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“Poor Fenyx.” My voice was deadpan. “Pardon me if I can’t find it in myself to pity you, you sick, monstrous bastard.”
He waved a hand. “They all say that right about now.”
“All of the fae you’ve kept in this fucking torture chamber, you mean? Did you rape every one of them?” I shook my wrists against the manacles.
To my gratification, I felt the left one loosen. The screw was giving away. I stopped my pulling. It wouldn’t do to have the screw fall out completely before I could catch it.
“Not all of them. Merely the females.” Fenyx turned back to the table as if bored with the turn of our conversation.
His timing was impeccable.
I slid my left hand under the arm of the chair again and fiddled with the screw. The rusted piece of metal fell into my hand. I cupped it carefully.
Now for the trickier part.
Gently, twisting my fingers until my hand was as small as I could make it, I began to pull it through the loose manacle.
“If you’re going to kill me tonight anyway, why not tell me what’s happening out there? Where is Kaye?”
“What’s happening out there?” Fenyx turned around, blood dripping from the serrated knife in his hand. “Your brother’s gone mad, that’s what’s happening.” He waved the blade. “Or depending on how you look at it, he’s doing exactly what needs to be done.”
A sense of foreboding washed over me as I recalled my uncle’s words just before he was killed. “What do you mean?”
“The queen was in labor when she ran from the palace earlier this evening. Did you know that? Were you aware of her plans?”
When I didn’t respond, he shrugged. “The bitch has proven to be rather untamed. More feral than anyone would have expected for such a woman. She somehow managed to slay the regiment of guards Arthur had outside her chambers and disappeared without a trace. She can’t have gone far, however. A woman in childbirth?” He chuckled. “Rather conspicuous.”
A woman in childbirth who had just slain a contingent of guards. I wasn’t going to panic over Orcades’ safety just yet. “So they’re searching for her?”
“Oh, they’re doing more than searching for her. The king is furious. With the queen, but also with this entire festering, disloyal city. That spectacle at the tournament today? All of Camelot clapping for that hideous scarred girl, your friend? And then the appearance of those rebels?” Fenyx shook his head. “It was humiliating for your brother.”
I replayed in my head the moment Guinevere and Galahad had risen to their feet in the stands. The moment Lancelet had plunged the sword up and into the glatisant’s cavernous mouth.
Hope. The three of them represented hope to me. As long as I lived, I would not give up hope. Not when they hadn’t.
“So, he’s doing what? Searching for the queen, the rebels, and Lancelet? Seems like my brother has a lot on his plate.”
“He’s doing more than searching. He’s delivering judgment.”
A knot of anxiety tightened in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“There is a prophecy. It says that a child born to a king in the spring could spell the downfall of its father. It says other things as well, some more cryptic. A silly superstition, but the king immediately took it for infallible truth when I presented him with my findings.”
It was finally my turn to smile. “Yes, I’ve read the prophecy Fenyx. You left it on the fucking library table after all. It’s not as cryptic as you seem to think.”
He looked at me, unsettled slightly. “You read it? That day in the hall, I knew you had been nosing about where you didn’t belong. Tell me, did you take it to the queen?”
“I did. But she was already well aware of its existence. Now, shall I tell you the lines I like the best?” I cleared my throat and recited clearly,
“‘Born of kin, from the king's own nest,
A sister's child, the kingdom shakes,
The death of kings, the birth awaits.’”
I smiled serenely. “A sister’s child. Now what could that possibly mean?”
Fenyx’s blue eyes looked annoyed. “The queen is not Arthur’s sister.”
