The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

The fox tumbles onto the ground, falling on its side. No points.

He looks over at me and raises his eyebrows.

I pick it up and throw, holding my breath. It falls on its side, too.

He reaches for it and I think he’s going to throw again, but he sets the fox on its back, with its legs pointing up. “You win.”

I shake my head, incredulous.

“You win,” he says again, more firmly. “Ask.”

Very well. If he is going to give me the game, I would be a fool not to take it. “Lady Nore asked for me in trade for Madoc, didn’t she?” I brace myself for his answer, or for whatever he does in place of giving me one. “That’s why you’re really bringing me north.”

His surprise is evident. “Is that what Bogdana told you?”

I nod.

He sighs. “No wonder you ran.”

“Is it true?” I ask.

He frowns. “What did she say, exactly? So that I may answer without evasion.”

“That Lady Nore offered to trade Madoc to the prince in exchange for the very thing he is bringing north. A foolish girl.”

“Well, it’s accurate that Lady Nore offered to trade for what the storm hag thinks I am bringing north,” Oak says. “Mellith’s heart. That’s what she asked for, and if I’ve managed to convince Bogdana that I have it, so much the better. Maybe Lady Nore will believe it as well. But what the storm hag told you—she meant to trick you with the way she put together those words.”

I think over the tangle of what Bogdana said and what she didn’t. Not simply Lady Nore offered to trade Madoc for you. If she’d been able to say that, she would have.

“So you don’t have Mellith’s heart and you’re not going to give me— or it—to Lady Nore?” I need him to say the words.

He grins. “I am not planning on handing you over to anyone. Lady Nore did not ask for you in trade. As for Mellith’s heart, I will show you what I intend when we reach the market. It’s a nice bit of trickery, I think.”

I stare into his fox eyes and feel relief so acute that I am dizzy with it.

I look up at the sky overhead, the intense blue that follows a storm, and let myself believe I am not in danger. Not right then. Not from him.

I pick up the gaming piece, and when he doesn’t seem to notice or demand it back, I slip it into my pocket. Then we resume walking.

It’s not far before a riot of colors shows through the trees. That must be Undry Market. In the wind, I hear the scrap of a song.

“What if,” he says, mischief in his eyes, “in the interest of saving time, we pretend that we’ve played twice more and I won once, so you owe me a dance. But you won the second time, so if you have anything else to ask me, you may.”

Those are teasing words, and I am suddenly in a teasing mood. “All right. Tell me about your girls, then.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Girls?”

“Tiernan says there were two ladies in particular that you wanted to impress. Violet, I think. And Sibi. But he also says you fall in love a lot.”

That surprises a laugh out of him, although he doesn’t deny any of it. “There are certain expectations of a prince in Court.”

“You cannot be serious,” I say. “You feel obliged to be in love?”

“I told you—I am a courtier, versed in all the courtly arts.” He’s grinning as he says it, though, acknowledging the absurdity of the statement.

I find myself shaking my head and grinning, too. He’s being ridiculous, but I am not sure how ridiculous.

“I do have a bad habit,” he says. “Of falling in love. With great regularity and to spectacular effect. You see, it never goes well.”

I wonder if this conversation makes him think of our kiss, but then, I was the one who kissed him. He’d only kissed back.

“As charming as you are, how can that be?” I say.

He laughs again. “That’s what my sister Taryn always says. She tells me that I remind her of her late husband. Which makes some sense, since I would have been his half brother. But it’s also alarming, because she’s the one who murdered him.”

Much as when he spoke about Madoc, it’s strange how fond Oak can sound when he tells me a horrifying thing a member of his family has done. “Whom have you fallen in love with?” I ask.

“Well, there was you,” the prince says. “When we were children.”

“Me?” I ask incredulously.

“You didn’t know?” He appears to be merry in the face of my astonishment. “Oh yes. Though you were a year my senior, and it was hopeless, I absolutely mooned over you. When you were gone from Court, I refused any food but tea and toast for a month.”

I cannot help snorting over the sheer absurdity of his statement.

He puts a hand to my heart. “Ah, and now you laugh. It is my curse to adore cruel women.”

He cannot expect me to believe he had real feelings. “Stop with your games.”

“Very well,” he says. “Shall we go to the next? Her name was Lara, a mortal at the school I attended when I lived with my eldest sister and her girlfriend. Sometimes Lara and I would climb up into the crook of one of the maple trees and share sandwiches. But she had a villainous friend, who implicated me in a piece of gossip—which resulted in Lara stabbing me with a lead pencil and breaking off our relationship.”