The crowd ought to be familiar, but the noise of the gathered Folk is loud and strange in his ears. He tries to shake it off and hurry. His mother will be annoyed he’s late again, and not even Jude and Cardan are going to sit down to a feast in his honor without him, which means it can’t officially begin until he gets to the table.
And yet, he keeps getting distracted by his surroundings. By hearing his father’s name on certain lips. Hearing his own on others. Listening to knots of courtiers speculate about Wren, calling her the Winter Queen, the Hag Queen, the Night Queen.
The prince notes Randalin, the little horned man drinking from an enormous, carved wooden mug, chatting with Baphen, whose curling beard sparkles with a new selection of ornaments.
Oak passes tables with wines of different colors—gold and green and violet. Val Moren, the former Seneschal, and one of the few mortals in Elfhame, is standing beside one, laughing to himself and turning in circles as though playing the childish game of seeing how dizzy he can become.
“Prince,” he calls out. “Will you fall with me?”
“Not tonight, I hope,” Oak answers, but the question echoes eerily in his mind.
He passes a table with roasted pigeons, looking entirely too pigeon-y for Oak’s comfort. Several leek and mushroom tarts rest beside them, as well as a pile of crab apples being set upon by sprites.
His friend Vier spots him and raises a flagon. “A toast to you,” he cries, walking over to sling an arm over Oak’s shoulders. “I understand you’ve won yourself a northern princess.”
“Won is definitely overstating the case,” Oak says, sliding out from his friend’s arm. “But I ought to go to her.”
“Yes, don’t leave her waiting!”
The prince wades back into the crowd. He sees a flash of metal and spins, looking for a blade, but it is just a knight wearing a single sleeve of her armor over a frothy gown. Near her are several ladies of the Court with enormous, cloudlike clusters of baby’s breath for wigs. He passes faeries in mossy capelets and dresses that end in branches. Elegant gentlemen in embroidered robes and doublets of birch bark. One green-skinned girl with gills has a train on her gown long enough to catch occasionally on roots as she passes. As he’s looking, Oak realizes it isn’t a train at all but the spill of her hair.
By the time he makes it to the High Table, he sees Wren standing before his sister and Cardan. He really should have gotten here sooner.
Wren catches his gaze as he approaches. Though her expression does not alter, he thinks he sees relief in her eyes.
Jude watches them both, calculating. Still, after two months away and a long rest to clear his head, what he notices most is how young Jude looks. She is young, but he can see a difference between her and Taryn. Perhaps it is only that Taryn has been to the mortal world more recently and has caught up to her years. Or that having a young child is tiring, and she doesn’t look older so much as exhausted.
A moment later, he wonders if it was only the fancy of the moment that made him think that. But another part of him wonders if Jude is quite as mortal as she once was.
He bows to his sister and to Cardan.
“Wren was just telling us of her powers,” says Jude, voice hard. “And we asked for the return of the bridle you borrowed.”
He’s missed something and not something good. Did she refuse them?
“I have sent one of my soldiers for it,” Wren tells him, as though in answer to the question he did not ask.
Perhaps they are only annoyed at the reminder of how many traitors to Elfhame serve in the Court of Teeth. If so, they must be doubly annoyed when a falcon swoops into the room, becoming a man as he lands. Straun.
Oak’s former prison guard gives him a smug look as he holds out the bridle to Wren.
The prince can still conjure the feeling of the straps against his skin. Can still remember the helplessness he felt when she commanded him to crawl. How Straun watched him, how he laughed.
Wren takes it from the soldier, letting it lie across her palm. “It’s a cursed thing.”
“Like all Grimsen’s creations,” Jude says.
“I don’t want it,” Wren says. “But I won’t give it to you, either.”
Cardan raises his brows. “A bold statement to make to your rulers in the heart of their Court. So what do you propose?”
In her hands, the leather shreds and shrivels. The magic departs from it like a thunderclap. The buckles fall to the dirt floor.
Jude takes a step toward her. Everyone in the brugh is looking at them now. The sound the destruction made drew their attention as surely as a shout.
“You unmade it,” says Jude, staring at the remains.
“Since I have cheated you out of one gift, I will give you another. There’s a geas on the High Queen, one that would be easy enough for me to remove.” Wren’s smile is sharp-toothed. Oak isn’t sure what the nature of the geas is, but he is sure from the spark of panic in Jude’s face that she doesn’t want it gone.
The offer hangs in the air for a long moment.
“So many secrets, wife,” Cardan says mildly.
The look Jude gives him in return could have peeled paint.
“Not only the geas, but half a curse,” Wren tells his sister. “It winds around you but cannot quite tighten its grip. Gnaws at you.”
The shock on Jude’s face is obvious. “But he never finished speaking—”
Cardan holds up a hand to stop her. All teasing is gone from his voice. “What curse?”
Oak supposes the High King may well take a curse seriously, since he was once cursed into a giant, poisonous serpent.
“It happened a long time ago. When we went to the palace school,” Oak’s sister says.
“Who cursed you?” asks Cardan.
“Valerian,” Jude spits out. “Right before he died.”
“Right before you killed him, you mean,” Cardan says, his dark eyes glittering with something that looks a lot like fury. Although whether it is toward Jude or this long-dead person, Oak isn’t certain.
“No,” Jude says, not seeming in the least afraid. “I’d already killed him. He just didn’t know it yet.”
“I can remove that and leave the geas alone,” Wren says. “You see, I can be quite helpful.”
“One supposes so,” says the High King, his thoughts clearly on the curse and this Valerian. “A useful alliance.”
Oak supposes that means Wren is still pretending she’s willing to marry him.
Wren reaches her hand into the air, extending her fingers toward Jude and making a motion as though gripping something tightly. Then her hand fists.
His sister gasps. She touches her breastbone, and her head tips forward so that her face is hidden.
The High Queen’s knight, Fand, unsheathes her blade, the glint of the steel reflecting candlelight. All around, guards’ hands go to their hilts.
“Jude?” Oak whispers, taking a step toward her. “Wren, what did you—”
“If you’ve hurt her—” Cardan begins, his gaze on his wife.
“I removed the curse,” Wren says, her voice even.
“I’m fine,” Jude grates out, hand still pressing against her chest. She moves to a chair—not the one at the head of the table, not her own— and sits. “Wren has given me quite a gift. I will have to think long and hard about what to give her in return.”
There’s a threat in those words. And looking around, Oak realizes the reason for it.
It isn’t just that Wren took apart the bridle without permission and the curse without warning, nor that she exposed something that Jude may have wanted to stay hidden, but she made the High King and Queen look weak before their Court. It’s true they weren’t up on the dais for all to see, but enough courtiers were listening and watching for rumors to spread.
The High King and Queen were helpless in the face of Wren’s magic.
That Wren did them a service and put them in her debt.
She did to Jude what Bogdana had done to her in the Citadel—and did it more successfully.
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.
“My family believes they must protect me,” he says, the words sour in his mouth.
“From me?” she asks, her face no longer looking so pale and bruised. She manages to even seem a little amused.
“From the cruel, terrible world,” he says.
Her lip turns up at the corner. Her gaze rests on him. “They don’t know what you’re capable of, then?”
He takes a deep breath, trying to find his way to the answer. “They love me,” he says, knowing that’s not enough.
“How many people does your sister Jude believe you’ve killed?” Wren asks.
There was the bodyguard who turned on him. There was no hiding that. And that duel he was in with Violet’s other lover. Two. Jude could have guessed some of the others, but he doesn’t think she did.
Of course, he didn’t want her to guess. So why did it bother him so much? And how many people had he killed? Two dozen? More?
“Your father?” Wren asks into his silence.
“He knows more,” Oak says, a betrayal in and of itself.
That is the problem with being Madoc’s son. The redcap understands people, and he understands his children best of all. When he isn’t consumed by rage, he is horribly insightful.
He sees in Oak what no one else has. He sees the desperate and impossible desire to repay all that he owes his family. Has Madoc used that to manipulate Oak? Oh, most definitely. Many times over.
He smiles at Wren. “You know what I am capable of.”
“A terrifying thought,” she says, but doesn’t sound displeased. “I should have understood better—what you did for your father and why. I wanted it to be simple. But my sis—Bex—” A choking fit stops her speech.
“Perhaps you might like a glass of something. Watered wine?”
She smiles tremulously in return. “A goblet of only water, if that will cause no one offense. What I drank during the toast seems to have gone to my head.”
They both know that isn’t the reason she feels faint, but he carries on the pretext. “Of course. Will you—”
“I can stand now,” she says.
He maneuvers them close to a chair, then sets her on her feet. If nothing else, she can hold on to the chair back. He remembers how weak he felt after leaving her dungeons. Something to lean against helped.
Then, leaving her reluctantly, he heads toward the nearest table where drinks have been set. Food is still being brought out from the kitchens, though at the High Table, most everyone is seated. As he pours water into a glass, he notes that a few courtiers have crowded around Wren and seem intent on charming her. He watches her give a smile that is perfectly polite, watches her eyes narrow, watches her listen.
He cannot help but think of Madoc’s words. They will sidle up to your little queen tonight. They will introduce themselves and curry her favor. They will attempt to ingratiate themselves with her people and compliment her person. And they will gauge just how much she hates the High King and Queen.
“Prince,” the Ghost says, hand on Oak’s shoulder, making him startle. “I need to speak with you a moment.”
Oak raises his eyebrows. “I haven’t asked Taryn about Liriope yet, if it’s about that.”
Garrett does not meet his gaze. “Other things have taken up my attention as well. I overheard something, and I have been following the path of it, but I want to warn you not to go wandering out alone. Keep Tiernan by your side. No assignations. No heroics. No—”
The Ghost bites off the words as Jack of the Lakes approaches, the kelpie looking relieved and as unamused as he did when he swore his allegiance to Oak.
“Forgive the interruption,” says the kelpie. “Or don’t. I don’t care. I have need of the prince.”
“You presume much,” the Ghost says.
“I often do,” says Jack silkily.
Probably the kelpie doesn’t know he’s baiting a master assassin. Probably.
“I have heard your warning,” Oak tells the Ghost.
The Ghost sighs. “I will have more information for you tomorrow, although perhaps not what you will want to hear.” With that, he walks off into the crowd.
The prince looks over at Wren. She’s speaking to another courtier, her hand heavy on the back of the chair.
Oak drags his attention to the kelpie. “I think I can guess the purpose of this conversation. Yes, I will help. Now, I must get back to my betrothed.”
Jack snorts. “I haven’t come to complain. Your sister terrorized me only a little.”
“Then what is it you want?”
“I saw a most interesting meeting last night,” Jack says. “Bogdana and a man with golden skin. He was carrying a large trunk. He opened it to show her the contents, then shut it again and took it away.”
Oak remembers the hag with the golden skin from the Citadel. He was the one who didn’t give Wren a present. “And you have no idea what was inside?”
“No, indeed, prince. Nor did he seem the sort who would take kindly to being followed by one such as myself.”
“I appreciate your telling me,” says Oak. “And it’s good to see you.”
Jack grins. “I share that sentiment, yet I would be away from this place if you put in a good word with your sister for my release.”
At that, Oak laughs. “So you wish to complain after all?”
“I would not wish to turn your good nature ill,” says Jack, looking around him uncomfortably. “Nor would I wish that ill nature directed at me. But I am not well suited to your home.”
“I’ll talk to my sister,” Oak promises.
On his way back to Wren, he spots Taryn speaking with Garrett. Oak’s gaze picks out Madoc in the crowd, leaning heavily on his cane. Leander is telling a story, and the redcap is listening with what seems rapt attention to his grandchild.
It occurs to him how strange a family they all are. Madoc, who murdered Jude and Taryn’s parents—and yet somehow, they consider him their father. Madoc, who almost killed Jude in a duel. Who might have used Oak to get to the throne and then ruled through him.
And Oriana, who was cold to his sisters, even to Vivi. Who didn’t trust Jude enough to leave Oak alone with her when they were young, but asked her to lay down her life to protect him just the same.
And Vivi, Taryn, and Jude, each different, but all of them clever and determined and brave. Then there is Oak, still trying to figure out where he fits in.
As the prince approaches Wren, he clears his throat.
“Your water,” he says when he’s close, his voice loud enough that the courtiers surrounding her make their excuses. He offers her the goblet of water, which she drinks thirstily.
“I was waylaid,” he says by way of apology.
“As was I,” she tells him. “We should go back to your family’s table.”
He hates that she’s right but offers her his arm.
She takes it, leaning on him with some force. “When you said you loved me . . .” It begins as a question, but one she cannot seem to complete.
“Alas that I cannot lie,” he tells her as he guides her through the hall, the smile easy on his lips now. “I hope you will try to find the humor in my feelings. I shall endeavor to do so myself.”
“But . . . don’t you want revenge?” she asks, her voice even softer than before.
He glances at her swiftly and takes a moment to decide how to answer. “A little,” he admits finally. “I wouldn’t mind if there was some dramatic reversal where you pined while I remained aloof.”
Wren laughs at that, a startled sort of sound. “You are the least aloof person I know.”
He makes a face. “Alas once again, my dreams crushed.”
She stops smiling. “Oak, please. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve made several and I need . . .”
He stops. “What do you need?”
For a moment, it seems as though she will answer. Then she shakes her head.
Just then, the musicians cease playing their instruments. The rest of the courtiers begin to move toward the banquet tables.
Oak guides Wren back to her chair. Predictably enough, the leaf place card with her name on it is set across the table from him, in the place of honor, beside Cardan. His own seat is two down from Jude, next to Leander. A snub.
He’s almost sure that’s not where his chair was before he took off.
A servant comes with pies in the shape of trout.
“You’ll like this,” Taryn says to him and Leander both. “There’s a coin inside one of the dishes, and if you find it, you’ll receive a boon.”
The High King is speaking to Wren, perhaps telling her about the coin as well. Oak can see the effort she’s making not to shrink in on herself.
Slabs of mushroom, grilled and shiny with a sweet sauce, are brought out. Then stewed pears alongside platters of cheese. Seed cakes. Sweet, fresh cream. Broad beans, still in their pods. More fanciful pies arrive. They’re shaped like stags and falcons, swords and wreaths—each with a different filling. Partridge stewed in spices. Blackberries and hazelnuts, pickled sloes, mallow fruit.
When he looks over at Wren again, he can see that she is covering her mouth as she eats, as though to hide the sharpness of her teeth.
There is a sound at the entrance, a clatter of armor as guards leap to attention. The storm hag has arrived, hours late, wearing a tattered black dress that hangs off her like a shroud and a smile full of menace.
Bogdana thrusts her hand into the pie in the shape of a stag. Her hand is stained red with the juice of sloes as she pulls it out, her fingers gripping a coin. “I shall have my boon, king. I want Wren and your heir married tomorrow.”
“You requested three days,” Cardan reminds her. “To which we gave no answer.”
“And three days it will be,” says Bogdana. “Yesterday was the first, and tomorrow will be the third.”
Oak sits up straighter. He glances across the table, waiting for Wren to stop this. Waiting for her to say she doesn’t want to marry him.
Her gaze meets his, and there is something like pleading in it. As though she wants to both break his heart publicly and have some guarantee he won’t hold it against her.
“Go ahead,” he mouths.
But she remains silent.
A glance passes between Jude and Cardan. Then Jude stands and raises her glass, turning to Oak. “Tonight, we feast in the hall in celebration of your betrothal. Tomorrow, we will have a hunt in the afternoon, then dance on Insear. At the end of the night, I will ask your bride a question about you. Should she get it wrong, you will delay your marriage for seven days. Should she answer rightly, we will marry you both on the spot, if such is still your desire.”
Bogdana scowls and opens her mouth to speak.
“I agree to those conditions,” Wren says softly before the storm hag can answer for her.
“So do I,” Oak says, although no one asked him. Still, this is all a performance. “Provided that I am the one who comes up with the question for my betrothed.”
Wren looks panicked. His mother looks as though she’d like to stab him with her fork. Jude’s expression is impossible to read, so rigidly does she keep her features set.
Oak smiles and keeps smiling.
He doesn’t think she’ll contradict him in public. Not when Bogdana drew so much attention to them.
“So be it, brother,” his sister says, sitting back in her chair. “The choice will be yours.”
