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I sank to my knees. Now was the time to show subservience.
My gaze lifted briefly to see Basil change his mind. Upon witnessing my genuflection, his hand shot up, halting the guards.
I forged ahead, speaking to the polished floor. “Your Majesties, I apologize. I regret showing you disrespect during this month of peace, especially after you honored me to participate. I’m most grateful for the invitation and remorseful to have caused the Seasons strain. Please, may I state my business?”
I’d been deliberately ambiguous, begging their pardon without referring to taking Nicu. I would never express regret for saving him. Not even as a lie.
The Royals consulted one another in silence. The Spring King nodded and bade me to continue.
I rose and clasped my hands behind my back, concealing how they shook. Only Mother, who stationed herself behind me, saw that. “Forgive my intrusion, but I won’t reveal the child’s whereabouts. Neither will your jester.”
“Then I shall eat your humiliation for brunch,” Rhys’s mustache flapped.
“Autumn wants the boy,” I announced. “We’ll trade you for him.”
The Summer tyrant barked with laughter. “This is preposterous. Negotiations take place in the throne room and between monarchs, not heiresses.”
Mother moved to stand beside me. “She has my blessing.”
Rhys peered at her, then his eyes clicked over to me. “You want that child awfully bad, as does your imbecile-loving jester. That alone is cause for me to refuse whatever Autumn has to offer. I’ll hunt for the boy myself. I have no qualms about being spiteful. It’s been a vexing four weeks.”
“You want Summer’s cells purged of the mad?” I contested. “Very well. Autumn will take a dozen souls off your hands. Send them to us.”
Because we would treat them humanely, help them if we could, if it was possible. No matter what, we would try.
The king looked skeptical—and tempted. Other than including the mad in the trade amendment as a precaution, the Royals hadn’t decided how to purge the kingdoms’ dungeons and oubliettes of its least desirable inhabitants. Summer’s cells especially, with the kingdom’s mercurial population and fiery climate sparking more unlawful behavior than any other Season. For the price of Nicu, I’d handed Rhys a chance for more wiggle room in one of his prisons. Begrudging Poet and me wasn’t more important to him.
I waited, my fingers trembling at the base of my spine.
Please, I thought. Please, I hoped.
Please, I silently begged.
Rhys mutely conferred with his wife and then puckered his lips, his mustache bunching like a shrub. “Two dozen,” he countered.
My eyebrows snapped upward. “Eighteen.”
“Twenty,” the man threw back.
From the sound of it, we could have been haggling over the price of eggs.
Although Autumn currently housed the mad in dungeons, I’d convinced Mother to utilize an outlying settlement instead, an abandoned village a day’s ride from court, where they could be treated fairly. Appointing guards and physicians, and employing willing commoners to oversee the place, would cause indignation. But the prospect of work and wages, with little depletion of resources, would appease our citizens.
I reasoned that our people would welcome a greater separation between the mad and themselves, particularly if we argued the points of safety and more cell space for actual fugitives. We were a calm land, but that didn’t mean we lived free of criminals.
What Autumn would think when they found out I had traded for my lover’s son—and with Mother’s blessing—was another matter. I’d endure public scrutiny. But for those two males, I would do it a thousand times over.
Warning myself not to faint, I nodded. Another two hours later, the document was drawn up.
After signing it, Summer dropped the quill on the table, his fingers stained black. The bastard wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d jabbed a few parting words at me. “You may be allowed to snatch that child out of hiding now, but don’t look so smug. This doesn’t change your own fate, nor the fate of your celebrated whore.”
I tamped down a snarl. “That will prove difficult, seeing as Poet’s now of Autumn.”
The Royals blinked, shocked as I pricked them with a very sweet thorn. The trade amendment to the Fools Decree stated—I quoted for them, in case they’d forgotten—“Fools, and all that they are, shall be bound to their new Season.”
“All that they are”meant their families. So being Nicu’s father meant Poet was bound to Autumn.
At this news, Basil and Fatima whitened like a pair of onions.
