and polishing away any mud on his hooves. As though he really is going to his wedding.
The flap of the tent opens, and two knights step inside.
“The High King and Queen request your presence in their tent before the revel begins,” one says.
“Is Wren there?” he asks.
The knight who spoke shakes his head. He looks to be at least part redcap. The other knight has more elven features and dark eyes. He seems twitchy.
“Tell them I will be along presently,” Oak says.
“I’m afraid we’re to escort you—now.”
That explains the twitchiness, then. “And if I don’t comply?”
“We must yet bring you to them,” the elven knight says, looking unhappy about it.
“Well, then,” Oak says, walking to them. He could, perhaps, use his charm to talk the knights out of it, but that seems hardly worth it. Jude would only send more soldiers, and these two would get in undeniable trouble.
The prince carefully does not look in the direction of Jack. Since the kelpie wasn’t mentioned, he doesn’t have to go and will be the safer for it.
Lightning slices across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder. No rain has started yet, though the air is thick with it. The wind is picking up, too, whipping the skirts of the tents. Oak wonders if Bogdana has something to do with this. Certainly, she is in a bad enough mood.
He thinks of Wren again, of the talons biting into her skin. Of her words in the gardens. I’m not safe. You can’t trust me.
There is little for him to do but walk across Insear behind the knights, past where garlands of ferns and wisteria and toadstools have been slung from trees, and musicians are tuning their fiddles, while a few courtiers, arriving unfashionably early, are selecting drinks from a large table, loaded with bottles of all shapes and sizes and colors.