It buys me time, at least. I let out my breath. “Fine. We’re agreed.”
Cardan crosses the room toward me, and I have no idea what he’s going to do. If he kisses me, I am afraid I will be consumed by the hungry and humiliating urgency that I felt the first time. But when he kneels down in front of me, I am too surprised to formulate any thoughts at all. He takes my hand in his, long fingers cool as they curl around mine. “Very well,” he says impatiently, not sounding in the least like a vassal about to swear to his lady. “Jude Duarte, daughter of clay, I swear myself into your service. I will act as your hand. I will act as your shield. I will act in accordance with your will. Let it be so for one year and one day … and not for one minute more.”
“You’ve really improved the vow,” I say, although my voice comes out strained. Even as he said the words, I felt like somehow he got the upper hand. Somehow he’s the one in control.
He stands in one fluid motion, letting go of me. “Now what?”
“Go back to bed,” I tell him. “I’ll wake you in a little while and explain what we’ve got to do.”
“As you command,” Cardan says, mocking smile pulling at his mouth. Then he goes back to the room with the cots, presumably to flop down on one. I think about all the strangeness of his being here, sleeping in homespun sheets, wearing the same clothes for days on end, eating bread and cheese, and not complaining about any of it. It almost seems like he prefers a nest of spies and assassins to the splendor of his own bed.
The monarchs of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, along with the wild unallied faeries who came for the coronation, had made camp on the easternmost corner of the island. They had pitched tents, some in motley, some in diaphanous silks. When I get close, I can see fires burning. Honey wine and spoiled meat perfume the air.
Cardan stands next to me, dressed in flat black, his dark hair combed away from a face scrubbed clean. He looks pale and tired, although I let him sleep as long as I dared.
I didn’t wake up the Ghost or the Roach after Cardan swore his oath. Instead, I talked strategy with the Bomb for the better part of an hour. She is the one who got me the change of clothes for Cardan, the one who agreed he might come in useful. Which is how I came to be here, about to try to find a monarch willing to back a ruler other than Balekin. If my plan is going to succeed, I need someone at that feast who is on the side of a new king, preferably someone with the power to keep a dinner party from devolving into another slaughter if things go sideways.
If nothing else, I’ll need lots of disruptions to be sure I can get Oak out of there. The Bomb’s glass globes aren’t going to be enough. What I’ll have to offer in exchange, I am not entirely sure. I’ve spent all my own promises; now I will begin spending the crown’s.
I take a deep breath. Once I stand in front of the lords and ladies of Faerie and declare my intent to go against Balekin, there’s no going back, no crawling under the coverlets in my bed, no running away. If I do this, I am bound to Faerie until Oak sits on the throne.
We have tonight and half of tomorrow before the feast, before I must go to Hollow Hall, before my plans either come together or come entirely apart.
There’s only one way to keep Faerie ready for Oak—I have to stay. I have to use what I’ve learned from Madoc and the Court of Shadows to manipulate and murder my way into keeping the throne ready for him. I said ten years, but perhaps seven will be enough. That’s not so long. Seven years of drinking poison, of never sleeping, of living on high alert. Seven more years, and then maybe Faerie will be a safer, better land. And I will have earned my place in it.
The great game, Locke had called it when he accused me of playing it. I wasn’t then, but I am now. And maybe I learned something from Locke. He made me into a story, and now I am going to make a story out of someone else.
“So I am to sit here and feed you information,” Cardan says, leaning against a hickory tree. “And you’re to go charm royalty? That seems entirely backward.”