“Wren,” he breathes, reaching through the iron bars, even though they singe his wrists. His fingers run through my hair.
What happens when she discovers how you’ve deceived her? When she realizes her role in your plan?
If I hadn’t overheard what he’d said to his father, I would never have believed he had a secret so terrible he thought I would hate him for it.
The servant girl places bowls in front of the cells, on the ground. Cruel, since the bowls are too big to fit between the bars, which means that one must put one’s wrist against iron with every bite. Our dinner appears to be a pungent, oily soup that has barley in it and probably the meat of seabirds.
I shift myself into a sitting position.
“We’re going to get out of this,” Oak tells me. “I’ll try to pick the lock if you loan me your hairpin.”
I nod to show I understand and unclasp it.
His expression grows grave. “Wren—”
“Stop fussing at her now. She can’t even complain over it.” The redcap smiles in my direction, as though inviting me into laughing at his son.
Who he told to kill me.
The prince withdraws his hand from between the bars and turns away. He doesn’t seem to notice the burn on his arm as he pushes himself to his feet.
What could he have done that’s so awful? All I can think of is that he really does have Mellith’s heart and that he really is planning on turning it over to Lady Nore.
“Hurclaw is a problem,” Madoc says as he watches Oak bend the sharp end of my pin and slide it into the lock. “If it wasn’t for his people, I believe I could have escaped this place, perhaps even taken the Citadel. But Lady Nore has promised that she will soon be able to break the curse on the Stone Forest.”
“Take the Citadel? That’s quite a boast,” Oak says, twisting the pin and frowning.
Madoc makes a snorting sound, then turns to me. “I am sure that Wren here wouldn’t mind taking Lady Nore’s castle and lands for herself.”
I shake my head at the absurdity of the statement.
He raises his brows. “No? Still sitting at the table and waiting for permission to start eating?”
That’s an uncomfortably accurate way of describing how I’ve lived my life.
“I was like that once,” he tells me, his sharp lower incisors visible when he speaks. I know this conversation is an effort to assess an opponent and keep me off-balance. Still, the thought of him waiting for anyone’s permission is ridiculous. He’s the former Grand General of Elfhame and a redcap, delighting in bloodshed. He’s probably eaten people. No, he’s definitely eaten people.
I shake my head again. Oak looks over at us and frowns, as though his father talking with me makes him nervous.
Madoc grins. “No? I can hardly believe it myself, in truth. But I spent most of my life on campaigns, making war in Eldred’s name. Did I enjoy my work? Certainly, but I also obeyed. I took what rewards I was given, and I was grateful for them. And what did I get for my trouble? My wife fell in love with someone else, someone who was there when I was gone.”
His former wife, whom he murdered. The mother of his three girls. Somehow, I’d always assumed that she left him because she was afraid, not because she was lonely.
Madoc glances at Oak again before returning his attention to me. “I vowed I would use the strategy I studied for my own benefit. I would find a way to take all that I wanted, for myself and for my family. What a freeing thought it was to no longer believe I had to deserve something in order to get it.”
He’s right; that would be a shockingly freeing thought.
“Stop waiting,” Madoc says. “Sink those pretty teeth into something.”
I give him a sharp look, trying to decide if he is making fun of me. I lean down and write in the dirt and the crust of my own dried blood: Monsters have teeth like mine.
He grins as though I am finally getting his point. “That they do.”
Oak turns away from the lock in frustration. “Father, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“We were just talking, she and I,” Madoc says.
“Don’t listen to him.” He shakes his head with an exasperated look at his father. “He’s full of bad old-guy advice.”
“Just because I’m bad,” Madoc says with a grunt, “doesn’t mean the advice is.”
Oak rolls his eyes. I note he has a new bruise at the corner of his mouth and a wound on his brow that has caused blood to crust in his hair. I think of him fighting in the throne room, think of the pain when my tongue was cut out. Think of him watching.
I go to the bowl of soup, although I cannot stand to put anything into my mouth. Still, if I can get the dish into the cell, even if I tip out half the food, I can pass what’s left to Oak and Madoc.
As I begin to tilt it, though, I see something metal in the soup. Setting the bowl down again, I stick my fingers into the oily liquid and feel around. I touch the solid weight of a key and remember Hyacinthe’s words about getting me out of the Citadel.
Forcing myself not to look at Oak or Madoc, I palm the object. Then I tuck it away into my dress and retreat to the bench in the back of my cell. Oak has no luck with the lock. Neither of them seems inclined to eat the food.
I listen to them talk a bit more about Hurclaw, and how he argued with Lady Nore over some sacrifices that Madoc didn’t quite understand, and what would become of the bodies. Oak looks toward me several times, as though he would like to speak with me but doesn’t.
Eventually, Madoc suggests we rest, since tomorrow will be “a test of our ability to adapt to evolving plans,” which puzzles me. I know that Tiernan will arrive at the proscribed meeting place, with whatever it is in that reliquary.
The old general lies down on the bench while Oak stretches himself out on the cold floor.
I wait until they’re sleeping. I recall how he caught me in the woods and wait a very long time. But the prince is exhausted, and when I fit the key into my lock, he doesn’t wake.
I shove the heavy door, and it opens easily, the iron stinging my hand. I slip out, then tuck the key in a corner of their cell so that they will find it if I don’t return.
In the hall, I slip off my big boots. And then I walk, my bare feet quiet on the cold stone. The guard at the prison gate is sleeping, slumped over a chair. He must be used to having Madoc as his only charge.
Up the steps, rays of early-morning sunlight turn the castle into a prism, and every time the shadows change, I worry over being given away.
But no one comes. No one stops me. And I realize that this was my fate from the start. It wasn’t going to be Oak who stopped Lady Nore. It was always supposed to be me.
I do not meet Hyacinthe. I head for the throne room. As I tiptoe into a corridor that looks on the great hall’s double doors, I see they are closed and barred, with two stick soldiers standing at attention. I can think of no way to get past them. They do not sleep, nor do they seem alive enough to be tricked.
But no one knows the Citadel like I do.
There is another way into the great hall, a small pass-through tunnel from the kitchens where refuse is tucked away by servants—empty cups, platters, messes of every sort. The cooks and kitchen staff fish them out later to clean them. It is large enough for a child to hide in, and I hid in it often.