“Darling, we’ve talked about this.” The fraying patience of Jonquil’s voice suggested it had been discussed many, many times. “How could you see an invisible army?”
“You can’t. That’s the point!”
Sam and I climbed up the stairs that wound back and forth outside the palace, inching our way up to the dizzying height of the main gate. The others stayed below to talk Gnoflwhogir out of her ill-advised rescue plan. We left them mid-argument, my sister-in-law doggedly lighting and relighting a torch even though Jonquil summoned a wind to blow it out every time.
I ran my hand along the smooth stone of the walls. Unbroken and unmortared, carved out of the mountain in a single piece. As familiar as everything was, I felt distanced from it all, like I was visiting a place I hadn’t seen since childhood. This was hardly the first time I had returned to the palace after months away. But this time, everything seemed irrevocably changed.
“WHO DARES TO BEG FOR AN AUDIENCE WITH—”
“It’s me,” I told the guards.
“OH, HI, MELILOT,” Humba yelled. “LONG TIME NO SEE.”
“AND WHO’S THIS DELICIOUS MORSEL?” Femus’s single eye looked Sam up and down. “MIND IF I STEAL A BITE?”
“YES, INDEED,” Humba agreed. “WOULDN’T MIND GRINDING HIS BONES TO MAKE MY BREAD.”
Sam cracked his knuckles. “Try it. We’ll see who ends up a loaf of sourdough.”
“OH, I LIKE HIM,” Femus said.
I put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Settle down. They’re joking. They don’t eat people anymore.”
Sam looked at me askance. “Anymore?”
“Is Her Royal Unpleasantness inside?” I asked hastily. The last thing I wanted was for a fight to break out between Sam and the ogres.Although,I thought rather smugly,if it came to that, I’d put my money on Sam.
“SHE’S BEEN EXPECTING YOU,” Humba told me. The ogres hauled open the massive doors, which made their usual earsplitting screech as they scraped against the floor.
I sighed. “Of course she has. Play nice while I’m in there. Talk about, um, stuff that strong people talk about.”
“WHAT DO YOU BENCH?” Femus asked obligingly.
“Horses, usually,” said Sam. I could tell he was distracted, his gaze following me as I slipped through the doorway.
“DO YOU TRACK YOUR MACROS? EVER SINCE I STOPPED DEVOURING HUMAN FLESH, I’VE BEEN HAVING TROUBLE GETTING ENOUGH PROTEIN—”
The doors were pulled shut behind me with a dull, reverberating boom.
Most of my confidence evaporated as I crossed the wide gulf of the throne room. My bootheels clicked on the mosaic tiles, the images of teeth and eyes and scales, bone white, night black, corpse blue, pus yellow, the colors as vivid as the day they were set into the floor. In the distance, a figure waited, silent and stillon the obsidian throne. I rubbed the four-leaf clover between my fingers, hoping it really was lucky. It released a pleasant scent, like hay or new-mown grass. Sweet clover. Melilot.
Had I been overhasty in refusing Gnoflwhogir’s offer of a rescue should it all go wrong? Or for that matter, rejecting Sam’s suggestion that I never come back to Skalla in the first place? We might have tried, at least—done our best to hide from her. Perhaps I could have convinced a raven to conceal us in an egg, or a fish to swallow us whole, or a fox to turn us into sea hares. I’m sure it would have taken my stepmother at least a day to findus.
Hiding in an egg is extremely uncomfortable anyway. Don’t even ask about the smell of fish innards or the exceedingly dull daily routine of a sea hare.
I had, somehow, walked the entire distance to the throne and stood at the point where I should prostrate myself before her. My knees nearly flexed out of automatic habit, but I forced them still. This time, I would face her standing upright.
After a few moments of awkward silence, the queen remarked, “You’re very bold today.”
Be bold, be bold. But not too bold.How bold was just bold enough? “Why not? You’re going to punish me for my disobedience anyway.”
Her head inclined a bare fraction. “You have returned to me unmarried, in defiance of my direct instructions.”
“I have.”
“Your sisters tell me I should be merciful. That you are blameless. That King Gervase is blameless. That my plans have been stymied, yet somehow no one is to be held accountable. Is that what you say?”
“No.”
