“I’ve told you all that I am willing to—” Nicasia begins.
“Not that. Cardan’s mother,” I say, cutting her off. “Who was she? Where is she now?”
She tries to turn her surprise into mockery. “If you’re such good friends, why don’t you ask him?”
“I never said we were friends.”
A servant with a mouth full of sharp teeth and butterfly wings on his back brings the next course. The heart of a deer, cooked rare and stuffed with toasted hazelnuts. Nicasia picks up the meat and tears into it, blood running over her fingers.
She runs her tongue over red teeth. “She wasn’t anyone, just some girl from the lower Courts. Eldred never made her a consort, even after she’d borne him a child.”
I blink in obvious surprise.
She looks insufferably pleased, as though my not knowing has proved once and for all how unsuitable I am. “Now it’s your turn.”
“You want to know what I did to make him raise me up?” I ask, leaning toward her, close enough that she can feel the warmth of my breath. “I kissed him on the mouth, and then I threatened to kiss him some more if he didn’t do exactly what I wanted.”
“Liar,” she hisses.
“If you’re such good friends,” I say, repeating her own words back to her with malicious satisfaction, “why don’t you ask him?”
Her gaze goes to Cardan, his mouth stained red with heart’s blood, crown at his brow. They appear two of a kind, a matched set of monsters. He doesn’t look over, busy listening to the lutist who has composed, on the spot, a rollicking ode to his rule.
My king, I think to myself. But only for a year and a day, and five months are already gone.
Tatterfell is waiting for me when I get back to my rooms, her beetle eyes disapproving as she picks up the High King’s trousers from my couch.
“So this is how you’ve been living,” the little imp grumbles. “A worm in a butterfly’s cocoon.”
Something about being scolded is comfortingly familiar, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I turn away so she can’t see my embarrassment at how untidy I’ve let things get. Not to mention what it looks like I’ve been doing, and with whom.
Sworn into Madoc’s service until she worked off some old debt of honor, Tatterfell could not have come here without his knowledge. She may have taken care of me since I was a child—brushed my hair and mended my dresses and strung rowan berries to keep me from being enchanted—but it is Madoc who has her loyalty. It’s not that I don’t think she was fond of me, in her way, but I’ve never mistaken that for love.
I sigh. The castle servants would have cleaned my rooms if I let them, but then they’d notice my odd hours and be able to rifle through my papers, not to mention my poisons. No, better to bar the door and sleep in filth.
My sister’s voice comes from my bedroom. “You’re back early.” She sticks her head out, holding up a few garments.