I was scared. Really, really, really scared.
“Is this fun?” you demanded, as though none of this fazed you. “Are you enjoying yourselves?”
Nicasia splashed you with water.
“Enormously,” Cardan said, just as your foot slipped and you went under.
You surfaced before I got close to you, taking shuddering breath after shuddering breath. But you still didn’t back down, didn’t beg, didn’t promise to do what he wanted. I wonder what it was that made you dig in your heels. Maybe it was the sheer unfairness of the way the deck was always stacked against us.
I tried to wade upstream, where it was shallower. On the bank, Locke watched me with an expression of polite interest, as though he were looking at a play unfolding on a stage. It was horrible. My skirts were so heavy and I was moving so slowly. My steps were uncertain.
“Twin sister,” Cardan said, turning to me. “I have a most generous offer for you. Climb up the bank and kiss me on both my cheeks. Once that’s done, so long as you don’t defend your sister by word or deed, I won’t hold you accountable for her defiance. Now, isn’t that a good bargain?”
“Go,” you said firmly. “I’ll be fine.”
I looked at Prince Cardan. A little smile pulled up the corner of his mouth. I had been in Faerie long enough to read between the lines of promises. He wouldn’t hold what you’d done against me. But he’d made no promises about what I’d done.
What were the chances he knew all? I wanted out of the river, away from the nixies and the current. I wanted to know that I wasn’t going to drown or be eaten. And though I suppose there was a certain nobility in staying in the water with you, it wasn’t as though it would help anything.
Maybe Cardan was just paying you back for the salting of his food.
I glanced over at Locke. He raised his brows slightly, in a way I found hard to interpret. Trust me, he’d said. But if he had a plan, I’d seen no sign of one.
Valerian came to the edge of the bank to hand me out of the water as though I were some great lady. When I pressed my cold mouth to the prince’s cheek, Locke waited a moment, then drew me a little ways away.
Nicasia turned toward me and the ferocity in her face filled me with dread. “Say ‘I forsake my sister Jude,’” she demanded. “‘I won’t help her. I don’t even like her.’”
“I don’t have to say that,” I said in confusion. “That wasn’t part of the bargain.”
The others laughed. Not Nicasia, who was clearly too incensed to even pretend amusement.
Something was wrong. This wasn’t because of any prank. Nicasia’s anger was too intense, Cardan’s hatred too vital. And Locke seemed half in and half out of the action, as though he was a willing but unenthusiastic participant.
“Please,” I whispered to Locke. “Do something.”
“Ah, but I have,” he told me, not looking in my direction as he spoke. “I’m protecting you.”