“We should never have joined the High Court. We should never have pledged to your fool of a king. I have come to deliver that message and one message more. You owe Lord Roiben a favor, and it best be granted.”
I worry over what he might ask me for. An unnamed favor is a dangerous thing to give, even for a mortal who cannot be forced to honor it.
“We have our own spies, seneschal. They tell us you’re a good little murderer. Here is what we want—kill Prince Balekin.”
“I can’t do that,” I say, too astonished to weigh my words. I am not insulted by her praise of my skill at killing, but setting me an impossible task is hardly flattery, either. “He’s an ambassador of the Undersea. If I killed him, we’d be at war.”
“Then go to war.” With that, she sweeps from the room, leaving me sitting in Oriana’s parlor when the steaming tray of tea comes in.
Once she is gone and the tea is cold, I climb the steps to my room. There, I take up Taryn’s knife and the other one hidden under my bed. I take the edge of one to the pocket of my dress, slicing through it so I can strap the knife to my thigh and draw it swiftly. There are plenty of weapons in Madoc’s house—including my own Nightfell—but if I start looking for them and belting them on properly, the guards are sure to notice. I need them to believe I have gone docilely back to bed.
Padding to the mirror, I look to see if the knife is concealed beneath my dress. For a moment, I don’t know the person looking back at me. I am horrified at what I see—my skin has a sickly pallor, my weight has dropped enough to make my limbs look frail and sticklike, my face gaunt.
I turn away, not wanting to look anymore.
Then I go out onto the balcony instead. Normally, it would be no small thing to climb over the railing and scale the wall down to the lawn. But as I put one leg over, I realize how rubbery my legs and arms have become. I don’t think I can manage the climb.
So I do the next best thing: I jump.
I get up, grass stains on my knees, my palms stinging and dirty. My head feels unsteady, as though I am still expecting to move with the current even though I am on land.
Taking a few deep breaths, I drink in the feeling of the wind on my face and the sounds of it rustling the leaves of the trees. I am surrounded by the scents of land, of Faerie, of home.
I keep thinking about what Dulcamara said: that Cardan refused to retaliate for the sake of my safe return. That can’t have made his subjects happy with him. I am not sure even Madoc would think it was a good strategy. Which is why it’s difficult to imagine why he agreed to it, especially since, if I stayed stuck in the Undersea, he’d be out of my control. I never thought he liked me enough to save me. And I am not sure I’ll still believe it unless I hear his reasons from his lips.
But for whatever reason he brought me back, I need to warn him about the Ghost, about Grimsen and the crown, about Balekin’s plan to make me into his murderer.
I start toward the palace on foot, sure it will take the guards far longer to realize I have gone than it would take the stable hands to discover a missing mount. Still, I am breathing hard soon after I start. Halfway there I have to stop and rest on a stump.
You’re fine, I tell myself. Get up.
It takes me a long time to make it to the palace. As I walk toward the doors, I square my shoulders and try not to show just how exhausted I am.
“Seneschal,” one of the guards at the gate says. “Your pardon, but you are barred from the palace.”
You will never deny me an audience or give an order to keep me from your side. For a delirious moment, I wonder if I’ve been in the Undersea for longer than Taryn told me. Maybe a year and a day is up. But that’s impossible. I narrow my gaze. “By whose command?”
“Apologies, my lady,” another knight says. His name is Diarmad. I recognize him as a knight Madoc has his eye on, someone he would trust. “The general, your father, gave the order.”
“I have to see the High King,” I say, trying for a tone of command, but instead a note of panic creeps into my voice.
“The Grand General told us to call you a carriage if you came and, if necessary, ride in it with you. Do you expect you will require our presence?”
I stand there, furious and outmaneuvered. “No,” I say.
Cardan couldn’t refuse me an audience, but he could allow someone else to give the order. So long as Madoc didn’t ask for Cardan’s permission, it didn’t contradict my commands. And it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out the sort of things I might have commanded Cardan—after all, most of it was stuff Madoc would probably have ordered himself.
I knew that Madoc wanted to rule Faerie from behind the throne. It didn’t occur to me that he might find his way to Cardan’s side and cut me out.
They played me. Either together or separately, they played me.
My stomach churns with anxiety.