A breeze brings the scents of old, drying blood and weapon oil. It reminds Oak of the smell of Madoc’s house, of home.
“I am a trickster, like you. I am here because it amuses me. When I am bored, I will go away.”
“I’m not like you,” Oak says.
He’s not like Locke, even if they have the same power. Locke was Master of Revels, who spirited away his sister Taryn to his estate, where she drank wine and dressed in beautiful gowns and became sadder than he’d ever seen her.
Locke thought life was a story, and he was responsible for introducing the conflict. Oak had been nine when Taryn murdered Locke, with his tenth birthday soon after. He would like to say he hadn’t known what she’d done, but he had. None of them tried to hide violence. By then, they were used to murder being an option that was always on the table.
At the time, though, he hadn’t quite put together that Locke was his half brother.
Or quite how much Locke was a terrible person.
The fox’s mouth opens, its pink tongue lolling out. It studies Oak with eyes that look alarmingly like his own. “Our mother died when I was just a child, but I still remember her. She had long red-gold hair, and she was always laughing. Everyone she met adored her.”
Oak thought of Hyacinthe, whose father had loved Liriope too well and killed himself because of it. He thought of Dain, who had desired her and then murdered her.
“I am not like our mother, either,” Oak says.
“You never met her,” the fox tells him. “How do you know if you’re like her or not?”
To that, Oak has no answer. He doesn’t want to be like her. He wanted people to love him a normal amount.
But it was true that he wanted everyone to love him.
“You’re going to die like her. And like me. Murdered by your own lover.”
“I’m not dying,” the prince snaps, but the fox scampers off, sliding between the trees. At first his bright coat gives him away, but then the leaves become scarlet and gold and withered brown. They fall in a great gust that seems to whirl around the prince. And in the shiver of the boughs, Oak hears laughter.
CHAPTER
6
O
ak isn’t sure how long he has lain on the cold stone tiles, dropping in and out of consciousness. He dreams of hunting snakes that glisten with gems as they whip through the night, of girls made of ice whose kisses cool his burns. Several times, he thinks he ought to crawl toward his blanket, but just contemplating the idea of moving hurts his head.
Whatever the prince thought of himself before, however skilled he claimed to be at evading traps and laughing in the face of danger, he isn’t laughing now. He’d have been better off sitting in his cell and waiting. He’d have been better off if he ran out into the snow. He took a chance and lost, lost spectacularly, which is just about all he can say to his credit—at least it was spectacular.
It is the shift of shadows that causes him to realize someone is standing outside his cell. Feverishly, he looks up. For a moment, her face swims in front of him, and he thinks she must be part of another nightmare.
Bogdana.
The storm hag looms tall, her hair a wild mane around her head. She peers at him with black eyes that shine like chips of wet onyx.
“Prince Oak, our most honored guest. I was afraid you might have died in there,” she says, kicking a tray beneath the door of his cell with her foot. On it rests a bowl of watery soup with scales Boating on top, beside a carafe of sour-smelling wine. He has no doubt she selected the food personally.
“Well, hello,” Oak says. “What an unexpected visit.”
She smiles down in malicious glee. “You seem unwell. I thought a simple meal might be to your liking.”
He pushes himself into a sitting position, ignoring how it makes his head pound. “How long was I out?” He isn’t even sure how he got to the prisons. Had Straun been forced to carry him here, once Valen realized he wasn’t going to wake anytime soon? Had Valen brought him back, in case he never woke?
“Somewhere you need to be, Prince of Elfhame?” Bogdana asks him.
“Of course not.” Oak’s hand goes to his chest. The burn by his throat is scabbed over. He can feel the wild beat of his heart beneath his palm. He couldn’t have been unconscious long since Wren hadn’t sent anyone to drag him before her Court for a whipping.
Bogdana’s smile widens. “Good. Because I came to tell you that I will gut every servant you conscript, should you try to use one to escape your cell again.”
“I didn’t—” he begins.