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Sometimes I wonder if she makes him add the bones. If she does it on purpose, so I might never take a moment’s rest from my occupation, not even for meals.
If it’s not bones (the scrying kind) in my stew, then it’s tea leaves used as garnish on the outskirts of my plate. Critters from all over Alondria find themselves within my dishes, each rumored to possess a specific magical ability. I’ve found my rice smothered in spices that had me hallucinating for days on end.
I like magic, in the way everyone likes the things they are naturally good at, I suppose.
Most fae view magic as some mystical, otherworldly property—one that defies balance and rules. But magic isn’t like that at all. It loves patterns and order and balance, and it acts with purpose.
It doesn’t enjoy being trifled with either, which is why a servant is currently refilling my goblet with a sticky red substance that has Abra curling her nose.
As if she didn’t make me into what I am.
She sets her silver fork upon her plate, as she always does when she’s about to speak. Like she feels the need to announce it. As if the frosted crystal dining table is full of blabbering dignitaries whose attention must be called, whose chatter must be dimmed, before she speaks.
As if it’s not just the two of us sitting here. As if it hasn’t been just the two of us since the death of the king.
I ignore the ornate silver chair at the far end of the table. His memory calls out to me from there, but I’ve long since learned to tune it out.
“Farin, dear, would you be so kind as to share with me your progress with the prisoner?”
I’m prepared this time, and know better than to bristle at the name, not to protest it. As a child, doing so got me nowhere and only yielded welts on the palms of my hands.
“Gunter and I are pleased with the progress we’ve made so far,” I lie, as easily as a human might, and I relish the way the words slip from my tongue with no consequence.
Surprise lines the queen’s eyes, as pale and violent as a snowstorm. She doesn’t know the gift she granted me when she Turned me, the weapon she put at my mouth’s disposal.
When I first woke from the change, everything about me was so unfamiliar, so devastatingly different, that I clung to my newfound ability. There is a thrill to lying, but it must be used sparsely, lest those around you notice the patterns—the palpitations of your heart when the traitorous words escape your lips, the way you must fight to keep your eyes from darting.
“And what is this progress you speak of?” she asks.
I place my napkin on my lap and consider my response. The queen is somewhat of a genius when it comes to magic—specifically potions. Gunter and I are among the few who know her secret, that she boasts no true power over the cold and ice.
At least, not as her fellow fae royals would see it.
I’m not sure they understand what true power is. For though the queen cannot summon the power from within herself, she canmakepower. Crush the simplest of herbs and grind them together tomakemagic.
If the others knew, they would interpret the fact that the queen drinks a brew every morning to maintain her abilities as weakness.
They would be incorrect.
Still, as much as the queen is a prodigy when it comes to potion-making, she is a particular brand of genius. The type who justknowsextraordinary things but lacks the ability to discern how she knows them. For example, she might have invented a cure for wrenpox by roasting rose thorns over a fire of scorpion dung before boiling it down to its concentrate and consuming it during the twilight hours. But she cannot explain to me why the potion loses its effectiveness once the sun has set, or the properties that scorpion dung adds to the antidote.
It makes her a horrific teacher, but she’s long since given up trying. When she first brought me to the palace, I think she dreamed she would impart all her knowledge upon me, but it soon became clear that she was incapable of answering my questions adequately.
It was Gunter who had taken the queen’s ancient journals and made the connections that we’d slowly turned into a library over the years.
It was Gunter who could take the queen’s knowledge, see the patterns, link them, and forge something new.
He’d taught me to do the same.
So although our knowledge comes from the queen, we’ve made it our own over the years. It hadn’t taken me long as a child to realize that the queen did not speak our evolving language.
“It seems the parasite within the girl is sentient”—first rule of lying, start with something the hearer already knows to be true—“which we can use to our advantage. Though the parasite has bound itself to its host, the fact she is human keeps her from absorbing the parasite into herself. Meaning the parasite is still fully intact and separable. Gunter and I believe that we can draw from thecarithesis”—second rule of lying: use made-up words that the hearer is too proud to ask the meaning of—“and use it to scrape, for lack of a better word, the parasite from the girl’s consciousness.”
When I’m done, I take a bite of my stew, trying to ignore the fact that Simeon added lamb blood to the broth just for me. I made the mistake once of telling him lamb’s blood was the best tasting of all the animals. At the time, I’d been too young and proud to admit that it devastated me to slaughter such innocent creatures. He’s been sneaking it into my meals ever since, and I’ve never had the heart to tell him the thought of their deaths on my behalf makes me want to squirm.
I hold Abra’s gaze, searching her eyes for the flecks normally found around the irises. But the queen’s face-altering potions have long since bleached her of any color she might have once possessed.
That’s the third step of lying—refusing to break eye contact first.
