He looks surprised. Even in the Tower of Forgetting, when he was a prisoner, I still let Vulciber strike me. In the Undersea, I pretended to having no dignity at all. Why should he think I see myself any differently than he sees me?
“You are the one who bent your head to Orlagh instead of to your own brother,” I say. “You’re the coward and a traitor. A murderer of your own kin. But worse than all that, you’re a fool.”
He bares his teeth as he advances on me, and I, who have been pretending to subservience, remember my most troublesome talent: pissing off the Folk.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Run like the coward you are.”
I take a step back.
Kill Prince Balekin. I think of Dulcamara’s words, but I don’t hear her voice. I hear my own, rough with sea water, terrified and cold and alone.
Madoc’s words of long ago come back to me. What is sparring but a game of strategy, played at speed?
The point of a fight is not to have a good fight, it’s to win.
I am at a disadvantage against a sword, a bad disadvantage. And I am still weak from my time in the Undersea. Balekin can hang back and take his time while I can’t get past the blade. He will take me apart slowly, cut by cut. My best bet is closing the distance fast. I need to get inside his guard, and I don’t have the luxury of taking his measure before I do it. I am going to have to rush him.
I have one shot to get this right.
My heart thunders in my ears.
He lunges toward me, and I slam my knife against the base of his sword with my right hand then grab his forearm with my left, twisting as though to disarm him. He pulls against my grip. I drive the knife toward his neck.
“Hold,” Balekin shouts. “I surr—”
Arterial blood sprays my arm, sprays the grass. It glistens on my knife. Balekin slumps over, sprawling on the ground.
It all happens so fast.
It happens too fast.
I want to have some reaction. I want to tremble or feel nauseated. I want to be the person who begins to weep. I want to be anyone but the person I am, who looks around to be sure no one saw, who wipes off my knife in the dirt, wipes off my hand on his clothes and gets out of there before the guards come.
You’re a good little murderer, Dulcamara said.
When I look back, Balekin’s eyes are still open, staring at nothing.
When I return, Cardan is sitting on the couch. The bucket is gone and so is the Bomb.
He looks at me with a lazy smile. “Your dress. You put it back on.”
I look at him in confusion, the consequences of what I’ve just done—including having to tell Cardan—are hard to think past. But the dress I am wearing is the one I wore before, the one I got from Mother Marrow’s walnut. There’s blood on one sleeve of it now, but it is otherwise the same.
“Did something happen?” I ask again.
“I don’t know?” he asks, puzzled. “Did it? I granted the boon you wanted. Is your father safe?”
Boon?
My father?
Madoc. Of course. Madoc threatened me, Madoc was disgusted by Cardan. But what has he done and what has it to do with dresses?
“Cardan,” I say, trying to be as calm as I can. I go over to the sofa and sit down. It’s not a small couch, but his long legs are on it, blanketed and propped up on pillows. No matter how far from him I sit, it feels too close. “You’ve got to tell me what happened. I haven’t been here for the last hour.”
His expression grows troubled.
“The Bomb came back with the antidote,” he says. “She said you’d be right behind her. I was still so dizzy, and then a guard came, saying that there was an emergency. She went to see. And then you came in, just like she said you would. You said you had a plan.…”
He looks at me, as though waiting for me to jump in and tell the rest of the story, the part I remember. But, of course, I don’t.
After a moment, he closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Taryn.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, because I don’t want to understand.
“Your plan was that your father was going to take half the army, but for him to function independently, he needed to be freed of his vows to the crown. You had on one of your doublets—the ones you always wear. And these odd earrings. Moons and stars.” He shakes his head.
A cold chill goes through me.
As children in the mortal world, Taryn and I would switch places to play tricks on our mother. Even in Faerie, we would sometimes pretend to be each other to see what we could get away with. Would a lecturer be able to tell the difference? Could Oriana? Madoc? Oak? What about the great and mighty Prince Cardan?
“But how did she make you agree?” I demand. “She has no power. She could pretend to be me, but she couldn’t force you—”
He puts his head in his long-fingered hands. “She didn’t have to command me, Jude. She didn’t have to use any magic. I trust you. I trusted you.”
And I trusted Taryn.
While I was murdering Balekin, while Cardan was poisoned and disoriented, Madoc made his move against the crown. Against me. And he did it with his daughter Taryn by his side.