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I rolled my eyes. “It’s hardly a good oath when I was present for your birth, Baelfry.”
In any case, I was not sure it would matter if we invoked a name oath. Name oaths only mattered to those of weaker power.
“Fine, then,” he said, pushing off the bars of the cage and moving to sit on the end of his unmade bed. “I swear on Celia’s immortal soul. On the crown. On the heart of your infernal bird when I eventually catch it. Whatever you want.”
“Use her true name,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.
“I don’t know it.” His smile slipped. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m not about to hand you a way to hurt her.”
I scowled, noting that he’d known exactly who I meant without my having to clarify. “Should you not be on my side over hers?”
“I don’t see why they need to be different sides. I told you from the beginning I thought we needed her.” His smile turned rueful. “You still owe me fucking money, by the way.”
I pulled back, surprised into changing the subject. “What?”
“Gold—I know you’re good for it, yet my pockets remain light.”
“I have no gods-damned idea what you’re raving about.”
“I bet you last year that Lonnie wasn’t human.”
I scoffed. I only had the vaguest recollection of that. His exact wording had been lost to the past year and entirely overshadowed by more vivid things, like the taste of her skin and the constant reminder of some wine-drunk thing I’d apparently blurted out about my boots that had evidently burrowed into her mind, now coming back up at every available opportunity. “I remember you betting me she had magic and then using entirely unclear means to prove your point…proving nothing, I might add.”
“Well, I can prove it for certain, now,” he said, eyes flicking toward the door as if afraid we might be overheard. “But again, you go first.”
I shook my head. “Why is that so important to you?”
“I merely want to be sure you’re not going to rush off and kill her the moment I tell you.”
“If I were, would I have kept us all back from the hunts?”
He merely stared at me, waiting, clearly unwilling to say another word before I explained my piece. I sighed, leaning back in my chair and staring up at the stone ceiling through the bars of the copper cage. I had to admit, it was not as horrible in here as I’d expected. Almost…comforting. How strange.
“I visited Ambrose this morning,” I said without looking at Bael. “To ask him about the note she left.”
There were only two names to voice in that sentence, and I’d struggled to say both of them.
First, my brother, who’d begun to use another name once he left our family thirty-odd years ago. Most called himthe Dullahan, no longer Prince Ambrose Everlast, but I always struggled to distinguish between the two—both names feeling like a lie and ripping like fire through my throat.
Second, this time, the “she” I avoided speaking of aloud was not Lonnie Skyeborne but our grandmother Celia. We’d always spoken of her thus, as if she were some all-knowing, omnipotent presence in the room listening even after death. I wondered if my brother would ever reach such a status, as he had inherited her powers, or if his betrayal had regulated him to a nameless, cursed state, more threat than anything else.
“And I take it that came at a price?”Bael asked.
He had no fucking idea.
Even now, I already regretted it. Was already sure I’d done the wrong thing in letting my brother walk free in exchange for his vague, infuriating advice. Now, I’d merely have to track him down again—it was like a cat playing with a rat, letting it escape only to chase it again. Only this rat led an army and always knew the cat was coming before it took a single step.
“What did my traitorous cousin have to say?” Bael asked.
I gritted my teeth. “That there is more than one way to become king.”
He stiffened slightly, yellow eyes finding mine. He did not look angry, as I’d feared, but wary perhaps. “Meaning?”
I didn’t know what to say, and it had little to do with how Bael might answer. It was the mere idea that sent my mind into a state of ruination.
My thoughts flickered through a brutal tableau, choking the life out of her or wrapping my fingers around her throat while she screamed with pleasure. Chaining her in the dungeon or to my headboard. Her blood pouring over my hands, my tongue. Sinking into her and — I shook my head, trying to banish that thought before it was allowed to grow roots.
The sound of Bael’s boots hitting the floor jogged me back to alertness. I looked up, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
