“But to what purpose?” I demanded. “Once you are king, won’t you just do what is necessary to break the curse? With it gone, couldn’t you fling off all the rock, or… or, leave this place?”

“That is a possibility.” There was no emotion in his voice, but I could see the forced rise and fall of his chest. He was controlling his breathing, trying to control his emotions so that I couldn’t read him. But why? What more was he hiding?

I bit my lip. “You don’t think the curse can be broken, do you?”

He sucked in a deep breath and sighed. “It may be too much to ask for.”

“Low expectations, right?”

“You’ve a good memory,” he said. “I know I can build. I have no such certainty about how to end our imprisonment.”

Which was just as well for me. Once I escaped this place, I’d sleep far better at night knowing the trolls could not get out. Pushing aside those thoughts, I turned my attention back to his plans.

“But if you build this for the half-bloods, they wouldn’t need you anymore,” I said. “What’s to stop them from killing you? Get you out of the way rather than risk future enslavement?”

“Goodwill?” he said, a faint smile touching his lips. “They could call me Tristan the Liberator and compose songs in my honor.”

“My question was serious, Tristan,” I replied. “And what of all the full-blooded trolls? Will they kill them all?”

“Hardly,” he said. “I’ve negotiated the safety of most. There is a list of names they have sworn not to harm.”

I shook my head. “I can’t see all of them thanking you for freeing their servants. For diminishing their power.”

“And there lies the rub,” he said softly. “In freeing thousands from servitude, I will be gaining many powerful enemies. I have no doubt the attempts on my life will come often and regularly. But the benefits of the many are worth the risks to myself.”

I bit my lip. “You don’t seem as concerned as you should.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m exceedingly difficult to kill.”

“But I’m not.”

Tristan’s smirk fell away. “No,” he said. “You are not. Which is why I didn’t want you brought here. I am very sorry for that.”

I’d saved him from one death only to allow him to walk freely towards the promise of another. And not just his death, mine too. Sharp tears stung in my eyes, blurring my vision so that I did not see him reach over until he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “It will take years to build, Cécile, and I promise, the instant I have control over Trollus, I will send you away and pay as many humans as I must to keep you safe. To go and live how and where you might wish.”

Forever fearing the assassin that would come for me in order to kill him.

“I know this is a great deal to take in, and likely not the answer you were expecting,” he said in a low voice. “But don’t focus on what might happen years down the road – focus on the now. If I am discovered before I am ready to strike, we will both be dead. I must keep up the ruse that I am loyal to my father and, in order to do that, I must make people continue to believe that I view humanity with contempt.”

My chin jerked up and down with understanding.

“I will ignore you. Be cruel to you. And you must play along. Act sad and unhappy. Never give anyone a reason to think I’ve shown you a moment’s kindness or that I’ve confided in you in any way. And above all, never let anyone suspect that I care one way or another whether you live or die, beyond how it might impact me.”

“Do you?” I asked, stepping towards him before I knew what I was doing. We were nearly touching now, and he smelled clean, of soap, with a faint hint of leather and steel – like a boy should.

“So many questions,” he said, smoothing my disheveled hair back from my face, his hand running down the length of it until it rested at the small of my back. I trembled beneath his touch: not from fear, but something else. Something that made the blood in my veins boil while raising goose bumps along my skin. His hand tightened around my waist. My lips parted slightly and the overwhelming need to have him pull me closer flooded over me like an ocean wave. My eyes drifted up his chest, past his throat, coming to rest on his face. He was watching me through long black lashes, his eyes half closed; and in them, I thought I saw something, knew I felt something…

Abruptly a veil fell over his eyes, hiding whatever it was I thought I’d seen, if it had ever been there at all. His face resumed the mask of indifference he always wore, callous and arrogant. And he was angry. “Where did you hide my plans, Cécile?”

“Sewn into the draperies in your bedroom.” The words came out without my bidding them to do so, as though I had no control over my own tongue. Be careful making promises to a troll.

I blinked once and he was gone, the thunder of the waterfall deafening my ears once more.

CHAPTER 15

CéCILE

I did not let the momentum that came from my encounter with Tristan go to waste. I had hope now – and something to look forward to. Most of all, I had an ally, and a powerful one at that. But Tristan’s plan would take time to enact – time that I had no intention of wasting by moping around in my bedroom.

“Élise,” I said, having found her making the bed. “If I wanted to speak with the Duchesse, how would I go about doing so?”

Élise smoothed a hand over the blankets. “You could send her a card requesting an audience.”

I frowned, not at all fond of the idea of waiting around for a response to an invitation.

“Or I could take you to see her now,” she said, a smile touching the corner of her lips. “The Duchesse is not a stickler for formality – or of anything she considers an inefficient use of time. She’ll not mind you dropping by unannounced.”

“You seem to know a great deal about her,” I murmured as we walked through the corridors. Now that I had my own light, I was able to pause and examine the artwork lining the endless corridors of the palace. I tried to find little details to remember to help mark my way.

“She was my first charge, when I turned fifteen.”

“Really?” I stopped in my tracks and turned to her in surprise, accidentally blinding her with my light in the process. “I wouldn’t have thought someone so young would…” I trailed off.

“Have the privileged position to empty the chamber pots of the Duchesse and the Queen?”

I flushed, because that was precisely what I’d been thinking.

“She knew my mother,” Élise continued. “She purchased the rights to Zoé and me when we were quite young, so we had many years to prepare for serving royalty.”

There was an edge to her voice that I could not help but notice. “Sorry,” I muttered, certain that I had offended her.

“Why?” she asked, knocking firmly on a door. “It wasn’t any of your doing, and besides, there are worse things than being a lady’s maid. I could be dredging sewers or working in the mines.”

Choice. The word came swiftly to my mind although I did not speak it aloud. Until these last few days, I had not truly appreciated what it meant to have control over one’s own life. The right to choose mattered – and it was a right none of the half-bloods had.

“What do you want?” shrieked a voice from inside the room.

“It’s me!” I shouted back. “Cécile!” Squaring my shoulders, I turned the handle and went inside.

“Cécile!” the Queen exclaimed as she caught sight of me. Rising to her feet, she hurried over and kissed me on both cheeks while I was still mid-curtsey. I wheezed as she pulled me into a hug that made my ribs creak.

“Don’t break her, Matilde,” the Duchesse shouted over her shoulder. “She’s positively fragile.”

“I’m not really,” I said, smiling awkwardly at the Queen as she led me towards a sitting area surrounded by mirrors. “I did grow up on a farm, you know.”

“These things, as is often the case, are relative,” the Duchesse replied.

“Your hair is positively tangles,” the Queen declared, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. Picking up a hairbrush, she pushed me down on a stool in the middle of the circle of benches and began to work the snags out of my hair.

“Just let her,” the Duchesse said, the soft tone of her voice out of character. “She is better when she has someone to mother.”

I nodded into the reflection of the mirrors, which had clearly been set up for this purpose.

“Why are you here?”

Élise had been right – Tristan’s aunt was not one for wasting time.

I cleared my throat. “Before, you said there were opportunities for me here in Trollus – that little would be denied me. I’d… I’d like to take advantage of that.”

She took a mouthful of tea and watched me in the mirror. I waited for her to ask me what had changed, but she only nodded. “Is there something in particular you wish to pursue?”

Knowledge. “I’m not sure,” I replied.

“Music?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Not that.” My singing was my own – the thing I was best at, that I cared about most. I did not want them interfering in that.

“Art? Literature? History? Language?” She rattled off a series of topics.

“All of those things,” I agreed.

The Duchesse bit her lower lip and then smiled. “Things to pass the time.”

I realized then that she didn’t need to ask what had changed – somehow, she already knew. And it became just as clear to me that the matter of Tristan’s politics and plans was not something that would be overtly discussed between us.

“The game you play,” I pointed towards the boards hovering in the corner. “Will you teach it to me?”

“Guerre,” she mused. “Yes, perhaps that is an appropriate place to begin. With strategy.”

“Tristan. He…” I hesitated, watching the Queen in the mirror. She had ceased with brushing my hair, and her eyes seemed glazed over and unseeing. “He likes this game?”

The Duchesse shook her head. “He does not like it – he lives it. Now, shall we begin?”

The following two days were filled from dawn till dusk with a wide assortment of activities. I learned the basics of Guerre from the Duchesse, practiced with a dancing master, learned how to blow glass, wrote bad alliterative poetry with the twins, and followed Marc about on tours of various parts of the city. Not once did I so much as catch a glimpse of Tristan, which is why, on the third day, his abrupt arrival at my painting lesson caught me off guard.

“That,” said a voice from behind me, “is without a doubt one of the ugliest combinations of color I have ever seen. Please do not tell me you call that art!”

I turned slowly from the brown and green mixture I had been idly smearing across the canvas to find Tristan standing behind me, arms crossed and a frown on his face. “How long have you been at this?”

“All afternoon.” I scowled and got to my feet.

“If this is what an afternoon of lessons by the finest artists of Trollus can accomplish, I can only imagine what you were like when you started.” He glanced towards my teachers. “You’re wasting your time.”

“The Duchesse asked us to give Lady Cécile instruction, Your Highness,” one of the artists said, looking like she would rather be anywhere but here.

“Well, I am telling you to cease and desist immediately,” Tristan snapped. “This,” he gestured vaguely towards my painting, “is not worthy of your attention.”

“Excuse me, Your Highness.” I grabbed handfuls of my skirt and squeezed the fabric, feeling the hot flush of anger and embarrassment on my cheeks. “But I was led to believe I could pursue whatever activities I wished, so I do not see what right you have to stand in my way!”

“Royal prerogative!”

I snorted. “More like royal need to interfere with everyone else’s business because you have nothing better to do with your time!”

His eyes widened with apparent outrage and he stepped towards me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the other trolls trying to discreetly retreat. “What do you know about how I spend my time, human?”

The way he said the word made it seem like something disgusting and foul. I squeezed my eyes shut for an instant to control the sting. This is a fake fight, Cécile, I reminded myself. It’s just acting, don’t take it personally. But it was hard.

Perhaps he sensed that he was pushing me too far, because Tristan stepped back. “What is this bit of art supposed to be, anyway?” he asked, gesturing at the smears of paint.

I squared my shoulders. “A representation of feelings through color.”

“Oh? And what feelings, pray tell, does this represent?”

I lifted my chin and looked him straight in the eye. “My feelings for you, dear husband.”

One of the trolls gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, but I barely noticed over the sharp jab of shock in the back of my head. Good, I thought spitefully. If we were going to fake fight, he’d better get used to taking his fair share of the blows.

Abruptly, Tristan began to laugh. “I suppose,” he said, after his fit of laughter subsided, “that you aren’t wasting your time after all.” He gestured at the wide-eyed trolls hiding in the shadowed corners. “Get back to it, then.”