“I know you’ve explained it, but I still have a very hard time thinking of The Frog as your brother,” Mistaya said.
She was back to sitting next to him on the pallet, the clouded balls that bound her hands resting in her lap. Food had arrived, finally, and since she couldn’t feed herself, he was helping her by spooning into her mouth small portions of something that was just a notch above gruel on the nutritional meter. She was eating without tasting, her concentration elsewhere ever since His Eminence had departed, leaving behind his latest pronouncement on her fate.
“Well, it does take some getting used to,” he agreed.
“At least he isn’t your real brother. That would be even more difficult to accept.”
“We had different mothers. Really, we’re nothing alike. We share a common father and that’s the extent of it.”
“I wouldn’t ever think you were like him,” she said after a moment of chewing and swallowing. “No one would.”
Thom smiled. “He’s not like anyone, really. He was never interested in being friends with other people. He only wanted one thing from the time he could walk—to be Lord of Rhyndweir.” He paused. “Actually, I think he wants a great deal more than that. That might have something to do with his interest in you.”
She thought about it for a moment. It made sense. If he married her, he would be her spouse when she took the throne. Took the throne. That sounded so weird. She almost never thought about it. She couldn’t quite make herself believe it would ever be necessary. The idea of her father not being King of Landover was inconceivable. Laphroig wouldn’t think that way though; he would already be anticipating her father’s demise.
“He wouldn’t be satisfied with being married to me unless he could be King, would he?”
“He would want you to bear him a son he could raise as future King while he acted as regent during the child’s minority. That’s how he thinks. You would be a means to an end and not much more.”
“Then he would get rid of me,” she agreed. Thom didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She accepted another spoonful of whatever it was he was feeding her. “Well, I hate to disappoint him, but none of this is going to happen. I’m not ever marrying The Frog or bearing his child—ugh—or having anything to do with him. Once we get out of here and tell my father what he’s done, we won’t either of us have to worry about him ever again!”
Thom had related the details of his story earlier, laying it all out for her once she had calmed down enough to listen. After his father’s death, he had lasted through the brief reign of his oldest brother, thinking that things at Rhyndweir might actually improve, since his brother was a decided improvement over his intractable and impetuous father. But when his brother had died under circumstances that were decidedly suspicious and his sisters had been shunted off to the farthest corners of the Greensward, he had recognized the writing on the wall. His other brother, who was now the new Lord of Rhyndweir and almost certainly responsible for everything, would soon get around to disposing of him. Telling no one, he departed his home in the dead of night. Once safely away, he resolved to wait things out until he knew which way the wind was blowing. When Berwyn’s wives began dying one after the other, he abandoned any thoughts of returning and resolved to stay away as long as necessary. Shortly after, he reached Libiris, a refuge he had been considering from the first, and convinced His Eminence to let him stay.
Thom finished feeding her and put her bowl and spoon aside to take up his own. He ate with studied disinterest, eyes downcast and his usually cheerful demeanor subdued.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him after a few minutes of silence.
“I was just thinking. After I fled Rhyndweir, my brother announced that I was dead. He did it in part, I think, to see if I would reappear to dispute it and in part to make everyone stop thinking about me. The first didn’t work, but the second did. All this time, ever since I left, everyone has believed it. My mother, my sisters, my friends—everyone. I don’t have a place in their lives anymore. I’m just a memory to them.”
She looked down at her bound hands. “Don’t be sad. All that will change once we’re out of this mess.” She gave him a tentative smile. “Think how happy they’ll be to have you back.”
He shrugged. “I just wish I knew how to make that happen. His Eminence isn’t going to let us go; he can’t afford to do that now that he’s made a prisoner of you. Not to mention that he clearly has something bad planned for your father.”
“I know,” she agreed. “It has something to do with using me as bait to lure him to Libiris. He made that clear enough. My so-called special use. I wonder what it is.”
“Whatever it is, he plans to improve his situation at our expense. Or maybe at your father’s. I don’t even trust him to keep his agreement to hide me, though he’s done so up until now. If he thinks it will gain him anything, he will give me up in a heartbeat. Laphroig has never stopped hunting for me. If he finds me, I know what will happen.”
Mistaya knew, too. Laphroig was ruthless and ambitious, and he had demonstrated on more than one occasion that he would eliminate anyone who got in his way.
“We’re going to get out of here, Thom,” she said suddenly, standing up as if ready to do so right that moment. “He can’t keep us locked up forever. Sooner or later, we will find a way to get out.”
He arched one eyebrow at her. “It had better be sooner. I don’t think we have all that much time. Whatever he’s got planned, it’s going to come about pretty quickly now.”
She was about to reassure him that it didn’t matter what His Eminence had planned for them, that they would find a way to escape, when the cell door opened and in strolled Edgewood Dirk. The Prism Cat looked sleek and relaxed, his brilliant fur shining in the near darkness, his eyes agleam and his tail aloft and twitching left to right, right to left. He glanced at Thom, but mostly he kept his eyes on Mistaya as he came up to her, sat down so that they were facing each other, and began cleaning himself.
She watched him with ill-concealed frustration, but kept silent while he performed his ablutions.
“Good day,” he greeted when finished, sounding as if he believed it actually was.
“I see that you’ve abandoned your insistence on never talking in front of anyone but me,” she responded with as much irony as she could muster.
“I’ve abandoned it because you’ve compromised me by telling your friend everything you know about me,” the cat replied. “There’s not much point in pretending to be ordinary when you’ve already let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.”
She sighed heavily. “Of course, I should have realized. But about that cheerful greeting you just offered?” She purposefully placed her hands where he could not miss seeing them as anything but balls of swirling, misty smoke. “It might be a good day for some, but not necessarily for me.”
The cat cocked his head. “I see what you mean.”
She waited a beat. “Well, then, perhaps you can do something about it? I would like to have the use of my hands back.”
Edgewood Dirk seemed to consider. “I am afraid I cannot help you.”
“You can’t help me,” she repeated flatly, exasperation flooding through her like a riptide beneath the water’s surface.
“I’m a cat, you see.”
“I do see. But you are so much more than an ordinary cat. You are a Prism Cat, in case you have forgotten. A fairy creature, possessed of special magic, if I am not mistaken.”
“You are not mistaken. I am possessed of special magic, although I might choose a different word than possessed to describe my gifts. But while I have the use of special magic, I do not have the use of either fingers or opposable thumbs.” He held up one paw to reinforce his point. “In case you have forgotten.”