Oak stands. “Well, I leave you two to that argument. Or some other argument.”

  The prince heads to the helm, where he finds the Ghost sitting alone, watching the sails billow. He has a staff beside him. Like Vivi, the Ghost had a human parent, and it’s visible in the sandy brown of his hair, an unusual color in Faerie.

  “There is a tale about hags to which you might hearken,” Garrett says.

  “Oh?” Oak is almost certain he’s not going to like this.

  The Ghost gazes past the prince, at the horizon, the bright blaze of the sun fading to embers. “It is said that a hag’s power comes from the part of them that’s missing. Each one has a cold stone or wisp of cloud or ever-burning flame where their hearts ought to be.”

  Oak thinks of Wren and her heart, the only part of her that was ever flesh, and doesn’t think that can be true. “And?”

  “They are as different from the rest of the Folk as mortals are from faeries. And you’re bringing two of the most powerful of their kind to Elfhame.” The Ghost gives him a long look. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “So do I,” Oak says, sighing.

  “You remind me of your father sometimes, though I doubt you would like to hear it.”

  “Madoc?” No one has ever said that to him before.

  “You’re very like Dain in some ways,” says the Ghost.

  Oak frowns. Being compared to Dain can be no good thing. “Ah yes, my father who tried to kill me.”

  “He did terrible things, brutal things, but he had the potential in him to be a great leader. To be a great king. Like you.” Garrett’s gaze is steady.

  Oak snorts. “I am not planning on leading anyone.”

  The Ghost nods toward Wren. “If she’s a queen and you marry her, then you’d be a king.”

  Oak stares at him in horror because he’s right. And Oak didn’t really consider that. Possibly because he still thinks it’s unlikely that Wren will go through with it. Possibly also because Oak is a fool.

  Across the ship, Hyacinthe is leading Tiernan toward a cabin. Hyacinthe, who hasn’t really let Oak off the hook. “Since you knew Dain so well, can you tell me who really poisoned Liriope?”

  The Ghost’s brows rise. “I thought you believed he did?”

  “Possibly there was someone else who helped him,” Oak presses. “Someone who actually slipped the blusher mushroom into her cup.”

  Garrett looks genuinely uncomfortable. “He was a prince of Elfhame, and his father’s heir. He had many servants. Plenty of help with whatever he attempted.”

  Oak doesn’t like how many of those words also apply to him. “Have you heard there was someone else involved?”

  Garrett is silent. Since he cannot lie, the prince assumes he has.

  “Tell me,” Oak says. “You owe me that.”

  The line of the Ghost’s mouth is grim. “I owe many people many things. But I know this. Locke had the answer you seek. He knew the name of the poisoner, much good it did him.”

  “I am cleverer than Locke.” But what Oak thinks of is his dream and the fox’s laughter.

  The Ghost stands and dusts off his hands on his pants. “That doesn’t take much.”

  Oak can’t tell if Garrett knows the name or only knows that Locke did. Taryn may have told him any secrets that Locke told her. “Does my sister know?”

  “You should ask her,” says the Ghost. “She’s probably waiting for you on the shore.”

  The prince lifts his eyes and sees the Shifting Isles of Elfhame in the distance, breaking through the mist shrouding them.

  The Tower of Forgetting rises like a black and forbidding obelisk from the cliffs of Insweal, and beyond it he can make out the green hill of the palace on Insmire, the blaze of the sunset making it look as though it caught fire.

  Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her.

  That was how Oriana told the story of Liriope to Oak once he crowned Cardan as the new High King. It sounded like a fairy tale. The kind with princes and princesses that mortals told to one another. But this fairy tale was about how Oak had been told a lie, and that lie was the story of his life.

  Oriana was and wasn’t his mother. Madoc was and wasn’t his father.

  Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her. When she spoke, it seemed that the hearts of those who listened beat for her alone. In time, she caught the eye of the king, who made her the first among his consorts. But the king’s son loved her, too, and wanted her for his own.

  Oak hadn’t known what consorts were, and because it was Faerie and sex didn’t embarrass them, Oriana explained that a consort was someone the king wanted to take to bed. And if they were boys like Val Moren, it was for delight; if they were girls like herself, then it was for delight, but also might yield babies; and if the lover were of some other gender, that was for delight and the part about the babies could be a surprise.

  “But you didn’t have the king’s baby,” he said. “You only have me.”

  Oriana smiled and tickled him in the crook of his arm, making him shriek and pull away.

  “Only you,” she agreed. “And Liriope wasn’t going to have the king’s child, either. The baby in her belly was sired by his son, Prince Dain.”

  Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her. When she spoke, it seemed that the hearts of those who listened beat for her alone. In time, she caught the eye of the king, who made her the first among his consorts. But the king’s son loved her, too, and wanted her for his own. When he got a child on her, however, he was afraid. Although the king favored his son, he had other sons and daughters. His favor might change if he knew that his son had taken the king’s consort to bed. And so the prince slipped poison into the woman’s cup and left her to die.

  “I don’t understand,” said Oak.

  “People can be greedy about love,” Oriana said. “It’s all right if you don’t understand, my darling.”

  “But if he loved her, why did he kill her?” The story made Oak feel strange, as though his life didn’t quite belong to him.

  “Oh, my sweet boy,” his mother told him. His second mother, the only mother he would ever know. “He loved power best, I’m afraid.”

  “If I love someone—” he started, but he didn’t know where to go from there. If I love someone, I won’t kill them was a poor vow. Besides, he loved lots of people. His sisters. His father. His mother. His other mother, though she was gone. He even loved the ponies in the stables and the hunting dogs his father told him weren’t pets.

  “When you love someone,” Oriana told him, “be better than your father was.”

  Oak shuddered at the word father. He’d accepted that he had two mothers and that he might act like or look like Liriope because he inherited part of himself from her, but until that moment, he’d never thought of the villain of the story, the “king’s favored son,” as someone with whom he shared anything other than blood.

  He looked down at his hooves. The Greenbriars were noted for their animal traits. Those must have come from Dain, along with his horns. Maybe along with things he couldn’t see.

  “I—”

  “And be more careful than your mother. She had the power to know what was in anyone’s heart and to say the words they most wanted to hear.” She gave him a look.

  He was silent, afraid. Sometimes he knew those words, too.

  “You can’t help what you are. You can’t help being charming. But look into too many other hearts, and you may lose your way back to your own.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said again.

  “You can become the embodiment of someone’s—oh, you’re so young, I don’t know how to say this—you can make people see you the way they want to see you. This seems harmless, but it can be dangerous to become everything a person wants. The embodiment of all their desires. And more dangerous for you to twist yourself into shapes others choose for you.”

  He looked up at her, still confused.

  “Oh, my darling, my sweet child. Not everyone needs to love you.” She sighed.

  But Oak liked everyone loving him. Oak liked it so much that he didn’t understand why he would want it to be otherwise.

  Half the Court seems to have come out to watch the ship touch down in the water near Mandrake Market. When the hull drops with a splash, it sends salt spray high into the air. The sail luffs, and Oak hangs on to the rigging to keep from stumbling around the deck like a drunk.

  He can guess that the onlookers have come, in part, to see the Crown Prince home and, in part, to get a look at the new northern queen, to decide if she and Oak might really be in love, to determine if this is meant to be a marriage, or an alliance, or the prelude to an assassination.

  The Living Council stands near the back of the crowd in a knot. Baphen, the Minister of Stars, strokes a blue beard threaded with celestial ornaments. Beside him, Fala, the Grand Fool, dressed in purple motley, pulls a matching purple rose from his hair and chews on the petals, as though he has been waiting long enough for their landing to need a snack. Mikkel, the troll representative of the Unseelie Courts, looks intrigued by the flying ship, while insectile Nihuar, the representative of the Seelie Courts, blinks blankly. With her bug-like eyes, Oak has always found her to be eerily inscrutable.

  Oak’s family members aren’t far off. Taryn’s skirts blow around her from the last of the wind that propelled the ship. Her head is bent toward Oriana while Leander runs in circles, as restless as Oak was as a child, playing while dull, important things happened around him.

  Sailors aboard the ship throw down the anchor. Small boats launch off the shore of Insmire to ferry the passengers home. A collection of vessels—none of the armada, but pleasure boats. One in the shape of a swan, two carved to appear like they are fishes, and a silvery skiff.

  As Oak watches, Jude emerges from a carriage. Ten years into her reign, she doesn’t bother waiting for a knight or page to hand her down as would be proper, but simply jumps out. She hasn’t bothered with a gown today, either, but wears a pair of high boots, tight-fitting trousers, and a vestlike doublet over a shirt poufy enough that it may have been borrowed from Cardan. The only sign that she is the High Queen is the crown on her head—or perhaps the way the crowd quiets upon her arrival.

  Cardan emerges from the carriage next, wearing all the finery she eschewed. He is in a black doublet as ink dark as his hair with lines of scarlet thorns along the sleeves and across the chest. As if the suggestion of prickliness isn’t enough, his boots come to stiletto points. The smirk on his face manages to convey royal grandeur and boredom all at once.

  Knights swarm around them, full of the alarm the king’s and queen’s expressions hide.

  After the pleasure boats arrive at the ship, Hyacinthe goes below and emerges with Wren at his side. She has recovered enough to dress for the occasion in a gown of cloud gray, which sparkles when she moves. Her feet remain bare, but her hair has been braided high on her head, woven between the tines of the jagged onyx crown. And if she leans heavily on Hyacinthe, at least she is dressed and upright.

  “I will go across first,” Randalin informs the prince. “And you may proceed next, with the queen. I have taken the liberty of instructing your armsfolk to bring up the rear, with Bogdana. That is, of course, if you approve?” The question is clearly meant as a formality. The command was already issued, the procession set. The Minister of Keys may have been unusually quiet since the ship was attacked, but that hasn’t cut down on his pompousness.

  Once, Oak would have been amused rather than annoyed. He knows the councilor is harmless. Knows his annoyance is overreaction. “Go ahead,” the prince says, trying to get back his equilibrium.

  When the councilor heads off toward shore, Oak heaves a sigh and stalks toward Wren. Hyacinthe is whispering something in her ear while she shakes her head.

  “If you’re well enough—” Oak begins.

  She cuts him off. “I am.”

  “Then, Your Majesty,” says the prince, “will you take my arm?”

  She looks up at him, as remote and impenetrable as the Citadel itself. Oak feels a little awed by her and then angry on her behalf. He hates that she must wear a mask, no matter how much it costs her, no matter what she’s been through.

  As you must.

  She nods, placing her hand lightly atop his. “I shall be the politest of monsters.”

  For a moment, in the flash of her eyes, in the lifted corner of her mouth, and the glint of a sharp tooth, he sees the girl who quested with him. The one who was fierce and kind, resourceful and brave. But then she is gone again, submerged into cold stiffness. No longer looking like the girl he loved in the weeks leading up to this, but very like the one he loved as a child.

  She’s nervous, he thinks.

  As Oak leads her ashore, toward the onlookers, he hears whispers.

  Witch Queen. Hag Queen.

  Still, he is their prince. Their whispers fade as the crowd dutifully parts around him. Tiernan and Hyacinthe both follow, one on each side.

  When Oak comes to his sister, he bows. Wren, seeming unsure of the etiquette, bobs in a shallow curtsy.

  Despite how much magic it must have taken to destroy that monster in the sea, despite how sick she was after, she appears remarkably composed.

  “Welcome home, Prince Oak,” Jude says formally, and then her mouth twists into a wry smile. “And congratulations on the completion of your epic quest. Remind me to knight you when I get the chance.”

  Oak grins and bites his tongue. He is certain she will have much more to say to him later when they are alone.

  “And you, Queen Suren of the former Court of Teeth,” says Cardan in his silky voice. “You’ve changed quite a bit, but then you would have, I suppose. Felicitations on the murder of your mother.”

  Wren’s body stiffens with surprise.

  Oak desperately wants to stop Cardan from talking, but short of kicking him or throwing something at his head, he has no idea how.

  “The Ice Needle Citadel is full of old nightmares,” Wren says after a beat of silence. “I look forward to making new ones.”

  Cardan gives her a half smile of appreciation for that line. “We shall dine together at dusk tomorrow to celebrate your arrival. And betrothal, if the frantic messages we received from Grima Mog were accurate.”

  Oak’s mind spins, trying to figure out if he should object to any part of this. “We are, indeed, betrothed,” he confirms.

  Jude looks over at him, studying his face. Then she turns to Wren. “So you’re to be my new sister.”

  Wren flinches, as though her words are the opening move of some kind of cruel game. Oak wants to put his hand out, to touch her arm, to reassure her, except he knows better than to make Wren look as though she needs reassurance.

  Besides, he’s not entirely sure what his sister did intend with those words.

  A moment later, the black vulture lands on the dirt beside them and transforms into Bogdana, dark feathers becoming her dress and hair.

  All around, there is the rattle of swords coming free of sheaths.

  “What an appropriate greeting, Your Majesties,” says the storm hag. She does not bow. Nor does she curtsy. She doesn’t even incline her head.

  “Bogdana,” Jude says, and there is something that is possibly admiration in her voice. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “How pleasing,” says the storm hag. “Especially since I saved your ship from certain destruction.”

  Jude looks toward the Ghost—then checks herself and turns to Randalin instead.

  “It is even so, Your Majesty,” the councilor affirms. “The Undersea launched an attack on us.”

  A ripple of surprise goes through the crowd.

  Cardan raises his brows, looking skeptical. “The Undersea?”

  “One of the contenders for Queen Nicasia’s hand,” Randalin clarifies.

  The High King turns to Oak with an amused smirk. “Perhaps they were worried you might throw your hat into that ring.”

  “They wanted to send a message,” Randalin goes on, as though arguing the case, “that the land ought to keep to itself and let the Undersea work out its ruler business on its own. If we act otherwise, we will have made a powerful new enemy.”

  “Their dim view of treaties gives me a dim view of them,” says Cardan. “We will give Nicasia aid, as she once aided us, and as we swore to do.”

  It was the Undersea who’d rallied to Jude’s side when Cardan had been enchanted into a serpent, while Madoc and his allies conspired to take crown and throne, and while Wren hid in Oak’s room.

  “We are grateful to you for your help,” Jude tells Bogdana.

  “I saved the ship, but Wren saved those on board,” the storm hag says, curling her long fingers possessively on the girl’s shoulder.

  Wren tenses at the touch or the praise.

  “And saved our father as well,” Oak affirms, because he has to make his sister understand that Wren isn’t their enemy. “I couldn’t have gotten to Madoc without her, nor gotten him out—but I’m sure he told you as much.”

  “He told me many things,” says Jude.

  “I hope we will see him at the wedding,” says Bogdana.

  Jude raises her eyebrows and glances in the High King’s direction. It’s obvious they thought Oak being betrothed was a long way from an exchange of vows. “There are several celebrations that ought to precede—”

  “Three days’ time,” Bogdana says. “No longer.”

  “Or?” Cardan asks, voice light. A dare.

  “Enough,” Wren hisses under her breath. She cannot quite call the storm hag to account in front of everyone, and Bogdana knows it, but past a certain point, she will have to do something.

  The storm hag places both hands on Wren’s shoulders. “Prince?”

  They all look at him, all weighing his loyalty. And while he would marry Wren right then if it were only up to him, he can’t help thinking that anything Bogdana is this eager for can’t be good. Maybe she’s guessed that Wren doesn’t intend to ever go through with it.