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“What?” I freeze for a second before I force myself to continue walking.
“I said he wasn’t himself.” She lowers her voice, as if she doesn’t want people passing to overhear. “Dawnsong likes to be in control. I know he wears a different mask for the court, one where he seems…impulsive. Unrestrained. But it’s an act. He knows how to play the part, be the prince everyone expects him to be. It’s an act of incredible self-control. He can’t lie, but he’s smart enough to know who he can trust with his truth. I wouldn’t have sworn my sword to him otherwise.”
“So, you’re saying…the moon made him lose control?”
“I’m saying that the harvest moon can bring out…desires he otherwise keeps hidden.”
She looks sideways at me, but I can’t meet her eyes. Do she and Destan have a detailed knowledge of what passed between me and Ruskin, or are they just guessing? Perhaps they’ve sensed something between us I’ve been ignoring and drew their own conclusions. But what Halima is telling me changes things. It means something to know that the Ruskin from last night wasn’t someone else. He was just being more honest—more truthful about what he wants—than he has been this whole time.
I don’t know if it makes me feel better about his rejection today, but it does make me feel differently. He’s shutting me out because all he can seem to do is keep secrets and hide things, but that’s not the same as not wanting me.
In the kitchens, I find the green-skinned cook with mossy hair. She’s confused as to why I would want the produce she’s thrown out, but she has plenty to offer me when I ask about bitter and inedible fruits and vegetables.
Back in my workshop I dissect the pomegranate and the bulb of fennel she handed me, able to see even with the naked eye the sheen of something which doesn’t belong there.
I try to work quickly, the answer at my fingertips, pushing me forward, but even so I notice again the strange way the shimmer at the center of the plants moves—coming to the surface at my touch, and then sinking back into their flesh again once I’ve let go.
My test works. Each time I touch the parchment to the suspicious shimmer, it turns black.
I was right. This gold is cropping everywhere—in the plants, in the animals. It occurs to me that the gryphon acting crazed is probably not coincidence. It’s the toxic metal running through these animals’ veins that’s making them act rabid, driving them as insane as if they had lead poisoning.
So this is it. The reason my life has been yanked away from me. Why I’m stuck here in Faerie with no idea when or if I’ll get home, if I’ll ever even see my village or my father again.
The resentment still sparks within me, but I feel worry too. This is much bigger than I suspected. I didn’t have many theories about why Ruskin wanted me here, but I never suspected something on this scale. I understand now, his fears about my safety, the declaration that I’m too important. It’s because there are lives at stake other than my own. And yet, to ask me to fix this…
There’s a fresh flare of frustration. How did he expect me to find a solution to this when I didn’t even know what problem I was trying to solve? There’s a whole realm he wants me to save from this strange gold contamination—just me and my little alchemist’s kit—and he couldn’t be bothered to actually tell me that was what I was supposed to be doing? No, because that would require him opening up, taking down just one of his sky-high walls, and sharing his reasons with me—which is clearly far too much to expect. When I look at what he’s done, what he’s kept from me, it all feels stupid and selfish, not to mention ridiculously short-sighted.
Well, if this is the problem I’m here to fix, then I’m going to have it confirmed. Now.
“Where are you—” Halima starts again as I storm out of my workshop.
“I’m going to find Ruskin, so you don’t need to follow me,” I say. The grim determination in my voice must be convincing, because she falls back, only tailing me as far as the entrance to Ruskin’s quarters, where the petal pendant is leading me.
I find him in a library. Not that I’ve ever really seen a library—no one I know could afford such a thing except for King Albrecht, and I was too busy making piles of gold for him to have any time for light reading—but I can tell what it is from the way books are stacked floor-to-ceiling on every wall. He’s lounging in an armchair, a tome propped up in his lap, looking utterly at peace.
Hopefully, I’m about to shatter that peace.
I throw the contaminated pieces of parchment down on the reading table beside him.
He offers me a look of surprise at my stern expression, then examines the table.
“I think you might have burnt your paper,” he says dryly.
“I know,” I say and am pleased with how much threat I manage to put into those two words.
“Precise as ever, Gold Weaver. What is it ‘you know’?”
“I know what you’re hiding from the rest of the court. Why the animals are losing their minds and your food’s spoiling.”
Ruskin stands, the book sliding off his lap and hitting the floor. The movement does what I imagine he wanted, reminding me of the differences in our heights, how he dwarfs me in both size and power.
“It seems you’ve been busy,” he says. His face is stoic, the closed-off mask designed to give nothing away. It pisses me off, the way even now he’s trying to hide from me.
“I wouldn’t have needed to be, if you’d just told me why I was doing all this in the first place.” The volume of my voice is rising with each sentence, but I can’t seem to stop it.
“You have a job to do for me,” he says, like it’s simple and obvious. “You don’t need to know why it has to be done.”
He’s being so obtuse I want to shake him. I settle for making a noise of frustration.
