Sweet Oberon, please get me out of this, I thought.
Then Tia turned toward Walther, still sniffing the air, and took a step in his direction. “It’s freshest this way. Is there a secret passage? Those Yates bastards riddled their home with holes, and their Davies cronies weren’t any better. They could have dug straight down through the stone, just to give themselves another place to beat their dogs . . .”
Two more steps and she would be on top of Walther. Walther, who was the only chance we had of unmaking the potion that powered the elf-shot. Without him, we’d never be able to wake any of the sleepers—not Madden, not May, and not the true heirs to Silences. He was so close. He could fix it all, as long as he could have just a little bit more time. That was all he really needed: just a little bit more time. He wasn’t going to get that if Rhys caught him. He was going to get an elf-shot arrow to the shoulder and a long sleep in this same dungeon, and the victims of elf-shot were going to sleep out their sentences, no matter where they were.
I couldn’t let that happen. No matter how much I wanted to stay safe and hidden, I was a hero of the realm, and that meant I had to choose the greater good. Tybalt, I’m sorry, I thought, and raked the palm of my left hand against the rough stone of the dungeon wall, leaving a layer of skin behind.
The pain was immediate and intense, followed almost as fast by the dull ache of healing. The smell of blood filled the air around me, hot and unmistakable. Tia’s head whipped around, her nostrils flaring and her pupils dilating as she scented blood in the air. “There,” she said, and pointed, so much like a hunting hound that a bubble of desperate, angry laughter tried to raise in my throat. “She’s against that wall.”
“Excellent,” said Rhys. “Men?”
His men reached into their jerkins and withdrew cheesecloth bags, like party favors at a wedding. They flung them at the spot Tia had indicated. I ducked away, but couldn’t avoid the cloud of pale blue dust that exploded around me as the bags burst, filling the air with the taste of evergreens and smoke. I coughed. I choked. And finally, I collapsed, hitting the floor so hard that I felt the impact all the way down into my bones.
The last thing I saw before everything went black was Tia’s face, looming in my field of vision like a mountain. “And they call me a bitch,” she said, and spat on my cheek. I felt the dampness. I felt the stone floor beneath me.
And then I didn’t feel anything at all.
TWENTY
EVERYTHING HURT. IT WAS like someone had taken my nerves and dipped them in fire ants, all of which were now industriously working to chew their way through my flesh. The pain wrenched me out of sleep, pulling me back into a world full of nothing but suffering. At the same time, the pain kept my body from listening to my commands: it was too busy trying not to writhe in involuntary agonies to do anything as simple as letting me open my eyes.
There was a time when I would have thought that no one could endure that level of pain and survive. I had learned a lot since those easy, innocent days, back when I believed a bullet could be merciful enough to let me die.
“This is taking too long,” said a voice. It sounded familiar, although I couldn’t place it, not quite. “You promised me this would go faster.”
“And I told you, cur, that I am a king, and I don’t take orders from my dogs.” Rhys. Bastard. “You’ve already betrayed one master. If you want me to trust you, you will do as you are told.”
“We need this war. You promised.” There was a growl lurking in the unfamiliar voice now, allowing me to place it: Tia. Tia? But she wasn’t supposed to be here . . .
Wait. No. She was the reason they’d been able to find me. Memory coursed back into my body, and I gasped, just a little.
It was enough.
“I think she’s awake,” said a voice—the false Queen. She sounded faintly interested, but not terribly concerned. “Do you think she’s awake?”
“She might be. Faoiltiarna, you are dismissed. I’ll speak with you later.” There was a pause, broken by a huff, and the sound of footsteps. When Rhys spoke again, his voice was closer, only a few feet away from my head. “Sir Daye? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, open your eyes.”
I did not open my eyes. I couldn’t. The pain was too constant, and I still couldn’t get a grip on my own body.
“Hmm. You see, the trouble with this sort of situation, my dear, is the uncertainty. Is she awake and ignoring us, or is she unconscious? It’s so difficult to tell rebellion from oblivion. But I have an idea!” His voice came closer still as he said, very kindly, very cruelly, “Sir Daye, if you do not open your eyes, I am going to put a rosewood spike through the flesh of your left hand. I will not concern myself with the placement of the bones. I’m sure several of them will be broken, and the pain will be unbearable. Now, will you do as I say?”
I tried, I really tried. I’m proud, but I’m not stupid, and I’ve never been a fan of additional pain. My eyes refused to open.
“I see.” He sounded genuinely regretful. I couldn’t tell whether it was sincere or not. It really didn’t matter.
New pain exploded in my left hand, so intense that it made the old pain seem inconsequential. My eyes snapped open, my body straining as it tried to lift up into an involuntary arch, pulling as far away from the pain as it could. I barely got my butt an inch off whatever it was that I was sprawled upon. Something was holding me down, and I was weak as a kitten besides: all the strength had gone out of my muscles, leaving them limp and agonized.
I think I screamed. It was hard to say.
“You see, we still don’t know whether she was awake before, but she’s awake now, and isn’t that what matters?” Rhys didn’t make any effort to conceal how pleased with himself he was. Why should he? He was winning. The winners are allowed to gloat.
I collapsed back into limp motionlessness. I couldn’t really turn my head, but my eyes were willing to respond to commands, and so I glanced from side to side, trying to get an idea of where I was and what was going on.
Rhys and the false Queen were standing off to my left. He was wearing a heavy leather butcher’s apron, which didn’t inspire confidence about what was going to happen to me next. She was wearing white—she was always wearing white—and there were a few spots of blood on her bodice, standing out like brands against the fabric. She was smiling, her moon-mad eyes filled with delight . . .
And Marlis was there, too. She was standing a few feet behind them, holding a wide silver bowl in both her hands, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She was wearing a butcher’s apron, which just made it harder for me to imagine that anything good was going to happen next. I couldn’t tell from looking at her whether she was back under Rhys’ control, or whether she was just playing along until it was safe to do something different. I hoped like hell for the latter.
The room was decorated in Rhys’ usual austere style, and the walls were plain wood, easy to clean. I strained until I could see my shoulder. There were no chains or straps holding me down: just a thin string of yarrow flowers tied together with golden thread. They shouldn’t have been strong enough to keep me from moving. “Should” is a word with very little power in Faerie.
“Amazing,” said Rhys, leaning forward. “Sir Daye, were you aware that you heal so swiftly that your body rejects foreign objects? Your flesh is trying to push out my spike. It’s quite remarkable. I wonder what part of you contains this property. I wonder whether I can bottle it.”
“That’s not the first thing you’re going to bottle,” said the false Queen. There was a faint whine in her voice that hadn’t been there before. It was the first time I had heard her sound anything other than completely confident in her hold over the King of Silences. Her smile vanished, transmuted by suspicion. “You promised me, Rhys, remember? You promised you would get me what I needed.”