“Whose?” Jude demands.

  They don’t have to go far, though, and he sees the body before she gets her answer.

  Lady Elaine, lying in a heap, one of her small wings half crushed when she fell from the horse that is nuzzling the end of her skirts. Lady Elaine, her cheek stained with mud. Her eyes open. Her lips purple.

  Oak shakes his head, taking a step back. Hand coming up to cover his mouth. Two people poisoned—three people, counting himself. Because of the conspiracy?

  Cardan is watching him with an unreadable expression. “Your friend?”

  The Roach moves to Oak, puts one green clawed hand against the middle of his back. “Let’s go ahead to Insear, as the Minister of Keys said. You’re upset. Death’s upsetting.”

  Oak gives him a wary look, and the goblin holds up his hands in surrender, his black eyes sympathetic. “I had no part in Liriope’s murder nor these,” the Roach says. “But I can’t claim I’ve never done anything wrong.”

  Oak nods slowly. He can’t claim that, either.

  He mounts up again on Jack, who has obligingly become a horse again. The goblin rides a fat, spotted pony, low to the ground. Behind him, someone is saying that the festivities can’t possibly go on as planned.

  Oak thinks of Elaine, lying in the dirt. Elaine, who was dangerously ambitious and foolish. Had she told the rest of the conspirators that she was quitting and received this in answer?

  His mind turns to Wren, with the vulture’s talons digging into her skin. Her blank expression. He keeps trying to understand why Wren endures it without crying out or striking back.

  Does it have something to do with Garrett and Elaine being poisoned?

  Oak was a fool to bring Wren here. When he gets to the tents on Insear, he’s going to find hers. Then he is going to get them both off the isles and out of this vipers’ nest. Away from Bogdana. Away from his family. Maybe they could live in the woods outside her mortal family’s home. She’d said, back when they were questing, that she’d like to visit her sister. What was her name? Bex. They could eat scavenged berries and look up at the stars.

  Or maybe Wren wants to go back north, to the Citadel. That’s fine, too.

  “How long have you known?” the goblin asks.

  For a moment, Oak isn’t sure what he means. “About what Garrett did? Not long.” Above them, the black bees of the Milkwood buzz, carrying nectar to their queen. Late afternoon sunlight turns the pale trees gold. He sets his jaw. “Someone should have told me.”

  “Someone clearly did,” says the Roach.

  Leander, he supposes, which hardly counts. And Hyacinthe, although he didn’t know the whole of it. Oak doesn’t want to blame either of them out loud, not to someone who will carry the tale to his sister. He understands what the Roach is doing, getting him alone like this, understands it well enough to avoid the trap. He shrugs.

  “Did you poison him?” the Roach asks.

  “I thought Garrett poisoned me,” the prince says, shaking his head.

  “Never,” says the goblin. “He regretted what he did to Liriope. Tried to make it up to Locke by giving him his true name. But Locke’s not the person to trust with that sort of thing.”

  Oak wonders if Garrett tried to make it up to him, too, in ways he never saw. Teaching him the sword, volunteering to go north when the prince was in trouble, going to Oak with information before taking it to Jude. He didn’t like having a reason to be anything but angry, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  “There was something he needed to tell me,” Oak says. “Not about any of that. Something else.”

  “Once you’re delivered to Insear, I’ll check out his part of the lair. If he had any sense, he wrote it down.”

  At the edge of the Milkwood, they pass the Lake of Masks. Oak’s gaze goes to the water. You never see your own face, always the face of someone else, someone from the past or future. Today he sees a blond pixie laughing as she splashes someone else—a man in black with salt-white hair. Recognizing neither of them, he turns away.

  At the coastline, several boats await them, pale, narrow boats with high prows and sterns curving upward so that they look like crescent moons floating on their backs—all crewed by armored guards. As the sun dips beneath the ocean on the horizon, Oak looks across to Insear, outfitted with tents for the festivities to come, then to the sparkling lights of Mandrake Market, and beyond, to the Tower of Forgetting, stark black against the red-and-gold sky.

  He and the Roach get into one of the boats, and Jack, having shifted into his bipedal form, gets in after them. A guard Oak doesn’t recognize nods to them and then puts up the sail. A few moments later, they are speeding across the short stretch of sea.

  “Your Majesty,” says the guard. “There are tents for your refreshment. Yours is marked with your father’s sign.”

  The prince nods, distracted.

  The Roach stays in the boat. “I’ll find out what the Ghost knew, if I can,” he says gruffly. “You stay out of trouble.”

  Oak couldn’t count how many times someone said that to him. He isn’t sure he ever listened.

  On Insear, there is a small forest of pavilions and other elaborate tents. He looks among them for Wren’s, listening in vain for the sound of her voice or Tiernan’s. He doesn’t hear either of them, and he doesn’t see Madoc’s moon-and-dagger crest marking a tent for him, either.

  Everything feels wrong. He can see individual threads but not make out the larger web, and there isn’t much time.

  It may already be too late. Wasn’t that what Wren said?

  Surely, she couldn’t have been referring to the poison.

  I’m not the one who needs saving.

  He pushes the thought from his mind. No, she couldn’t have been speaking about that. She couldn’t have a hand in murdering Lady Elaine and probably killing Garrett, too, for all that turning him into a tree might help.

  As Oak and Jack walk on, the prince spots a tent with the flap open and Tatterfell within. But it isn’t Madoc’s crest that’s stamped on the outside. The prince frowns at the mark until he understands what he’s looking at. Dain’s crest. But people don’t generally refer to Oak as Dain’s son, even though at this point it’s well known where his Greenbriar blood comes from. If she sees this, Oriana is going to have a fit.

  Oak puzzles over who arranged things this way. Not his sister. Nor Cardan, unless this is some kind of backhanded way of reminding Oak of his place. But it seems a little too backhanded. Cardan is subtle but not confusingly subtle.

  He steps inside. The tent is furnished with rugs covering the rock and patches of grass. He spots a table is crowded with bottles of water and wine and the pressings of fruit. Candles burn to chase away shadows. Tatterfell looks up from spreading his change of clothes out on a low couch.

  “You’re early,” the imp says. “And who’s this?”

  Jack comes forward to take Tatterfell’s hand and bow deeply over it. “His steed and sometimes companion, Jack of the Lakes. It is my honor, lovely lady. Perhaps we shall dance together this evening.”

  The little faerie blushes, looking very unlike her usual grouchy self.

  Oak looks at the burgundy doublet, chosen hours earlier. He can still feel the disorientation of the blusher mushroom coursing through his system, but his movements are less stiff and more sure.

  “You must dress for the festivities,” she says.

  He opens his mouth to tell her that they’re probably not going to happen, then remembers her calling tonight a farce. Did she know something? Did she have a part in this?

  He needs to think straight, but it’s so hard with blusher mushroom still addling his mind. Almost certainly, Tatterfell was not planning any assassinations. But he wonders if the poisonings had to do with stopping the ceremony.

  That theory didn’t withstand much scrutiny, though. If they wanted it stopped, and had some power over Wren, couldn’t they pressure her to end it? Whoever they were.

  As his mind runs in circles, he strips off his hunting clothes and puts on the new, more formal ones. In moments, Tatterfell is dusting him off and polishing away any mud on his hooves. As though he really is going to his wedding.

  The flap of the tent opens, and two knights step inside.

  “The High King and Queen request your presence in their tent before the revel begins,” one says.

  “Is Wren there?” he asks.

  The knight who spoke shakes his head. He looks to be at least part redcap. The other knight has more elven features and dark eyes. He seems twitchy.

  “Tell them I will be along presently,” Oak says.

  “I’m afraid we’re to escort you—now.”

  That explains the twitchiness, then. “And if I don’t comply?”

  “We must yet bring you to them,” the elven knight says, looking unhappy about it.

  “Well, then,” Oak says, walking to them. He could, perhaps, use his charm to talk the knights out of it, but that seems hardly worth it. Jude would only send more soldiers, and these two would get in undeniable trouble.

  The prince carefully does not look in the direction of Jack. Since the kelpie wasn’t mentioned, he doesn’t have to go and will be the safer for it.

  Lightning slices across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder. No rain has started yet, though the air is thick with it. The wind is picking up, too, whipping the skirts of the tents. Oak wonders if Bogdana has something to do with this. Certainly, she is in a bad enough mood.

  He thinks of Wren again, of the talons biting into her skin. Of her words in the gardens. I’m not safe. You can’t trust me.

  There is little for him to do but walk across Insear behind the knights, past where garlands of ferns and wisteria and toadstools have been slung from trees, and musicians are tuning their fiddles, while a few courtiers, arriving unfashionably early, are selecting drinks from a large table, loaded with bottles of all shapes and sizes and colors.

  One of the knights pushes aside the flap of a heavy cream-and-gold tent.

  Inside, two thrones sit, although neither is occupied. Jude and Cardan stand with Taryn and Madoc. Cardan has changed into clothes of white and gold while Madoc is in deep red, as though they were opposing suits in a deck of cards. Taryn still wears her hunting clothes, her eyes red and swollen, as though she hasn’t stopped crying until just before this moment. Oriana sits in a corner, entertaining Leander. Oak thinks of his own childhood and how she pulled him away from so many dangerous conversations, hiding them in the back, distracting him with a toy or a sweet.

  It was a kindness, he knew. But it made him vulnerable as well.

  Three members of the Living Council are in attendance. Fala, the fool; Randalin; and Nihuar, representative of the Seelie Courts. All three of them look grim. Hyacinthe is there, too, sitting on a chair, stony-faced and defiant. Oak can sense the panic he is trying to hide.

  Ringed around the tent are guards, none of whom Oak knows. All of whom wear the expressions of people expecting an execution.

  “Oak,” Jude says. “Good. Are you ready to talk?”

  “Where’s Wren?” he asks.

  “What an excellent question,” she says. “I thought perhaps you knew.”

  They stare at each other.

  “She’s gone?” he asks.

  “And Tiernan with her.” Jude nods. “You can see why we have a lot to discuss. Did you arrange her freedom?”

  Oak takes a deep breath. There are so many things he should have told her over the years. To tell her now is going to feel like peeling off his own skin. “You may have heard some things about me and the company I was keeping before I went north with Wren. Lady Elaine, for example. My reasons were not what you might suppose. I’m not—”

  Outside, there’s a crash and a howl of wind.

  “What’s that?” Taryn demands.

  Cardan narrows his eyes. “A storm,” he says.

  “Brother,” Jude says. “Why did you bring her here? What did she promise you?”

  Oak remembers being caught in the rain and thunder of Bogdana’s power, remembers his ragwort steed being torn out from beneath him. This portends disaster.

  “When we were on our quest, I tricked Wren,” Oak says. “I kept back information that wasn’t mine to keep.” He cannot help hearing the echo of his own complaint in those words. His family hid things from him the same way he hid things from her.

  “And?” Jude frowns.

  Oak tries to find the right words. “And she was angry, so she threw me in prison. Which seems extreme, but I was handling it. And then you… overreacted.”

  “Overreacted?” Jude echoes, clearly incensed.

  “I was handling it!” Oak repeats, louder.

  There’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and then two bolts fly across the tent toward Jude. Oak hits the floor, pulling his sword from its sheath.

  Cardan whips up his cloak in front of Jude—the cloak made by Mother Marrow, the one that was enchanted to turn the blades of weapons. The arrows fall to the ground as though they’ve struck a wall instead of cloth.

  A moment later, the High King staggers back, bleeding. A knife juts out from his chest. Falling to his knees, he covers the wound with his hands, as though the blood seeping through his fingers is an embarrassment.

  Randalin steps back, smug and satisfied. It’s his dagger in the High King’s chest.

  “Put down your weapons,” a soldier shouts unsteadily, taking a step forward. For a moment, Oak isn’t sure whose side they’re on. Then he sees the way they’re standing. Seven soldiers moving closer to the Minister of Keys, two of them the knights who came to Oak’s tent.

  Finally, the unfamiliarity of them makes horrible sense. This is a trap.

  This is the conspiracy he hoped Lady Elaine would reveal. Had Oak not missed their meeting in the gardens, had he not been so willing to believe that it was over when Lady Elaine herself gave it up, had he not departed on the quest to save his father in the first place, perhaps he could have discovered this. Discovered it and foiled it.

  Oak recalls the councilor extolling the wisdom of his betrothal to Wren, recalls his pushing the royal family to come immediately to Insear after the hunt. Remembers how Randalin maneuvered a conference alone with Bogdana and Wren.

  The Minister of Keys was laying the groundwork while acting so pompous and irritating that he couldn’t be taken seriously. And Oak fell for it. Oak underestimated Randalin in the most foolish way possible—by falling for the same trick he played on others.

  Jude eases Cardan to the ground and kneels beside him, sword in her hand. “I will cut your throat,” she promises Randalin.

  “Stabbity stab, knife wife,” says Fala, with feeling. “Traitor’s blood is hot, but it still spills.”

  Taryn has a dagger out. Madoc, dangerous enough with just his claw-tipped hands, has moved into a fighting stance. Oak rises and moves to his side.

  “You should have listened to me,” Randalin tells Jude from the safe distance he has put between them, behind one of his soldiers. “Mortals are not meant to sit on our thrones. And Cardan, the least of the Greenbriar princes, pathetic. But all that will be remedied. We will have a new king and queen in your place. You see, none of your own knights are here to save you. Nor can they cross to this isle while the storm rages. And it will rage until you’re dead.”

  Oak blinks. “You made a deal with Bogdana. That’s what the Ghost was getting proof of, that’s the thing he thought I wouldn’t like.”

  Because of Wren. That’s why the Ghost thought Oak wouldn’t like it.

  “You should be grateful,” Randalin tells the prince. “I persuaded Bogdana to spare you, though you are of the Greenbriar line and her enemy. Because of me, you will sit on the throne with a powerful faerie queen by your side.”

  “Wren would never…,” Oak begins, but he’s not sure how to finish. Would she agree to the murder of his family? Did she want to be the High Queen?

  You can’t trust me.

  I’m not the one who needs saving.

  Randalin laughs. “She didn’t object. And neither did you, as I recall. Didn’t you tell Lady Elaine of your resentment of the High King? Didn’t you encourage her plot to get you on the throne?”

  Oak’s stomach hurts, hearing those words. Knowing a storm is raging outside because of someone he brought here. Seeing Cardan’s body lying in a pool of red, no longer conscious and maybe no longer alive. Thinking of the Ghost’s open, staring eyes. Seeing the way Oak’s sisters are looking at him now and how his mother is looking away.

  “You poisoned Garrett,” Oak says.

  Randalin laughs. “I gave him the wine. He didn’t have to drink it. But he got too close to uncovering our plans.”

  “And Elaine?” he asks.

  “What could I do?” Randalin says. “She wanted out.” And pouring her wine from the same urn as the spy’s convinced him it was safe to drink.

  Expressing the desire to get out was how Oak planned on getting Elaine and her friends to turn on him. The same way he’d defeated other conspiracies—courting an attempted murder and exposing them for that instead of as traitors. But she hadn’t known it would doom her. He should have given her a warning.

  And now his family thinks he was part of this. He can see it in their faces. And worse, in bringing Wren here, maybe he was.

  Maybe this is what Wren wanted when she agreed to come to Elfhame. Revenge on him. Revenge on the High King and Queen, who stripped her of her kingdom and sent her away with no help and no hope. The crown that Mellith was promised.

  Wren, whom he believed he loved. Whom he believed he knew.

  He sees now that she learned the lessons of betrayal, learned them down to the marrow of her bones.

  There is no apology Oak can give that could be believed, no way to explain. Not anymore.

  Oak feels something snap inside him. He draws his sword.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Randalin says with a frown. “This is all for you.”

  There is a familiar roaring in Oak’s ears, and this time he gives in to it eagerly. His limbs move, but he feels as if he’s watching himself from far away.