The Bomb finds me there, stepping out of the shadows in a graceful movement. She isn’t wearing her mask.
“Jude?” she says.
I realize how much closer to the serpent I have crept. I sit on the dais, perhaps three feet from him. He has grown so used to me that he’s closed his golden eyes.
“Your sisters are worried,” she says, coming as close to us as she dares. The serpent’s head rises, tongue darting out to touch the air, and she goes very still.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just needed to think.”
No true love’s kiss will stop it. No riddle will fix it. Only death.
She gives the serpent an evaluating look. “Does he know you?”
“I can’t tell,” I say. “He seems not to mind my being here. I’ve been telling him how he can’t hold me to my promises.”
The hardest thing—the impossible thing—is to get past the memory of Cardan telling me he loved me. He said those words, and I didn’t answer him. I thought there would be time. And I was happy—despite everything—I was happy, just before everything went so terribly wrong. We won. Everything was going to work out. And he loved me.
“There are a few things you need to know,” the Bomb says. “I believe Grima Mog gave you a report about Madoc’s movements.”
“She did,” I say.
“We caught a few courtiers speculating about assassinating the mortal queen. Their plans got blown up.” A small smile crosses her face. “As did they.”
I don’t know if I should be happy about that or not. Right now it makes me feel tired.
“The Ghost has gathered information about the loyalties of the individual rulers,” she says. “We can go over all those. But the most interesting thing is that you have a message from your father. Madoc wants a guarantee that he and Lady Nore and Lord Jarel may come to the palace and treat with you.”
“They want to come here?” I climb down from the dais. The serpent’s gaze follows me. “Why? Aren’t they satisfied with the results of their last parlay?”
“I know not,” she says, a brittleness in her voice that reminds me how much she hates the rulers of the Court of Teeth, and how deservedly. “But Madoc has asked to see you and your brother and sisters. As well as his wife.”
“Very well,” I say. “Let him come, along with Lady Nore and Lord Jarel. But let him know that he will bring no weapon into Elfhame. He does not come here as my guest. He has only my word that he will come to no harm, not the hospitality of my house.”
“And what is your word worth?” the Bomb asks, sounding hopeful.
“I guess we’ll find out.” At the door, I look back toward the serpent. Beneath where it rests, the ground has blackened to almost the color of its scales.
After several messages back and forth, it is determined that Madoc and his company will arrive at dusk. I have agreed to receive them on the palace grounds, having no interest in letting them inside again. Grima Mog brings a semicircle of knights to watch over us, with archers in the trees. The Bomb brings spies, who hide themselves in higher and lower places. Among their number is the Ghost, his ears sealed with soft wax.
My carved chair has been brought outside and is set on a new, higher platform. Cushions rest below it, for my brother and sisters—and Oriana, if she will deign to sit with us.
There are no banquet tables and no wine. The only concession we have made to their comfort is a rug over the muddy ground. Torches blaze to either side of me, but that’s for my own poor mortal eyesight, not for them.
Overhead, storm clouds sweep by, crackling with lightning. Earlier, hailstones as large as apples were reported raining down on Insweal. Weather like this is unknown in Elfhame. I can only assume that Cardan, in his cursed form, is cursing the weather as well.
I sit in the carved wooden chair and arrange my gown in what I hope is a regal way. I brush off dust from the hem.
“You missed a bit,” the Bomb says, pointing. “Your Majesty.”
She has taken up a place to the right of the platform. I shake off my skirts again, and she smothers a smile as my brother arrives with both of my sisters in tow. When the Bomb pulls on her face covering, she seems to recede entirely into the shadows.
The last time I saw Oak, his sword was drawn and terror was on his face. I am glad to replace that memory with this one: his rushing up to me, grinning.
“Jude!” he says, climbing up onto my lap, making short work of all the careful arranging of skirts. His horns butt against my shoulder. “I have been explaining skateboarding to Oriana, and she doesn’t think I should do it.”
I look out, expecting to see her, but there’s only Vivi and Taryn. Vivi is dressed in jeans and a brocade vest over a floofy white shirt, a compromise between mortal and immortal style. Taryn is dressed in the gown I saw in her closet, the one patterned with forest animals looking out from behind leaves. Oak has on a little coat of midnight blue. On his brow someone has set a golden diadem to remind us all that he may be the very last of the Greenbriar line.
“I need your help,” I tell Oak. “But it will be very hard and very annoying.”
“What do I have to do?” he asks, looking highly suspicious.
“You have to look like you’re paying attention, but stay quiet. No matter what I say. No matter what Dad says. No matter what happens.”
“That’s not helping,” he protests.
“It would be a huge help,” I insist.
With a dramatic sigh, he slides off me and takes his sulky place on the cushions.
“Where’s Heather?” I ask Vivi.