Chapter 35
Maddox
When I first visited the Nightshade District, all I noticed were the dark and decrepit things, the dangerous creatures lurking in the shadows of forgotten buildings and distant trees.
Foster care was a lot like that. Every new home and family had monsters, whether real or imagined.
It took time for me to see them for what they really were.
I didn’t let them grow on me; I never gave them the chance.
But, here, I was so focused on my task, on killing the king, that I forgot to see the worst in everyone else.
Now I notice the women dancing barefoot in the street to the haunting music played by satyrs and pixies. I hear laughter, unrestrained and free. I feel safer here, walking through the neglected streets, than I do in the gilded Crown District with a million golden guards.
That is, until I turn down the rickety road leading to Mondo’s Mausoleum.
No one dances here. No one speaks, as if it’s understood that a whisper could draw the wrong person to his door. Now, as I step onto the damp wood of the bridge leading to Mondo’s home, I see why. Black vines slither between the slats in the wooden planks like dread slithers in my gut.
The mausoleum is a lone turret of black stone enrobed in gray lichen. Spiderwebs drip from the branches like Spanish moss. It’s darker in this part of the forest. And here I stand, hair loose, a splotch of red in the monochrome. A bloodstain on a gray dress.
I reach the bottommost step leading to the entrance, and the door slides open, disappearing into the stone wall.
Out steps Mondo, tall, thin, and dressed in a cloak of oil-slick feathers, with nails painted deep maroon and pointed red snakeskin boots.
Between his curling charcoal-and-iron horns sits a black top hat made of velvet with a bloodred silk band.
“Miss Oleander.” His voice is like wind pushing through a narrow opening, high and reedy. “Audacious of you to come here all alone.”
“I’m not known for my prudence.”
“You are known for very little around here, I am afraid.” Mondo clasps his hands before him. “Given the short time you have graced us with your mortal presence.”
Rather than sneer, I smile. “I prefer it that way. May I come in?”
Given the ice in his dark stare, I almost expect to be turned away, but instead, he steps aside. “Most certainly.”
The interior of the mausoleum contrasts starkly with the outside—warm earth tones, soft upholstered green-and-brown armchairs, and a crackling fire. Mondo sinks into the chair closest to the fire.
Behind him stands a wall of wooden bookshelves filled with hundreds of seemingly random trinkets. A mortal watch, a small doll with brown skin and pink hair, an opal tiara, a broken teacup, and a withering snake’s skin.
“What brings you here, Miss Oleander?”
I hand him the paper Tamarind gave me.
Mondo reads it a few times over and then presses a long index finger against his chin, assessing me. “Poison of that sort will cost an item of great personal value.”
Though I’m not moving an inch on the outside, anxiety flutters in the depths of my chest, the locks on my metaphorical windows and doors straining from the pressure.
“Do you have anything like that?” he asks.
I dip my head in a nod and let out a long breath. My hand slides to my weapons belt, to the pouch filled with supplies. My meter. My test strips. My insulin. I wriggle my fingers farther over to my sheathed dagger, bloodied by almost everyone but the king.
Without a word, I pull the dagger free and offer it to Mondo. He beholds the blade with an art collector’s eye, plucking it out of my hand and bringing it closer to his face.
“This is not payment enough,” Mondo says after a moment. “I said an item of great personal value.”
“That is of great personal value.”
“A blade is a blade, and this one is no different. I see value in objects—value greater than gold and silver—and this is worthless, I am afraid.” He returns the dagger to me and waves toward the door. “If you have nothing else to offer—”
“Wait.”
Insulin for now, or a cure forever. Insulin in exchange for poison. Squeezing my teeth tightly together, I untie my pouch and pull out my last vial. My hand trembles as I hold it out, a heavy lump taking residence in my throat.
I place the bottle in the cradle of his palms. Mondo lifts it to his eyes and runs a finger around the bright orange rim, then brings it to his nose, breathing in. A crease forms between his brows, and he looks curiously back to me. “What does this mean to you?”
“It’s a mortal drug. It keeps me alive.”
Mondo rolls the insulin between forefinger and thumb. Then nods. “Very well.”
Reaching a long arm back, he places my offering on the bookshelf between a sapphire ring and a spool of pale green thread. A halo of light surrounds the vial, illuminating the insulin inside.
Then the light flickers out.
~
Numbly, I trek in the direction of Magesté.
I still have an hour until midnight, and I haven’t bathed in what feels like days.
That’s my excuse for returning, anyway. If I’m being honest with myself, it’s because I know once I pump the king’s heartwood full of poison, I’ll have to flee this kingdom.
And I can’t bring myself to leave without saying goodbye to Fern.
The air is an oppressive force closing in. I’m trapped inside no walls, behind no doors with no locks, yet I’m trapped all the same. I’m trapped by my disease. I’m trapped by the deal I made. I’m trapped because I want to stay here. I’m trapped because I can’t.
Once I kill the king, Castor will probably never forgive me. For murdering his brother, for lying, for plotting to kill him first. Because he will figure it out eventually. He’s naive, but not that naive.
Despite the lack of food and drink in my system, the lower doses of long-acting insulin have driven my blood sugar up to a level well above my comfort zone. But I gave up being comfortable when I made a deal with a dryad.
Rather than enter through the front doors, I climb through my bedroom window. I toss my weapons belt onto my bed and peel off Castor’s shirt, which I stole this morning. It smells like him. Like nepenthe smoke and pine needles.
Once I’ve bathed, I stand before the washroom mirror, inspecting Tamarind’s handiwork across my cheek. Shockingly, the gashes are only thin white scars now. Then I dress like I’m preparing for a funeral. Because I am.
I tie my hair in a damp bun on top of my head and grab a mortal collar and leash I took from a visitor one night, stowing it in a small leather satchel. My fingers graze against the deep green tree poison. Then I fill an insulin syringe with the toxic stuff and tuck it into my bun. Just in case.
The last thing I pack in my satchel is my father’s journal.
I stare at it for a long moment, turning it over like I sometimes do to see the dark splotches on the edges of the paper.
Blood spatter from the day he was thoughtlessly murdered by a dryad.
Something in the back of my head says, It wasn’t thoughtless, though.
It was targeted. They knew what he was. They knew what he did.
I open to an entry I’ve read a hundred times over.
No clear-cutting. Selective logging is best for preserving forest life.
Before, I thought he meant it was best for preserving the life of trees and forest animals.
But now…What if he meant the lives of dryads?
Because he knew that trees and dryads were interconnected.
I can’t decide if this makes me feel better or worse, so I slip the journal into my bag and move to leave my bedroom.
My fingers are wrapping around the handle when a distant slam and raised voices on the other side forces me to stop. I press an ear to the wood instead.
“All this time, Evodia? This whole time? That’s why we’ve all been calling him King Castor?” comes Fern’s high-pitched voice.
Evodia’s stern alto follows. “Fern, this place is swarming with guests from all over Sylveris. The Myrtle Queen has requested to stay here for the night—on the stage, of all places—so we have to get that set up for her and all the guests cleared out before she arrives. We don’t have time for this conversation.
I’m going to need you to calm down or I will have to—”
“Maddox could die and you’re telling me to calm down?”
I was still before, but now I’m a statue, every atom in my body frozen in place, ears straining to listen.
“For the Sovereign Tree’s sake, Fern. Castor is the cursed prince. What did you think that meant?”
“I don’t know! He can rot dryads into ash with his terrifying fog power—is that not enough? How should I know it meant people who loved him would die?”
“Castor’s pact is over at the Sylveris Solstice. If he doesn’t get Maddox to say she loves him by tomorrow evening, he will be locked in the Bloodwood Tree for a year. Do you know what that tree does to people? He will never be the same.”
There’s a record scratch in my ears. As if my world has suddenly screeched to a halt while everyone else is still spinning.
Of course. I’d always found it odd that Castor chose to spend so much time with me.
Initially, I thought it was to keep an eye on the mortal who’d nearly murdered him.
But after a time I thought—foolishly—that perhaps he wanted me.
That he cared for me. Lucky for him, that’s what saved him.
My unwillingness to slit his throat. That and the fact that oleander isn’t poisonous to dryads…
Still.
Everything had been a clever lie. Every single thing. Every conversation—fabricated. Every move he made—calculated. Every touch—forced.
All lies. The pain of this realization cuts more deeply than the woodling’s blade in my thigh.
“Well, good!” Fern’s screech echoes my fury. “Good. If he makes deals to kill perfectly nice mortals like Maddox who have never done a single thing to him, he shouldn’t be the same.”
“Maddox tried to murder him.”