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I sat back fully on my ass as I watched her, both annoyed and astounded at the deviousness of it all. “You people have thought of it all, haven’t you?” I exhaled in exasperation.

She shrugged bashfully. “I’m sorry, Cricket. It’s not exactly something I had a hand in, but, yes. The architects of the palace grounds were incredibly clever. I’ve lived on these grounds for a little over one hundred fifty years, and I am daily discovering new little aspects of it. There are secrets about the secrets about the secrets of this place. To be true, the guards only follow the humans to ensure they don’t get lost and die in an empty bedroom somewhere where no one can help them. Otherwise, the humans are free to roam the grounds as much or as little as they like. There’s no risk of their escape, and there’s other protections, too.”

I shivered at the idea, lost in a maze of corridors and hallways that never seem to end, having not seen another face for thousands of years. Not that I knew exactly how long a human could live in this place.

“I need to get out, though, Oaken Rose. I can’t . . . I can’t live like this. As a daoire.” I didn’t like the desperation that crept into my voice and set up shop between the letters of each word.

She regarded me in silence for a long time. Both of us sullenly eating our cheese and bread while we stewed over our individual parts in the atrocity that played out around us.

“Cricket . . .” She broke the silence after what seemed an hour, when the snacks had all but dried up. “I . . . I can’t promise anything, but I could perhaps try and help.”

I cocked my brow at her. Rules #1 and #6 banged on drums in my head. No one’s coming to save you. Debt is a great way to kill yourself. “How.”

It was less a question and more a demand for additional information.

“I could try to find a way out for you. I don’t know if I can. And I’ll need something from you to be able to do it. But I can try.”

“Ah . . . a price. Let me guess, you want me to kill someone for you or something?” Suspicion and distrust were skipping side by side all over my face as hers blanched with innocence.

“No! No, nothing like that! It’s the way things work here. It’s how magic works. If I am to do something that is not normally able to be done—in this case, find some way for a human to break free of this place—I must have a contract with them, if you will. An agreement for payment. Only then will magic be willing to bless my actions. I’m not a very strong Fae. I don’t have mountains of stable magic at my fingertips ready to do my bidding whenever I have the need. If I did, I would not ask this of you, Cricket. You must believe me, but since I don’t, and I truly do wish to help you . . . I can only do what is necessary.” Her hand reached out and snaked around mine, squeezing it hard with her hope I will believe her. “Please, Cricket, I know my people have treated you horribly. I hate it. I hate what they do to humans every day and how they treat them. Let me help you?”

“What would the payment be.” I did not budge, did not move a single muscle or let my face react to her plaintive intercession.

“I don’t know. We could think of the payment. Something meaningless to you. Something you don’t even want. But something big enough that magic will deem it a worthy price for its help.”

“Like what?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Cricket. I didn’t wake up this morning thinking through the nuances of oath binding magic.” She chuckled at her own inadequacy, and I couldn’t help but find it endearing. Sweet, even.

“Can you word the oath that way?”

“What way?”

“That my payment will be something I do not want.”

A delicate finger, stained slightly with the dried juices of the fruit she had finished, tapped her chin as she thought long about it. “I . . . I believe so? I am a clumsy oath maker, though. The Bandrui could certainly help us if you are serious about wanting this. She is the most skilled oath speaker in the entire realm.”

I shook my head. “No, one more head involved is one more face that could turn on us. Just us. We will work out the wording of this oath together.”

“Then, we will have to craft the agreement ourselves. How about I will help you find a way to escape the palace grounds? In exchange, you will give me that which you have but you do not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which . . . Hmm.” She paused, her beautiful face twisting in concentration as she tried to think of the next line. “It must be something of value, though. Étain’s tits. Uhm . . .”

“So, just that. Something that has value to others but I do not value?”

“Yes! Perfect. That which is yours and valued by others but you do not value.”

“And you only get it when you help . . .” I paused, thinking of all the faces in the warrens of those I had come to treasure. If it was going to be a deal, I was going to try to save as many of them as I could. “When you help me and all the rest of the humans.”

Her sky-blue eyes rounded like an owl. “Cricket, that’s too many! I can’t do that. There’s not enough magic in what we are crafting together. At least I don’t think. I don’t even know what it is you are promising away, and the wording must be very specific, or it won’t work.”

I deflated. “Fine. How about ‘and those I trust.’ I don’t trust very many humans in the warrens.”

She smiled softly to me, patting my hand. “That’s probably for the best, to be frank. Many of the humans . . . the longer they’ve been here, the more Fae-like they become.”

“I’ve noticed,” I stated blandly, remembering the Laundress and how she had not been seen again since that day in the baths.

“Okay. So, and those you trust. There’s also a very standard part of oaths. To bind an oath, it must be usually bound by true names. But since you are a human and are not bound by your name like we are, it must be bound on something else. Something that makes you who you are and something that you cannot alter.”

“Like blood? I mean, that’s about as close to something like it that a human has.”