The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

Then he lurches toward the water barrel.

And at his warning, I walk to the copper-banded door and turn the knob. I still feel wobbly and breathless, as though I have cast off a long fever. No breaking of a curse ever felt like this before, and it frightens me.

But the bauchan and the rose-haired knight on the other side scare me even more. At the sight of me, she reaches for her sword, which I note she retrieved. I hope that means that Jack of the Lakes dropped it and not that he was caught.

“How did you—” the bauchan begins.

I cut them off with the firmest voice I can summon. “The cursed soldier—the prince’s prisoner—he’s not in his cell!” Which is true enough, since I let him out.

“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing where you’re not supposed to be,” the rose-haired knight says.

“When I came, there was no one guarding the entrance,” I say, letting that accusation hang in the air.

The rose-haired knight strides past me impatiently, a blush coloring her cheeks. She stalks to the end of the prison where Hyacinthe ought to be. I follow, carefully keeping my gaze from the shadows.

“Well?” I say, hand on my hip.

The panic in their eyes tells me that Queen Annet has earned her reputation for brutality honestly.

“The girl,” the rose-haired knight says, realizing the human is gone, too.

“And the spy from the Undersea.” The bauchan speaks a word to open the merrow’s cell, then walks around it. Letting all the prisoners out has confused their suppositions about what happened, at least.

“You saw nothing?” the rose-haired knight asks.

“What was there to see?” I return. “What did you see, to leave your post?”

The bauchan gives the knight a look, seeming to will her to silence. Neither of them speaks for a long moment. Finally, the knight says, “Tell no one of this. We will catch the prisoners. They must never make it out of the Court of Moths.”

I nod slowly, as though I am considering her words. I lift my chin as I have seen the Gentry do, as Lady Nore did. No one would have believed the part I am playing were I in my rags, with my wild hair, but I see the guards believe me now. Perhaps I could come to like this dress for more than its beauty.

“I must rejoin the prince,” I say. “I will keep this from him as long as I can, but if you don’t find Hyacinthe before we depart for the Thistlewitch at dawn, there will be no hiding that he’s gone.”

Heart thundering, I walk out into the hall. Then I retrace my steps to the revel, pressing my hands to my chest to still their trembling.

I head to a table and pour myself a long draught of green wine. It smells like crushed grass and goes straight to my head, drowning out the sour taste of adrenaline.

I spot Oak, a wine bottle in one hand and the cat-headed lady I saw before in his arms. She reaches up to pet his golden curls with her claws as they dance. Then there is a change of partners, and a crone moves into the cat lady’s place.

The prince takes her withered hand and kisses it. When she leans in to kiss his throat, he only laughs. Then sweeps her away into the steps of the gavotte, his inebriated smile never dipping or faltering.

Until the ogre dancing with the cat-headed lady abruptly pulls her out of the spinning circle. He pushes her roughly through the throng toward a second ogre.

Oak stops dancing, leaving his partner as he strides across the floor to them.

I follow more slowly, unable to make the crowd part for me as he did.

By the time I get anywhere close, the cat-headed lady is standing behind Oak, hissing like a snake.

“Give her over,” says one of the ogres. “She’s a little thief, and I’ll have it out of her hide.”

“A thief? Purloining hearts, perhaps,” says Oak, making the cat lady smile. She wears a gown of the palest pink silk with panniers on either side and earrings of crystals hanging from her furred ears. She looks too wealthy to need to steal anything.

“You think because you’ve got that good royal blood in you, you’re better than us,” says the ogre, pressing one long fingernail against the prince’s shoulder. “Maybe you are. Only way to be sure is to have a taste.”

There’s a drunken wobble to Oak’s movements as he pushes off the ogre’s hand and obvious contempt in his voice. “The difference in flavor would be too subtle for your palate.”

The cat-headed lady presses a handkerchief to her mouth and steps delicately away, not sticking around to witness the consequences of Oak’s gallant defense of her.

“I doubt it will be much trouble to bleed you and find out,” one ogre says, causing the other to laugh and close in. “Shall we put it to a test?”

At that, the prince edges back a little, but the second ogre is directly behind him. “That would be a mistake.”

The last thing Oak ought to do is show them he’s afraid. The scent of weakness is headier than blood.

Unless he wants to be hit.

Should he be drawn into a fight, he would violate guest etiquette. But if one of the ogres struck first—then it would be the host who had made the misstep. Judging by the size of the ogres, though, a single blow might knock the prince’s head off his shoulders.

Not only are they large, but they look trained for violence. Oak wasn’t even able to block my hand when I scratched his face.