But if it’s working, why does she sound like that?
“Not …” I get the word out. I make myself smile. “Worried.”
“Oh, Jude,” she says. I feel a hand against my brow. It’s so warm, which makes me think I must be very cold.
“In all my days, I have seen naught the like of this,” Grima Mog says in a hushed voice.
“Hey,” Vivi says, her voice wavering. She doesn’t sound like herself. “Wound’s closed. How are you feeling? Because some strange stuff is going on.”
My skin has the sensation of being stung all over with nettles, but the fresh, hot pain is gone. I can move. I roll onto my good side and then up onto my knees. The wool beneath me is soaked through with blood. Way more blood than I am ready to believe came from me.
And around the edges of the cloak, I spot tiny white flowers pushing through the snow, most of them still buds, but a few opening as I look. I stare, not sure what I am seeing.
And then when I do understand, I can’t quite take it in.
Baphen’s words about the High King come to me: When his blood falls, things grow.
Grima Mog goes to one knee. “My queen,” she says. “Command me.”
I can’t believe she is speaking those words to me. I can’t believe the land chose me.
I had half-convinced myself I was faking being the High Queen, the way I faked my way through being the seneschal.
A moment later, everything else comes roaring back. I push myself to standing. If I don’t move now, I will never get there in time. “I’ve got to get to the palace. Can you watch over my sisters?”
Vivi fixes me with a stern look. “You can barely stand.”
“I’ll take the ragwort pony.” I nod toward it. “You follow with the horses you have at the campsite.”
“Where’s Cardan? What happened to that goblin he was traveling with?” Vivi looks ready to scream. “They were supposed to take care of you.”
“The goblin called himself the Roach,” Taryn reminds her.
“He was poisoned,” I say, taking a few steps. My dress is open on the side, the wind blowing snow against my bare skin. I force myself to go to the horse, to touch its lacy mane. “And Cardan had to rush him to the antidote. But he doesn’t know that Madoc sent the Ghost after him.”
“The Ghost,” Taryn echoes.
“It’s ridiculous the way everyone acts like killing a king is going to make someone better at being one,” Vivi says. “Imagine if, in the mortal world, a lawyer passed the bar by killing another lawyer.”
I have no idea what my sister is talking about. Grima Mog gives me a sympathetic glance and reaches into her jacket, drawing out a small stoppered flask. “Take a slug of this,” she says to me. “It’ll help you keep going.”
I don’t even bother asking her what it is. I am far beyond that. I just toss back a long swallow. The liquid scalds all the way down my throat, making me cough. With it burning in my belly, I heave myself up onto the back of the horse.
“Jude,” Taryn says, putting her hand on my leg. “You have to be careful not to pull your stitches.” When I nod, she unclasps the sheath from around her waist, then passes it to me. “Take Nightfell,” she says.
I feel better already with a weapon in my hand.
“We’ll see you there,” Vivi warns. “Don’t fall off the horse.”
“Thank you,” I say, reaching out my hands. Vivi takes one, and then Taryn clasps the other. I squeeze.
As the pony kicks its way into the frigid air, I see the mountains below me, along with Madoc’s army. I look down at my sisters, hurrying through the snow. My sisters, who, despite everything, came for me.
CHAPTER 16
The sky warms as I fly toward Elfhame. Holding on to the mane of the ragwort horse, I drink in great gulps of salt-spray air and watch the waves peak and roll below me. Although the land kept me from death, I am not entirely whole. When I shift my weight, my side hurts. I feel the stitches holding me together as though I am a rag doll with stuffing trying to leak out.
And the closer I get, the more panicked I become.
Wouldn’t it be better if he took an arrow through the heart in his own hall?
It’s the Ghost’s habit to plan an assassination like a trap-door spider, finding a place to strike from and then waiting for his victim to arrive. He took me to the rafters of the Court of Elfhame for my first murder and showed me how to do it. Despite the success of that assassination, nothing about the inside of the cavernous chamber was changed—I know because shortly after is when I came into power, and I’m the one who changed nothing.
My first impulse is to present myself at the gates and demand to be taken to the High King. Cardan promised to lift my exile, and whatever he intends, at least I could warn him about the Ghost. But I worry that some overeager knight might hasten to decide I should forfeit my life first and he should carry any messages I have second, if at all.
My second thought is to creep into the palace through Cardan’s mother’s old chamber and the secret passageway to the High King’s rooms. But if Cardan isn’t there, I will be stuck, unable to sneak past the guards who watch over his door. And sneaking back will waste a lot of time. Time I am already short on.
With the Court of Shadows bombed out and no sense of where they rebuilt, I can’t get in that way, either.
Which leaves me a single path—walking right into the brugh. A mortal in servant’s livery might normally pass unnoticed, but I am too well known for that trick to work unless I am well disguised. But I have little access to clothes. My rooms, deep in the palace, are impossible to get to. Taryn’s home, formerly Locke’s and with Locke’s servants still around, is too risky. Madoc’s stronghold, though—abandoned, with clothing that used to belong to Taryn and Vivi and me still hanging in forgotten closets …
That might work.
I fly low to the tree line, glad to be arriving in the late morning, when most Folk are still abed. I land by the stables and step off the pony. It immediately collapses back into ragwort stalks, the magic already pushed to its full measure. Sore and slow, I head for the house. In my head, my fears and hopes collide in a loop of words playing over and over again:
Please let the Roach be okay.
Let Cardan not be shot. Let the Ghost be clumsy.
Let me get inside easily. Let me stop him.
I do not pause to ask myself why I am in such a panic to save someone for whom I swore I rooted out every feeling. I will not think about that.
Inside the estate, much of the furniture is gone. Of what remains, the upholstery is ripped open, as though sprites or squirrels were nesting in it. My steps echo as I go up the familiar stairs, made strange by the emptiness of the rooms. I don’t bother going to my own old chamber. Instead, I go to Vivi’s, where I find that her closets are still full. I suspected she would have left many things behind when she went to live in the human world, and my guess is rewarded.
I find some stretchy hose in dark gray, pants, and a close-fitting jacket. Good enough. As I am changing, a wave of dizziness hits me, and I have to hang on to the doorframe until it passes and I get my balance again. Pushing up my shirt, I do what I’ve been avoiding thus far—I look at the wound. Dried-blood flecks stick all along the red pucker of where Madoc stabbed me, neat stitching holding the skin together. It’s nice, careful work, and I am grateful to Taryn for it. But just a glance at it gives me a cold, unsteady feeling. Especially the reddest spots, where there are already signs of pulling.
I leave my sliced and blood-soaked dress in a corner, along with my boots. With trembling fingers, I scrape back my hair into a tight bun, which I cover with a black scarf wound twice around my head. Once I am climbing, I don’t want anything to draw the eye.
In the main part of the house, I find an out-of-tune lute hanging in Oriana’s parlor, along with pots of makeup. I darken around my eyes dramatically, drawing them out into a wing, with eyebrows to match. Then I take a mask with gargoyle features that I fit over my own.
In the armory, I find a small bow that breaks down into something I can hide. Regretfully, I leave Nightfell, hidden as best I can among the other swords. I take a piece of paper from Madoc’s old desk and use his quill pen to write a note of warning:
Expect an assassination attempt, most likely in the great hall. Keep the High King in seclusion.