Page 124

Brittle Spear didn’t have the time to make up a convincing enough lie. The impact of my foot to the most sensitive of places knocked the wind right out of any, and all lies his silver tongue could have crafted. “The next time you touch me without permission, guard or no, I’ll skin you alive and make a dress out of it.”

Brittle Spear crumpled in on the pain and fell to the ground. I cast my gaze to the two guards. “Some guards, you two are. Maybe, I dunno, watch me? Just a wild suggestion. No need to take it. I think I’m done for the day. Can one of you two please take me back to my cot? I’m not needed here, and we all know the only reason I am here is so that someone can keep up appearances that they aren’t treating me like I’m of no use when the Ard Rí isn’t plowing me.”

Silvertree looked between Brittle Spear, the other guard, and me, then finally nodded. “As you wish. I think it is best for your sake if perhaps we do not drag you up from the warrens without merit, Miss Cricket.”

I nodded in agreement and let him lead me from the room. I was just hearing the beginning of what sounded like an epic dressing down for his supposed crimes when Silvertree closed the door to the throne room and began leading me back to the warrens.

I had an ally. Whether Brittle Spear could be counted on was a problem for another day. His warning was hot in my ears, ringing and clear as day, churning over with the idea that someone close to me was as bad as Oaken Rose.

Did he mean The Raven? The only people close to me aside from The Raven was Green Man, Violet, and Emerald, and it was in their best interest not to betray me. Not now that the final gauntlet had been thrown. They all three wanted to be free more than they wanted to twist the knife on someone, and I was betting my life on that.

Chapter 41

Six more days to go, and the only news I had received about Lord White Throat was that he was a minor lordling of Samhradh, who no one seemed to think overly much about. I had Green Man watching him for any unusual movements, as his duties mostly consisted of working the palace’s extensive gardens, where many of the Summer court congregated. If The Oaken Rose was working with him, she never appeared, and he gave no indication of it.

They must be meeting in secret for some reason. And if she had thought that the spider message had been from him, she must owe him something dire.

The hunts were gathering at the base of the stairs to flow up into the palace, escorted by their individual usual guards. Silvertree was waiting for me. His eyes locked on me as I stood with my back flat against the small half wall of my alcove. He waited until the last of the humans had gone up to their duties before approaching me.

His dusky gaze grazed over every surface of my hovel and then fell back on me. I had underestimated Silvertree. A lesser guard wouldn’t have even bothered to look in, but he was skilled enough and experienced enough that he was always checking. I wished he would be on my side when this all shook out, but he struck me as far too loyal to side with humans.

When his eyes fell back on me, he bowed his head slightly, even though, as a daoire, I had no rank that afforded me such courtesies. “Miss Cricket, the Captain wishes me to deliver a message.”

I snorted and crossed my arms. “Please excuse me, er . . . You know, I don’t think I caught your rank last we met.”

“Esquire. Though my parentage is of some debate, the Ducal title is afforded to me by proxy.”

“Esquire Silvertree? That seems . . . cumbersome.”

“Well, the alternative is just Silver. If you would be so inclined to use it.”

I canted my head, regarding him as he gave me a somewhat sheepish smile. “Silver seems awfully familiar.”

“Well, Miss Cricket, as I am to attend to you as your personal guard from now on, it seems only right that we be familiar.”

A personal guard. Cute. If The Oaken Rose thought assigning me a personal guard would keep me from carrying out my threat, she was sorely mistaken. Silvertree was far too sweet to miss the opportunity to be a chivalrous knight, and I would push that button if needed.

“Well, then, Silver, if we are to be familiar, please just call me Cricket. It’s my name, after all.”

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled it with patience. “If you wish, Miss Cricket. The Captain did warn me that you could be . . . prickly.”

“I bet he did.”

“But he also said that you were more than your surface and to give you a chance to surprise me.” He turned crisply and extended a hand toward the stairwell. “You are to attend the Temple today, Miss Cricket.”

The way my adrenaline rose and joy bubbled at the edges with the hope that I would be able to see the Bandrui again was disconcerting. I had been kept away from the temple ever since I had been returned, and I wished nothing more than to sit at her table and peel crust off her bread and talk. She was the closest thing I had to a true friend here. She needed nothing from me and owed me nothing. We were all but equals in this strange world, even though titles and station separated us. She treated me as if I were an old friend, and it was a balm to the inner wounds of a broken child.

I nodded and went ahead of him, sweeping up the stairs but pausing at the top. My path to the Temple was obscured in fever dreams and shattered memories. The way back into the palace had been just as obscured, though only because my attendants had insisted a daoire should not know the path of the gods.

Silver came up the rear and began guiding me through the twisting corridors at a leisurely pace. I noticed as we walked the path he chose and a silver thread, obscured by the myriad colors and glosses in the floors to distract my eye, became clearer.

So, this was how the Fae got around. I had suspected that I was only seeing things and noticing patterns where there were only circumstances, but now that I was testing it against an unknown destination, the silver thread was almost bold in its unobtrusive weave.

I made a mental note to self-assign some floor-scrubbing duties at one of the larger crossroads of corridors. If I didn’t need The Oaken Rose to find the exit of the palace, I would sleep better at night. Perhaps if I spent enough time peering into the woodwork, I could find another thread that had been hidden, and I hadn’t noticed.

Our path took us through two different court wings and, finally, to a foyer of a sort of polished granite that opened into a section of the gardens I had not seen before. Great sweeping landscapes of well-kept hedgerows and vistas of fat blossoms of flowers I knew the names of and some I had never seen before were laid out before us. In the distance, on the other side of the garden, stood an unassuming circular structure with stone walls and a domed, grass-covered roof. A mere twenty or thirty years of neglect, and the entire place would disappear into the vegetation around it, looking like nothing more than an oddly placed hill.

“Miss Cricket,” Silver whispered before guiding my attention down to his offered elbow.