“All right. So, how do you explain how Queen Tris got hold of your tincture? Does she know about your reliance on the drug? How many others know?”
“Only Father and Marybeth,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean Tris couldn’t have found out. It’s possible that she discovered my vials in my room. I…I didn’t think to count if any were missing. I only briefly checked my stash when I grabbed an extra vial right before I fled the palace. That’s the only one I have left.” I don’t mention that once my current vial is gone, I’ll need to make more of the tincture. Which will be difficult, considering Crimson Malus only grows in the Spring Court and sale of the fruit itself or any products made with it is illegal. I suppose I could buy access to the restricted top floor of Department Gluttony. That’s the only place I can imagine finding it around here.
The Huntsman rubs his bearded jaw. “While I can see how youmightbe innocent, your case against Queen Tris is weak, if not downright ridiculous. It makes very little sense why she would use a poison against you—an ineffective one, I might add—that she found in your possession. You also suggested she was behind the ogre attack and the theft of my Chariot. What you failed to reason is that she hired me to find you. She wouldn’t try to kill me or send an ogre to do what she already sent me to do. Why would she intervene when all she wants is you dead? She’s a queen. She has better things to do than go through all the trouble of hunting down her stepdaughter. If she lets me do what she asked me to, she gets the same result for a fraction of the effort.”
I hate that he’s right about that. Even though I know my stepmother is guilty, I can’t imagine her traipsing around the Seven Sins Hotel, getting her hands dirty, meeting with ogres in dark alcoves. But still…I’m not ready to let this go. “What about the floral aroma? You’ve obviously met my stepmother. Her hair is made of cherry blossoms. It doesn’t get more floral than that.”
He shakes his head. “Fruit blossoms are one of the few floral fragrances I can tolerate. More importantly, I know Queen Tris’ scent profile. The trail we followed earlier did not belong to her. That was a false fragrance. An unnatural perfume.”
“Couldn’t she have used a perfume to cover her innate scent? I take it she knows of your weakness to floral aromas?”
The tightening of his jaw tells me I’m onto something. “She might have inferred as much when I demanded all floral arrangements and bouquets, unless directly related to the case, be removed from the palace before my arrival. It helps assure my senses are clear. It’s the same demand I make every time I’m called to a location to pick up a scent trail.”
“I’m assuming she knows where you are now? Where you’re staying?”
His throat bobs. “Yes.”
“Is that not all the proof you need? How else do you explain that someone knew exactly where to find you? The way the ogre tossed you aside when I freed myself from the cuffs makes me think he was really after me all along. And not to kill me but to capture me. To bring me straight to Tris so she can do the killing. Don’t you see that she could have been using you to get to me? She neededyoursense of smell to find me.”
He furrows his brow as if he’s truly giving my question serious thought. “I suppose the last part could be true, but it still doesn’t make sense that Tris would be behind it. Why offer me a bargain if she was only going to follow me and kill you herself? As Huntsman, I’m supposed to find fugitives for the fae royals, no questions asked. If she only wanted my sense of smell to find you, she could have left it at that. She offered me a bargain to bring her your heart knowing I had no obligation to say yes.”
I shudder at the thought of what he agreed to do for her. She must have kept the terms rather vague, though, considering what he said last night.When I bargained to bring her your heart, I didn’t specify you wouldn’t be attached to it.
I rub my free arm over the other to ward away my sudden chill. “What did she offer you in return for your bargain?”
His eyes go distant before he answers. “Freedom.”
“What do you mean?”
“I only serve the Alpha Council as their bounty hunter because it is my punishment. I’m on year five of a hundred-year sentence. This is not the life I chose to have, only what I deserve for my own reckless actions.”
I take a hesitant step back, one that has him assessing me with a frown. Forcing myself not to cower, I ask, “What was your crime?”
He releases a slow, grumbling sigh. “Gambling.”
I pull my head back. “Is gambling a crime?”
“It is when you wager more than you have and wind up in a mountain of debt you can’t pay back.”
His answer sets my nerves at ease. Even though I know the Huntsman is hardly an innocent or kindly soul, I would have felt far more wary had I learned his crimes were of a more sinister nature. “So Queen Tris offered to release you from your service to the Alpha Council if you found me and brought back my heart. Does she even have the ability to release you? Are you not bound to the council as a whole?”
“My debts were accumulated in the Spring Court. Since my crimes were a matter of finance, it was up to Spring’s seelie ruler to dole out my punishment. Tris sentenced me to my term as Huntsman, which means she has the right to end that sentence.”
I suppose that makes sense. Each court in Faerwyvae is ruled by two fae rulers—a seelie monarch and an unseelie monarch—who live in separate palaces and reign in different ways. The seelie monarch, like Queen Tris, oversees matters of day-to-day life and finance, while the unseelie ruler oversees nature and advocates for the unseelie fae. Since the Huntsman’s crime involved gambling debts, it would have fallen under Tris’ jurisdiction. “How much time did she give you to fulfill your bargain?”
He hesitates before answering. “I have until the seventeenth of this month.”
My throat goes dry. “That’s less than two weeks away!”
“I’m aware.”
“And you’ll die if you fail to fulfill it?”
“Yes. That’s how bargains work.”
I’m surprised at how my heart clenches at the thought of him dying. Why should I care? My eyes go unfocused as I try to fit this whole bargain business into my theory. If I’m right and my stepmother only needed the Huntsman’s sense of smell so she could follow him and kill me before he got to me, why would she offer him a bargain at all?
Realization begins to dawn. “Huntsman, what if…what if Tris never wanted you to succeed at fulfilling your bargain? What if she never intended to set you free?”
