The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

Revindra is wearing armor, so when I go for her, I slash where she is most unprotected—her face.

The sharp edge slices her cheek, down over the corner of her lips. Her eyes go wide, and she pulls away from me with a wild shout. Her hand goes to her mouth, wiping and staring at her fingers as though it were impossible for the wetness she’s feeling to be her own blood. Another knight grabs my throat, holding me in place while a third slams my wrist on the ground until I let go of the scissors with a cry of pain.

It would be an insult to be stabbed by them, I recall Jack of the Lakes saying. I hope he’s right.

When Revindra kicks me in the back of the head, I don’t bother trying to muffle my anguished moan. In the Court of Teeth, they liked to hear me scream, cry out, and howl. Enjoyed seeing bruises, blood, bone. I’ve embarrassed Revindra, twice over. Of course she’s angry. There is no profit in giving her anything but what she wants.

At least until she gives me another opening.

“Whatever your punishment is, I will ask to be the one to administer it, little worm,” she tells me. “And I will do so with lingering thoroughness.”

I hiss from the floor, scuttling back when she comes toward me again.

“See you very soon.” Then she goes out, the other knights with her.

I crawl to the bed and curl up on it miserably.

I should have kept my temper, and I know it. If it gives me satisfaction to cause pain, that means only that I am more akin to Lady Nore and Lord Jarel than I like to suppose.

Seeking distraction from the agony in my wrist and my side, seeking a reason not to think about Oak’s expression when he took his old gaming piece or to gauge the likelihood I will be executed in one of the ways that so horrified Gwen, I reach into my pocket for her phone. The glass isn’t cracked. It lights up as my fingers travel over it, but there is no message from Hyacinthe. As I stare at the glowing screen, I think of my home number, the one my unparents made me repeat over and over back when Bex was Rebecca and I was their child.

We are far enough underground that the signal is very faint. A single little bar, occasionally two when I tilt it at an uncertain angle. I punch in the number. I do not expect it to ring.

“Hello.” My unmother’s voice is staticky, as though farther away than ever. I shouldn’t have done this. I have to try to be emotionless when they come to hurt me again, and my unmother’s voice makes me feel too much. It would be better to disconnect from everything, to float free from my body, to be nothing in an endless night of nothing.

But I want to hear her in case I never have a chance again.

“Mom?” I say so softly that I imagine she doesn’t hear me, the connection being as bad as it is.

“Who’s this?” she asks, voice sharp, as though she suspects me of playing a joke on her.

I don’t speak, feeling sick. Of course this must seem like a wrong number or a prank. In her mind, she has no other daughter. I stay on the line another moment, though, tears burning the back of my eyes, the taste of them in my throat. I count her breaths.

When she doesn’t hang up, I put the phone on the bed, speaker on. Lie down beside it.

Her voice quavers a little. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Wren?” she asks.

I hang up, too afraid to know what she might say next. I would rather hold her saying my name to my heart.

I press the palm of my hand to the cold stone of the wall to ground myself, to try to remember how not to feel again.

I don’t know how long I lie there, but long enough to doze off and wake, disoriented. Fear crawls into my belly, clawed and terrible. My thoughts have to push through a fog of it.

And yet they come. I am afflicted with the memory of kissing Oak. Whenever I recall what I did, I wince with embarrassment. What must he think of me, to have thrown myself at him? And why kiss me in return, except to keep me docile?

Then comes the memory of Hyacinthe urging me to come with him, warning me I wouldn’t be safe.

And again and again, I hear my unmother saying my name.

When the grind of the stone and the creaking of the hinges comes, I feel like a cornered animal, eager to strike. I shove the phone back into my pocket and stand, brushing myself off.

It’s the rose-haired knight, Revindra. “You’re to come and be questioned.”

I say nothing, but when she reaches out to grab my arm, I hiss in warning.

“Move,” she tells me, shoving my shoulder. “And remember how much pleasure it will give me if you disobey.”

I walk into the hall, where two more knights are waiting. They march me to an audience chamber where Queen Annet sits on a throne covered in powdery white moths, each one fluttering its wings a little, giving the whole thing the effect of a moving carpet. She is dressed in simpler black than she was when I saw her last, but Oak is in the same clothes, as though he hasn’t slept. His hands are clasped behind him. Tiernan stands at his side, his face like stone.

I realize how used to seeing Oak’s easy smile I am, now that he no longer wears it. A bruise rests beneath one of his eyes.

I think of him staggering back from the ogre’s blow, blood on his teeth, looking as though he was waiting for another hit.

“You stole from me.” Annet’s eyes seem to glint with barely concealed rage. I imagine that losing a mortal and a merrow was embarrassing enough, not to mention losing Hyacinthe, whom she had practically bullied Oak into letting her keep. She must especially mislike being humiliated in front of the heir to the High Court, even if I have given her an excuse to delay him a little longer. Still, she cannot make any legitimate claim that he was a party to what I did.