“Do you think the toad knows he is a toad?” he asked.
He was referencing a folktale from the second book. The story said that three centuries ago Mad King Eble lost his mind and thought that a toad he found in the garden was talking to him and giving him sage advice. He’d commissioned golden vestments for the toad and forced his counselors to give their reports to it. One of the counselors was renowned for his honesty, and when the king asked him directly if the toad would want even grander clothes, the minister replied, “Your Majesty, no matter how you gild it, a toad knows it’s just a toad.” The king crushed the toad with his fist and then chopped the minister’s head off.
The man was looking at me. I had to say something.
Don’t say the wrong thing, don’t say the wrong thing . . .
I kept my voice quiet. “It isn’t wise to disparage the head of a Great Family.”
“For you, perhaps.”
He wasn’t afraid of Hreban. Who the hell was he? Brown hair, hazel eyes, beautiful face . . . Beauty was subjective. No crest, no scars, no unique facial features. Without something specific, I could think of a dozen characters that would loosely fit the bill.
“If you recall, that story didn’t end well for the counselor,” I said.
“Ah, but I wouldn’t be the counselor.”
“Who would you be?”
“The king, of course.”
“Then let’s hope you’re less mad than Eble.”
His lips curved.
An attendant ran up to the fairy queen hostess. The hostess bowed to Hreban and said something. He nodded, and he and his bodyguard followed her to the side. There would be a staircase there, just out of sight, leading to the second floor.
“There he goes, hopping off. Good riddance.” The man looked back at me. “You and I have something in common.”
We had nothing in common. “And what would that be?”
“We’re both in a place we shouldn’t be, pretending to be someone we are not.”
What did that mean?
His eyes narrowed. His mouth was still smiling, but the way he looked at me made me want to take off like a rocket.
“Who are you? I mean, who are you really?”
Panic squirmed through me. “Nobody worth noticing.”
“Too late for that.”
He put one hand on the rail about to hop over it to my side.
“My lord,” Galiene called out.
The man let go of the rail.
Galiene approached us, a female attendant behind her. Klemena chose this moment to pop out of some side door on the left and almost ran into Galiene. The queen of the Garden arched an eyebrow, and Klemena bowed her head and fell in step with the other attendant.
The three of them reached us. Galiene looked at the man, her expression flawlessly polite. “You seem to have mistaken one of our guests for an attendant, my lord.”
The man smiled back at her, looking unrepentant, like a cat who’d been caught seconds before he was about to steal steak off the counter.
“My apologies.” He didn’t sound particularly apologetic either.
“Your room is ready, and your companion is eager to meet you.”
