You’re not healed enough,” Tatterfell gripes, poking my scar with her sharp fingers. The imp has been seeing to me since I got out of bed, getting me ready to face the serpent as though I was going to another banquet, and complaining the whole way. “Madoc nearly cut you in half not so long ago.”
“Does it bother you that you were sworn to him, but you’re still here with me?” I ask as she finishes the tight braid on top of my head. The sides are pulled back, and the rest of it is pinned into a bun. No ornamentation in my ears or around my throat, of course, nothing that can be grabbed.
“This is where he sent me,” Tatterfell says, taking a brush from the table where she has laid out her tools and touching it to a pot of black ash. “Maybe he regrets it. After all, I could be scolding him right now, instead of you.”
That makes me smile.
Tatterfell paints my face, shadowing my eyes and reddening my lips.
There’s a knock on the door, and then Taryn and Vivi come in. “You won’t believe what we found in the treasury,” Vivi says.
“I thought treasuries were just full of gems and gold and stuff.” I recall, ages back, Cardan’s promise that he would give the contents of Balekin’s treasury to the Court of Shadows if they would only betray me and release him. It’s an odd feeling, remembering how panicked I felt then, how charming he was, and how I hated it.
Tatterfell snorts as the Roach comes in, pulling a chest behind him. “There’s no keeping your sisters out of trouble.”
His skin has returned to its normal deep green, and he looks thin, but well. It’s an immense relief to see him up and moving so quickly. I wonder how he was recruited to help my sisters, but I wonder more what the Bomb said to him. There is a new kind of joy in his face. It lives in the corners of his mouth, where a smile hovers, and in the brightness of his eyes.
It hurts to look at.
Taryn grins. “We found armor. Glorious armor. For you.”
“For a queen,” Vivi says. “Which, you may recall, there hasn’t been in a little while.”
“It may well have belonged to Mab herself,” Taryn goes on.
“You’re really building this up,” I tell them.
Vivi leans down to unlock the chest. She draws out armor of a fine scale mail, worked so that it appears like a fall of miniature metal ivy leaves. I gasp at the sight of it. It truly is the most beautiful armor I’ve ever seen. It appears ancient, and the workmanship is distinct, nothing like Grimsen’s. It’s a relief to know that other great smiths came before him and that others will follow.
“I knew you’d like it,” Taryn says, grinning.
“And I have something you’ll like almost as well,” the Roach says. Reaching into his bag, he takes out three strands of what looks like silver thread.
I tuck it into my pocket, beside the hair I plucked from Madoc’s head.
Vivi is too busy taking out more items from the chest to notice. Boots covered in curved plates of metal. Bracers in a pattern of briars. Shoulder plates of more leaves, curled up at the edges. And a helm that resembles a crown of golden branches with berries gathered on either side.
“Well, even if the serpent bites off your head,” says Tatterfell, “the rest of you will still look good.”
“That’s the spirit,” I tell her.
The army of Elfhame assembles and readies itself to march. Whippet-thin faerie steeds, swampy water horses, reindeer with jutting antlers, and massive toads are all being saddled. Some will even be armored.
Archers line up with their elf-shot, with sleep-poisoned arrows and enormous bows. Knights ready themselves. I see Grima Mog across the grass, standing in a small knot of redcaps. They are passing around a carafe of blood, taking swigs and dotting their caps. Swarms of pixies with small poisoned darts fly through the air.
“We’ll be prepared,” Grima Mog explains, walking over, “in the event that the bridle doesn’t work the way they claim. Or in case they don’t like what happens next.” Taking in my armor and the borrowed sword strapped to my back, she smiles, showing me her blood-reddened teeth. Then she places a hand over her heart. “High Queen.”
I try to give her a grin, but I know it is a sickly one. Anxiety chews at my gut.
Two paths are before me, but only one leads to victory.
I have been Madoc’s protégé and Dain’s creature. I don’t know how to win any other way but theirs. It is no recipe for being a hero, but it is a recipe for success. I know how to drive a knife through my own hand. I know how to hate and be hated. And I know how to win the day, provided I am willing to sacrifice everything good in me for it.
I said that if I couldn’t be better than my enemies, then I would become worse. Much, much worse.
Take three hairs from your own head and knot them around the bridle. You will be bound together.
Lord Jarel thought to trick me. He thought to keep the word of power to himself, to use it only after I bridled the serpent, and then to control us both. I am sure Madoc doesn’t know Lord Jarel’s scheme, which suggests that part of it will involve murdering Madoc.