We dine in the tent of the Court of Teeth, which is easily three times the size of Madoc’s and decorated as elaborately as any palace. The floor is covered in rugs and furs. Lamps hang from the ceilings, and fat pillar candles burn atop tables beside decanters of some pale libation and bowls of frost-covered white berries of a type I have never seen before. A harpist plays in a corner, the strains of her music carrying through the buzz of conversation.
At the center of the tent rests three thrones—two large and one small. They seem to be sculptures of ice, with flowers and leaves frozen inside them. The large thrones are unoccupied, but a blue-skinned girl sits on the small one, a crown of icicles on her head and a golden bridle around her mouth and throat. She looks to be only a year or two older than Oak and is dressed in a column of gray silk. Her gaze is on her fingers, which move restlessly against one another. Her nails are bitten short and crusted with a thin rime of blood.
If she is the princess, then it is not hard to pick out the king and queen. They wear even more elaborate icicle crowns. Their skin is gray, the color of stone or corpses. Their eyes are a bright and clear yellow, like wine. And their garments are the blue of her skin. A matching trio.
“This is Lady Nore and Lord Jarel and their daughter, Queen Suren,” Oriana says to me quietly. So the little girl is the ruler?
Unfortunately, Lady Nore notices my staring. “A mortal,” she says with a familiar contempt. “Whatever for?”
Madoc shoots an apologetic look in my direction. “Allow me to present one of my foster daughters, Taryn. I am sure I mentioned her.”
“Perhaps,” says Lord Jarel, joining us. His gaze is intense, the way an owl looks at a misguided mouse climbing directly into its nest.
I give my best curtsy. “I am glad to have a place at your hearth tonight.”
He turns his cold gaze on Madoc. “Diverting. It speaks as though it thinks it’s one of us.”
I forgot how it felt, all those years of being utterly powerless. Having Madoc alone for protection. And now that protection depends on his not guessing which of his daughters stands beside him. I look up at Lord Jarel with fear in my eyes, fear I don’t have to fake. And I hate how obviously it pleases him.
I think of the Bomb’s words about what the Court of Teeth did to her and to the Roach: The Court carved us up and filled us full of curses and geases. Changed us. Forced us to serve them.
I remind myself I am no longer the girl I was before. I might be surrounded, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. I vow that one day it is Lord Jarel who will be afraid.
But for now, I edge myself toward a corner, where I sit on a hide-covered tuffet and survey the room. I recall the Living Council warning that Courts were evading swearing fealty by hiding their children as changelings in the mortal world, then elevating them to rulers. I wonder if that’s what’s happened here. If so, it must gall Lord Jarel and Lady Nore to give up their titles. And make them nervous enough to bridle her.
Interesting to see their ostentation on display—their crowns and thrones and luxurious tent—as they support Madoc’s bid to elevate himself to High King, which would put him far above them. I don’t buy it. They might back him now, but I bet they hope to eliminate him later.
It is then that Grimsen enters the tent, wearing a scarlet cloak with an enormous pin in the shape of a metal-and-blown-glass heart that seems to beat. Lady Nore and Lord Jarel turn their attention to him, their stiff faces moving to chilly smiles.
I look over at Madoc. He appears less pleased to see the smith.
After a few more pleasantries, Lady Nore and Lord Jarel usher us to the table. Lady Nore leads Queen Suren by her bridle. As the child queen is led to the table, I notice that the straps sit oddly against her skin, as though they have partially sunken into it. Something in the shimmer of the leather makes me think of enchantment.
I wonder if this horrible thing is Grimsen’s work.
Seeing her bound, I can’t help but think about Oak. I glance at Oriana, wondering if she’s reminded of him, too, but her expression is as calm and remote as the surface of a frozen lake.
We go to the table. I am seated beside Oriana, across the table from Grimsen. He spots the sun-and-moon earrings I am still wearing and gestures at them.
“I wasn’t sure your sister would give those up,” he says.
I lean in and touch my gloved fingers to my earlobes. “Your work is exquisite,” I tell him, knowing how fond he is of flattery.
He gives me an admiring look that I suspect is pride in his own art. If he finds me pretty, it’s a compliment to his craft.
But it’s also to my advantage to keep him talking. No one else here is likely to tell me much. I try to imagine what Taryn might say, but all I can come up with is more of what I think Grimsen wants to hear. I drop my voice to a whisper. “I can hardly bear to take them off, even at night.”
He preens. “Mere trinkets.”
“You must think I am very silly,” I say. “I know you have made far greater things, but these have made me very happy.”
Oriana gives me an odd look. Did I make a mistake? Does she suspect me? My heart speeds.
“You ought to visit my forge,” Grimsen says. “Allow me to show you what truly potent magic looks like.”
“I should like that very much,” I manage, but I am distracted with worry over being caught and frustrated by the smith’s invitation. If only he’d been willing to brag here, tonight, instead of setting up some assignation! I don’t want to go to his forge. I want to get out of this camp. It is only a matter of time before I’m caught. If I am to learn anything, I need to do it quickly.
My frustration mounts as further conversation is cut off by the arrival of servants bringing dinner, which turns out to be a massive cut of roasted bear meat, served with cloudberries. One of the soldiers draws Grimsen into a discussion about his brooch. Beside me, Oriana is speaking of a poem I don’t know to a courtier from the Court of Teeth. Left to myself, I concentrate on picking out the voices of Madoc and Lady Nore. They are debating which Courts can be brought over to their side.
“Have you spoken with the Court of Termites?”
Madoc nods. “Lord Roiben is wroth with the Undersea, and he cannot like that the High King denied him his revenge.”
My fingers clench on my knife. I made a deal with Roiben. I killed Balekin to honor it. That was Cardan’s excuse for exiling me. It is a bitter draught to consider that after all that, Lord Roiben might prefer to join with Madoc.
But whatever Lord Roiben wants, he still swore an oath of loyalty to the Blood Crown. And while some Courts—like the Court of Teeth—may have schemed their way free of their ancestors’ promises, most are still bound by them. Including Roiben. So how does Madoc think he is going to dissolve those bonds? Without some means of doing that, it doesn’t matter whom the low Courts prefer. They must follow the only ruler with the Blood Crown on his head: High King Cardan.
But since Taryn would say none of that, I bite my tongue as the conversations swirl around me. Later, back at our tent, I carry pitchers of honey wine and refill the cups of Madoc’s generals. I am not particularly memorable—merely Madoc’s human daughter, someone most of them have met in passing and thought little upon. Oriana gives me no more odd looks. If she thought my behavior with Grimsen was strange, I don’t think I have given her further reason to doubt me.
I feel the gravitational pull of my old role, the ease of it, ready to enfold me like a heavy blanket.