They are building a wall. A miles-wide defensive shield, encircling the Citadel.

  In less than a month, between her own newfound power and her newfound allies, Wren has made the Court of Teeth more formidable and more forbidding than it ever was during Lord Jarel’s reign. But when he thinks of her, he cannot help seeing the darkness beneath her eyes and the feverish shine of them. Cannot put aside the thought that something is wrong.

  “Wren looks as though she’s been unwell,” Oak says. “Has she been sick?”

  Hyacinthe frowns. “You can’t really expect me to betray my queen by telling you her secrets.”

  Oak’s smile is sharp-edged. “So there’s a secret to tell.”

  Hyacinthe’s frown deepens.

  “I am a prisoner,” Oak says. “Whether you have me in chains or no, I can’t hurt her, and I wouldn’t if I could. I warned you about Valen. About Bran. Surely, I have proved some measure of loyalty.”

  Hyacinthe huffs out a breath, his gaze going to the troll kings beyond the icy pane. “Loyalty? I think not, but I am going to tell you because you might be the one person who can help. Wren’s power takes something terrible out of her.”

  “What do you mean?” Oak demands.

  “It’s eating away at her,” Hyacinthe says. “And she’s going to keep having to use it, again and again, so long as you’re here.”

  Oak opens his mouth to demand further explanation, but at that moment, a knot of courtiers passes, all of them pale and cold-looking, their gazes sliding over Oak as though the very sight of him is an offense.

  “You’re going to the leftmost tower,” Hyacinthe says.

  Oak nods, trying not to be rattled by the hate in their eyes. The tower he’s heading toward is, ironically, the same one he was caught in the day before. “Explain,” he says.

  “What she does—it’s not just unbinding, it’s unmaking. She became sick after what she did to Lady Nore and her stick army. Harrowed. And Bogdana was so insistent that Wren use it again to break the curse of the Stone Forest because she’s going to need the trolls if Elfhame moves against us. But she’s formed of magic herself, and the more she unmakes, the more she is unmade.”

  Oak recalls the strain in Wren’s face as she looked down from the dais in the Great Hall, the hollows beneath her cheekbones as she slept.

  He assumed that Wren didn’t visit the prisons because she didn’t want to see him out of uninterest or anger. But she might not have come if she was sick. As much as she knows that looking weak in front of her newly formed Court is dangerous, it’s possible she feels it is similarly risky to look weak in front of him.

  And if she doesn’t keep using her power…

  No matter how dangerous the magic, Oak can too easily imagine Wren believing that if she doesn’t use it, she won’t be able to keep her throne. This was a land of huldufólk, nisser, and trolls, used to bowing only to strength and ferocity. They followed Lady Nore, but they were willing to hail Wren, her murderer, as their new queen.

  She may be inclined to push herself past her limits to keep that support. To prove herself worthy. Has he not witnessed his sister doing just that?

  You know what would really impress them? his mind supplies unhelpfully. Daring to skewer the heir to Elfhame.

  “Tonight, at dinner,” Hyacinthe says, “persuade her to let you go. And if you can’t, then leave. Go. Actually escape this time, and take your political conflict with you.”

  Oak rolls his eyes at the assumption that getting out of the prisons was easy and he could have done it at any time. “You could advise her to let me go. Unless she doesn’t trust you, either.”

  Hyacinthe hesitates, not taking the bait. “She would trust me less if she knew we were having this conversation. Perhaps wisely, I am not sure she trusts anyone. All the Folk in the Citadel have their own agendas.”

  “I am last on the list of those whose advice she’d heed,” Oak says. “As you well know.”

  “You have a way of persuading people.”

  It’s a barbed comment, but the prince grits his teeth and refuses to be offended. No matter how barbed, it’s also the truth. “It would be far easier if I wasn’t wearing this bridle.”

  Hyacinthe gives him a sideways look. “You’ll manage.” He must have heard the specifics of her command. You will stay in my prisons until you are sent for.

  Oak sighs.

  “And in the interim, stop picking fights,” Hyacinthe says, making Oak want to pick a fight with him. “Is there no situation you’re not compelled to make worse?”

  Oak climbs the steps of the tower, thinking of the dinner ahead of him with Wren. The idea of sitting across from her at a table seems surreal, part of his hectic, fox-filled dreams.

  They come to a wooden door with two locks on the outside. Hyacinthe moves past the prince to fit a key inside the first one and then the other.

  One key. Two locks. Oak notes that. And none of it iron.

  The room it opens onto is well appointed. Low couches are arranged on a rug looking so much softer than anything he’s seen in weeks that he could sink down onto that and be happy. Blue flames burn in the grate of a fireplace. They seem hot, and yet when he puts a hand to the ice wall above the fire, there is none of the slickness that would indicate melting. Where the rug doesn’t cover, the floor is inset with stone. If you didn’t look carefully, you could suppose that you weren’t in an ice palace at all.

  “A far finer class of prison,” Oak says, moving to lean against one of the posts of the bed. While he was moving, he wasn’t dizzy, but now that he’s stopped, he feels the immense need to be supported by something.

  “Get dressed,” Hyacinthe says, pointing to a set of clothes laid out on the bed. He holds the key in his palm pointedly, then places it on the mantel. “If you can’t persuade her, it may interest you to know there’s a shift in the guard at dawn. I left you a book on the table over there as well. It’s mortal literature, and I understand you like that sort of thing.”

  Oak stares at the key as Hyacinthe leaves. Part of him wants to dismiss this as a trick, a way for the former falcon to prove the prince untrustworthy.

  His gaze goes to the clothing left for him and then the mattress beneath, stuffed with goose down or perhaps duck feathers. He feels almost sick with the desire to lie down, to allow his throbbing temple to rest on a pillow.

  He takes a deep breath and forces himself to pick up the book that Hyacinthe indicated—a hardback with a dust jacket that proclaims Magic Tricks for Dummies. He ruffles the pages, thinking of how he once made a coin disappear and reappear in front of Wren. Remembering his fingers brushing against her ear, her surprised laugh.

  He should have let her leave that night. Let her take the damned bridle, get on the bus, and go, if that was what she wanted.

  But no, he had to show off. Be clever. Manipulate everyone and everything, just the way he’d been taught. Just the way his father had manipulated him to come here.

  With a sigh, he frowns down at the book again. There doesn’t seem to be anything tucked inside. He isn’t sure what it means then, except that Hyacinthe thinks he’s a dummy. Just in case, he goes through the pages again, more slowly this time.

  On 161, he finds an almost thoroughly dried stalk of ragwort.

  Guards wait for him in the hall when he emerges from the room, dressed in the clothes he was given.

  The doublet is of some silvery fabric that feels sturdy and stiff, as though there might be silver threads woven into the cloth. His shoulders are a little broader and his torso a little longer than the original owner, and it feels even more uncomfortably tight than the uniform. The pants are black as a starless sky and have to be pushed up a little because of the curve of his leg above his hooves.

  He says nothing to the guards, and their faces are grim as they escort him to a high-ceilinged dining room where their new queen is waiting.

  Wren stands at the head of a long table in a dress of some material that seems to be black and then silver, depending on the light. Her hair is pulled away from her pale blue face, and while she does not wear a crown, the ornaments in her hair suggest one.

  She looks every bit a terrifying Queen of Faerie, beckoning him to some final supper of poisoned apples.

  He bows.

  Her gaze rests on him, as though trying to decide if the gesture is mockery or not. Or maybe she’s only inspecting his bruises.

  He’s certainly noting how fragile she looks. Harrowed.

  And something else. Something he ought to have noted in her bedroom, when she’d given him orders, but he’d been too panicked to think about. There’s a defensiveness in her posture, as though she’s bracing for his anger. After having held him prisoner, she believes he hates her. She might still be angry with him, but she quite obviously expects him to be furious with her.

  And every time he behaves as though he isn’t, she thinks he’s playing a trick.

  “Hyacinthe told me you were reluctant to explain how you came to be hurt,” Wren says.

  Oak doesn’t need to glance at the entrances to note the guards. He saw them upon his arrival. Not knowing their loyalties, he can hardly mention Valen, or even Straun, without stripping Hyacinthe of the element of surprise. Did she know that? Was this a play put on for their benefit? Or was this another test? “What would you say if I told you I grew so bored that I hit myself in the face?”

  Her mouth becomes an even grimmer line. “No one would believe that lie, could you even tell it.”

  Oak’s head dips forward, and he cannot keep the despair out of his voice. This is off to a bad start, and yet he truly does seem unable to keep himself from making it worse. “What lie would you believe?”

  Wren stiffens. He can see the careful way she is holding herself. Transforming her habit for shyness into remoteness. He is all admiration, except for the part where this new queen might decide he is nothing but a thorn to be excised from her side.

  “Am I to advise you how best to deceive me?” she says, and he knows they are no longer just talking about his bruises.

  Oak walks to the end of the table opposite her. A servant comes and pulls out the chair for him. Dizzily, he drops into the seat, well aware that it probably makes him seem sulky.

  He has no idea what to say.

  He thinks of the moment in the Court of Moths when he was told that Wren betrayed him, when it seemed certain that she had. Used him as he was familiar with being used. Kissed him to distract from her true purpose. He was furious with her, certainly, and with himself for being a fool. He was angry enough to let them take her away.

  It was only later when he understood the details that a terrible panic set in. Because she had betrayed him, but she did it to free those she felt were unfairly imprisoned. And she did it with no strategic or personal benefit, putting herself in danger for Folk and mortals she barely knew. Just as she helped all those mortals who made bad bargains with the Folk back in her town.

  He hadn’t found out her reasons before he’d let them take her. He recalls the uncomfortable mix of anger and fear over what might be happening to her, the horror of not being certain he could save her from Queen Annet.

  He wonders if this dinner is because Wren heard he was hurt and regrets that, if nothing else. She certainly felt betrayed. But betrayal didn’t stop one from feeling other things. “I do have some experience with deception,” he admits.

  She frowns at that unexpected confession, taking her seat as well.

  Another servant pours black wine into a goblet in front of him, one carved of ice. Oak lifts it, wondering if there’s any way to tell if the liquid within is poisoned. Some he can identify by taste, but plenty have either no flavor or one subtle enough to be masked by something more aromatic.

  He thinks of Oriana, patiently feeding him a little bit of poison along with goat milk and honey when he was an infant, making him sicker to make him better. He takes a tentative sip.

  The wine is strong and tastes of something like currants.

  He notes that Wren has not touched her glass.

  I have to show her that I trust her, he tells himself, even though he’s not entirely sure that he does. After all, she wouldn’t be the first person he liked who tried to kill him. She wouldn’t even be the first person he loved who tried to kill him.

  He pushes the thought away. Lifting his wineglass in salute, he takes a deep draught. At that, Wren finally brings her goblet to her lips.

  Oak tries not to show his relief. “I asked you once about whether you might like to be queen in earnest. It seems you changed your mind.” He manages to keep his voice light, although he still isn’t sure why he’s sitting here and not at the other end of an ice whip.

  “Have you changed yours?” she asks.

  He smiles. “Ought I? Tell me, Your Majesty, what is it like, now that you sit on a throne and have so many demands on your time and resources? Do you like having courtiers at your beck and call?”

  Her returning smile is tinged with bitterness. “You know well, prince, that sitting at the head of the table does not mean your guests will not fall to bickering over the portions on their plates, the seating arrangements, or the polish on the silver. Nor does it mean they will not scheme for your seat.”

  As though part of her speech, two huldufólk servants enter the room and set the first course before Oak and Wren.

  Thin slivers of cold fish on a plate of ice with a scattering of cracked pink peppercorns. Elegant and cold.

  “As your guest,” Oak says, lifting his fork, “I have few complaints. And I am, in fact, at your beck and call.”

  “Few complaints?” she echoes, one pale blue brow rising. “The prisons were just to your liking?”

  “I would prefer not to return to them,” Oak admits. “But if I had to remain there to be here, then I have none at all.”

  A faint flush comes into Wren’s cheeks, and she frowns again. “You asked me what I wanted with you.” She peers down the table at him with her moss-green eyes. A soft green, he always thought, but they are hard now. “But all that matters is that I do want you. And I have you.” Though that seems like a confession, she delivers the words like a threat.

  “I thought you believed that there could be no love where one person was bound. Isn’t that what you told Tiernan?”

  “You need not love me,” she tells him.

  “What if I did? If I do?” Oak has proclaimed his love to people before, but that felt like play and this feels like pain. Maybe it’s because she sees him, and no one else has. The illusion he wears is much easier to love than what’s underneath.

  Wren laughs. “What if? Do not play word games with me, Oak.”

  He feels a hot flush of shame, realizing that was exactly what he was doing. “You’re right. Let me be plain. I do—”

  “No,” she says, cutting him off, her voice simmering with the magic of unmaking, sending one of the fruits on a footed tray to pulp and seeds, one of the platters to molten silver. It sears through the ice of the table to drip onto the floor in shining strings, cooling on the way down.

  She looks as startled as he is, but she recovers quickly, pushing herself into a standing position. A strand of blue hair has come loose, falling over her face. “Do not think I will be flattered because you think me a better opponent and therefore set me a more careful romantic riddle to solve. I need no protestations of your feelings. Love can be lost, and I am done with losing.”

  He shivers, thinking of Lady Nore and Lord Jarel and how, though what was between them certainly was not love, it had something of love in it. He saw the former queens of the Court of Teeth immured inside the frozen walls of the Hall of Queens. That’s what it was to want to possess another, being unwilling to let them go, even in death. To murder them when you decided it was time for them to be replaced, so that you could keep them still.

  Oak hadn’t thought Wren capable of wanting to possess someone that way, and he didn’t want to believe it now.

  But she may think—after throwing him in prison and leaving him there—they are enemies. That she made a choice in anger that cannot be taken back. That whatever else he says, he will always hate her.

  And perhaps he would hate her, eventually. He blames himself for much, and is willing to endure much, but there’s an end to his endurance.

  “Perhaps you could remove the bridle, at least?” he asks. “You want me. You can have me. But will you kiss me even as I wear it? Feel the leather straps against your skin once more?”

  A small shudder goes through her as she takes her seat again, and he knows he scored that point at least.

  “What would you do to be freed from it?” she asks.

  “Since you can use the bridle to make me do anything, it stands to reason that there ought to be nothing I wouldn’t do to get it off,” he says.

  “But that’s not the case.” Her expression is canny, and he remembers how many bad bargains she has heard mortals make with the Folk.

  He gives her a small, careful smile. “I would do a lot.”

  “Would you agree to stay here with me?” she asks. “Forever.”

  He thinks of his sisters, his mother and his father, his friends, and the idea of never seeing them again. Never being in the mortal world nor walking through the halls of Elfhame. He cannot imagine it. And yet, perhaps they could visit, perhaps in time he could persuade—

  She must see the hesitation in his face. “I thought not.”

  “I didn’t say no,” he reminds her.

  “I’ll wager you were thinking of how you might bend the language in your favor. To promise something that sounded like what I asked for but had another meaning entirely.”

  He bites the inside of his cheek. That wasn’t what he was thinking, but he would have eventually come around to it.