The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

At least I don’t think she can.

If Revindra is angry with me, Annet’s rage will be far greater and much more deadly.

“Do you deny it?” the queen continues, looking at me with the expression of a hunting hawk ready to plunge toward a rat.

I glance at Oak, who is watching me with a feverish intensity. “I can’t,” I manage. I am trembling. I bite the inside of my cheek to ground myself in pain that I cause. This feels entirely too familiar, to wait for punishment from a capricious ruler.

“So,” the Unseelie queen says. “It seems you conspire with the enemies of Elfhame.”

I will not let her put that on me. “No.”

“Then tell me this: Can you swear to being loyal to the prince in all ways?”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. My gaze goes to Oak again. I feel a trap closing in. “No one could swear to that.”

“Ahhh,” says Annet. “Interesting.”

There has to be an answer that won’t implicate me further. “The prince doesn’t need Hyacinthe, when he has me.”

“It seems I have you,” Queen Annet says, making Oak look at her sideways.

“Won’t he go immediately to Lady Nore and tell her everything we plan?” asks Oak, speaking for the first time. I startle at the sound of his voice.

I shake my head. “He swore an oath to me.”

Queen Annet looks at the prince. “Right under your nose, not only does your lady love take him from you, but uses him to build her own little army.”

My cheeks heat. Everything I say just makes what I’ve done sound worse. Much, much worse. “It was wrong to lock Hyacinthe up like that.”

“Who are you to tell your betters what is right or wrong?” demands Queen Annet. “You, traitorous child, daughter of a traitorous mother, ought to be grateful you were not turned into a fish and eaten after your betrayal of the High Court.”

I bite my lip, my sharp teeth worrying the skin. I taste my own blood.

“Is that really why you did it?” Oak asks, looking at me with a strange ferocity.

I nod once, and his expression grows remote. I wonder how much he hates that I was called his lady love.

“Jack of the Lakes says that you were to escape with Hyacinthe,” the queen goes on. “He was very eager to tell us all about it. Yet you’re still here. Did something go wrong with your plan, or have you remained to commit further betrayal?”

I hope Jack of the Lakes’ pond dries up.

“That’s not true,” I say.

“Oh?” says Annet. “Didn’t you mean to escape, too?”

“No,” I say. “Never.”

She leans forward on her throne of moths. “And why is that?”

I look at Oak. “Because I have my own reasons to go on this quest.”

Queen Annet snorts. “Brave little traitor.”

“How did you persuade Jack to help you?” Oak asks, voice soft. “Did he truly do it for the game piece? I would have paid him more silver than that to tell me what you intended.”

“For his pride,” I say.

Oak nods. “All my mistakes are coming home to me.”

“And the mortal girl?” asks Queen Annet. “Why interfere with her fate? Why the merrow?”

“He was dying without water. And Gwen was only trying to save her lover.” I may be in the wrong by the rules of Faerie, but when it comes to Gwen, at least, I am right by any other measure.

“Mortals are liars,” the Unseelie queen says with a snort.

“That doesn’t mean everything they say is a lie,” I return. My voice shakes, but I force myself to keep speaking. “Do you have a boy here, a musician, who has not returned to the mortal world in days, and yet through enchantment believes far less time has passed?”

“And if I have?” Queen Annet says, as close to an admission as I am likely to get. “Liar or no, you will take her place. You have wronged the Court of Moths, and we will have it out of your skin.”

I shiver all over, unable to stop myself.

Oak’s gaze goes to the Unseelie queen, his jaw set. Still, when he speaks, his voice is light. “I’m afraid you can’t have her.”

“Oh, can’t I?” asks Queen Annet in the tone of someone who has murdered most of her past lovers and is prepared to murder again if provoked.

His grin broadens, that charming smile, with which he could coax ducks to bring their own eggs to him for his breakfast. With which he could make delicate negotiations over a prisoner seem like nothing more than a game. “As annoyed as you may be over the loss of Hyacinthe, it is I who will be inconvenienced by it. Wren may have stolen him from your prisons, but he was still my prisoner. Not to say that you weren’t a wronged party.” He shrugs apologetically. “But surely we could get you another mortal or merrow, if not something better.”

Honey-mouthed. I think of how he’d spoken to that ogre in the brugh, how he could have used this tone on him but didn’t. It appears to work on the Unseelie queen. She looks mollified, her mouth losing some of its angry stiffness.

It’s a frightening power to have a voice like that.

She smiles. “Let us have a contest. If you win, I return her and the kelpie. If you fail, I keep them both, and you as well, until such time as Elfhame ransoms you.”