The Stolen Heir: A Novel of Elfhame

For a moment, we just stare at each other.

“I told you it would be wise to send me here, and since you gave me no commands to contradict it, I came,” Hyacinthe says, low, so only I can hear.

I cannot speak. Staggering a little, I lean against the wall. The pain is hard to think past, and I am not sure if he is on my side or not.

“Be glad I did,” he says, swinging his spear toward me, the point inches from my throat. “Folk are watching. Move.”

I turn my back on him and walk. He makes a show of shoving me into going faster, and I do not have to pretend to stumble.

Several times, I try to turn, to catch his eye, so I can read the intention there, but each time he pushes me so that I must resume walking.

“Is Tiernan with you?” he asks when we reach the prison gate.

Loyal, that’s what Hyacinthe called himself. Loyal to Oak’s father. Hopefully loyal to me. Maybe loyal to Tiernan, too, in a way. Hyacinthe didn’t trust Oak’s honey-tongued charm. Maybe he wants to save Tiernan from it.

I nod.

Together we march down the icy passageways, to the prisons. Dug down into the frozen ground, they stink of iron and wet stone. “He’s the one with Mellith’s heart?”

A dangerous question. Given Hyacinthe’s dislike of Oak, I am not sure whether he would like to see Lady Nore get what she wants or not. Nor am I sure what exactly Tiernan has. Also I am finding it hard to concentrate with the pain in my mouth.

Since I can’t figure out a way to communicate any of that, I shrug and gesture toward my lips.

He frowns, frustrated.

The cells are largely empty. When I lived in the Citadel, they were teeming with those who had displeased Lord Jarel and Lady Nore— bards who chose ballads that offended, presumptuous courtiers, servants who made errors large and small. But now, as understaffed as the castle is, there is only one other prisoner.

Madoc sits on a wooden bench, leaning against the stone wall, far from the bars, which stink of iron. His leg is bandaged in two places, hastily and poorly, as though he was the one who did it. There is a cloth over one of his eyes, a little blood seeping through the fabric. His green skin looks too pale in the flickering lamplight, and he’s shivering. He’s probably been uncomfortably cold for weeks.

Hyacinthe unlocks a cell beside the general’s and ushers me inside. I enter, careful not to let my skin touch the iron bars.

“I will get you out of here,” he whispers to me as I slip by him. “When things are prepared, you will be given a key. Meet me in the alcove across from the great hall. I have a horse.”

I look a question at him.

He sighs. “Yes, that creature. Damsel Fly. Despite her pretty name, she’s fast and sure-footed.”

And then he closes the door. I am grateful he didn’t bother to search me, didn’t discover the bridle banded around my waist, beneath my servant’s uniform. I am not certain what he would do with it.

I head for a bench, a sudden feeling of light-headedness making me worry that I will fall before I get there. Though I am not still bleeding, I lost a lot of blood.

Hyacinthe’s gaze flickers toward Madoc, and he looks pained. “Are you well, sir?”

“Well enough,” the redcap says. “What happened here? She looks like she took a big bite out of someone.”

I am surprised to find that makes me laugh. The sound comes out all wrong.

“Her tongue,” Hyacinthe says, and Madoc nods as though he’s seen that sort of thing before.

Although I knew Hyacinthe had been part of Madoc’s army, I forgot that meant they might know each other. It is strange to hear them speaking like comrades, especially with one of them the jailer and the other in a cage.

As he departs, the redcap glances in my direction.

“Little queen,” Madoc says with a crooked smile. Despite not sharing blood with Oak, the mischief in his expression is familiar. “All grown up and come to devour your maker. I can’t say as I blame you.”

I am fairly sure he’s missing an eye. I remember the old general from the endless meetings and parties where I sat in the dirt or was tugged on a leash. I remember the calm of his manner and the hot wine he gave me, as well as the gleam of his teeth whenever there was blood.

Like now, when I spit on the ground rather than swallow what’s in my mouth.

Hyacinthe says something else to Madoc, and I put my head down on my arms, sprawling over the bench. Another bout of dizziness hits me, and I close my eyes, expecting it to pass. Expecting to be able to sit up. But instead, I am pulled down into darkness.

When I come back to consciousness, it is to the sound of Oak’s voice. “She’s breathing steadily.”

By the time I am able to focus, though, it is Madoc who is speaking, his voice a deep rumble. “You might be better served if she didn’t wake. What happens when she discovers how you’ve deceived her? When she realizes her role in your plan?”

I try not to move, try not to let a twitch of muscle or a tightening of my body give away that I am conscious and listening.

Oak’s voice is full of resignation. “She will have to decide how much she hates me.”

“Kill her while you can,” says the old general, softly. He sounds regretful but also resigned.

“That’s your answer to everything,” Oak says.

“And yours is to throw yourself into the mouth of the lion and hope it doesn’t like your savor.”

Oak says nothing for a long moment. I think about the way he took an arrow while grinning reassuringly, how he gulped down poison. How, back in Elfhame, he apparently draws out assassins by being an excellent target. Madoc’s not wrong that Oak throws himself at things. In fact, I am not sure if Madoc realizes the extent of his rightness.

“I despair of you,” says the redcap finally. “You have no instinct to take power, even when it is offering you its very throat to tear out.”

“Enough,” says Oak, as if this isn’t the first time they’ve gone through this argument. “This—all of it—is your fault. Why couldn’t you just have the patience to stay in exile? To resign yourself to your fate?”

“That’s not my nature,” the redcap says softly, as though Oak should have known better. “And I didn’t know it would be you who came.”

The prince gives a shuddering sigh. I hear rustling. “Let me look at those bandages.”

“Stop fussing,” says Madoc. “If pain bothered me, I went into the wrong trade.”

There is a long silence, and I wonder if I should pretend to yawn or something else to indicate that I am waking.

“I’m never killing her,” Oak says softly, so softly I almost don’t hear.

“Then you better hope she doesn’t kill you,” the general replies.

I lie very still for a while after that. Eventually, I hear the shuffling of a servant and the clank of platters, and use that as an excuse to give an awkward moan and turn over.

Oak’s hooves clatter against the floor, and then he’s on his knees in front of me, all golden hair and fox eyes and worry.

“Wren,” he breathes, reaching through the iron bars, even though they singe his wrists. His fingers run through my hair.

What happens when she discovers how you’ve deceived her? When she realizes her role in your plan?

If I hadn’t overheard what he’d said to his father, I would never have believed he had a secret so terrible he thought I would hate him for it.

The servant girl places bowls in front of the cells, on the ground. Cruel, since the bowls are too big to fit between the bars, which means that one must put one’s wrist against iron with every bite. Our dinner appears to be a pungent, oily soup that has barley in it and probably the meat of seabirds.

I shift myself into a sitting position.

“We’re going to get out of this,” Oak tells me. “I’ll try to pick the lock if you loan me your hairpin.”

I nod to show I understand and unclasp it.

His expression grows grave. “Wren—”

“Stop fussing at her now. She can’t even complain over it.” The redcap smiles in my direction, as though inviting me into laughing at his son.

Who he told to kill me.

The prince withdraws his hand from between the bars and turns away. He doesn’t seem to notice the burn on his arm as he pushes himself to his feet.

What could he have done that’s so awful? All I can think of is that he really does have Mellith’s heart and that he really is planning on turning it over to Lady Nore.

“Hurclaw is a problem,” Madoc says as he watches Oak bend the sharp end of my pin and slide it into the lock. “If it wasn’t for his people, I believe I could have escaped this place, perhaps even taken the Citadel. But Lady Nore has promised that she will soon be able to break the curse on the Stone Forest.”

“Take the Citadel? That’s quite a boast,” Oak says, twisting the pin and frowning.

Madoc makes a snorting sound, then turns to me. “I am sure that Wren here wouldn’t mind taking Lady Nore’s castle and lands for herself.”

I shake my head at the absurdity of the statement.

He raises his brows. “No? Still sitting at the table and waiting for permission to start eating?”

That’s an uncomfortably accurate way of describing how I’ve lived my life.

“I was like that once,” he tells me, his sharp lower incisors visible when he speaks. I know this conversation is an effort to assess an opponent and keep me off-balance. Still, the thought of him waiting for anyone’s permission is ridiculous. He’s the former Grand General of Elfhame and a redcap, delighting in bloodshed. He’s probably eaten people. No, he’s definitely eaten people.

I shake my head again. Oak looks over at us and frowns, as though his father talking with me makes him nervous.

Madoc grins. “No? I can hardly believe it myself, in truth. But I spent most of my life on campaigns, making war in Eldred’s name. Did I enjoy my work? Certainly, but I also obeyed. I took what rewards I was given, and I was grateful for them. And what did I get for my trouble? My wife fell in love with someone else, someone who was there when I was gone.”

His former wife, whom he murdered. The mother of his three girls. Somehow, I’d always assumed that she left him because she was afraid, not because she was lonely.

Madoc glances at Oak again before returning his attention to me. “I vowed I would use the strategy I studied for my own benefit. I would find a way to take all that I wanted, for myself and for my family. What a freeing thought it was to no longer believe I had to deserve something in order to get it.”

He’s right; that would be a shockingly freeing thought.

“Stop waiting,” Madoc says. “Sink those pretty teeth into something.”

I give him a sharp look, trying to decide if he is making fun of me. I lean down and write in the dirt and the crust of my own dried blood: Monsters have teeth like mine.

He grins as though I am finally getting his point. “That they do.”

Oak turns away from the lock in frustration. “Father, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“We were just talking, she and I,” Madoc says.

“Don’t listen to him.” He shakes his head with an exasperated look at his father. “He’s full of bad old-guy advice.”

“Just because I’m bad,” Madoc says with a grunt, “doesn’t mean the advice is.”

Oak rolls his eyes. I note he has a new bruise at the corner of his mouth and a wound on his brow that has caused blood to crust in his hair. I think of him fighting in the throne room, think of the pain when my tongue was cut out. Think of him watching.

I go to the bowl of soup, although I cannot stand to put anything into my mouth. Still, if I can get the dish into the cell, even if I tip out half the food, I can pass what’s left to Oak and Madoc.

As I begin to tilt it, though, I see something metal in the soup. Setting the bowl down again, I stick my fingers into the oily liquid and feel around. I touch the solid weight of a key and remember Hyacinthe’s words about getting me out of the Citadel.

Forcing myself not to look at Oak or Madoc, I palm the object. Then I tuck it away into my dress and retreat to the bench in the back of my cell. Oak has no luck with the lock. Neither of them seems inclined to eat the food.

I listen to them talk a bit more about Hurclaw, and how he argued with Lady Nore over some sacrifices that Madoc didn’t quite understand, and what would become of the bodies. Oak looks toward me several times, as though he would like to speak with me but doesn’t.

Eventually, Madoc suggests we rest, since tomorrow will be “a test of our ability to adapt to evolving plans,” which puzzles me. I know that Tiernan will arrive at the proscribed meeting place, with whatever it is in that reliquary.

The old general lies down on the bench while Oak stretches himself out on the cold floor.

I wait until they’re sleeping. I recall how he caught me in the woods and wait a very long time. But the prince is exhausted, and when I fit the key into my lock, he doesn’t wake.

I shove the heavy door, and it opens easily, the iron stinging my hand. I slip out, then tuck the key in a corner of their cell so that they will find it if I don’t return.

In the hall, I slip off my big boots. And then I walk, my bare feet quiet on the cold stone. The guard at the prison gate is sleeping, slumped over a chair. He must be used to having Madoc as his only charge.

Up the steps, rays of early-morning sunlight turn the castle into a prism, and every time the shadows change, I worry over being given away.

But no one comes. No one stops me. And I realize that this was my fate from the start. It wasn’t going to be Oak who stopped Lady Nore. It was always supposed to be me.

I do not meet Hyacinthe. I head for the throne room. As I tiptoe into a corridor that looks on the great hall’s double doors, I see they are closed and barred, with two stick soldiers standing at attention. I can think of no way to get past them. They do not sleep, nor do they seem alive enough to be tricked.

But no one knows the Citadel like I do.

There is another way into the great hall, a small pass-through tunnel from the kitchens where refuse is tucked away by servants—empty cups, platters, messes of every sort. The cooks and kitchen staff fish them out later to clean them. It is large enough for a child to hide in, and I hid in it often.

I move toward the kitchens. When I see guards passing, I duck into shadows and make myself unobtrusive. Although it has been a long time, I am well-practiced at being unnoticed, especially here of all places.

As I move, I have a strange dissonance of memory. I am walking through these halls as a child. I am walking through my unparents’ house at night, moving like a ghost. That’s what I’ve been for years. An unsister. An undaughter. An unperson. A girl with a hole for a life.

How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.

I creep down to the kitchens, on the first level of the Citadel. Their heat is what makes the prisons warm enough to survive. I would have thought the fires there, perpetually burning, would have melted the whole castle, but they do not. The base of the castle is stone, and what they do melt refreezes into a harder layer of ice.

I see a nisse boy, sleeping in the ashes before the fire, tucked into a blanket of sewn-together skins. I slip past him, past casks of wine. Past baskets of crowberries and piles of dried fish. Past jars of salted and pickled things and bowls of dough that are covered with wet towels, their yeast still rising.

I squeeze myself into the pass-through tunnel and begin to crawl. And although I am larger than I was the last time I was in it, I still fit. I slip by tipped-over wine goblets, dregs dried inside, and a few bones that must have fallen from a plate. I emerge at the other end, inside the empty throne room.

But as I push myself to my feet, I realize that I have failed again because the reliquary is gone.

I walk over to the place where it was, my heart beating hard, panic stealing my breath. I was foolish to come to Lady Nore’s throne room alone; I was foolish to come to the Citadel at all.

There is a withered leaf on the ground, and beside it something that might be a pebble. I lift it between my fingers, feeling the sharp edge of it. It’s what I hoped—a piece of bone.

The Thistlewitch said that with Mab’s bones, great spells could be cast. That she had the force of creation within her. And although I have never been adept at magic, if Lady Nore could use Mab’s power to create living beings from sticks and rock, if she could use it to control my tongue to make it speak the words she wanted to hear, then surely there is enough magic in this to allow me to grow my tongue back.

I put the withered leaf in my mouth first. Then I place the bone on the cut root where my tongue used to be, close my eyes, and concentrate. Immediately, I feel as though my chest is being squeezed, as though my ribs are cracking.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong with me.

I fall to my knees, palms pressed against the ice of the floor. Something seems to twist inside my chest, then split, like a fissure opening in a glacier. The hard knot of my magic, the part of me that has felt in danger of unraveling when I push myself too hard, splits completely apart.

I gasp, because it hurts.

It hurts so much my mouth opens on a scream I cannot make. It hurts so much that I black out.

For the second time in less than a single day, I wake on a cold floor. I’ve been there long enough for frost to settle over my skin, sparkling along my arms and stiffening my dress.

I push myself to my hands and knees. The remains of stick soldiers are scattered around me, among berries and branches and chunks of snow that might have once been stuck in their chests.

What could have happened here? My memories are tangled things, like the stems growing from Mab’s bones.

Kneeling and shaking with something that cannot be cold, I put my hand against the ice beneath me, noting spiderweb patterns, as though it were the shattered glass of a windshield, broken but not yet come apart. Staggering across the throne room, I crawl to the tunnel.

There, I close my eyes again. When I open them, I am not sure if it is moments later or hours. I feel leaden, sluggish.

With astonishment, I realize my tongue is in my mouth. It feels odd to have it there. Thick and heavy. I cannot decide if it is swollen or if I am just oddly conscious of it.

“I’m scared,” I whisper to myself. Because it’s true. Because I need to know if my tongue belongs to me and will say the things I mean it to. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired of being scared.”

I recall Madoc and his advice. To sink my teeth into something. To take this castle and all of Lady Nore’s lands for myself. To stop waiting for permission. To stop caring what others think or feel or want.

Idly, I imagine myself in control of the Ice Citadel. Lady Nore, not just beaten, but gone. Elfhame, glad of my service. So glad they are willing to name me the queen of these lands. And had I control of Mab’s remains, if I could harness the power that Lady Nore has? Perhaps I would be someone his sisters might consider a fitting bride for Oak then, with a dowry like that.

The fantasy of buying my way into being acceptable to his sisters should make me resentful, but instead fills me with satisfaction. That even Vivienne, the eldest, who shuddered at the idea of my being bound to her precious brother, might desire me to sit at their table. Might see my sharp-toothed smile and smile in return.

And Oak . . .

He would think . . .

I catch myself before I build a sugary confection of a fantasy.

One in which, once again, I seek permission. Besides, I do not control the Citadel, no less Lady Nore.

Not yet.

I walk out the doors of the throne room and up winding ice steps toward the floors above. I hear voices just as I turn.

A patrol of two ex-falcons and a troll spots me. For a long moment, we stare at one another.

“How did you escape the dungeon?” one of them demands, forgetting I cannot speak.

I run, but they grab me. The chase is over fast. It’s not as though I was really trying to get away.

Lady Nore is in her bedroom when I am brought before her. Three falcons—real birds, their curse as yet unbroken—sit on the serpent mirror above her dressing table and on the back of her chair.

My gaze goes to their hooked beaks and black eyes. All Lady Nore has been able to do for them is feed them and wait. But having broken Hyacinthe’s binding, I wonder if I could break theirs. If I could, would they be loyal to me, as they are to her?

I wonder what it would be like, to never have to be alone.

“Sneaky little girl,” says Lady Nore indulgently. She reaches out and twirls my hair around her finger. “This is how I remember you, stealing through my castle like a thief.”

Poor Wren, I hope my expression conveys. So sad. And her mouth hurts.

Lady Nore sees only her simple daughter, sculpted from snow. A disappointment many times over.

Now that my tongue is regrown through the strange magic of Mab’s bones, I could open my mouth and make her into my marionette, to dance when I pulled her strings.

And yet, instead I bow my head, knowing she will like that. Stalling for time. Once I begin, I will have to get everything exactly right.

“And quiet,” she says, smiling at her own jest. “I remember that, too.”

What I recall is the depth of my fear, the tide of it sweeping me away from myself. I hope I can mimic that expression and not show her what I actually feel—a rage that is as thick and sticky and sweet as honey.

I’m tired of being scared.

“Say nothing until I allow it,” I tell her. My voice sounds strange, hoarse, the way it did when I first spoke with Oak.

Her eyes widen. Her lips part, but she cannot disobey me, not after the vow she made before the mortal High Queen.

“Unless I say otherwise, you will give no one an order without my express permission,” I say. “When I ask you a question, you will answer it fully, holding back nothing that I might find interesting or useful— and leaving out any filler with which you might disguise those interesting or useful parts.”

Her eyes shine with anger, but she can say nothing. I feel a cruel leap of delight at her impotence.

“You will not strike me, nor seek to cause me harm. You will not hurt anyone else, either, including yourself.”

I wonder if she has ever been forced to swallow her words before. She looks as though she might choke on them.

“Now you may speak,” I say.

“I suppose all children grow up. Even those made of snow and ice,” she says, as though my control of her is nothing to be overly concerned with. But I see the panic she is trying to hide.

My heart beats hard, and my chest still hurts. My tongue still feels wrong, but so does the rest of me. She is not the only one panicking.

“Summon the two guards outside the door. Convey to them that they should bring Oak here.” My voice shakes a little. I sound uncertain, which could prove fatal. “Tell them nothing else, and give no sign of distress.”

Her expression grows strange, remote. “Very well. Guard!”

The two outside the door turn out to be former falcons. I recognize neither of them.

“Go to the prisons, and bring me the prince.”

They bow and depart.

I have stood apart from the world for so long. That has made it hard for me to navigate being in it, but it has also made me an excellent observer.

I stare at Lady Nore for a moment, considering my next move.

“You may speak, if you wish,” I tell her. “But do not raise your voice and, should anyone come into the room, cease talking.”

I can see her considering not to say anything out of spite, but she breaks. “So, what do you mean to do with me now?” Around her neck, Lord Jarel’s fingers scuttle.

“I haven’t decided,” I say.

She laughs, though it sounds forced. “I imagine not. You’re not really a planner, are you? More of a creature of instinct. Mindless. Heedless. A little low cunning, perhaps, the way animals sometimes surprise you with their cleverness.”

“How can you hate me so much?” I ask her, the question slipping out of my mouth before I can snatch it back.

“You should have been like us,” says Lady Nore, her posture rigid. The words come easily, as though she has been thinking on them for a long time. “And instead, you are like them. To look at you is to see something so flawed it ought to be put out of its misery. Better to be dead, child, than to live as you do. Better to drown you like some runt of a litter.”

I taste tears in the back of my throat. Not because I want her to love me, but because her words echo the worst thoughts of my heart.

I want to smash the mirrors and make her stick the pieces in her skin. I want to do something so awful that she regrets wishing I was anything like her.

“If I am so low,” I say, my voice a growl, “then what are you, to be my vassal, and lower still?”

When the door opens, I turn toward it. I probably look furious.

I can see the confusion on Oak’s face. He looks rumpled and must have been sleeping when they took him. He is brought into the room, wrists bound, by one of the ex-falcons.

“Wren?” he says.

In that moment, I realize I have already made a bad mistake. The guard stands there, waiting for orders, but Lady Nore can give him none. If I tell her what to say now, my power over her will be obvious— not to mention the restoration of my tongue—and the soldier will alert the others. But if I do nothing, and Lady Nore gives him no commands, it won’t take him long to discern something is wrong.

The moment stretches as I try to come up with an answer. “You can go,” Oak tells him. “I’ll be fine here.”

The former falcon makes a small bow and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Lady Nore gasps, furious and shocked in equal measure.

My own surprise is just as great.

The prince looks at me guiltily. “I can imagine what you’re thinking,” he says, moving his wrist to cast off the silver binding. “But I had no idea what my father’s plan was. I didn’t even know he had a plan. And it turns out that it wasn’t enough of one to win.”

I recall Oak’s words in the prisons. This—all of it—is your fault. Why couldn’t you just have the patience to stay in exile? To resign yourself to your fate?

So Madoc had known he was going to be kidnapped—perhaps from Tiernan, who would have gotten it from Hyacinthe, or maybe even from Hyacinthe directly—and he’d let it happen. All so that he could recruit his own soldiers back to his side, take Lady Nore’s Citadel, and impress Elfhame enough to let him back in.

The falcons had been loyal to him once, and so it made some sense—arrogant sense, but still sense—for Madoc to wager that weeks spent in the heart of the Citadel would allow him the time to win them over.

Hurclaw is a problem. If it wasn’t for his people, I believe I could have escaped this place, perhaps even taken the Citadel.

Madoc hadn’t planned on Hurclaw’s trolls, which left the former falcons outnumbered. Not to mention the huldufólk and nisser.

And the monsters of stick and stone.

“And now?” I ask.

Oak’s eyes widen satisfyingly at the sound of my voice. “How are you speaking?”

“I used a shard of Mab’s bones,” I tell him, and if I shiver a little at the memory, he cannot guess the reason.

“So you’re saying that while my father and I were asleep, you found the reliquary—all by yourself—and then single-handedly subdued Lady Nore?” He laughs. “You might have woken me. I could have done something, surely. Applauded at the right moments? Held your bag?”

I am flattered into a small smile.

“So,” he asks, “what order ought I give the guards, now that you’re in charge?”

Lady Nore sits rigidly, listening. Realizing, perhaps, that I do not need to have more than low animal cunning. All I need is an ally with a little ambition, one who will be a little kind.

Or, perhaps, realizing for the first time that she does not know me half so well as she thinks.

“Tiernan plans on meeting us still, correct?” I ask.

Oak nods. “It could be a way to get Hurclaw’s people in one place and surround them. We’d have the element of surprise, and the stick creatures on our side.”

I nod. “There’s Bogdana to think of, too.”

I push my feelings about what I overheard he and Madoc discuss aside and talk through possible plans. We go through them again and again. I command Lady Nore to have the guards fetch Oak’s things for him. Send a message to Hyacinthe. Have servants bring me the sweet ice Lord Jarel used to give me, and send wine and meat pies to Madoc.

Then I send for Lady Nore’s maidservants to help me get ready.

The door opens soon after to two huldufólk women, Doe and Fernwaif. Their tails swish. I remember them from my time here, sisters who had come to work for Lady Nore in recompense for some deed done by their parents.

They were kind, in their way. They did not prick me with pins just to see me bleed, as some of the others did. I am surprised by how sunken-eyed they look. Their clothing is worn at the hems and sleeves. I think of the briar-and-stick spiders hunting across the swells of snow and wonder how much worse it is to be in the Citadel now than it was then.

I choose a dress from Lady Nore’s closet and sit on a fur-covered stool while Doe pulls it over my head. Fernwaif arranges my hair with combs of bone and onyx. Then Doe brushes my lips with the juice of berries to stain them red, and does the same to my cheeks. It happens in a blur.

Kill her while you can.

Oak and I have been playing games for a long time. This game, I have to win.

Outside, we meet more guards and Madoc, brought up from the prisons. I look for Hyacinthe, but he isn’t there. I can only hope he received my note. A former falcon hands over a brace, hastily made from a branch. Madoc props it under his arm gratefully.

I see Lady Nore, mounting a reindeer, reliquary in her arms. Her hair, the color of dirty snow, blows in the wind. I see the gleam of greed in her yellow eyes, and the way Lord Jarel’s grim gray hands tighten on her throat.

When I was here as a child, I was afraid all the time. I will not give in to that fear now.

We set off through the drifts. Oak maneuvers himself close to me. “Once this is over,” he says, “there are some things I want to tell you. Some explanations I have to give.”

“Like what?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

He looks away, toward the edge of the pine forest. “I let you believe—well, something that’s untrue.”

I think about the feeling of Oak’s breath against my neck, the way his fox eyes looked with the pupils gone wide and black, the way it felt to bite his shoulder almost hard enough to break skin. “Tell me, then.”

He shakes his head, looking pained, but so many of his expressions are masks that I can no longer tell what is real. “If I did, it would serve nothing but to clear my conscience and would put you in danger.”

“Tell me anyway,” I say.

But Oak only shakes his head again.

“Then let me tell you something,” I say. “I know why you smile and jest and flatter, even when you don’t need to. At first I thought it was to make people like you, then I thought it was to keep them off-balance. But it’s more than that. You’re worried they’re scared of you.”

Wariness comes into his face. “Why ever would they be?”

“Because you terrify yourself,” I say. “Once you start killing, you don’t want to stop. You like it. Your sister may have inherited your father’s gift for strategy, but you’re the one who got his bloodlust.”

A muscle moves in his jaw. “And are you afraid of me?”

“Not because of that.”

The intensity of his gaze is blistering.

It doesn’t matter. It feels good to pierce his armor, but it doesn’t change anything.

My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn’t worked.

I must try something new.

As we trek across the snow, I am careful to walk lightly so that I can stay on top of the icy crust. But it still spider-webs with every step. My dress billows around me, caught by the cold wind. I realize that I am still barefoot.

Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.