Something exploded outside and my father flinched, losing his balance enough that he stepped off my back. I desperately wanted to turn my head to see the look on his face as the belief I’d brought every half-blood in the city back to my cause settled into his mind. That all of them were actually oblivious to my machinations and really did want me dead didn’t matter in that moment. All that mattered was that he thought they followed me. That he, in discovering that I knew the half-bloods’ ability to lie, had become so wrapped up in his own web of duplicity that the probable became improbable, the truth a lie.
He was silent, and I could all but feel his mind working as he considered how to proceed. Calling Tips out for lying was out of the question. Not only would it bring to light that he’d known of the half-bloods’ ability and kept it from his people, it would strip away a tool he’d long used to his advantage. His only choice was to play along, acting as though he believed Tips’s words as much as anyone else in the room.
“What is it you want?” he finally asked.
“We want him punished,” Tips said, slamming the bottom of his crutch against the marble floor. The rest of the half-bloods in the room crowed their agreement until my father made some motion to silence them.
“Should I throw him back in prison and leave him there to rot?” my father asked. “Or is that not extreme enough? Should I take off his head and put an end to his traitorous ways once and for all?”
“A sweet revenge for many,” Tips said. “But some of us are less rash. He’s no good to us dead or in prison.”
“How is he good to you at all?” A question to which my father dearly wanted an answer.
I heard Tips swallow hard and I held my breath. This was the moment of reckoning.
“Prince Tristan undid in a night’s work what it took us three months to complete,” Tips said. “If you really want to see Trollus free from its dependence on magic, then you’ll best punish him by making him use his research and plans to fulfill your vision. That is what we want as reparations for the hurt we have suffered. Order Prince Tristan to build the stone tree for us. And make him promise to do it right.”
Stunned silence filled the throne room. No one had expected Tips to demand that. Not the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie, and certainly, certainly, not the half-bloods. My heart thundered in my chest, and sweat coated my palms. Please let it work.
My father began to laugh. At first, only a soft chuckle, but the sound gathered and grew until it filled the long hall. “What a pragmatic request, miner,” he finally said, his voice still shaking with mirth. “I cannot say I expected it.”
He nudged me with one foot and the weight of the magic holding me lifted. “Get up.”
I climbed warily to my feet, not taking my eyes off him for a second. His expression terrified me. He knew I had tricked him, knew that I was plotting against him. But he looked pleased.
Which didn’t make any sense. He had no clear way out of the trap I’d set for him. He knew Tips was working with me, but he didn’t dare out the half-blood for his lies. He knew that commanding me to build the tree was what I wanted, but that if he didn’t, he’d be all but confessing to the thousands of angry half-bloods outside the palace that he’d duped them. The half-bloods he wrongly believed I’d already recruited back to my leadership, when in actuality, they probably all hated me more than they ever hated him.
He’d figure my trick out eventually, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that right here, right now, he believed the majority of the city followed my orders.
Say something. My skin alternated hot and cold. Everyone in the room faded away; the sound of the mob barely a whisper in my ear. All that mattered was my father.
“You will do what the half-blood asks,” he said, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. A slight smile crept into his eyes. “As… punishment, for your actions.”
Relief filled me, and it was a struggle to keep from showing it. I think I did not quite manage it, because the smile moved to his mouth. I stayed quiet