He stabs into the stomach of the guard nearest to him, cutting up under his breastplate. The man screams. The thought that these soldiers believed he was on their side, believed he would be their High King, makes him even angrier. He turns, stabbing out. Someone else is screaming, someone he knows, urging him to stop. He doesn’t even slow. Instead, he knocks a bolt aside as two more guards crowd around him. He pulls a dagger from one of their sheaths and uses it to stab the other while he parries a blow.

  Oak can feel his consciousness slipping away, falling deeper into the trance of the fight. And it is such a relief to let go, the way he does when he allows the right words to fall from his tongue in the right order.

  The last thing the prince feels before his awareness slides entirely away is a knife in his back. The last thing he sees is his sword biting through the throat of an enemy.

  He finds himself with his blade pressed against Jude’s. “Stop it,” she shouts.

  He staggers back, letting the sword fall from his hands. There’s blood on her face, a fine spatter. Did he strike her?

  “Oak,” she says, not yelling anymore, which is when he realizes she’s scared. He never wanted her to be scared of him.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. Which is true. Or at least he believes it’s probably true. His hands have started shaking, but that’s normal. That happens a lot, after.

  Does she still think he’s a traitor?

  Jude whirls toward Madoc. “What did you do to him?”

  The redcap looks baffled, his gaze on Oak speculative. “Me?”

  Oak scans the room, the adrenaline of battle still running through his veins. The guards are dead. All of them, and messily. Randalin too. Oak isn’t the only one holding a bloody sword, either. Hyacinthe has one as well, standing near Nihuar as though they had very recently been back-to-back. Fala is bleeding. The Roach and the Bomb are beside each other, having appeared from the shadows, the Bomb’s fingers curled around a curved, nasty-looking knife. Even Cardan, using the throne to prop himself upright, has a dagger in his hand with red on the blade, although his other hand, holding his chest, is stained scarlet, too.

  Cardan’s not dead. The relief almost makes Oak sag to his knees, except that Cardan is still bleeding and pale.

  “What did you turn Oak into?” Jude demands of Madoc. “What did you do to my brother?”

  “He’s good with a sword,” the redcap tells her. “What can I say?”

  “I am losing patience almost as fast as I am losing blood,” says Cardan. “Just because your brother killed Randalin, it doesn’t mean we should forget he was at the center of this conspiracy—and that he is at the center of whatever Bogdana and Wren are planning. I suggest that we lock Oak up where he won’t be so tempting to traitors.”

  The prince spots Oriana, her arms still protectively around Leander, holding him turned toward her skirts so he can’t see the slaughtered bodies. She’s wearing an anguished expression. The prince feels the overwhelming urge to go to her, to bury his face in her neck as he might have done as a child. To see if she would push him away.

  You wanted them to know you, his mind supplies unhelpfully.

  Wren once described what she was afraid of, if she revealed herself to her family. How she imagined their rejecting her once they saw her true face. Oak sympathized, but until this moment he didn’t understand the horror of having all the people who loved you best in the world look at you as though you were a stranger.

  Charm them. The thought is not just unhelpful but wrong. And yet the temptation yawns in front of him. Make them look at you as they once did. Fix this before it is broken forever.

  A shudder goes through him. “It’s not Dad’s fault or anyone else’s that I’m good at killing,” he makes himself say, meeting Jude’s gaze. “I chose this. And don’t you dare tell me that I shouldn’t have. Not after what you’ve done to yourself.”

  Clearly, Jude was about to say something very much like that, because she chokes off the words. “You were supposed to—”

  “What? Not make the same choices the rest of you did?”

  “To have a childhood,” she shouts at him. “To let us protect you.”

  “Ah,” says Cardan. “But he had loftier ambitions.”

  Madoc’s gaze is impassive. Does he believe Oak to be a traitor? And if so, does he applaud the ambition or scorn the failure?

  “I think it’s time to get off this isle.” Cardan’s trying to sound casual, but he’s unable to hide that he’s in pain.

  The rain is still battering the tent. Taryn walks to the flap and looks outside. She shakes her head. “I am not sure we can get through the storm. The councilor was right about that, if nothing else.”

  Jude turns to Hyacinthe. “And what was your role in all this?”

  “As though I would give any confidences to you,” Hyacinthe says.

  “Kill him,” orders Cardan.

  “Hyacinthe fought on your side,” protests Oak.

  Cardan gives an exhausted sigh and waves one lace-cuffed hand. “Very well, truss up Hyacinthe. Find the girl and the hag and kill them, at least. And I want the prince locked up until we sort this out. Lock up Tiernan, too, if he ever comes back.”

  I’m sorry, Wren said before she left him in the Milkwood.

  She warned him not to trust her, and then she betrayed him. She conspired with Randalin and Bogdana. She allowed Oak to delude himself into believing that someone was controlling her, when she had all the power.

  It was clever, to keep him chasing shadows.

  That had been the part of the puzzle he wasn’t able to solve—what any of them could have over her, who could unmake them all. The answer should have been obvious, only he didn’t want to believe it. They had nothing over her.

  A mystery with a void at its center.

  “Shoot her on sight,” Jude says, as though it’s going to be that simple.

  “Shoot her? She’ll unmake the arrows,” Oak says.

  Jude raises her brows. “All the arrows?”

  “Poison?” his sister asks.

  The prince sighs. “Maybe.” If he wasn’t so busy drinking all the poison in sight, he might know.

  “We’ll find her weakness,” his sister assures him. “And we will bring her down.”

  “No,” says Oak.

  “Another protestation of her innocence? Or yours?” asks Cardan in a silky voice, sounding like the boy Taryn and Jude used to hate, the one who Hyacinthe wouldn’t believe was any different from Dain. The one who ripped the wings off pixies’ backs and made his sister cry.

  “I make no defense of myself,” Oak says, leaning down to pick up his sword from the floor. “This is my fault. And my responsibility.”

  “What are you doing?” Jude asks.

  “I am going to be the one to end this,” Oak says. “And you will have to kill me to stop me.”

  “I’m going with you,” Hyacinthe tells him. “For Tiernan.”

  The prince nods. Hyacinthe crosses the floor to stand against the prince’s back. As one, they move toward the door, blades bared.

  Jude doesn’t order anyone to block their way. Doesn’t confront Oak herself. But in her eyes, he can tell she believes that her little brother—the one she loves and would do anything to protect—is already dead.

  Oak and Hyacinthe plunge into a storm of terrifying ferocity. The fog is so thick the prince can’t even see the shore of Insmire, and the waves have become towering things, beating against the shoreline, biting off rocks and sand.

  Bogdana has sealed off Insear from aid, keeping Elfhame’s military and all else who would help them at bay. And now the storm hag waits with Wren for some signal that the royal family is dead.

  There’s a problem with their plan, though. Oak hasn’t married Wren. Perhaps Randalin thought no one would find the Ghost’s or Elaine’s body—or that no one would care. Must have believed the evening’s festivities wouldn’t turn into an inquest. But since things didn’t happen that way, the murder of the High King and Queen wouldn’t automatically give Wren the throne. She still needed him.

  As he walks along the beach, soaking wet, Oak is shaking so hard it’s difficult for him to tell what’s from the chill and what is from rage.

  He’s become the fool he’s spent so long pretending to be. If he hadn’t fallen in love, then no one would be in danger. If he didn’t believe in Wren, promise to be on her side, make every excuse for her, then Randalin’s schemes would have come to nothing.

  He loves her still, more’s the pity.

  No matter, though. He owes his family his loyalty, no matter their secrets. Owes Elfhame itself. Whether or not he likes being the prince, he accepted the role with all its benefits and obligations. He cannot be the one to put his people in danger. And whatever Wren once felt for him, he cannot believe she could do all this unless that was gone. He ruined it, and he wasn’t able to fix it. Some broken things stay broken.

  The prince runs through the storm, the cold cutting through his thin courtier’s clothes. “Come on,” he calls to Hyacinthe over the rumble of thunder, making a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate a tent he wants them to duck into.

  Marked with the sigil of a courtier from the Court of Rowan, it’s empty. Oak wipes some of the water off his face.

  “Now what?” Hyacinthe asks.

  “We find Wren and Bogdana. Can you guess where they might go? Surely you overheard something these past few days.” As the adrenaline of the fight ebbs away, Oak realizes there’s a raw line of pain down his back where he dimly recalls being stabbed. There may also be a shallow slash at his neck. It stings.

  “And if we find them,” Hyacinthe hedges. “Then what?”

  “We stop them,” Oak says, pushing away pain, pushing away the thought of what stopping them will really entail. “They can’t be too far. Bogdana needs to be close enough to control this storm.”

  “I owe Wren a debt,” says Hyacinthe. “I swore myself to her.”

  “She has Tiernan,” Oak reminds him.

  The man looks away. “They’ll be on Insmoor.”

  “Insmoor?” Oak echoes. The smallest isle, besides the one they’re standing on. The location of Mandrake Market and not much else.

  “Bogdana turned the cottage back into a walnut before the hunt and tucked it away in her pocket. Told us we might have to meet her on Insmoor.”

  So the rest of her falcons would be there with them. That makes things more complicated, but Oak won’t mind a chance to face Straun. And it isn’t like Wren could unmake Oak unless she wants to unmake her plans for ruling as well.

  “I know how we can get to Insmoor,” the prince says.

  Hyacinthe meets his gaze for a long moment, seeming to understand his scheme. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Never more so,” Oak says, and plunges back out into the storm.

  Oak’s teeth are chattering by the time he comes to the tent marked with Dain’s crest. Tatterfell and Jack are inside, huddled far from the flaps, which keep blowing apart, letting the cold rain inside.

  “Jack, I’m afraid I need your help again,” Oak tells him.

  “At your service, my prince,” Jack says, bowing his head. “I promised to be of use to you, and I shall.”

  “After this, your debt to me will be more than paid. You will owe me nothing. Perhaps you will even be the one with a favor to call in.”

  “I should enjoy that,” Jack says with a sly smile.

  “I want you to take me under the waves to the shore. Do you have a way to keep me breathing while we go?”

  Jack looks at him with wide eyes. “Alas, I am no help to you there. My kind do not much worry over the lives of our riders.”

  Hyacinthe gives Oak an incredulous look. “No, you delight in their deaths and then devour them. Can you control yourself with the prince on your back?”

  That wasn’t something Oak worried over before, but he doesn’t like the flash of delight that passes across Jack of the Lakes’ face at the mention of devouring.

  “I can keep my teeth from the prince’s sweet flesh, but if you want to come along, there’s no telling what I might do to you,” Jack says.

  “I’m coming,” Hyacinthe says. “They’ve got Tiernan.”

  Oak hoped he would. He’s not sure he can do this alone. “No snacking on Hyacinthe.”

  “Not even a small bite?” Jack asks petulantly. “You are making it hard to be merry, Your Highness.”

  “Nonetheless,” Oak says.

  “What fool thing is it that you intend to do in this storm?” Tatterfell asks, poking the prince in the gut. “And are you bleeding?”

  “Maybe,” he says, touching a finger to his neck. It hurts, but his back hurts worse.

  “Take off your shirt,” the little faerie commands, blinking up at him.

  “There isn’t time,” he tells her. “But if you have some bindings, I’ll use them for my sword. I seem to have dropped the sheath somewhere.”

  Tatterfell rolls her ink-drop eyes.

  “I will swim as swiftly as I am able,” Jack says. “But it might not be swiftly enough.”

  “You can surface partway there,” Oak suggests. “Let us catch a breath, then go on.”

  Jack considers that for a long moment, as though it is not much in his nature. But after a moment, he nods. Hyacinthe frowns and keeps frowning.

  Tatterfell binds up the sword and belts it to Oak’s waist with torn strips of his old clothes. She sews up the wound on his back as well, threatening to press her finger into the gouge if he moves.

  “You’re ruthless,” he tells her.

  She smiles as though he’s delivered an extremely charming compliment.

  Then, bracing against the wind and rain, Oak, Jack, and Hyacinthe make their way to the shore.

  At the beach, Jack transforms into a sharp-toothed horse. He lowers himself to his knees and waits for them to lash themselves to him. Oak wraps a rope scavenged from the tent around the kelpie’s chest and then around Hyacinthe, tying him tightly to Jack’s back. Then he straps himself on, looping the rope a final time around their middles so they are bound to one another.

  When Oak looks at the crashing waves, he begins to doubt the wisdom of his plan. He can barely make out the lights of Insmoor in the storm. Can he really hold his breath for as long as Jack is going to believe he needs?

  But there’s no going back. Nothing even to go back to, so he tries to inhale deeply and exhale slowly. Open up his lungs as much as he can.

  Jack gallops toward the waves. The icy water splashes against Oak’s legs. He grips the rope and takes one last breath as Jack plunges them all into the sea.

  The cold of the ocean stabs the prince’s chest. For a moment, it almost forces the breath from his lungs, but he manages to keep himself from gasping. Opens his eyes in the dark water. Feels the increasing, panicked pressure of Hyacinthe’s grip on his shoulder.

  Jack swims swiftly through the water. After a minute, it’s clear it isn’t fast enough. Oak’s lungs burn; he feels lightheaded.

  Jack needs to surface. He needs to do it now. Now. The prince presses his knees hard against the kelpie’s chest.

  Hyacinthe’s hold on Oak’s shoulder goes slack, his fingers drifting away. Oak concentrates on the pain of the rope cutting into his hand. Tries to stay alert. Tries not to breathe. Tries not to breathe. Tries not to breathe.

  Then he can’t hold on anymore, and water comes rushing in.

  They surface abruptly, leaving Oak choking and coughing. He can hear Hyacinthe hacking behind him. A swell comes along and slaps him in the face, sending seawater down his throat, making him cough worse.

  Jack’s head is above the waves, his mane plastered to his neck. Some kind of membrane has closed over his eyes, causing them to appear pearlescent. A glance toward the shore reassures Oak they are more than halfway to Insmoor. He can’t even catch his breath, though, no less hold it again. His chest hurts and he’s still coughing and waves keep crashing over him.

  “Oak,” Hyacinthe manages to wheeze. “This was a bad plan.”

  “If we die, he’s going to eat you first,” Oak gets out. “So you better live.”

  Too soon, the kelpie begins to descend, slowly enough for Oak to suck in a breath, at least. It’s a shallow one, and he is almost certain he can’t hold it until the shore. His lungs are burning already.

  This is the only way across, he reminds himself, closing his eyes.

  Jack surfaces once more, just long enough for Oak to gulp down another breath. Then they race for the shore, only to hit the crashing waves there.

  The kelpie is hurled forward, thrown against the sandy bottom. Oak and Hyacinthe are dragged along. A sharp rock scrapes against Oak’s leg. He wriggles against the rope, but it is pulled tight.

  Somehow Jack fights his way higher onto the beach. Another wave knocks against his flank, and he staggers, then transforms into a boy. The rope slackens. Oak slips down onto the sand. Hyacinthe falls, too, and the prince realizes he’s not conscious. Blood is seeping from a cut above his brow where he may have struck a rock.

  Oak puts his shoulder under Hyacinthe’s arm and attempts to haul him away from the shoreline. Before he can get clear, a stray wave trips the prince, and he falls to his knees. He throws his body over Hyacinthe’s to keep him from being sucked back into the sea.

  A moment later, Oak is up and dragging Hyacinthe behind him. Jack grabs Hyacinthe’s other arm, and together they pull the man up onto soft grass before collapsing beside him.

  Oak starts coughing again, while Jack manages to turn Hyacinthe onto his side. The kelpie slaps him on the back, and he vomits up seawater.

  “How—?” Hyacinthe manages, opening his eyes.

  Jack makes a prim face. “You both get soggy rather fast.”

  Above their heads the sky is a clear and steady blue, the clouds pale and puffy as lambs. It is only when Oak looks back at Insear that he sees the storm, a thick fog surrounding the isle, crackling with lightning and a sheet of rain that blurs everything beyond it.