“So she says.” I leaned back in my chair and hooked an ankle across my knee.

Sabine and Chris exchanged weighted looks, and I stared at my boot to give them a moment.

“I understand if you want to try to put a knife in my back or an arrow through my heart. Who could blame you?” I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Cécile’s father intends to warn everyone in the Hollow at midnight tonight – it could not be sooner, because we cannot be certain of the loyalties of everyone in your village.” I looked up. “I’ll not stop you if you want to leave and go to them now. I’ll give you the gold you need to book passage on a ship to the continent, although I cannot be certain how long Trianon will be a safe harbor, so you’d need to leave immediately.”

Chris glanced at the water clock and his jaw tightened. Even if they left now, riding in the dark they wouldn’t make it home much before when Louie would set out to spread the word. “You can take my horse and Cécile’s,” I said. “I do not think those in Trollus will act immediately, but the sluag may well venture out under the cover of darkness once they are able.”

Rising to my feet, I went to my chest of gold and filled up a sack. “Here.” I tried to hand it to Chris, but he shook his head. “Sabine?” I held it in her direction, hoping she would at least have a little sense.

“No.” Picking up her cloak and gloves, she donned them. “I need to be with Cécile. I don’t know what good I can do, but she needs at least one friend at her side. Help me get in the castle, or at least give me a weapon.”

Silently, I extracted the knife hidden in my boot and handed it to her hilt first. She gripped it as though she were not entirely familiar with how to use it, but was more than willing to try. “Don’t leave just yet.” I turned my gaze to Chris. “What say you?”

“I’ve been around trolls most of my life,” he said. “I know what you are capable of, and I won’t lie and say the thought of your people free to do what they wish doesn’t terrify the piss out of me. But it sounds like it’s going to happen whether I like it or not, and I’m damn well going to do everything I can to make sure ours is the winning side.” He squared his shoulders. “If I’m going to be ruled by a high-minded pretty-faced troll, it might as well be you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said, trying not to smile. “Who knows what would happen to my ego if you decided to abandon me.”

Chris rolled his eyes.

“Sabine,” I said, hefting the sack of gold once more. “I’m of a mind to have a pretty girl on my arm at this party, and if she happened to have a knife or two hidden in her skirts, all the better.” I tossed the sack her direction. “Spend what you need to play the part.”

Climbing to my feet, I went to the window and peered up at the wintery sky, the cold an ominous prediction of what was to come. If all went to plan, more than just trolls would be released onto the world tonight. How long would I have until the Winter Queen’s bargain with me came due?

“There is one more person I need to speak to before we set our plans in motion,” I said. “I only hope that he’s now of a mind to listen.”

Fifty

Cécile

They took me to the castle in a carriage, and if the guards thought it strange that a young opera singer be treated so, they were too well trained to ask questions. Or to answer them.

They took me in a small entrance at the rear of the castle and up to a set of rooms where a steaming bath and an elderly servant woman waited. The white silk costume resplendent with feathers that Sabine had made hung on a privacy screen, but of my friend, there was no sign. Everyone I encountered wore a sprig of rowan berries, and when I enquired of their meaning to the maid, she told me they were in honor of the solstice celebration and to remove them would be bad luck.

I surrendered myself to her ministrations, the whole time my mind a whirl of how I could possibly get around the rowan’s effect on magic, which seemed much like the sluag’s effect on the trolls. There had to be a way around it, or at the very least, a way to remove its protection from Marie once I found her. I needed to hold up my end of the plan, which is why I hadn’t contacted Tristan. He was not in a good state of mind, and I was afraid if he learned our plans were in disarray, he’d come in and take the information from Marie by force. It might to come to that, but I had every intention of doing what I could to avoid it.

“You’ve led us on quite the runaround.”

I lifted my head to watch Marie enter, noting the twisted branches woven like a crown into her hair. Not something that could easily be removed.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I demanded.

“We both know why, Cécile, so drop the pretense,” Marie responded. “You caused us no small amount of grief with your disappearance, and we could not risk you deciding not to show for our little fête this evening.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry. “Where is my mother?”

“You’ll see her soon enough. Do not cause any trouble, Cécile. If you do, she will punish you by harming those who matter to you most. The troll included.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She shook her head. “I’m warning you.”

“I want proof my mother is unharmed.” Given it seemed impossible to use magic on Marie, my primary goal was my mother. And stay with her until Tristan found us.