But with Hurclaw’s soldiers all around us, there is a new danger. If he guesses I can control her, he will order me shot.
“So you do have it?” says Lady Nore. “Unless you failed your quest, little prince.”
My heart speeds. My sharp teeth are working through the rope, but I won’t sever it in time to stop him from having to answer. This plan seemed risky, but now it seems doomed.
“Let me say it in full so you will not worry over being deceived,” Oak says. “I have brought Mellith’s heart.”
I am stunned enough to stop chewing. The prince can’t say that. His mouth shouldn’t be able to form those words. He’s one of the Folk. He cannot lie any more than the rest of us.
And yet, I saw the deer carcass cut open, watched him buy a reliquary from the smiths. I know it is no ancient heart he brought to the Citadel.
Try to believe, whatever happens, whatever I say or do or have done, that my intention is for us to all survive this. That’s what he said to me on the boat. Was this what he meant? Was he willing to give away Mellith’s heart if it meant we all lived?
If he did, and the deer heart was for the purpose of deceiving me, then he is about to hand over immense, terrible power to Lady Nore. The kind of power with which she could threaten Elfhame. With which she could carve up the mortal world that she despises.
And I have no way to stop him.
“Where is it, then?” Lady Nore asks, a snarl in her voice.
Oak does not flinch. “I may have it, but I am not so foolish as to have it on me.”
Lady Nore scowls at him. “Hidden? To what purpose when you must hand it over to get your father?”
He shakes his head. “I would watch him leave, along with Wren, before I gave you anything.”
She frowns, studying him. Her gaze flicks to me. Then she laughs. “I could quibble, but I can be magnanimous in my victory. How about I turn Madoc out of the prisons and into the snow right now? I hope he does well with cold, since I fear the clothing he is wearing is quite thin. And unfortunately, some of my creatures hunt the lands around the Citadel.”
“That would be unfortunate, for all of us,” Oak says. However firm he manages to keep his voice, he looks young, standing in front of her and Hurclaw. I worry that this is a game he cannot possibly win. “But I have an alternate proposal. Tomorrow night, my representative will meet us three leagues from here, near the rock formation. You will bring Madoc, me, and Wren. There, we can make the exchange.”
“So long as you understand you won’t be part of it, Greenbriar child. You are to remain here, in the Citadel, until I am done with you.”
“And you’re planning on doing what exactly? Making me a hostage to get some concession from my sister?”
“And not from the High King?” Lady Nore asks. She walks around the table, toward us.
Oak scowls, clearly confused. “If you like. Either one.”
“They say that sister of yours has trapped him in some bargain.” Lady Nore’s words are light, but I can see that underneath it, nothing must have galled her as much as being outmaneuvered by a mortal. If anything other than the death of Lord Jarel has driven her mad, it’s that. “Why else marry her? Why else do whatever she wants?”
“She’s going to want to wear your skull for a hat,” Oak warns. There is an uncomfortable shifting among the ex-falcons. Perhaps they are recalling their own choice to denounce her, their own punishment. “And Cardan is going to laugh and laugh when she does.”
Lady Nore curls her lip. “Three things I need. Mab’s bones, Mellith’s heart, and Greenbriar blood. And here I am with two, and the third so close that I am able to taste it. Do not fail me, Prince of Elfhame, for if you do, your father will die and I will still get what I want.”
Oak raises both eyebrows. However he actually feels, his ability to make himself seem unimpressed is immensely satisfying.
Lady Nore goes on, as though thrilled to have someone to whom she can deliver this speech. “Were it not for your father’s weakness, we might have won the war against Elfhame. But I have a truer ally now and vast power. I am ready for revenge.”
“King Hurclaw,” Oak says, his gaze going toward the troll king. “I hope that Lady Nore hasn’t promised you more than she can give.”
A small smile quirks a corner of his mouth. “I do as well,” he says in a deep voice.
Lady Nore scowls, then stands and walks to me. Oak’s jaw tightens. His hand fists at his side.
“I suppose the prince thought that you could stop me.” A terrible smile curls on her lips as she touches the frayed rope pressed between my teeth like a bit. “Little did he know what a sniveling creature you are.”
I hiss, low in my throat.
To my surprise, she begins to loosen the cords I’ve been chewing. I part my lips the moment they fall away, desperate to speak. I am about to blurt out the stupidly unspecific I command you to surrender. But before I can get words out, she presses a petal into my mouth. I feel a twisting, worming sensation on my tongue. Whatever it is seems to move on its own, and I grit my jaw. The thing snakes around for another moment, then settles.
She lets go of the rope, smiling maliciously.
I shudder but finally can speak. I try to get the words out, but my tongue moves without my volition. “I renounce—” I begin to say before I slam my teeth down, trapping it painfully between them.
Lady Nore’s awful smile grows. “Yes, my dear?”
Somehow she’s woven a spell of control into the petal, no doubt plucked from the vine of the reliquary, where it grew impossibly from dry bones. If I try to speak, I will give up dominion over her.
I bite down harder on my tongue, to still it. It wriggles in my mouth like an animal.
“Bogdana told me how you lived,” she says. “In your wretched little hut, at the edge of the mortal world, scavenging for scraps as though you were a rat.”
I cannot reply, and so I do not.
There is a flicker of unease in Lady Nore’s eyes. She glances toward Bogdana, but the storm hag is watching me from her place at the table, her expression unreadable.
“You dull little thing, open your mouth. I can give you what you most desire,” Lady Nore snaps.
And what is that? I would ask were it safe for me to loosen my tongue. Instead, I keep it clamped between my teeth.
“I cannot make you human,” she goes on. “But I can come very close.”
I can’t say part of me doesn’t wish that were true. I think of the phone call, of how much easier it would be to slip into that old life if it didn’t mean hiding or lying, if I didn’t have to worry over them screaming at the sight of me.
She is still smiling as she walks to me and puts a finger against my chin. “I can put a glamour on you strong enough that not even the King of Elfhame is likely to see through it. I have the means to do that now, the power. I can make you forget the last nine years. You will return to the mortal world an empty vessel, free for them to project humanity on. They will decide that you were kidnapped, and whatever was done to you was so terrible that you blocked all memory of it. They won’t press. And even if they do, what does it matter? You will believe every word you tell them.”