actually be true? A Farrow and a Wood, romantically entangled? Oh . . . the court intrigue I’ve missed out on.” He twirled his little vine. “How did you end up dating the help, Amara? Actually, let me guess . . . My dearest brother is worried about Gregor stealing his throne, so he outright gave it to him? Am I right?” He looked from me to Remo and back, then clapped. “Ooh, I am.”
A nerve ticked in Remo’s jaw.
“How have the others not forced the apple down your throat?” I asked.
“Simple. I took it from Cruz’s cave the first week I was here and hid it.” He tapped his little vine against his thigh.
A surge of lethal animosity shot through me. “Would it be wrong to gas him?”
“I have no objections,” Remo said.
“Gas me?” Kingston laughed. He actually laughed with tears in his eyes and everything. “With what exactly? A handful of sand? Oh, sweet little niece, your powers don’t work in here, in case you haven’t realized.”
When he flicked my nose with his liana strand, Remo grabbed him around the throat and dangled him in the air.
“I’ll just come back.” His hair fluttered around his purpling face. “And when I do . . . I’ll be very grumpy.”
Remo set him down so roughly my uncle stumbled backward.
Still flushed, he added, “Has it already slipped your puny caveman brain that I have the apple, Farrow?”
“Nothing slips my puny caveman brain, Little King.”
“Call me that again, and—”
“You’ll run to your cave and grab your fucking apple?” Remo spit. “Good luck trying to shove it down my throat.”
I laid my palm at the base of Remo’s taut spine. “He’s your ticket out of here, Kingston. You feed him the apple, you will never see the outside of this prison.”
A pulse point in Kingston’s neck throbbed. “I call dileshit. If Remo had come to free me, we wouldn’t have had to fight off tigri.”
Remo’s mouth curled in that signature smirk of his, the one he used to toss my way. “Is that what you were doing? Fighting?”
Kingston rubbed his mottled neck. “To think I was going to make you wariff. You can forget about having any position in my government after this.”
I stuck one hand on my hip. “Your government? And which government is that, Kingston?”
Kingston shot me another syrupy smile. “Why, the one I’ll inherit from your father, Amara. Why do you think I was kept alive?”
“Except Remo’s my fiancé, which means Gregor has no use for his puppet.”
His smile flickered like a faulty faelight as he absorbed my news. In the end, he spit out, “I’m no one’s puppet, niece.”
“That’s not the rumor circulating around Neverra.”
“Because rumors are always true?” He tsked. “I thought you a tad smarter than the caligosubi, Amara.”
Caligosubi was a term used to mean those who lived below the mist. Now that the mist was gone, it was considered slanderous, and faeries who used it were either fined or their dust was confiscated by the Hunters. Not that Kingston cared about decorum or political correctness; he was as vile and malicious as they came.
“If you weren’t his puppet, then why did Gregor lock you inside this place?”
“Because I asked him to.”
I frowned. “You mean to tell us you knew about this place?”
“Can’t call yourself a leader if you don’t know what your subordinates are up to.”
Was that a jab at my father?
Remo picked up the machete and tossed it from hand to hand. “No leader would ever voluntarily enter a place they can’t exit. At least, not a smart one.”
Kingston’s Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat. “Maybe I can exit. Maybe I’ve chosen to stay.”
Remo raised a brutal grin. “You’re choosing to remain in prison? Please . . . You’re under my grandfather’s thumb, Kingston. Even if the idea to elude death was yours, you obviously didn’t think your plan through real well.”
“What part of me having the apple did you not get, Farrow?”
“Will you be threatening me with your little fruit for the duration of our visit? Because it’s already getting old.”
Should we be pressing my uncle’s buttons? I have dust, I reminded myself. Dust he’d either failed to notice or deemed useless.
Annoyance contorted Kingston’s face, accentuating the welts. “Fine. Don’t take me seriously. It’s your funeral.” A smile formed at the edges of his mouth. “Or Amara’s.”
“You touch her, and you’ll wish for a taste of your fucking apple.”
Kingston’s smile was still turning into a grin when Remo’s machete flew through the