my confidence, but I would need your oath of silence in the matter.”
“You separated me from my escorts, you are holding me in an enchanted mushroom ring, and now you would like an oath of silence from me?”
“You do make things sound so negative,” the king said. “I had such a sweet encounter planned. This all could have been pillow talk with you satiated and more than happy to consider what I have to say.”
He sounded sulky. I said nothing. Maybe his people liked him. Maybe he had a soft—or lustful—touch with them. But I really didn’t like him.
“Fine, I require no oath from you,” he said. “But if you speak of what I am about to say, I will curse you so that whenever you open your mouth, only toads will fall out and no words.”
Magic closed around me as he spoke, and I felt the unsprung curse sink into my skin. I glared at him.
“Is this what safe passage looks like in your court? A curse?”
He waved a hand. “It only causes you harm if you choose it to by your own actions. I have in no way broken my oath of safe passage. Really, you are very young and not half as clever as you think.”
I broke off my glare to glance back over my shoulder at the edge of the mushroom ring. Maybe it was worth the risk of tearing through the enchantment.
“I was young once too,” the king said, leaning back in his seat. “That is the crux of my problem, I suppose. I too thought I was far more clever than I truly was. I made some oaths and accepted some bonds that I foolishly thought were a good idea at the time. And now I cannot be free of them.”
I frowned at him. He’d mentioned that planeweavers could unravel magical bonds. I guessed he was back on topic with whatever it was he had orchestrated this conversation to discuss. Did he not stop to think that I would be in a less-than-agreeable mood at this point?
“It’s my queen, you see,” he said, going on as if I were participating in his conversation. “I am bound to her until death, and the agreement has made us both miserable for centuries.”
“In other words, it is cramping your style and impeding your seduction of nymphs,” I said sarcastically.
The king only laughed. “It hardly impedes me.”
He gave me a sly wink and even his glamour couldn’t make me see him as charming. I recoiled, stepping back toward the opening of the tent.
“Don’t say no too hastily. I’m willing to offer you anything you desire. Unravel this bond for me, and I would offer you position, power . . .” He looked at me, really looked at me. “Or perhaps what you desire is freedom. I can offer you that, and protect that freedom from the other courts as well.”
And that was the first tempting thing he’d said. Not that it mattered. “Let’s say I’m capable of what you say—and I’m not saying I am—I have no training and limited control of my planeweaving. I could accidentally cause more harm than help. But if I had a teacher . . . Help me acquire training, and I’ll consider your request.”
He scoffed and flicked the rim of his glass. It refilled with more pink liquid. “If I knew someone with enough talent to be able to train you, why would I need you?”
“I’ve heard that there are mortal—” I started, but the firm but delicate sound of a throat clearing behind me forced me to stop.
I whirled around to see a woman entering the tent behind me. She had hair the color of spun gold that fell in soft waves around an oval face. Her eyes were deep green and shone like emeralds, and her mouth was a perfect Cupid’s bow. When poets described ancient Faerie queens as being so beautiful that mortal men, having glimpsed one, would then waste away spending endless hours on hills and paths looking for another, those poets could have been describing this Sleagh Maith. And maybe they had been. A golden diadem sat on her brow. She was, without a doubt, the Summer Queen.
While the king and most of those I’d seen in his court seemed to favor revealing to downright bawdy garments— if any clothes at all, nude was definitely an option in his court—the queen’s dress was far more conservative. The neckline was high, the billowy sleeves long, and the lines