“It is tempting,” Oak says, a half smile on his face. “And yet, I think we will make our own way from here.”
I study the tops of my boots, avoiding eye contact with absolutely everyone.
“If you change your mind, you have only to call on me,” says the kelpie. “Wheresoever you are, I will come.”
Then Jack transforms into a horse, all mossy black and sharptoothed. As he rides off into the waning afternoon, despite everything, I am sorry to see him go.
CHAPTER
10
C
louds of mosquitoes and gnats blow through the hot, wet air of the marsh where the Thistlewitch lives. My boots sink into the gluey mud. The trees are draped heavily in creeper and poisonous trumpet vine, swaths of it blocking the path. In the brown water, things move.
“Sit,” Oak says when we come to a stump. This is the first time he’s spoken to me since we left Queen Annet’s Court. From his pack, he takes out a brush and a pot of shimmering gold paint. “Stick out a foot.”
Tiernan walks ahead, scoping the area.
The prince marks the bottom of my one boot, then the other, with the symbol we were given. His fingers hold my calves firmly in place. A treacherous heat creeps into my cheeks.
“I know you’re angry with me . . . ,” I begin.
“Am I?” he asks, looking up at me as though there is a bitter taste in his mouth. “Maybe I’m glad that you gave me an opportunity to be my worst self.”
I am still sitting on the stump, pondering that, when Tiernan returns and yanks a twist of hair from my head.
I hiss, coming to my feet, teeth bared, hand going for a knife that I no longer have.
“You know how the bridle works as well as anyone,” Tiernan says, low, so that Oak, busy drawing symbols on the bottoms of his hooves, does not seem to hear. He holds three pale blue strands of my hair in his hand. “Do not betray us again.”
A chill goes through me at those words. The great smith Grimsen forged that bridle, and like all his creations, it has a corrupt secret. There is another way than wearing it to be controlled—wrapped hair, and a few words—that was how Lady Nore and Lord Jarel had hoped to trick the High Queen into binding herself along with the serpent king.
The strands of my hair between Tiernan’s fingers are a reminder that even if they don’t put it on me, I am not safe from it. I should be grateful that I am not wearing it already.
“Were it up to me,” he says, “I’d have left you behind and taken my chances against Lady Nore.”
“It’s not too late,” I say.
“Don’t tempt me,” the knight growls back. “If not for you, Hyacinthe would still be with us.”
Even though I know he has reason to be cross with me, I am suddenly angry, too. Hyacinthe, with his half-broken curse, reminded me too much of myself, of my desire to have someone free me, whether I was deserving of it or not. “No one in chains could ever truly love you.”
He glares. “Do you expect me to believe you know anything about love?”
The truth of that hits like a blow.
I turn away and tromp along through the muck and rotted vegetation, the song of frogs loud in my ears, reminding me that the sharpness of the knight’s tongue already cost Oak the loyalty of Jack of the Lakes. He throws his words around like knives. Recklessly. Heedlessly.
Whatever the opposite of being honey-tongued might be.
A slithering snake catches my eye, its body as black as the serpent the High King became. Out in the water, something that is perhaps the head of a crocodile, if not more monstrous, breaks the surface. The creature’s skin has become green with vegetation.
I trust that the others see it, too, although they do not slow their step.
The air is overwarm and close, and I am exhausted from the events of the night before. My ribs hurt where they met Revindra’s boot. But I bite the inside of my cheek and keep going.
We walk for a long time before we come to a clearing where a few mismatched and rusty human chairs sit. A few steps farther and we see a shriveled and ancient faerie squatting beside a fire. Over it is a spit, and threaded on the metal rod is a skinned rat. The Thistlewitch turns it slowly, making the meager fat sizzle.
The braided weeds and briars of her hair fall around her, serving as a cape. Large black eyes peer out from the tangle. She wears a gown of drab cloth and bark. When she moves, I see her feet are bare. Rings shine on several of her toes.
“Travelers,” she rasps. “I see you have made your way through my swamp. What is it that you seek?”
Oak steps forward and bows. “Honored lady, finder of lost things, we have come to ask you to use your power in our behalf.” From his pack, he pulls a bottle of honey wine, along with a bag of powdery white doughnuts and a jar of chili oil, and sets them down on the earth in front of her. “We’ve brought gifts.”
The Thistlewitch looks us over. I do not think she is particularly impressed. When her gaze falls on me, her expression changes to one of outright suspicion.
Oak’s glance goes to me, frowning in puzzlement. “This is Wren.”
She spits into the fire. “Nix. Naught. Nothing. That’s what you are. Nix Naught Nothing.” Then she indicates the gifts with a wave of her hand. “What will you have of me that you think to buy my favor so cheaply?”
Oak clears his throat, no doubt not liking how this is going so far. “We want to know about Mab’s bones and Mellith’s heart. And we want to find something.”
Mellith’s heart? I think of Hyacinthe’s warnings and the unseen message from Lady Nore. Is this the ransom she asked for in exchange for Madoc? I have heard nothing of it before.
As I look at the prince’s face, soft mouth and hard eyes, I wonder how important playing the part of the feckless courtier might be, if to show competence would be to endanger his sister?
Wonder how many people he’s killed.
“Ahhhhh,” says the Thistlewitch. “Now, there’s a story.”
“Mab’s bones were stolen from the catacombs under the palace of Elfhame,” the prince says. “Along with the reliquary containing them.”
The Thistlewitch’s ink-drop eyes watch him. “And you want them back? That’s what you mean to ask me to find for you?”
“I know where the bones are.” Beneath Oak’s calm is a grim resignation, writ in the furrow of his brow, the slant of his mouth. He means to get his father back, whatever the cost. “But not how Lady Nore can use them for what she has. And not why Mellith’s heart matters. Baphen, the Court Astrologer, told me some of the story. When I asked Mother Marrow for more, she sent me to you.”
The Thistlewitch shuffles to one of the chairs, her body hidden by the cape of her hair and all the briars and vines in it. I wonder, had I stayed in the woods long enough, if I might have found my hair turned into such a garment. “Come sit by my fire, and I will tell you a tale.”
We drag over a few more chairs and seat ourselves. In the light of the flames, the Thistlewitch looks more ancient than ever, and far less human.
“Mab was born when the world was young,” she says. “In those days, we Folk were not so diminished as we are now, when there is so much iron. Our giants were as tall as mountains, our trolls like trees. And hags like myself held the power to bring all manner of things into being.