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I didn’t like the way he said that. There was something living between the words like I was missing some secret inside joke between them. To his credit, Green Man glared at Pops with displeasure or annoyance—I couldn’t tell which—and just grunted.

“A cookbook?” I cut in dubiously. I hadn’t mentioned to any of them what exactly I had taken with me, and some distrusting part of me was loathe to share the inventory of my horde—even with my friends.

“Well, if we plan on leaving this place, it’d be a good idea to know what we can and cannot eat. It’s a hunter’s cookbook.” He cradled the book to his bark-covered chest and stroked its spine. It was odd, but Green Man was a little odd.

“Useful.”

“I live to serve, your majesty.” Green Man gave a flourishing, well-practiced bow, and Pops narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly.

I trotted off and freed the string of beads from its place as a bookmark. Spending just enough time to drag my hand over the page it had kept open. The page on the Árus Láigh Court.

I slipped four beads free, nestling two of them into my pocket just in case, and then made my way back to the group. Goose had stayed, not wanting to take his eyes off the Fae.

“I’ve got two beads. Is that enough for everything?”

Pops took one of the armored fist beads into his dirty hand and held it up to the light. “Small bit of very stable magic. Protection beads. Meant to summon someone. Whoever gave you these beads cares for you a great deal, but the other one is different. Looks the same but it’s different.”

He plucked the other bead from my palm and examined it the same way. “This one is steeped in whole volumes of stable magic. Exceptional quality. Some of the finest work I’ve seen in a very long time. Meant not only to summon but to also transport. The Fae who gave you this is far more than the other. Very interesting lovers you have had, my golden friend. Lover’s tokens like these are exceptional and very rare.”

“So . . . worth a lot then?”

“Oh, very much so friend, very much so. I’ll give you whatever you wish of my wares and half of the supplies Havenhome has ordered.” He pulled his sideways pupils away from the bead and greed was flashing in them. “Do you have more of these? Hidden away in your cabin?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? They are very valuable. I would give Havenhome a new fishing boat. Enough timber to build their gates higher. Maybe even the fortifications they have commissioned, depending on how many more you have.”

“Sounds to me like the two I have are worth more than you’re giving.” I snatched them back from him and held on tight. Annoyance flashed in the otherwise kindly face of the Fae. “So I’ll take the items my bushy friend there wants and your oath that the next question I ask will be answered with perfect truth.”

Pops narrowed his eyes at me. “You seek to bargain for my true name?”

“Pal, I don’t give a fuck what your true name is. I don’t want the burden of knowing it.”

He stroked the moss beard he had conjured for a long while, considering my proposition. “Very well. And then we will bargain for the other?”

“Sure.”

“Then I accept your price. I, The Wandering Hart, do swear to my golden friend, that in exchange for this bead of stable magic that I will answer her next question with perfect truth and the items of her choice.”

I nodded. “I, the golden friend of The Wandering Heart, do swear that I will give him the bead of stable magic when he answers a single question answered with perfect truth, and I will take the bow and arrow and the cookbook now.”

Pops twitched with irritation. Had he thought I wouldn’t know how to specify in an oath? Had he thought I would be easily tricked into some nebulous oath that he could hang over my head? I had enough experience with Fae oaths to know that one did not leave them open-ended like that. Though it had been advantageous to twist Oaken Rose’s own oath against her when I realized my mistake, I had no intention of allowing Pops the leverage of time.

A crackle of unseen firecrackers, booming and exploding, showering us with embers, passed between us and then dissipated.

“It’s done. Now, ask.”

“Why is the other bead more valuable than this one?” A simple question, but he would be compelled by magic to tell me everything he knew about it.

“It does not hold the magic of a regular Fae. The one that you bargained with holds the power of a great Fae, one that is god-touched and deeply powerful. It alone could have bought all my goods and all of the Havenhome supplies. But the other is steeped in a magic far more powerful than any Fae I have ever encountered, god-touched, god, or Ard Rí. The magic in that bead is stronger than any magic a single Fae could wield or house within themselves. I suspect that it is the magic of one of the truer children of magic’s touch. I do not know which, but I do know that it is not Fae magic, and I would have it for myself. It would fuel me for centuries, perhaps even millennia.”

Cora gasped. Rook stiffened. Goose growled low and with a gentle warning. Green Man stared. Pops snapped back into his lazy, friendly, and easy demeanor. Or at least he tried.

“Thank you, Wandering Hart. That was most helpful.” I turned to Cora. “I’m sorry, Cora. Given that answer, I can’t give a Fae I don’t know or trust, who was fully willing to swindle me, this amount of power. I hope you understand.”

Green Man collected the items I had already paid for, and we retreated to our cabin. The moment the door closed I dove for the bag and pulled out the shard of iron and faced the door as if any moment we would be under attack.

Green Man watched me from a distance. “So . . .”