“Heir to Elfhame,” I say. “Get on your knees.”
Prince Oak goes down smoothly, his long legs in the snow. Even bows his horned head, although I think he believes I am playing. He’s not afraid. He thinks this is my revenge, to humiliate him a little. He thinks that, in a moment, all will be as it was.
“The others may go,” I say. “The general, Tiernan, and any falcon who wishes to depart with them. Tell the High King and Queen that I have taken the Citadel in their name. Oak stays here.”
“You can’t keep him,” warns Madoc.
Sink those pretty teeth into something.
I reach for the bridle, moved from around my waist when I dressed so that I might have it at hand. The leather is smooth in my fingers.
“Wren,” Oak says, with the kindling of fear in his voice.
“There will be no more betrayals, prince,” I tell him. He struggles at first, but when I whisper the word of command, he stops. The straps settle against his skin.
Madoc looks at me as though he would like to cut me to pieces. But he cannot.
“You don’t need to do this,” Oak tells me, softly. A lover’s voice.
Bogdana grins from where she stands near the red stain of Lady Nore’s remains. “And why not? Are you not the Greenbriar heir, the thief of her inheritance?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Tiernan says, ignoring the storm hag. He glances at the gathered soldiers, at the trolls, at everything he would have to fight if he tried to stop me, and narrows his eyes. “Jude might not have come for her father, but she will bring all the armies she can muster here to war with you for her brother. This can’t be what you want.”
I stare at him for a long moment. “Go,” I say. “Before I change my mind.”
“Best to do as she says.” I can see Oak weigh his options and make the only real choice left to him. “Get my father back to Elfhame, or if Jude won’t lift his exile, to somewhere else where he can recover. I told Wren I wouldn’t leave without her.”
Tiernan’s gaze rests on the prince, then on me, then goes to Hyacinthe. He nods once, his expression grim, and turns away.
A few of the other knights and soldiers follow. Hyacinthe strides across the snow to my side.
“You may go with them, if you wish,” I tell him. “With Madoc, and with Tiernan.”
He watches as his former lover helps his former general across the snow. “Until my debt to you is paid, my place is here.”
“Wren,” Oak says, causing me to turn toward his voice. “I’m not your enemy.”
A small smile turns up a corner of my mouth. I feel the sharpness of my teeth and roll my tongue over them. For the first time, I like the feeling.
CHAPTER
18
B
ogdana leads the way to the Citadel. Hyacinthe walks by my side. When the servants bow, it is not out of mere courtesy. It comes from the same fear that caused them to make obeisances before Lady Nore and Lord Jarel.
Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same.
So too, power.
“Write to the High Court,” urges Bogdana. “As its faithful servant, you’ve retrieved Mab’s remains, ended the threat that Lady Nore presented, and set the former Grand General free. And then ask a boon— that you might remain here in her old castle and begin a Court of your own. That will be our first step. If your message gets there before Tiernan, the High Court could grant it all before they know better.”
Bogdana goes on. “Tell them that the prince is with you, but sustained an injury. You will send him back to Elfhame once he is rested and ready.”
Hyacinthe gives me a quick look, as though checking to see that I am the same person who so despised captivity as to help him escape from it.
I am not sure I am the same.
“Do not presume to give me orders,” I tell the storm hag. “I may owe you my life, but I also owe you my death.”
She steps back, chastened.
I will not make the same mistakes as Mellith.
“As soon as Tiernan and Madoc reach Elfhame, they will inform the High Court that we’re keeping Oak prisoner,” Hyacinthe says. “No matter what boon the High King and Queen have granted you, they’ll demand his release.”
“Perhaps a storm will delay their progress,” I suggest, with a nod toward Bogdana. “Perhaps Madoc’s injuries will require treatment. Many things can happen.”
All around the hall, birds still perch. Soldiers doomed to feed on kindness. To kill nothing or be forever winged. I close my eyes. I can see the magic binding them. It is tightly coiled and weaves through their little feathered forms, tugging at their tiny hearts. It takes me a moment to find the knots, but when I do, the curses dissipate like cobwebs.
With ecstatic sighs and gasps, these falcons discover they are in their own faerie bodies once more.
“My queen,” one says, over and over. “My queen.”
Surely, I am easier to follow than Lady Nore.
I nod but cannot smile. Somehow as satisfied as I find myself with what I have done, it does not touch me. It is as though my heart is still locked away in a box, still buried underground.
I find myself inextricably drawn to the prisons. There, in his iron cage, I see Oak lying atop the furs I had sent down. He looks up at the ceiling, cloak pillowed beneath his head, and whistles a tune.
I recognize it as one of those we danced to back at Queen Annet’s Court.
I do not shift from the shadows, but perhaps some small movement exposes me, because the prince turns toward where I am.
He squints, as though trying to make out my shape. “Wren?” he says. “Talk to me.”
I don’t reply. What would be the point? I know he will twist me around his finger with words. I know that if I give him half the chance, love-starved creature that I am, I will be under his spell again. With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.
“Let me explain,” he calls to me. “Let me atone.”
I bite the tip of my tongue to keep myself from snapping at him. He meant to keep me ignorant. He tricked me. He lied with every smile. With every kiss. With the warmth in his eyes that should have been impossible to fake.
I’d known what he was capable of. Over and over, he’d shown me. And over and over, I believed there would be no more tricks. No more secrets.
Not anymore.
“You have good cause to be furious. But you couldn’t have lied, had you known the truth. I was afraid you’d have to lie.” He waits, and when I say nothing, rolls into a sitting position. “Wren?”
I can see the leather straps running across his cheeks. If he wears the bridle long enough, he’ll have scars.
“Talk to me!” he shouts, standing and coming to the bars. I see the gold of his hair, the sharp line of his cheekbones, the glint of his fox eyes. “Wren! Wren! ”
Coward that I am, I flee. My heart thundering, my hands shaking. But I can’t pretend that I don’t like the sound of him screaming my name.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am lucky to have had a bevy of encouragement and advice on this book.
I am grateful to all those who helped me along on the journey to the novel you have in your hands, particularly Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Marie Rutkoski, and Kiersten White, who helped me kick around the outline of this book as we swam in a pool in the autumn. Even more so, I am grateful to Kelly Link, Cassandra Clare, Joshua Lewis, and Steve Berman, who helped me rip the manuscript apart and stitch it back together in winter （and several other times）。 And to Leigh Bardugo, Sarah Rees Brennan, Robin Wasserman, and Roshani Chokshi, who helped me rip it apart again in the summer.