My sister. Bex.
I’m not the one who needs saving.
Maybe Oak has this all wrong. Maybe she’s not his enemy. Maybe she’s been given an impossible choice.
Wren loves her mortal family. She loves them so much she slept in the dirt near their house just to be close. Loves them so much that there might be nothing she wouldn’t do to save her mother or father or sister. No one she wouldn’t sacrifice, including herself.
He knows what love like that feels like.
Oak had wondered why Lady Nore and Lord Jarel left Wren’s mortal family alive, given what he knew of their cruelty. Wouldn’t it have been more to their taste to remove any chance at Wren’s happiness? To butcher her family members one by one in front of her and drink her tears?
But now he sees what use they could have been. How could Wren ever rebel when there was always something else to lose? A hatchet that never fell. A threat to be delivered over and over again.
How pleased Bogdana must have been to find Bex still alive and usable.
Wren opens her eyes and looks up at him. “At least it will be you,” she says. “But you better hurry up. Waiting is the worst part.”
“You’re not my enemy,” he says. “You were never my enemy.”
“Yet you’re standing there with a bare blade,” Wren reminds him.
Fair point. “I just figured it out. She has your sister, doesn’t she?”
Wren opens her mouth, then closes it. But the relief in her expression is answer enough.
“And you can’t tell me,” he guesses. “Bogdana made you vow all sorts of things to make sure you couldn’t give away her game. Made you vow to go through with the marriage, so the only way out was if I refused you. Hid Bex away, so you couldn’t simply unmake everyone and free her. Left word with someone to do away with Bex if the storm hag turns up dead. All you could do was try to stall. And try to warn me.”
All she could do was hope he was clever enough.
And perhaps, if he wasn’t, she hoped that at least he would stop her from having to do the worst of what Bogdana commanded. Even if the only way to stop her was with a blade.
She, who never wanted to trust him again, having to do exactly that.
Wren’s eyes are wet as she blinks, her lashes black and spiky. She reaches into a pocket of her dress and takes out the white walnut. “Tiernan is trapped in the cottage. Take it. This is all I can offer you.” Her fingers brush the palm of his hand. “I am not your enemy, but if you can’t help me, the next time we meet, I might be.”
It’s not a threat. He understands now. She’s telling him what she fears.
The prince practically runs into Jack and Hyacinthe as they’re coming off the beach. The kelpie yelps and glares at him accusatorily.
“I have Tiernan,” Oak says, out of breath.
Hyacinthe raises both eyebrows and looks at the prince as though he must have fallen on his head, hard.
“No, not with me,” he says. “He’s in my pocket.”
Inside of the cottage must have been how they brought the bramble horses without their being on the ship. And any other sinister supplies they may have needed. Arms and armor, certainly. And there was no reason for Wren to have even known.
“And your queen? Is she . . . ?” Jack makes a throat-slashing motion.
“Bogdana has her mortal sister,” Oak says. “She’s being blackmailed.”
“Has her where?” Hyacinthe asks. “And when is a single thing you are saying going to start making sense?”
The first is the important question. And Oak thinks he may have the answer.
As Oak approaches Mandrake Market, he has a startlingly good view of the storm lashing Insear. The lanes are empty. Merchants huddle in their homes, probably hoping the waves don’t rise too high, that lightning doesn’t strike too close. Hyacinthe follows the prince, carrying the walnut in his pocket, while Jack brings up the rear.
Together, they come to Mother Marrow’s cottage, the thatch roof overgrown with moss. Oak stands in front of the door while the other two go around the back. Looking inside, he can see her sitting on a stump before a fire, poking at a bucket hanging over the flames.
Oak pounds on the hag’s front door. Mother Marrow frowns and goes back to her fire. He bangs his fist again. This time she stands. Scowling, she waddles to the door on her bird talons.
“Prince.” She squints. “Aren’t you supposed to be at a party?”
“May I come in?”
She steps back so he can make his way into the room. “Quite a storm we’re having.”