“You don’t have toes. Even if you did, you can’t have them. They’re my favorite pair.”
“Willful wench,” Corra hissed. “The brute is in the tower. But you should know he has vinegar for blood and rotten leaves for skin and spiders for hair and—”
“Thanks so much,” I interrupted. “Oh, and Corra?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
Corra keened a curse, then rocketed out of their spiny host, whizzing between carvings and muttering epithets. I heard what sounded suspiciously likepuke-stockinged maltwormandbeef-witted baggagebefore the sprite disappeared into the ether.
I swallowed a smile. I’d grown up an unwanted changeling in the court of a queen at war with the Folk. Corra was going to have to do better than that if they wanted to pierce this beef-witted baggage’s thick skin.
The staircase to the tower left me panting, sweat beading along my upper lip and down my back. At the landing, a plain wooden door stood slightly ajar. I knocked. No one answered, so I pushed inside. The vaulted tower chamber was dim, unlit save for the small strip of gray light filtering in from a drizzly afternoon. My eyes dredged the shadows.
“Rogan?” I called, even as I caught sight of him.
He slouched in silhouette against the window, which was open to the elements. Rain splattered against the stone sill and dripped onto the floor by his boots. A gust of wet wind lifted the ends of his golden hair. He’d somehow acquired a bottle of ruby-colored liquor and already made his way through half of it.
He was up here brooding. I should have guessed.
“Afternoon, princeling.” I managed to sound only slightly sarcastic.
A muscle in his arm jumped, and the leg propped up on the sill twitched. He kept his face resolutely slanted down toward the iron lough.
“Do you have to call me that?” he said after a beat.
Hurt spangled through me.Princeling,changeling—these were the names other people called us. Names they used to fit us into tiny boxes we didn’t like and hadn’t agreed to. Names they used to hurt us. But when we were children, they had become like our own personal language. Between the two of us, the names were a reclamation—of the things we were and weren’t, of the things we wanted but couldn’t have. Of the things we meant to each other.
At least, that was how it used to be.
“I don’thaveto.” I made my voice blasé. “But what will do instead?My lord? Conqueror of towers? Slayer of wine bottles?”
He didn’t take the bait. He didn’t even look at me. “How about my name?”
“Fine,Rogan. What’s going on?”
“I met her once, you know.” He drummed his fingers against the neck of the bottle. “When we were children.”
He was talking about Eala. Curiosity rose up to meet my simmering bitterness. When we were young, we’d rarely spoken of the princess. Neither of us had known her; she was little more than an abstract concept. As we’d grown, so too had Eala’s specter, haunting the spaces between us. But discussing her had given form to the ways we were shaped and bound by her—had given name to her presence, even in her absence. So we’d rarely mentioned her.
“I was six or seven. She, four.” Rogan took a pull from the bottle. “She was a tiny, pretty thing, sitting prim and poised at her mother’s knee. I remember thinking how different she was to my snot-nosed, grubby little brother, who was about her age. Our parents made us play together. She wanted to play dolls. Suffice it to say, it was not my idea of fun. I grew bored, kicking ashes into the fireplace and ignoring her.” He paused, his eyebrows drawing together. “But then she stuck one of her dolls in my face. ‘Rogan,’ she said to me, ‘I hate this dolly. But Mother won’t buy me a new one unless she breaks.’ It seemed a straightforward scheme to me—I obliged the princess by ripping her doll’s head off. But then Eala… she went screaming to her mother. The queen was furious at me. I tried to explain, but that only made things worse. She ordered my father to punish me for the offense. I still have scars from the caning he gave me.”
Sympathy pulsed through me. Cairell Mòr was not a kind man—especially not to his eldest son. “Rogan—”
“It’s been sixteen years.” Rogan finally looked at me, his blue-green eyes hazy with memory. “And I still can’t figure out why she made me break that doll.”
An uneasy silence stretched between us. I had no answer for him. I could picture that little princess easily—now that I’d seen Eala grown, I had no trouble believing her younger self had been just as bright and lovely. No wonder I’d been such a disappointment when I’d awoken strange-eyed and wild-haired in her bed. But I had no insight into that child’s mind or motivations. Nor did I understand why Rogan had brought it up. If Eala had been such a horrid menace to him, then why had he chosen her over me, four years ago?
I pressed my wrist against my thigh, letting the new pain chase away the old.
“Perhaps it was a misunderstanding,” I suggested diplomatically. “Rogan… did something happen between you and Eala last night?”
My words pulled Rogan’s rain-washed gaze back into focus. He stood up from the windowsill and set the bottle down.
“You should have warned me we were going to split up.” His voice was rough with accusation. “In Tír na nÓg. Instead of sending me off into the forest alone.”
“Why?” The displeasure in his voice raised my hackles, and the sudden change in topic made me think he didn’t want me to know what had happened between him and Eala. “Did you need me to hold your hand?”
