“Leave her out of this!”
“Why? She’s the reason you’re here, isn’t she? And not only you. It’s getting difficult to find a trueborn anywhere these days.”
“I’m trueborn! I—”
“If you were trueborn, you’d be sitting in the ducal palace, instead of guarding a bunch of kerlingar.”
“But to let such a thing live,” the second fey interrupted, obviously still appalled. “What was she thinking?”
Apple Boy shrugged. “Probably whatever she’s thinking now.”
“What?”
“He’s in with her. Him and those witches.”
“Maybe she’s about to rectify a mistake,” the first fey said, viciously.
“Rectify?” Rosier suddenly piped up. “What do you mean, rectify?”
“I told you to shut up—”
But Rosier wasn’t shutting up. Rosier was grabbing the bars of his cage, looking a little crazed. “What do you mean, rectify?”
The fey smiled, and jerked him out. “Here. I’ll show you.”
Shit.
“The lanterns, down the hall,” I told my knives quickly. “All of them. Go!”
They leapt up, always ready for some mayhem, and a second later the fey were leaping, too—and in the case of boots-on-the-table, almost falling on the floor—as the corridor behind them practically exploded.
They ran out, swords drawn, and I scrambled forward to grab Rosier. “Where’s Pritkin?”
“About time!” he said shrilly. “I could have been—”
“Where’s Pritkin?”
“—killed, where the fuck—”
I shook him. “Pritkin!”
“They took him to see Nimue,” he said breathlessly. “That’s all I know.”
“And she’s where?” Because the bizarro house was starting to feel like it should have filled half the damn valley.
“What part of ‘that’s all I know’ did you not understand?”
I let go of him and started rifling through the cabinets, looking for a handy diagram I didn’t find. But I did find my stuff, jumbled in a basket. I threw Billy’s necklace over my head, grabbed my ward, tossed the pack on my back—and jerked my head up at the sound of the guards thundering back this way.
“Well?” Rosier shrieked.
“There’s nothing—”
“There has to be!”
“There isn’t!” I slammed the last door, and he looked around frantically.
“The cages!”