Page 110 of The Stolen Heir

“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 likethem. 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 youspeaking?”

“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.

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