But to what purpose?
“You bring an element of chaos to a party, don’t you?” Cardan says, his tone light, but his gaze fierce. He lifts a goblet from the table. “We obviously have many things to discuss regarding the future. But for now, we share a meal. Let us toast, to love.”
The High King’s voice has a ringing quality that enjoins people to pay attention. Nearby, many glasses are raised. Someone presses a silver-chased goblet into the prince’s hand. Wren is given one by a servant, already filled to the brim with a dark wine.
“Love,” Cardan goes on. “That force that compels us to be sometimes better and often worse. That power by which we can all be bound. That which we ought to fear and yet most desire. That which unites us this evening—and shall unite the both of you soon enough.”
Oak glances at Wren. Her face is like stone. She is clutching her own goblet so tightly that her knuckles are white.
There is a half smile on Cardan’s face, and when his gaze goes to Oak, he gives a small extra tip of his goblet. One that may be a challenge.
I do not want your throne, Oak wishes he could just say aloud and not care if anyone hears, not care if it makes the moment awkward. But the conspirators will reveal themselves just after midnight, and it’s worth waiting a single day.
The Ghost, standing near Randalin, raises his own glass in Oak’s direction. Not far from them, standing by Taryn and Leander, Oriana does not toast and, in fact, appears to be contemplating pouring her wine onto the dirt.
Well, this is going great.
He turns toward Wren and realizes how pale she’s grown.
He thinks of her feverish gaze aboard the ship and how he had to carry her to her bed. If she passes out now, all her work—the way she forced herself upright to walk on the shore, this exchange with his sister—will be undone. The Court will see her as weak. He hates to admit it, but his family may see her that way, too.
But she can’t be well. She was weak from breaking the troll kings’ curse before they left. Then she took apart that monster, and now this. He thinks of Mother Marrow’s words, about how Wren’s own hag power—a power of creation—has been turned inside out.
“I would have a moment with my betrothed,” Oak says, reaching a hand toward her. “A dance, perhaps.”
Wren looks at him with wild eyes. He’s put her in a difficult position. She can’t very well turn him down, and yet she is probably wondering how much longer she can stay upright.
“We’re soon to eat,” his mother objects, having come closer without his noticing.
Oak makes a gesture of carelessness. “It’s a banquet, and now that the toast is made, we’re not needed here to sample every dish.”
Before anyone else can weigh in, he puts his arm around Wren’s waist and escorts her to the floor.
“Perhaps,” Oak says, when they’ve gone a few steps, “we continue on to a corner and sit for a moment.”
“I will dance,” she says, as though meeting his challenge. Not what he intended, but it was so ill-done that it may as well have been.
Cursing himself, he takes one of her hands in his. Her fingers are cool, her grasp on him tightening. He can feel her force herself to relax.
He guides her through the steps he taught her, back in the Court of Moths. The dance isn’t quite appropriate for the music, but it hardly matters. She barely remembers the steps, and he barely cares. Her skin has that same pale, waxy look it had aboard the ship. The same bruises around her mouth and eyes.
He presses her to him so no one can see.
“I will be well enough in a moment,” she says as he turns with her in his arms. She missteps, and he catches her, holding her upright.
“Let’s sit in some dark corner,” he says. “Take a moment to rest.”
“No,” she tells him, although he’s holding her whole weight now. “I see the way they look at me already.”
“Who?” Oak asks.
“Your family,” she says. “They hate me. They want me gone.”
He wants to contradict her, but he forces himself to consider what she’s saying. As he does, he moves through the dance, one hand at her waist, another against her back, holding her feet above the ground, pressing her body to his. So long as she doesn’t pass out entirely, so long as her head doesn’t loll, they will seem like they’re moving together.
There’s some truth to Wren’s fears. His mother would spit at Wren’s feet if she could find a way to do it that would reconcile with her rigid sense of etiquette. And while Jude seems conflicted, she would murder Wren herself if she thought Wren’s death would shield people she cares about. Jude wouldn’t need to dislike her to do it.