“Then take your punishment like the pathetic creature that you are.” Balekin nods to the servant, who rouses from somnolence.
I watch every blow, every flinch. I have little choice. I can shut my eyes, but the sounds are just as terrible. And worst of all is Cardan’s empty face, his eyes as dull as lead.
Truly, he has come by his cruelty honestly in Balekin’s care. He has been raised up in it, instructed in its nuances, honed through its application. However horrible Cardan might be, I now see what he might become and am truly afraid.
Disturbingly, it is even easier to gain entrance to the Palace of Elfhame in my servant’s gown than it was to enter Balekin’s household. Everyone, from goblin to the Gentry to the High King’s mortal Court Poet and Seneschal, barely gives me a passing look as I find my clumsy way through the labyrinthine halls. I am nothing, no one, a messenger no more worthy of attention than an animated twig woman or an owl. My pleasant, placid expression, combined with forward momentum, gets me to Prince Dain’s chambers without so much as a second look, even though I lose my way twice and have to retrace my steps.
I rap on his door and am relieved when the prince himself opens it.
He raises both brows, taking in the sight of me in the homespun dress. I make a formal curtsy, as any servant might. I do not alter my expression, for fear of his not being alone. “Yes?” he asks.
“I am here with a message for you, Your Highness,” I say, hoping that sounds right. “I beg for a moment of your time.”
“You’re a natural,” he tells me, grinning. “Come inside.”
It’s a relief to relax my face. I drop the inane smile as I follow him into his parlor.
Furnished in elaborate velvets, silks, and brocades, it’s a riot of scarlet and deep blues and greens, everything rich and dark, like overripe fruit. The patterns on the material are the sorts of things I have become accustomed to—intricate braids of briars, leaves that might also be spiders when you looked at them from another angle, and a depiction of a hunt where it is unclear which of the creatures is hunting the other.
I sigh and sit down in the chair he is pointing me toward, fumbling in my pocket.
“Here,” I say, drawing out the folded-up note and smoothing it against the top of a cunning little table with carved bird feet for legs. “He came in while I was copying it, so it’s kind of a mess.” I had left the stolen book with the toad; the last thing I want Prince Dain to know is that I took something for myself.
Dain squints to see the shapes of the letters past my smudges. “And he didn’t see you?”
“He was distracted,” I say truthfully. “I hid.”
He nods and rings a small bell, probably to summon a servant. I will be glad of anyone not ensorcelled. “Good. And did you enjoy it?”
I am not sure what to make of that question. I was frightened pretty much the whole time—how is that enjoyable? But the longer I think about it, the more I realize that I did sort of enjoy it. Most of my life is dreadful anticipation, a waiting for the other shoe to drop—at home, in classes, with the Court. Being afraid I would be caught spying was an entirely new sensation, one where I felt, at least, as though I knew exactly what to be scared of. I knew what it would take to win. Sneaking through Balekin’s house had been less frightening than some revels.
At least until I’d watched Cardan get beaten. Then I’d felt something I don’t want to examine too closely.
“I liked doing a good job,” I say, finally finding an honest answer.
That makes Dain nod. He’s about to tell me something else when another faerie enters the room. A male goblin, scarred, his skin the green of ponds. His nose is long and twists fully around, before bending back toward his face like a scythe. His hair is a black tuft at the very crown of his head. His eyes are unreadable. He blinks several times, as though trying to focus on me.