I hate how I feel around him, the irrational panic when I touch his skin.
“I’m just borrowing your stupid ring,” I say. The signet fits perfectly into the impression on the letter. All the rings of all the princes and princesses must be identical. That means a seal from one looks much like the seal of another. I pull out a fresh piece of paper and begin to write.
“I don’t suppose you have anything to drink around here?” Cardan asks. “I don’t imagine that whatever happens next is going to be particularly comfortable for me, and I would like to stay drunk in order to face it.”
“Do you really think I care if you’re comfortable?” I demand.
I hear a footfall and stand up from the desk. From the common room comes the sound of smashing glass. I shove Cardan’s ring into my bodice, where it rests heavily against my skin, and head into the hall. The Roach has knocked a line of jars off the bookshelf and cracked the wood of a cabinet. Jagged glass and spilled infusions carpet the stone floor. Mandrake. Snakeroot. Larkspur. The Ghost is grabbing the Roach’s arm, hauling him back from smashing more things. Despite the line of blood streaking down his leg, the stiffness of his movements. The Ghost has been in a fight.
“Hey,” I say.
Both look surprised to see me. They are even more surprised when they notice Prince Cardan tied to a chair in the doorway of the map room.
“Shouldn’t you be with your father, celebrating?” the Ghost spits. I take a step back. Before, he’s always been a model of perfect, unnatural calm. Neither of them seems calm now. “The Bomb is still out there, and both of them nearly gave their lives to free me from Balekin’s dungeon, only to find you here, gloating.”
“No!” I say, holding my ground. “Think about it. If I knew what was going to happen, if I was on Madoc’s side, the only way I would be here is with a retainer of knights. You’d have been shot coming in the door. I would hardly have come alone, dragging along a prisoner that my father would dearly love to have.”
“Peace, both of you. We’re all of us reeling,” the Roach says, looking at the damage he has done. He shakes his head, then his attention goes to Cardan. He walks toward him, studying the prince’s face. The Roach’s black lips pull back from his teeth in a considering grimace. When he turns back to me, he’s obviously impressed. “Although it seems that one of us kept her head.”
“Hello,” Cardan says, raising his brows and regarding the Roach as though they were sitting down to tea together.
Cardan’s clothes are disarranged, from crawling under tables or being captured and tied, and his infamous tail is showing under the white lawn of his shirt. It is slim, nearly hairless, with a tuft of black fur at the tip. As I watch, the tail forms one wavering curve after another, snaking back and forth, betraying his cool face, telling its own story of uncertainty and fear.
I can see why he hides that thing away.
“We should kill him,” says the Ghost, slouching in the hallway, light brown hair blown across his forehead. “He’s the only member of the royal family who can crown Balekin. Without Cardan, the throne will be forever lost, and we will have avenged Dain.”
Cardan draws a sharp breath and then lets it out slowly. “I’d prefer to live.”
“We don’t work for Dain anymore,” the Roach reminds the Ghost, the nostrils of his long green knife of a nose flaring. “Dain’s dead and beyond caring about thrones or crowns. We sell the prince back to Balekin for everything we can get and leave. Go among the low Courts or the free Folk. There’s fun to be had, and gold. You could come along, Jude. If you want.”
The offer is tempting. Burn it all down. Run. Start over in a place where no one knows me except the Ghost and the Roach.
“I don’t want Balekin’s money.” The Ghost spits on the ground. “And other than that, the boy prince is useless to us. Too young, too weak. If not for Dain, then let’s kill him for all of Faerie.”