Poor Wren, I hope my expression conveys. So sad. And her mouth hurts.

  Lady Nore sees only her simple daughter, sculpted from snow. A disappointment many times over.

  Now that my tongue is regrown through the strange magic of Mab’s bones, I could open my mouth and make her into my marionette, to dance when I pulled her strings.

  And yet, instead I bow my head, knowing she will like that. Stalling for time. Once I begin, I will have to get everything exactly right.

  “And quiet,” she says, smiling at her own jest. “I remember that, too.”

  What I recall is the depth of my fear, the tide of it sweeping me away from myself. I hope I can mimic that expression and not show her what I actually feel—a rage that is as thick and sticky and sweet as honey.

  I’m tired of being scared.

  “Say nothing until I allow it,” I tell her. My voice sounds strange, hoarse, the way it did when I first spoke with Oak.

  Her eyes widen. Her lips part, but she cannot disobey me, not after the vow she made before the mortal High Queen.

  “Unless I say otherwise, you will give no one an order without my express permission,” I say. “When I ask you a question, you will answer it fully, holding back nothing that I might find interesting or useful—and leaving out any filler with which you might disguise those interesting or useful parts.”

  Her eyes shine with anger, but she can say nothing. I feel a cruel leap of delight at her impotence.

  “You will not strike me, nor seek to cause me harm. You will not hurt anyone else, either, including yourself.”

  I wonder if she has ever been forced to swallow her words before. She looks as though she might choke on them.

  “Now you may speak,” I say.

  “I suppose all children grow up. Even those made of snow and ice,” she says, as though my control of her is nothing to be overly concerned with. But I see the panic she is trying to hide.

  My heart beats hard, and my chest still hurts. My tongue still feels wrong, but so does the rest of me. She is not the only one panicking.

  “Summon the two guards outside the door. Convey to them that they should bring Oak here.” My voice shakes a little. I sound uncertain, which could prove fatal. “Tell them nothing else, and give no sign of distress.”

  Her expression grows strange, remote. “Very well. Guard!”

  The two outside the door turn out to be former falcons. I recognize neither of them.

  “Go to the prisons, and bring me the prince.”

  They bow and depart.

  I have stood apart from the world for so long. That has made it hard for me to navigate being in it, but it has also made me an excellent observer.

  I stare at Lady Nore for a moment, considering my next move.

  “You may speak, if you wish,” I tell her. “But do not raise your voice and, should anyone come into the room, cease talking.”

  I can see her considering not to say anything out of spite, but she breaks. “So, what do you mean to do with me now?” Around her neck, Lord Jarel’s fingers scuttle.

  “I haven’t decided,” I say.

  She laughs, though it sounds forced. “I imagine not. You’re not really a planner, are you? More of a creature of instinct. Mindless. Heedless. A little low cunning, perhaps, the way animals sometimes surprise you with their cleverness.”

  “How can you hate me so much?” I ask her, the question slipping out of my mouth before I can snatch it back.

  “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 like them. 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 you speaking?”

  “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.

  Then I send for Lady Nore’s maidservants to help me get ready.

  The door opens soon after to two huldufólk women, Doe and Fernwaif. Their tails swish. I remember them from my time here, sisters who had come to work for Lady Nore in recompense for some deed done by their parents.

  They were kind, in their way. They did not prick me with pins just to see me bleed, as some of the others did. I am surprised by how sunken-eyed they look. Their clothing is worn at the hems and sleeves. I think of the briar-and-stick spiders hunting across the swells of snow and wonder how much worse it is to be in the Citadel now than it was then.

  I choose a dress from Lady Nore’s closet and sit on a fur-covered stool while Doe pulls it over my head. Fernwaif arranges my hair with combs of bone and onyx. Then Doe brushes my lips with the juice of berries to stain them red, and does the same to my cheeks. It happens in a blur.

  Kill her while you can.

  Oak and I have been playing games for a long time. This game, I have to win.

  Outside, we meet more guards and Madoc, brought up from the prisons. I look for Hyacinthe, but he isn’t there. I can only hope he received my note. A former falcon hands over a brace, hastily made from a branch. Madoc props it under his arm gratefully.

  I see Lady Nore, mounting a reindeer, reliquary in her arms. Her hair, the color of dirty snow, blows in the wind. I see the gleam of greed in her yellow eyes, and the way Lord Jarel’s grim gray hands tighten on her throat.

  When I was here as a child, I was afraid all the time. I will not give in to that fear now.

  We set off through the drifts. Oak maneuvers himself close to me. “Once this is over,” he says, “there are some things I want to tell you. Some explanations I have to give.”

  “Like what?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

  He looks away, toward the edge of the pine forest. “I let you believe—well, something that’s untrue.”

  I think about the feeling of Oak’s breath against my neck, the way his fox eyes looked with the pupils gone wide and black, the way it felt to bite his shoulder almost hard enough to break skin. “Tell me, then.”

  He shakes his head, looking pained, but so many of his expressions are masks that I can no longer tell what is real. “If I did, it would serve nothing but to clear my conscience and would put you in danger.”

  “Tell me anyway,” I say.

  But Oak only shakes his head again.

  “Then let me tell you something,” I say. “I know why you smile and jest and flatter, even when you don’t need to. At first I thought it was to make people like you, then I thought it was to keep them off-balance. But it’s more than that. You’re worried they’re scared of you.”

  Wariness comes into his face. “Why ever would they be?”

  “Because you terrify yourself,” I say. “Once you start killing, you don’t want to stop. You like it. Your sister may have inherited your father’s gift for strategy, but you’re the one who got his bloodlust.”

  A muscle moves in his jaw. “And are you afraid of me?”

  “Not because of that.”

  The intensity of his gaze is blistering.

  It doesn’t matter. It feels good to pierce his armor, but it doesn’t change anything.

  My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn’t worked.

  I must try something new.

  As we trek across the snow, I am careful to walk lightly so that I can stay on top of the icy crust. But it still spider-webs with every step. My dress billows around me, caught by the cold wind. I realize that I am still barefoot.

  Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.

  Ahead of us, Lady Nore rides a shaggy reindeer. She is in a dress of scarlet with a cloak of deeper red over it, long enough to cover the back of the deer. The reliquary sits in her lap.

  The troll king is mounted on an elk, its horns rising in an enormous branching crown of spikes over its head. Its bridle is all green and gold. He himself has coppery armor, beaten into that same strange pattern again, as though each piece contains a maze.

  I think of how Tiernan must have passed these last two days. At first, hoping we would return, and then panicking as the night wore on. By the time day dawned, he would have known he had to come with the heart and play out Oak’s scheme. He might have embroidered the plans as he sat in the cold, angry with the prince and terrified for him. He had no way to tell us.

  And we had no way to tell him that Madoc had recruited so many of the former falcons to his side.

  Lady Nore swings down from her reindeer, her long scarlet cloak dragging through the snow like a shifting tide of blood.

  “Take the storm hag,” she orders, just as we planned. Just as she was commanded.

  Stick soldiers grab for Bogdana. The ancient faerie sinks her nails into one of them. Lightning strikes in the distance, but she has no time to summon it closer. Her hands are caught by more stick creatures. The storm hag rips apart a stick man, but there are too many and all are armed with iron. Soon she is pressed down in the snow, iron manacles burning on her wrists.

  “What is the reason for this betrayal?” Bogdana shouts at Lady Nore.

  Lady Nore glances at me but does not answer.

  The storm hag croaks. “Have I not done what you asked of me? Have I not conjured you a daughter from nothing? Have I not helped you make yourself great?”

  “And what a daughter you have conjured,” Lady Nore says, scorn in her voice.

  Bogdana’s eyes go to me, a new gleam in them. She sees something, I think, but is not yet sure what exactly she’s seeing.

  “And now, prince,” Lady Nore says, returning to the plan. “Where is Mellith’s heart?”

  Oak is not armed, although the former falcon at his side carries the prince’s sword where he can easily get it. And though his wrists appear to be tied, the cords are so loose that he can free himself whenever he wishes. The prince looks up at the moon. “My companion is supposed to be here presently.”

  I glance around at the assembled Folk. Part of me wants to give the signal now, to take command of Lady Nore’s stick creatures and force the trolls into a surrender. But better for Tiernan to be in sight, to be sure he won’t arrive at the wrong moment and jump into the fray, not knowing friend from foe.

  I shift nervously, watching Lady Nore. Noting the hands of Lord Jarel around her neck, a reminder that if she could find comfort in something like that, her other actions may be impossible for me to anticipate. My gaze goes to King Hurclaw, tall and fierce-looking. For all the rumors of his madness, I understand his motives far better than hers. Still, the thirty trolls behind him are formidable.

  “Perhaps you are used to your subjects biding at your pleasure, heir to Elfhame,” Hurclaw says, “but we grow impatient.”

  “I am waiting just as you are,” Oak reminds him.

  Twenty minutes pass before Tiernan appears, walking over the snow, Titch on his shoulder. It feels far longer than that with Lady Nore glaring at me and Hurclaw grumbling. Madoc leans heavily on his stick and does not complain, although I worry he might collapse. At perhaps half a league off, Titch springs into the air, flapping wide wings.

  The owl-faced hob circles once, then lands on Oak’s arm and whispers in his ear.

  “Well?” demands Hurclaw.

  Oak turns to Lady Nore, as though she really is the one in charge. “Tiernan says that Madoc should begin walking toward him with a soldier, as a show of good faith. Tiernan will meet them.”

  “And the heart?” she inquires, and I bristle. My commands had to be more open-ended for her to perform in front of Hurclaw, but she’s clever and will be looking for a loophole. I told her to behave like herself, but not to say or do anything that would give away that I had control over her. In this game of riddles and countermoves, I fear I have not been careful enough.

  “He carries it in a case,” Oak says. “He’ll pass it to your soldier. Then Suren and I are to go to him.”

  Lady Nore nods. “Then make haste. Let the exchange begin.”

  Before, she said she wanted to keep Oak. Now she seems as if she’s planning to release him. Will that seem strange to Hurclaw? Will he even notice? I slant a look at him, but there’s no way to know his thoughts.

  The hob takes to wing again, speeding over the snow toward Tiernan. “I have informed him you agreed to this plan,” Oak says.

  I doubt very much that’s what he told Titch.

  “With this heart, you can make the troll kings live again?” Hurclaw asks, narrowing his eyes at Tiernan and the case in his hands. “You can end the curse on my people?”

  “So Bogdana told me, once, long ago,” Lady Nore says with a glance toward the storm hag, whom the stick soldiers have hauled to her feet. “Though I sometimes wonder if she wanted it for her own reasons. But I remembered her story of the bones and the heart, remembered that they would be entombed beneath the Castle of Elfhame. And when the heart wasn’t there, I knew that only a member of the royal family would be allowed to search through the tunnels extensively enough to find it—or to know if it had been deliberately moved. So I took Madoc and gave them a reason to look.”

  She nods at a former falcon, and he begins to help Madoc across the snow. I see the general lean toward him and say something. Their pace slows. We wait with the wind whistling around us and the hour growing later. Tiernan halts when he reaches Madoc and hands the case with the deer’s heart inside to the soldier.

  The soldier starts to walk back to us. Madoc and Tiernan remain, as though expecting that Oak and I will really be coming to join them in a moment.

  Bogdana watches, amusement lifting a corner of her mouth despite the shackles she wears.

  “What a delight it would have been,” Lady Nore says in a tone of barely concealed malice. “To have had all that power and to have known it was Madoc’s son who gave it to me.”