She looks down the table at Balekin. “You see? That’s how it’s done.”
He appears sullen. He thinks a lot of himself and mislikes being put in his place. The eldest of Eldred’s children, he resented his father for not seriously considering him for the throne. I am sure he hates the way Orlagh talks to him. If he didn’t need this alliance, and if he wasn’t in her domain, I doubt he would allow it.
Perhaps here is a divide for me to exploit.
Soon a parade of dishes is brought out in cloches full of air, so that even under the water, they are dry until about to be eaten.
Raw fish, cut into artful rosettes and cunning shapes. Oysters, perfumed with roasted kelp. Roe, glistening red and black.
I don’t know if it’s allowed for me to eat without being explicitly granted permission, but I am hungry and willing to risk being reprimanded.
The raw fish is mild and mixed in some peppery green. I didn’t anticipate liking it, but I do. I quickly swallow three pink strips of tuna.
My head still hurts, but my stomach starts to feel better.
As I eat, I think about what I must do: listen carefully and act in every way as though I trust them, as though I am loyal to them. To do that, I must imagine myself into at least the shadow of that feeling.
I look over at Orlagh and imagine that it was she instead of Madoc who brought me up, that I was Nicasia’s sort-of sister, who was sometimes mean but ultimately looked out for me. At Balekin, my imaginings balk, but I try to think of him as a new member of the family, someone I was coming to trust because everyone else did. I turn a smile on them, a generous smile that almost doesn’t feel like a lie.
Orlagh looks over at me. “Tell me about yourself, little minnow.”
The smile almost wavers, but I concentrate on my full stomach, on the wonder and beauty of the landscape.
“There’s little to know,” I say. “I’m a mortal girl who was raised in Faerie. That’s the most interesting thing about me.”
Nicasia frowns. “Did you kiss Cardan?”
“Is that important?” Balekin wants to know. He is eating oysters, spearing them one after another with a tiny fork.
Orlagh doesn’t answer, just nods toward Nicasia. I like that she does that, putting her daughter above Balekin. It’s good to have something to like about her, something to concentrate on to keep the warmth in my voice real.
“It’s important if it’s the reason he didn’t agree to an alliance with the Undersea,” Nicasia says.
“I don’t know if I am supposed to answer,” I say, looking around in what I hope appears like honest confusion. “But yes.”
Nicasia’s expression crumples. Now that I am “glamoured,” she doesn’t seem to think of me as a person in front of whom she has to pretend to stoicism. “More than once? Does he love you?”
I didn’t realize how much she’d hoped I was lying when I’d told her I kissed him. “More than once, but no. He doesn’t love me. Nothing like it.”
Nicasia looks at her mother, inclining her head, indicating she got the answers she wanted.
“Your father must be very angry with you for ruining all his plans,” Orlagh says, turning the conversation to other things.
“He is,” I say. Short and sweet. No lies I don’t have to tell.
“Why didn’t the general tell Balekin about Oak’s parentage?” she continues. “Wouldn’t that have been easier than scouring Elfhame for Prince Cardan after taking the crown?”
“I am not in his confidence,” I say. “Not then and definitely not now. All I know is that he had a reason.”
“Doubtless,” Balekin says, “he meant to betray me.”
“If Oak was High King, then it would really be Madoc who ruled Elfhame,” I say, because it’s nothing that they don’t know.
“And you didn’t want that.” A servant comes in with a little silken handkerchief filled with fish. Orlagh spears one with a long fingernail, causing a thin ribbon of blood to snake toward me in the water. “Interesting.”
Since it’s not a question, I don’t have to answer.
A few other servants begin to clear the plates.
“And would you take us to Oak’s door?” Balekin asks. “Take us to the mortal world and take him from your big sister, carry him back to us?”
“Of course,” I lie.
Balekin shoots a look toward Orlagh. If they took Oak, they could foster him under the sea, they could marry him to Nicasia, they could have a Greenbriar line of their own, loyal to the Undersea. They would have options beyond Balekin for access to the throne, which cannot please him.
A long game, but in Faerie, that’s a reasonable way to play.
“This Grimsen creature,” Orlagh asks her daughter. “You really believe he can make a new crown?”
My heart feels for a moment as though it’s stuttered to a stop. I am glad no one was looking at me, because in that moment, I do not believe I could have hidden my horror.
“He made the Blood Crown,” says Balekin. “If he made that, surely he can make another.”