“So these are them?” Tips unfolded my plans across the scarred table, his face tightening as he noted the substantial differences between them and what my father had provided. I could see he was calculating the wasted months of work, and the effort that would be needed to pull down all the stone and begin anew. The emotional toll it would have on those who had already endured much loss.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a red smear across a series of calculations.

I leaned forward. “Jam. Raspberry, if I recall correctly.”

Tips snorted. “The plans your father gave us didn’t have any food stains.”

I shrugged. “That should have been your first clue they were fake.”

He stared at them for a long time, slowly flipping through the large pages of parchment as though he were memorizing every last detail. I let him take his time, leaning back on the rough chair and closing my eyes. I was tired. Sleep had eluded me last night, making it three nights in a row that I’d gone without rest, and I needed it. Badly. My mind felt fuzzy, and the coming days would be unforgiving of any mistakes.

Except every time I closed my eyes, I was plagued by the disasters that had happened. That could happen. My mother trying to kill me, my aunt hanging unconscious from her back. The feral expression I’d last seen on Marc’s face, and my fear that madness would take him.

And Cécile.

My imagination was a ferocious thing, and I could well imagine the worst of disasters befalling her, all with me powerless to do anything to help. I had no way of discovering how she fared or what she was doing. No humans were allowed past the River Road gates, so even if my contacts had information, I had no way to meet with them. No way to pass a message to Cécile, either.

But worse were the other thoughts. They were daydreams, I supposed, although I tortured myself with them day or night. Unrealistic fantasies of a future where Cécile and I actually had a chance. Where she was with me every night. Where she was mine in all ways and all things. Where I could be the man she deserved. How could I possibly sleep when there was a chance to remember the smell of her hair? The clear blue of her eyes when she looked up at me. The way she arched her neck when I kissed her throat. I’d suffer a thousand sleepless nights to be lost in those waking dreams.

“So what’s the plan?” Tips said, interrupting my thoughts. “Do we make it known that we’ve been duped? Another uprising? We aren’t prepared for it, but when this comes out, it might happen whether we like it or not.”

Opening my eyes, I tipped my chair forward and carefully set my arms on the table. Blood was seeping through the cloth I’d wrapped around the metal, and I could faintly hear the drip, drip of droplets landing on the wood. “I think we’ve something else to discuss first.”

He rolled up my plans and set them aside. “You’re referring to when I lied about my true name before you sent us all off to be slaughtered.”

“Less about the name and more about the lie,” I replied. “Specifically, how is it possible you can?”

Tips rolled his shoulders and shifted on his chair. “It’s a fair bit harder than speaking the truth, but it can be done. Gets a bit easier with practice.”

“Explain.”

His eyes flicked to mine, then away again. “It’s like when you’ve got something that needs saying, but you don’t want to say it for whatever reason. Throat gets tight, tongue gets dry, and it seems like your whole body is fighting to keep the words inside. But you force them out anyway.”

I thought about his analogy and nodded. “Can everyone with human blood do it, or only…” I tried to think of a polite way to phrase the thought, “Those whose blood is primarily human?”

He snorted softly and shook his head. “Those like me, you mean?”

“Yes.” There was no point to beating around the bush.

“It’s hard to know,” he said, resting his elbows on the table. “It ain’t something that’s discussed much. But I do know a few who are mostly troll who can lie through their teeth, and a few with less magic than me who couldn’t bend the truth to save their lives.” He hesitated for a long moment. “I think the potential to lie comes with the human blood, but that it’s something else that makes a half-blood actually capable of doing it.”

“Willpower?” I suggested.

“Might be.” He sighed. “Or just plain obstinacy. When we catch a young one lying, we all but beat the desire to do it ever again out of their skulls. It’s a dangerous game to play, and if they got caught by the wrong person, it wouldn’t be just their life on the line, it would be the lives of every half-blood. It’s our greatest secret – we’ve killed our own just to keep it from coming out. Full-blooded bastards would all but shit bricks if they found out we’d been lying to their faces all these long years.” He winced. “Not that I mean you…”

I waved him off. “You’re right. It’s an advantage you have over us, and there isn’t a troll in the city who wouldn’t begrudge that fact.” I cracked my neck from side to side, considering what he’d told me. “Lady Anaïs is dead,” I finally said. “She was killed helping me subdue my father the night I broke Cécile out of Trollus.”

Tips’s eyes widened. “That ain’t possible. I’ve seen her since with my own two eyes!”

“Not her,” I said. “Someone pretending to be her. I wasn’t certain how the impostor was managing it until your little slip, but now I know for certain it’s a half-blood wearing Anaïs’s face.”