Chapter 20
T he following evening’s dinner conversations with Alder had been noticeably stilted.
Mireille had the sense the sands of his curse clock would run out as they stood before an altar beneath the moon—the fae were a theatrical sort—which meant that time was nearly up for both of them, as well as for their kingdoms. And if the queen obtained so much more power, she would be impossible to stop.
Maeve’s offered bargain had clearly only been a precaution in the event that her assassination attempts failed. The queen must have believed Mireille and Alder could fall in love. If she had not, she would have nothing to fear. How strange that love was the thing a monster feared most.
Alder, for his part, had ordered Mireille watched almost too closely.
Her first moment of peace came when Thomas had gone to the kitchens to fetch a snack.
Alone in her chambers, she leaned back into the settee.
But she’d no more than let out a sigh before the door opened to Noal, pushing a small, wheeled cart bedecked with cake.
Mireille frowned. “I thought we’d decided on the ceremony menu already.”
Noal wheeled the cart to her, then took a step back. “Apparently the others have been deemed out of fashion. Princess Nisha awaits your opinion on this new selection.”
She picked up a fork, examining the assortment. Strange little leaves and flowers adorned one, sugar sculptures of varying subjects topped the others. Perhaps she should have requested orange blossoms.
“There is a saying about throwing rocks at feeding lions,” Noal said. When Mireille glanced up at him, he added, “Don’t. That’s the saying. Don’t throw rocks at feeding lions.”
“Lest you get eaten yourself?”
“Just that.” He cleared his throat. “I suspect such a game is afoot, and I would be remiss to not say it seems a great folly, what the pair of you are about.” He crossed his hands at the wrists, and for the first time, it came across less as a habitual gesture and one that felt as if he were performing a duty.
“Mayhap, laying down arms would bring you far greater strength.”
Noal was no fool. The man watched everything.
She lifted a bite of cake to her lips, refusing to acknowledge the bit about her and Alder surrendering to each other.
“I see no lion, only a spider, tangling her web tighter and tighter. And the only good way to be rid of spiders is to set their webs aflame.”
“As long as the entire house doesn’t burn down in the process.”
“Noted,” Mireille said.
“Shall I tell Nisha that you have made your choice?” He gestured toward the tray, though she had only tasted a sliver of one. It did not taste well, but they would all taste of ash in her mouth, given the circumstances. “Raspberry, I think.” At least it looked pretty.
She cleared her throat against a tickle and reached for a glass. Her tongue felt a bit thick, and she coughed. By the time she lifted the glass to her lips, her airway had constricted.
Noal leaned forward, his eyes gone wide, posture stiff.
Mireille stood, the glass fell from her hands, and with not a single word, she collapsed.
He caught her just before she hit the ground.
Fingers clawed into the material of his vest, she struggled to breathe, and her gaze met his. Poison . She’d been poisoned.
That was when she remembered. Nisha had not even been in the kitchens—she’d said he was going to the forest to collect some rare…
something she’d meant to use in the decorations.
Mireille let go of Noal, scrambled backwards, and knocked into the cart, porcelain shattering around her and tea pooling around her limp arms as blackness overtook her.
* * *
Mireille stared up at a strange dark ceiling. She blinked, too exhausted to lift her hands and rub her bleary eyes. It was not her bed, not her chamber. Dragging every ounce of her will to shove down the emerald coverlet, she tried to sit up.
“You should not attempt to move.” Alder’s voice was thick. His shadowed form seemed to block out the rest of the room. A memory swam to the surface, and Mireille was unsure if it was real or a dream, Alders voice, I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight. Not even for a moment .
“The cakes…” Her throat was raw. Her mouth tasted of medicinal herbs.
He stepped closer. “The queen has grown in power. Noal has been questioned extensively and, it seems, she was somehow able to influence him. The palace was swept, the staff interrogated, no stone left unturned.” His jaw flexed.
“She has more spies among us than I ever could have imagined. They are inside the palace. Our home .”
Just as she had done in Norcliffe. Except that Noal had not been asleep.
Mireille should have told Alder about the queen calling her to the room with the hourglass, when her magic had felt different and she had not taken full control.
She fumbled to grab hold of his wrist; her fingers felt puffy and clumsy.
“I am still here. She has failed. Tomorrow night is the ceremony.”
He shook his head. “It was only because you tasted so little, else we would not have saved you.” He let out an angry breath. “Even here, in my own kingdom, her influence has become insidious.”
She attempted to push herself to sitting, her arms so weak they trembled. “Tell me what happens during the ceremony.”
He sat gingerly on the bed, pressing her back down. “There are things we should not speak of outside of dreams.”
Mireille’s fingers found his forearm, bare below rolled-up sleeves. She tugged. “Come, then. Let us dream. ”
Alder hesitated, but Mireille’s heavy eyes were taking longer and longer blinks, and he finally lowered himself onto the bed beside her, letting her draw his arm around her as she shifted to her side, her breath uneasy and slow.
Mireille woke in a moonlit garden, fireflies dancing overhead, her unbound hair woven through tall grass and the scents of wisteria and honeysuckle all around her.
She flexed her fingers, feeling well once more.
She turned her face toward Alder who, inexplicably, lay on his side in the grass beside her.
Or not inexplicably, she supposed, because the dream was hers.
She ran a fingertip over the mark on his temple as his dark eyes traced the lines of her face. When she pressed up to sitting, he did as well. Her fingers entwined with his. “Tell me.”
“When she attacks, I will be free to destroy her. I am more than an even match for her, but the bindings on my power must be broken.” He drew his hand from hers. “But I cannot ask it of you. I will not risk your life further.”
“I am at risk every moment. That risk is the very reason I am here.”
“You came here for protection. I have nearly failed, time and again. If I fail once more, if you are harmed—” His words cut off, bitten back with something like rage and despair.
He would lose everything. His lands. His title. The bargain. Because he’d pinned all his hopes on Mireille. “I cannot break your bargain.”
Alder went utterly still.
“I saw the enchanted hourglass. You needed her to believe that you loved me, and I you. You needed her to because you cannot marry for anything less.” But he had no intention of falling for Mireille. He only meant to trick the queen.
His expression was a mask. “You saw the clock.”
“The night of the ball. I was not certain of the details, but it felt of her magic. And there were hints, indications that you were bound by something more.” What a fool she was to admit it, because he would know how she had discovered the truth.
There was only one other person aware of the details, and that person was the queen.
“She got to you.”
The words hurt, and more than they should. “She attempted to call it a ruse, certain that you could not be in love with me.”
Alder was silent for a long while. He did not accuse her of betrayal, though surely the thought crossed his mind.
He was clever enough to know what Maeve would offer.
When he finally spoke, it was to say, “It seems she is no longer certain. She would not have risked coming for you again if she were.” He looked at her, his gaze darkening with remembered anger, possibly of the real Mireille, feeble in his bed, barely able to sit up.
“If you wish to continue, you will remain at my side. You will not be out of my sight again.”
Something in her chest tightened. “And if I do not wish to continue?”
He looked away, brushing a shiny ladybird from his sleeve. “You have done everything I have asked. I will consider your promise fulfilled and your price paid. You will be free to go.”
The queen would kill her in an instant without Alder. Norcliffe would be lost. And still… “You would truly set me free, when I am your only chance of beating her?”
His jaw shifted. “I can never truly beat her. She has removed any chance. My only hope was a default, to spur her into breaking our laws—had she openly and intentionally violated hospitality, I could move against her. But she has proved too canny to be baited into such a violation.”
Mireille met his eyes, finding only truth in them. He would let his last opportunity slip through his fingers. He was trapped. He could not marry without love. It was the same as her friends in Westrende had always said, the price of breaking a bargain would be too dear to pay.
Mireille found, when she searched deep within her heart, that she did not truly have any other choice. She only hoped Norcliffe would survive her decision.
“We will go through with your plan.”