The Thistlewitch looks us over. I do not think she is particularly impressed. When her gaze falls on me, her expression changes to one of outright suspicion.

  Oak’s glance goes to me, frowning in puzzlement. “This is Wren.”

  She spits into the fire. “Nix. Naught. Nothing. That’s what you are. Nix Naught Nothing.” Then she indicates the gifts with a wave of her hand. “What will you have of me that you think to buy my favor so cheaply?”

  Oak clears his throat, no doubt not liking how this is going so far. “We want to know about Mab’s bones and Mellith’s heart. And we want to find something.”

  Mellith’s heart? I think of Hyacinthe’s warnings and the unseen message from Lady Nore. Is this the ransom she asked for in exchange for Madoc? I have heard nothing of it before.

  As I look at the prince’s face, soft mouth and hard eyes, I wonder how important playing the part of the feckless courtier might be, if to show competence would be to endanger his sister?

  Wonder how many people he’s killed.

  “Ahhhhh,” says the Thistlewitch. “Now, there’s a story.”

  “Mab’s bones were stolen from the catacombs under the palace of Elfhame,” the prince says. “Along with the reliquary containing them.”

  The Thistlewitch’s ink-drop eyes watch him. “And you want them back? That’s what you mean to ask me to find for you?”

  “I know where the bones are.” Beneath Oak’s calm is a grim resignation, writ in the furrow of his brow, the slant of his mouth. He means to get his father back, whatever the cost. “But not how Lady Nore can use them for what she has. And not why Mellith’s heart matters. Baphen, the Court Astrologer, told me some of the story. When I asked Mother Marrow for more, she sent me to you.”

  The Thistlewitch shuffles to one of the chairs, her body hidden by the cape of her hair and all the briars and vines in it. I wonder, had I stayed in the woods long enough, if I might have found my hair turned into such a garment. “Come sit by my fire, and I will tell you a tale.”

  We drag over a few more chairs and seat ourselves. In the light of the flames, the Thistlewitch looks more ancient than ever, and far less human.

  “Mab was born when the world was young,” she says. “In those days, we Folk were not so diminished as we are now, when there is so much iron. Our giants were as tall as mountains, our trolls like trees. And hags like myself held the power to bring all manner of things into being.

  “Once a century, there is a convocation of hags, where we, the witches and enchanters, the smiths and makers, come together to hone our craft. It is not for outsiders, but Mab dared enter. She besought us all for what she wanted, the power to create. Not a mere glamour or little workings, but the great magic that we alone possessed. Most turned her away, but there was one who did not.

  “That hag gave unto her the power to create from nothing. And in return, she was to take the hag’s daughter and raise the witch child as her heir.

  “At first, Mab did as she was bid. She took for herself the title of the Oak Queen, united the smaller Seelie Courts under her banner, and began bestowing sentience on living things. Trees would lift their roots at her beckoning. Grass would scurry around, confusing her enemies. Faeries that had never existed before grew from her hands. And she raised three of the Shifting Isles of Elfhame from the sea.”

  Oak frowns at the dirt. “Has the High King inherited some of her power? Is that why he can—”

  “Patience, boy,” says the Thistlewitch. “Prince or not, I will tell you in full or not at all.”

  The prince puts on an imp’s grin of apology. “If I seem eager, it is only because the tale is so compelling and the teller so skilled.”

  At this, she smiles, showing a cracked tooth. “Flatterer.”

  Tiernan looks amused. He has his elbow propped on the arm of his chair and rests his head on his hand. When he isn’t concentrating on keeping his guard up, he looks like another person entirely. Someone who isn’t as old as he wants the people around him to believe, someone vulnerable. Someone who might have feelings that are deeper and more desperate than he lets on.

  The Thistlewitch clears her throat and begins to speak again. “Mab called the child Mellith, which means ‘mother’s curse.’ Not an auspicious beginning. And yet, it was only when her own daughter was born that she began to think of ways to weasel out of the bargain.”

  “Clovis,” Oak says. “Who ruled before my grandfather, Eldred.”

  The Thistlewitch inclines her head. “Indeed. In the end, it was a simple trick. Mab boasted again and again that she had discovered a means for Clovis to rule until the rumors finally found their way to the hag. Enraged, she swore to kill Clovis. And so, the hag crept up on where the child slept in the night and fell upon the girl she found there, only to discover that she had murdered her own daughter. Mab had bested her.”

  I shudder. The poor kid. Both kids, really. After all, if the hag had been a bit more clever, the other girl could have just as easily died. Just because a pawn is better treated doesn’t make it safer on the board.

  The Thistlewitch goes on. “But the hag was able to put a final enchantment on her daughter’s heart as it beat its last, for her daughter was a hag, too, and magic sang through her blood. The hag imbued the heart with the power of annihilation, of destruction, of unmaking. And she cursed Mab, so that piece of her child would be forever tied to the queen’s power. She would have to keep the heart by her side for her magic to work. And should she not, its power would unmake all that Mab created.

  “It is said that Mab put a curse on the hag, too, although that part of the story is vague. Perhaps she did; perhaps she didn’t. We are not easy to curse.”

  The Thistlewitch shrugs and pokes the rat with a stick. “As for Mab, you know the rest. She made an alliance with one of the solitary fey and founded the Greenbriar line. A trickle of her power passed down to her grandson, Eldred, granting him fecundity when so much of Faerie is barren, and to the current High King, Cardan, who pulled a fourth isle from the deep. But a large amount of Mab’s power stayed trapped with her remains, confined to that reliquary.”

  Oak frowns. “So Lady Nore needs this thing. The heart.”

  The Thistlewitch picks off a piece of rat and puts it into her mouth, chews. “I suppose.”

  “What can she do without it?” Tiernan says.

  “Mab’s bones can be ground to powder, and that powder used to do great and mighty spells,” says the Thistlewitch. “But when the bones are used up, that will be the end of their power, and without Mellith’s heart, all that’s done will eventually unravel.…”

  She lets the moment dramatically linger, but Oak, rebuked once, does not hurry her on.

  “Of course,” the Thistlewitch intones, “that unraveling could take a long time.”

  “So Lady Nore doesn’t need Mellith’s heart?” I ask.

  The witch fixes me with a look. “The power of those bones is great. Elfhame shouldn’t have been so careless with them. But they would be far more useful accompanied by the heart. And no one is quite sure what the heart can do alone. It has great power, too, power that is the opposite of Mab’s—and if it could be extracted, then your Lady Nore could style herself as both Oak Queen and Yew Queen.”

  A horrifying thought. Lady Nore would desire power of annihilation above all else. And if she could have both, she’d be more dangerous than Mab herself. Lady Nore would unmake everyone who had ever wronged her, including the High Court. Including me. “Is that really possible?”

  “How should I know?” asks the Thistlewitch. “Open the wine.”

  Oak takes out a knife, using it to pry off the foil, then sticks the point of the blade into the cork and turns. “Have you a glass?”

  I half-expect her to swig from the neck of the bottle, but instead, she gets to her feet and trundles off. When she returns, she’s carrying four dirty jars, a chipped platter, and a basket with two melons in it, one green and the other brown.

  Oak pours while the Thistlewitch removes the rat from the spit and sets it out on the platter. She begins cutting up the melon.

  “Mellith’s heart was supposed to be buried with Mab’s bones beneath the castle of Elfhame,” the prince says. “But it isn’t there. Can you tell me where it is?”

  When the hag is done arranging things to her liking, she pushes the platter toward us and picks up her jar of wine. She takes a long slug, then smacks her lips together. “You want me to discover its location with my dowsing rod? You want me to send eggshells spinning down the river and tell you your fate? But what then?”

  Tiernan pulls a leg off the rat and chews on it delicately, while Oak helps himself to a slice of melon. I eat one of the doughnuts.

  “I see you there, unnatural creature,” the Thistlewitch informs me.

  I narrow my eyes at her. She’s probably angry I took a doughnut.

  “Then I will use Lady Nore’s desire for it to get my father back. What else?” Oak asks.

  The Thistlewitch grins her wicked grin. She eats the tail of the rat, crunching on the bones. “Surely you know the answer, Prince of Elfhame. You seize the power. You have some of Mab’s blood in you. Steal her remains and find Mellith’s heart, and perhaps you can be Oak King and Yew King as well.”

  His sister would forgive him then, certainly. He wouldn’t just return a hero. He would return a god.

  After we eat, the Thistlewitch rises and dusts the bits of burned fur and powdered sugar off her skirts. “Come,” she says to the prince. “And I will give you the answer you came here for.”

  Tiernan begins to rise as well, but she motions for him to sit.

  “Prince Oak is the seeker,” she says. “He will receive the knowledge, but he must also pay my price.”

  “I will pay it in his stead,” Tiernan declares. “Whatever it is.”

  Oak shakes his head. “You will not. You’ve done enough.”

  “What is the point of bringing me along to protect you if you won’t let me risk myself in your place?” Tiernan asks, some of his frustration over the fight in the Court of Moths obviously bleeding into his feelings now. “And do not give me some silly answer about companionship.”

  “If I get lost in the swamp and never return, I give you leave to be very cross with me,” Oak says.

  Tiernan’s jaw twitches with the force of holding back a response.

  “So, what will you have?” Oak asks the Thistlewitch.

  She grins, her black eyes shining. “Ahhhhh, so many things I could ask for. A bit of your luck, perhaps? Or the dream you hold most dear? But I have read your future in the eggshells, and what I will have is this—your agreement that when you become king, you will give me the very first thing I request.”

  I think of the story the Thistlewitch told and the perils of bargaining with hags.

  “Done,” Oak says. “It hardly matters, since I will never be king.”

  The Thistlewitch smiles her private smile, and the hair stands up all along my arms. Then she beckons to Oak.

  I watch them go, his hooves sinking into the mud, his hand out to support her, should she need it. She does not, scampering over the terrain with great spryness.

  I take another doughnut and do not look in Tiernan’s direction. I know he’s still furious over Hyacinthe, and as mad as probably he is with Oak right now, I don’t want to tempt him to snarl at me.

  We sit in silence. I watch the crocodile creature rise in the water again and realize it must have followed us. It is larger than I supposed earlier and watches me with a single algae-green eye. I wonder if it was waiting for us to get turned around in the swamp and what might have happened if we had.

  After long minutes, they return. The Thistlewitch carries a gnarled dowsing rod in her hand, swinging at her side. Oak’s expression is haunted.

  “Mellith’s heart is not in a place Lady Nore is likely to find it,” Oak says when he draws close enough for us to hear him. “Nor should we waste our time looking for something we can’t get. Let’s depart.”

  “You weren’t really going to give it to her, were you?” I ask.

  He does not meet my eyes. “My plans require keeping it out of her reach. Nothing more.”

  “But—” Tiernan begins.

  Oak cuts off whatever he was about to say with a look.

  Mellith’s heart must have been what Lady Nore demanded in exchange for Madoc in the correspondence Hyacinthe was talking about. And if Oak was even considering turning it over, then I have every reason to be glad it’s impossible to get. But I also have to remember that, as much as he wants to take Lady Nore down, she has something over him. In a moment of crisis, he might choose her side over mine.

  At the edge of the swamp, the hob-faced owl is waiting for us, perched on the stringy roots of a mangrove tree. Nearby is a patch of ragwort, its flowers blooming caution-tape yellow.

  Oak turns toward me, a grim set to his mouth. “You’re not going to continue on with us, Wren.”

  He can’t mean it. The prince fought and killed an ogre to keep me with them.

  Tiernan turns to him, evidently surprised as well.

  “But you need me,” I say, ashamed of how plaintive I sound.

  The prince shakes his head. “Not enough for the risk of bringing you. I don’t plan on dueling my way up the coast.”

  “She’s the only one who can control Lady Nore,” says Tiernan grudgingly. “Without her, this is a fool’s errand.”

  “We don’t need her!” Oak shouts, the first time I have really seen his emotions out of his control. “And I don’t want her.”

  The words hurt, the more because he cannot lie.

  “Please.” My arms wrap around myself. “I didn’t try to run away with Hyacinthe. This is my quest, too.”

  Oak lets out a long breath, and I realize he looks even more exhausted than I am. The bruise under his eye from the punches he took has darkened, the purple yellowing at the edges, spreading over the lid. He pushes a stray lock of hair back from his face. “I hope you don’t intend to continue to help us the way you did in the Court of Moths.”

  “I helped the prisoners,” I tell him. “Even if it inconvenienced you.”

  For a long moment, we just stare at each other. I feel as though I’ve been running, my heart is beating so hard.

  “We head straight north from here,” he says, turning away. “There’s a faerie market near the human city of Portland, in Maine. I’ve visited it before; it’s not far from the Shifting Isles. Tiernan will buy a boat, and we’ll gather other supplies to make the crossing into Lady Nore’s lands.”

  Tiernan nods. “A good place to set off from. Especially if we need to lose anyone following us in the crowds.”

  “Good,” says the prince. “At Undry Market, we can decide Wren’s fate.”

  “But—” I start.

  “It’s four days of travel up the coast to get there,” he says. “We pass through the territory of the Court of Termites, the Court of Cicadas, and half a dozen other Courts. Plenty of time for you to convince me of the mistake I am making.”

  He strides off to the patch of ragwort, taking a stalk of the plant and enchanting it into a fringed skeletal beast. When he has two, he gestures for us to mount. “We can cover a lot more distance in the sky.”

  “I hate these things,” Tiernan complains, throwing a leg over the back of one.

  The owl-faced hob alights on the prince’s arm, and he whispers to it for a moment before it takes to wing again. Off on some secret mission.

  I climb onto the ragwort steed behind Oak, putting my hands around his waist, feeling shame at being dismissed, along with anger. No matter how fast Oak’s swordplay or how loyal Tiernan or how clever they might be, there are still only two of them. The prince will realize it makes more sense to bring me along.

  As we rise into the air, I find myself as unnerved by ragwort horses as Tiernan is. They seem alive now, and though they are not an illusion, they are not quite what they seem, either. They will become ragwort stalks again and fall to earth, with no more awareness of what they were than any other plucked weed. Half-living things, like the creatures Lady Nore enchanted.

  I try not to grip Oak too tightly as we fly. Despite the strangeness of the creature whose back I am on, my heart thrills in the air. The dark sky, dotted with stars, mirrors the lights of the human world below.

  We glide through the night, a few of my braids coming loose and undone. Tiernan may distrust the ragwort steeds, but he and Oak sit astride them with immense ease. In the moonlight the prince’s features are more fey, his cheekbones sharper, his ears more pointed.

  We make camp beside a stream in a wood redolent of pine resin, on a carpet of needles. Oak coaxes the taciturn Tiernan into telling stories of jousts. I am surprised to find that some of them are funny and that Tiernan himself, when all attention is on him, seems almost shy.

  Parts of the water are deep enough to bathe in, and Oak does, stripping off his armor and scrubbing himself with the sand of the bank while Tiernan boils up some of the pine needles for tea.

  I try not to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I see pale skin, wet hair, and a scarred chest.

  When it is my turn, I wash my hot face primly and decline to remove my dress.

  We fly through another day and night. At the next camp, we eat more cheese and bread and sleep under the stars of a meadow. I find duck eggs, and Tiernan fries them with wild onions. Oak talks some about the mortal world and his first year there, when he used magic in foolish ways and nearly got himself and his sister into a lot of trouble.

  The third night, we camp in an abandoned building. The air has grown chill, and we make a fire of cardboard and a few planks of wood.

  Oak stretches out beside it, arching his back like a preening cat. “Wren, tell us something about your life, if you will.”

  Tiernan shakes his head, as though he thinks I won’t do it.

  His expression decides me. I stumble over the words in the beginning, but I give them the tale of the glaistig and her victims. In part, I suppose, to be contrary. To see if they will fault me for helping mortals and cheating one of the Folk out of her due. But they listen and even laugh at the times I get the better of her. When I am done talking, I feel strangely lighter.