Walther and Quentin were sharing their table with what I took for a variety of lesser nobles. They were dressed mostly in Kingdom colors, and the servants seemed to reach them last, resulting in half empty platters and pitchers that sometimes ran dry while a drink was being poured. I saw Walther add a pinch of powder to Quentin’s food, and relaxed marginally. My squire was as safe in this environment as he could possibly have been.
That was more than I could say about the rest of us. I could feel the eyes of the surrounding people on me as I ate. They were watching my motions, taking my measure. I was reaching for my orange juice when a passerby “accidentally” tripped, spilling his own drink all over the front of my gown. The fabric immediately turned a deep, bruised purple, and the smell of goblin fruit struck me like a physical blow, nearly knocking me off the bench.
Mocking laughter rose from the nobles around us. I barely noticed. I was too busy staring at the stain spreading across my chest, remembering the sweet dreams the fruit had given me the last time I’d been tricked into tasting it. I was less human now than I’d been then. It would be less able to destroy me. But “less” didn’t mean “not at all,” and I was all too aware of what would happen if even a drop made its way into my mouth.
Curing myself of goblin fruit addiction once had required iron poisoning, the blood of a Firstborn, and the sacrifice of more of my dwindling humanity. Not much more—I was still mostly what I had been—but I knew, even as I reeled, that getting clean a second time might require everything I had left.
Tybalt’s hands were on my shoulders, half pulling and half lifting me out of my seat. I staggered to my feet, the laughter of the nobles still following me. There was a scrape from the dais as King Rhys stood, his own laughter joining the crowd.
“Oh, my!” he said, clapping his hands. “Sir Daye, I’m terribly sorry and embarrassed by this accident! It’s such a pity that anyone can be clumsy, isn’t it? I assure you, there was no malice intended, and my laundry will be able to restore your . . . lovely . . . gown to its original condition.”
I stared at him, too stricken to speak.
He smiled. It was a terrible thing to see. “You look distressed, milady. Oh, that’s right—you have human blood in your veins, don’t you? Such close exposure to goblin fruit must sit poorly with your mortal heritage. How foolish of me to have even allowed it at the table. But you must understand that my Court is a pureblood holding, and I have such trouble denying my people the little pleasures that make our exile in these shallow lands more bearable.”
For once in my life, I couldn’t find any words. I couldn’t even open my mouth. The smell of the goblin fruit was so strong, and so distracting, that if I breathed too deeply, I didn’t know what was going to happen.
Quentin and Walther were suddenly there, standing behind me and lending what strength they could to the situation. Tybalt kept his hands on my shoulders, and said, “Please excuse us. My lady has learned that I do not care for messes, and has begun taking great pains to keep herself from such mortifying social situations. We will return after she has been restored to her pristine state, and will be glad to begin the conversations for which we came here in the first place.”
“Indeed,” said Rhys. “The sooner begun, the sooner done, wouldn’t you say?”
Tybalt didn’t answer, but his pupils narrowed, telegraphing his displeasure. He offered the King of Silences a short, stiff bow, pulling me with him, so that we had both performed the absolute minimum that would be acceptable before leaving the presence of a reigning monarch. Then he turned, pushing me in front of him as I stumbled dazedly toward the door.
“I won’t tell you to take a deep breath; that might harm you more than what’s to come,” he murmured, lips close to my ear. “Simply trust me, and this will all be over soon.”
I nodded mutely, keeping my lips pressed into a hard line and trying to minimize the breaths I took through my nose. The doors swung open as we approached them, forming a shadow in the space where the hinges bent. Tybalt seized the opportunity as soon as it presented itself, swinging me up into his arms and plunging us both down into darkness.
The Shadow Roads were airless, black, and cold. They were also scentless, since taking a breath would have frozen my lungs solid in less time than it took to finish the inhale. I leaned against Tybalt, curling into as tight a ball as I could manage in order to reduce the drag. I could feel him tensing as he ran, covering the distance between the dining hall and our room in less than a third of the time it would have taken by more normal channels.
My lungs were aching when we plunged out of the dark and back into the startlingly bright light of our guest chambers. Tybalt all but threw me against the wall, where I fumbled for the lacings on my gown with half frozen fingers. He cut the process short by raking his claws down the ties, slicing them neatly in half. I immediately yanked the gown over my head, panting slightly as I leaned there in strapless bra and underpants.
The purple stain of the goblin fruit was on the bra, too, although it wasn’t as dark; that, and the handy flash-freeze effect of our trip through the Shadow Roads, allowed me to remove it without ripping the clasps. I flung it on the pile of fabric before collapsing backward on the bed, staring at the canopy.
“Are you well?” asked Tybalt.
“As well as can be expected,” I replied.
“Then I will see to this, and return.” He gathered my discarded clothing from the floor, carrying it with him as he walked into another shadow on the far side of the room. That alone told me how concerned he’d been, even if I had somehow managed to overlook everything else that had happened since the glass fell. Normally, he would never have left me by myself.
Not that I was completely by myself. I rolled off the bed and walked to Quentin’s door, feeling my legs shake with every step I took. I should probably have stopped to grab a shirt out of the wardrobe, but I felt shocky and unsure: I needed reassurance. So I banged my knuckles against the doorframe and waited, counting the seconds until the door opened and May appeared, her short hair spiky and disheveled. Her white linen nightshirt fell to her knees in a shapeless line, making her look younger than she was.
She blinked at me slowly, confusion written in her expression. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” she said, like this was somehow going to surprise me. “Or a bra. Toby, what’s—do I smell goblin fruit?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, sweet Titania, what happened?”
I laughed unsteadily. “The King of Silences serves goblin fruit juice with lunch. One of his cronies spilled it on me. I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I need to wash myself. Can you please come with me?”
I didn’t need to explain why, or detail my fears: that I would wipe the stickiness off my skin and start drinking the bathwater, looking for the faintest echo of the dreams the goblin fruit could bring. I’d managed to do the unthinkable when I beat the addiction, but that didn’t mean I was cured—I was still a changeling, and it would always be more tempting than anything the mortal world had to offer. It just meant that I’d survived a brush with something that should have destroyed me, and while survival may have made me stronger, it had also left its scars.
“Of course,” said May, putting an arm around my shoulder and steering me across the room toward what I presumed was the door to the bathroom. “Just let me grab something for you to wear, all right? I think Quentin would drop dead on the spot if he realized you had nipples under there.”
My laughter was a little less strained this time, although it still had a tight, flat edge to it that I didn’t like. “I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a girl by this point, May.”
“I don’t know. He’s your squire, and you’re pretty good with the willful ignorance. He’s learning from the best, is all I’m saying.” She paused as we passed the wardrobe, taking her arm away long enough to open it and pull out a clean blouse, bra, and panties. “Let’s at least try not to scandalize the poor boy. He’s having a hard enough time figuring out what he wants without you flashing your boobies all over the place.”