are tools, and they are only useful if they work. Theron doesn’t work.”
She could feel white-hot fury inside him—but it was still his anger, not hers. She’d had years of practice telling the difference. She felt... How did she feel? Curiously blank. When she thought of Theron himself—trudging up the hill in his ill-fitting armor, for instance—there was a high flutter of panic and fear in her chest that snatched at her breathing and, yes, made her skin cold. But the rest was nothing. Vacancy. Emptiness. “So you’ll keep an eye on him,” she said. She felt no surprise at all, no shock. And why should she? Killing was nothing to Elban. Theron was nothing to Elban. The only one he cared about at all was Gavin. None of this was new information. She touched Gavin’s arm. His bare skin. A casual gesture, except it wasn’t at all. When her skin touched his she nearly recoiled. A deep well of worry ate at Gavin; something ominous and sick-making, huge and impossible.
“Keep an eye on him?” he said, incredulous. “Judah, I’m the one who’s supposed to kill him.”
Now she felt shock. Now she felt dizzy and sick. Even after she pulled her hand away from him, the sickness remained. It was hers. All hers. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
Of course I wouldn’t, he was supposed to say. Instead, he leaned his head back on the sofa again, as if he were too tired to hold it up. “If I don’t, Elban’s taking Elly.”
Those words made no sense. “Taking her where? Back to Tiernan?”
“Judah.” Gavin grabbed her bad hand with his and a wave of pain crested over her, echoing back and forth between the two of them. She could feel that the pain gave him a hard pleasure: like clenching a fist when you were angry, except he was clenching her fist, too. He thought he deserved his pain. He thought he deserved all of it. “He’s going to marry her.”
Her hand was on fire. “The Lord doesn’t remarry. Not once there’s an heir.”
“He can, in special circumstances. Guess who decides what constitutes a special circumstance?”
“The people like us more than him. Firo told me.”
“Of course they do.” Bitterness, sticky and black, filled his voice. “We’re a fairy tale. But how much do you think they’d love the prince if he cast the princess aside and refused to marry her? After all this time? Because that’s the story Elban will tell. With him as the hero, swooping in and saving her from the shame his feckless heir thrust upon her.”
“He’ll—” Panic rose in Judah’s throat. “You have to tell her. You have to tell both of them.”
“Tell them what?” he said. “That if I don’t kill Theron in cold blood in front of an audience of courtiers, Elly will spend the rest of her life chained to our monster of a father? What do you think the two of them will do with that knowledge?”
“If it’s the truth—”
Gavin cut her off. “If it was my death—or even yours, Jude—Theron would be very sorry, and very sad, and disappear into the old wing where nobody would ever see him again. Children would tell stories about Mad Lord Theron just like we tell stories of Mad Martin the Lockmaker. But for Elly? He’d throw himself off the nearest tower before he’d let anything happen to her, and you know it.” This was true. Elly was the kindest of them, and the most patient. Theron valued kindness and patience. Gavin went on. “The same goes for Elly. Tell her that marrying Elban means Theron lives, and she’ll be in his study by sundown, making the deal. Neither of us could stop her.” His face toppled with despair. “Hells, probably he’d jump at the same time she signed the marriage contract, and we’d lose both of them. If I could fall on my sword and save them I would, but if I kill myself—us—Theron and Elly are on their own. If he could have another child, he would have replaced me long ago—I’m sure he tried—but he won’t accept Theron as his heir. He barely accepts Theron as human. If I die, Elban will kill him anyway, and adopt a courtier or something. I’ve thought it all through, Judah. Every possible angle. But my father has, too, and he’s craftier than I am. I’m trapped.”
“Why doesn’t he just kill Theron, if he wants him dead?”
“Because just killing him wouldn’t make me miserable. He says the Lord