I peered through the bars, looking everywhere, trying to find Angelique again, but she was gone. I wanted to punch the wall in frustration, but I’d only hurt my hand. Or miss. “Where does everyone keep going?”
“Flirting with you?” the hunter said. “Hardly. You’ve got vomit on your shirt, and something’s been chewing your face. Also, I despise you.”
The temperature in the cell had dropped precipitously. Snow drifted in through the window. The bars felt like ice under my hands.
I let go and stepped away before my sweat could freeze. “Put your hat on, Max. It’s like an icebox in here.”
“I’m not Max,” she said sullenly. “I’m Kit.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t supernaturally cold. It was just winter in an unheated prison. “How’s Sam doing? No one’s told me.”
“He…” Kit hesitated. “He fell unconscious not long after we got back to the castle. He isn’t waking up.”
“What?” That was bad. That was very bad. I had to get out. I had to do something. “I need to see him! Now!” There had to be a treatment, a cure, if only I could examine him, if only I could leave this place and go somewhere I could think. “Will you let me see him?”
“You’re not getting anywhere near him!”
“It wasn’t me who blew him into a tree, Kit!”
“I’m not Kit,” the hunter said.
I put my hands against my face, pressing the palms into my eyes. “I was right. You really are trying to drive me mad.”
“I should tell Gervase to put you to death,” she said. “He’d do it, if I asked him.”
“Ah. Jack.” I wasn’t able to speak above a whisper at this point. “That is you, isn’t it?”
“Your name is the one in question here. First Clover, now Melilot. Who will you claim to be next?”
“Tell me something. Are you more worried that I might be here to murder Gervase or that I might be here to marry him?”
She didn’t answer.
I peered at her through spread fingers. “Murdering your rival isn’t very heroic. It wouldn’t be living up to the name you’ve taken. You’re the one who chose to call yourself Jack.”
She flinched back from the bars. “I had good reasons for coming to Tailliz in disguise.”
“Oh, I know. So didI.”
“That’s hardly the same—”
“Isn’t it?” I shrugged, my hands falling from my face. “But really, it doesn’t matter what your reasons were. Whether you started as a Jacqueline, a John, or a Gnoflwhogir, you can’t turn away from it now. Once you take on the mantle of a Jack, you’ve put yourself into the story.”
I could barely keep my eyes open. So I stopped trying. My lids fell like lead weights, and I sank to the floor.
Something urgent still tugged at me. “Sam needs treatment,” I said, my voice scarcely audible even to myself. “I can help. You have to let me out.” No one answered.
My cheek stung where I’d been bitten. I’d just have to hope it wouldn’t become infected. At least Angelique had cleaned it. If I hadn’t imagined her; the seduction attempt at the end was giving me serious doubts about her reality.
I heard footsteps, ringing louder and louder as they approached. A key turned in the lock with a clank, and the barred door creaked open.
Someone stepped beside me. I didn’t look up to see who it was.
“I’m not sure what I should do with you,” Gervase said. “All of my advisers except Jack have said I should execute you. If only for turning me into a swan. Which was…strange.”
I shuddered in the cold, my legs pulled up to my chest. There seemed to be a weight pressing my head against the floor.
“But I’m still uncertain,” he continued. “I’m not sure what’s true and what isn’t.”
