“My name is Queen Alicia Munroe—”
“I know, I know.” He rolled his eyes as he pulled me, stumbling, toward the door. “First of your name, blah, blah, blah. But you’re not so golden anymore now, are you? Just a plain old Rosy.”
“It’s better than being the outcast, halfling son of a dragon who can’t even manage his change,” I snapped, trying to think of the most hurtful thing possible to say to him. “I may be just plain old Rosy to you, but at least I didn’t choose to let someone turn me into their own personal dog. So I’d say I’m still one up on you.”
“Yeah?” He dropped my hands and narrowed his eyes at me. “We’ll see about that, now won’t we? Especially since you’re nothing more than a silly girl with a bit of fancy jewelry on her head, and here I am—a dragon with a taste for treasure.”
He grabbed for my crown and then screamed, jerking his hand back and crumpling to the floor with his arms cradled to his chest. I stepped closer and looked down at him, staring at his blackened, withered hand until he opened his cobalt-blue eyes to stare at me.
“I wouldn’t have touched that if I were you. My crown’s got a curse on it—something about causing a pain to the bone that never fades to anyone who tries to steal it. I didn’t know exactly what that meant until now so thanks for the demonstration. I’ll be sure to keep people I like from making the same mistake.”
“You,” he huffed in a breath.
“Me queen, you idiot.” I knelt down beside him so that we were nose to nose. “And I don’t need an army to make you wish you’d never been born. Remember that. Now, take me to see the other prisoner.”
He rolled himself over onto his elbows and pushed up, wobbling on his knees with his hands still pulled tight against him as he tried to stand.
I reached down and grabbed his elbow, pulling him up so that we were eye to eye again. “Take me to see Jesse. Now.”
“Fine,” he managed to ground out between clenched teeth. “This way.”
“Oh, and Mikhail?” I turned back to look at Heidi over my shoulder as he led me out the door.
“What? Ros—I mean, Your Majesty.”
“You might want to show some of the other guards your hands and let them know that if I ever hear about these two prisoners being made to crawl around on the floor while people throw bread at them”—Heidi looked up, and I swallowed—“I might just have to see how this crown sits on some of their heads.”
I stepped away from him and brought my hands up, slipping the combs from my hair as I started toward Heidi. “Here.” I pressed them into her hands. “They’re magic. They’ll help keep you safe until I find a way to get us home.”
Chapter Nineteen
I stepped back toward the now-quiet hound and swept past him out into the hallway, my chin held high. He slammed the door closed and stalked past me, making me scurry after him to keep up.
“This way.” Mikhail hurried down a dark, stone corridor and nodded his head toward another tower with curving stairs. “And don’t think about telling him you’re going to find a way for you all to escape.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s cruel,” he answered, not meeting my eyes. “I don’t like the two of them, but even I know it’s not fair to give them false hope.”
“And what makes you think it’s false?”
“Because if you try to escape,” Mikhail said, “I’ll just come and find you, Your Majesty. I’ll sniff you out and when I find you, drag you back here in chains. And because you’re from Nerissette, I won’t even ask the queen for my normal reward.”
“Why?” I asked. “Will you be feeling too guilty?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Guilt isn’t something I’ve felt in a very long time, Rosy. The reason I won’t take the queen’s bounty is because the revenge will be sweet enough without her money.”
“Revenge?”
“For my sister. The girl one of your most trusted nobles kidnapped and then tried to hunt.”
“Gunter of the Veldt?” I asked. “The Hound he hunted—”
“My baby sister,” Mikhail said. “He hunted her, and you let him.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t. I wasn’t even in Nerissette when it happened. I hadn’t been brought through yet.”
“But you knew he did it, and you still made him one of your advisors. Allowed him to fight for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” he said bitterly.
“When my army comes, I’ll find a way to make it up to you and your sister both. I’ll make Gunter apologize.”
“His apologies are worth nothing to me,” Mikhail said. “And neither are yours. Not that it matters anyway.”
“Why not?” I asked.
He stepped closer, pushing me back against the stone wall, and sneered down at me. “Because you’ll never rule here. The Palace of Night won’t fall.”
“You wanna bet?” I arched an eyebrow at him and tried to look brave even though my knees were knocking together.
“Mikhail!” I froze as the voice from all my worst nightmares echoed down the hall.
No… It couldn’t be… There was no way.
Sweat trickled down my back, but I wouldn’t turn around. I couldn’t turn around.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.
“What is she doing here?” the Fate Maker snapped. “She’s supposed to be locked in the highest room of the tower, not roaming the halls.”
“And you’re supposed to be trapped in the in-between,” I gasped as I pressed farther back against the wall, desperately wishing I still had my sword. “I locked you inside the Bleak.”
“Is this your queen?” the blond man walking beside the Fate Maker asked.
I glanced over at the man, the Fate Maker’s exact opposite in every way. Where the Fate Maker was tall, dark, and menacing, with glowing eyes, the man beside him was short—not even as tall as my own five feet six inches—and pudgy with small brown eyes and an upturned nose that made him look more than a bit like an overgrown pug.
“Who are you?” I asked, looking between him and the wizard I’d banished into the Bleak ten months before.
“Rannock, Prince Consort to her Graciousness, the Night Lily of Bathune, the great and powerful Empress Bavasama, Ninth of her Name. Oh, and I’m also the Grand Vizier, of course. Charmed, I’m sure.”
“Not in the slightest,” I said, not taking my eyes off the Fate Maker.
“Really?” Rannock asked. “I’m rather charmed to meet you. Any queen with the guts to trap a wizard like Piotr in the in-between not once but twice? If you weren’t standing in the way of my empress’s throne, I’d be impressed. Now, why are you in the South Tower instead of shackled to a wall at the top of the North Tower?”
“Sire—” Mikhail started.
Rannock glanced over at the young man standing beside me and frowned when he caught sight of Mikhail’s burned, twisted hand. “Ah, that’s not good. What have I told you about touching magical elements, boy? Never a good thing. It always leads to trouble, and any idiot would have known that a crown would have protections on it. I would heal you, but perhaps it’s better to let you learn from your mistakes.”
“But—” Mikhail looked at him, his eyes wide, and Rannock grabbed the wounded hand, squeezing it.
“Perhaps the wound will remind you not to mess with things you don’t have the power to control. Now hush,” Rannock ordered before he snapped his fingers and Mikhail’s mouth shut, his teeth snapping together with a loud click.
“Piotr,” Rannock said, snapping his fingers at the Fate Maker this time. “See her back to her cell—if you don’t mind, my friend—while I deal with my disobedient Hound.”