“And you being there to pull us back onto deck saved us both.” Hyacinthe shoves his hair behind his ear and gives a shuddering sigh. His gaze snags on Tiernan as he shifts a little. “Perhaps I have had enough of vengeance. Perhaps I need not make things so hard.” As Oak begins to stand, though, the former falcon looks up at him. “That doesn’t mean I release you from your promise, prince.”
Right. He’d promised to cut off someone’s hand.
As afternoon moves toward night, Tiernan finally wakes. Once he understands what happened, he’s furious with Oak and Hyacinthe both.
“You shouldn’t have gone after me,” he tells Hyacinthe, then turns to the prince. “And you certainly shouldn’t have.”
“I barely did anything,” says Oak. “While it’s possible that Hyacinthe battled a shark for you.”
“I did not.” For all Hyacinthe’s talk of love, the evening finds him sullen.
Oak stands. “Well, I leave you two to that argument. Or some other argument.”
The prince heads to the helm, where he finds the Ghost sitting alone, watching the sails billow. He has a staff beside him. Like Vivi, the Ghost had a human parent, and it’s visible in the sandy brown of his hair, an unusual color in Faerie.
“There is a tale about hags to which you might hearken,” Garrett says.
“Oh?” Oak is almost certain he’s not going to like this.
The Ghost gazes past the prince, at the horizon, the bright blaze of the sun fading to embers. “It is said that a hag’s power comes from the part of them that’s missing. Each one has a cold stone or wisp of cloud or ever-burning flame where their hearts ought to be.”
Oak thinks of Wren and her heart, the only part of her that was ever flesh, and doesn’t think that can be true. “And?”
“They are as different from the rest of the Folk as mortals are from faeries. And you’re bringing two of the most powerful of their kind to Elfhame.” The Ghost gives him a long look. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I,” Oak says, sighing.
“You remind me of your father sometimes, though I doubt you would like to hear it.”
“Madoc?” No one has ever said that to him before.
“You’re very like Dain in some ways,” says the Ghost.
Oak frowns. Being compared to Dain can be no good thing. “Ah yes, my father who tried to kill me.”
“He did terrible things, brutal things, but he had the potential in him to be a great leader. To be a great king. Like you.” Garrett’s gaze is steady.
Oak snorts. “I am not planning on leading anyone.”
The Ghost nods toward Wren. “If she’s a queen and you marry her, then you’d be a king.”
Oak stares at him in horror because he’s right. And Oak didn’t really consider that. Possibly because he still thinks it’s unlikely that Wren will go through with it. Possibly also because Oak is a fool.
Across the ship, Hyacinthe is leading Tiernan toward a cabin. Hyacinthe, who hasn’t really let Oak off the hook. “Since you knew Dain so well, can you tell me who really poisoned Liriope?”
The Ghost’s brows rise. “I thought you believed he did?”
“Possibly there was someone else who helped him,” Oak presses. “Someone who actually slipped the blusher mushroom into her cup.”
Garrett looks genuinely uncomfortable. “He was a prince of Elfhame, and his father’s heir. He had many servants. Plenty of help with whatever he attempted.”
Oak doesn’t like how many of those words also apply to him. “Have you heard there was someone else involved?”
Garrett is silent. Since he cannot lie, the prince assumes he has.
“Tell me,” Oak says. “You owe me that.”
The line of the Ghost’s mouth is grim. “I owe many people many things. But I know this. Locke had the answer you seek. He knew the name of the poisoner, much good it did him.”
“I am cleverer than Locke.” But what Oak thinks of is his dream and the fox’s laughter.
The Ghost stands and dusts off his hands on his pants. “That doesn’t take much.”
Oak can’t tell if Garrett knows the name or only knows that Locke did. Taryn may have told him any secrets that Locke told her. “Does my sister know?”
“You should ask her,” says the Ghost. “She’s probably waiting for you on the shore.”
The prince lifts his eyes and sees the Shifting Isles of Elfhame in the distance, breaking through the mist shrouding them.