He cleared his throat. “There is nothing to say other than I would kill you a thousand times for what you have done, were it possible.” I said nothing. “Because of you,” the King continued, “the house de Montigny is ended. We’ve ruled Trollus for nearly fourteen hundred years, and it is finished. Because of you!”

Anger rose up inside me. He cared nothing for Tristan his son, only for Tristan the heir. His dismay was not for the loss of his child, but for the loss of power and glory. I rose up to my full height and glared at the King. “If that’s all you care about, then it’s a good thing you have two heirs!”

“Roland isn’t Tristan!” the King screamed at me.

“Kill her!” someone from the crowd shouted.

“She’s a traitor!” It was the half-bloods who screamed this – accusing me not of treason against the king and crown, but against their leader and their cause.

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

A grime-coated miner spat in my direction. “Liar,” he screamed. “Traitor! You killed him!”

My cheeks burned with fury. “Tristan isn’t dead…” The word froze on my lips as a searing pain tore through me. I fell to my knees, retching, and heard the crowd moan, but it barely registered through the agony. It was as if my heart had been torn from my chest and all the rest of my body burned from its absence. I screamed and screamed, and then the pain fled. I was empty. There was nothing.

“He is now,” the King whispered. “His death is written across you.”

I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t speak. All I knew was that I could not live like this, with half of me missing. Raising my head, I stared up at the burning circle of light high above. The lone beam of sunlight that shone into Trollus. Then I leaned forward and lay my head in the guillotine, closed my eyes, and waited.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Life and emotion filled the void, the shock of its return nearly as great as its loss. My eyes snapped open. “Tristan,” I gasped.

The guillotine clicked and the blade fell.

CHAPTER 28

CéCILE

“Wait!”

A sharp sting burned at the base of my neck, but all did not go black, as I had expected. For a long moment, I was certain that my severed head had decided to live on for a few extra torturous seconds; but it soon became clear that my neck was still in one piece. I could feel the razor sharp edge of the guillotine cutting into my flesh and the hot trickle of blood running down my shoulder. Something had stopped the blade just in time.

“What is the meaning of this?” the King shouted.

“Her hand, look at her hand. The darkness is fading.” It was Marc’s voice shouting and I smiled, already knowing in my heart what had happened. He, along with several others, approached the dais to inspect my fingers.

“He’s alive,” I whispered, looking up at Marc. No one seemed inclined to move the blade and I was afraid if I moved much against the edge that I would do myself in.

Marc gave a half-nod. “Someone run to the palace. We need to be certain.” He hesitated and then added, “Before we finish this.”

“You’ll be lucky if I don’t take your head off for this interruption, Marc,” the King shouted, but there was relief in his voice.

Marc turned. “If Tristan is still clinging to life, killing her will surely push him over the edge. He won’t survive the shock.”

“Wait, wait!” This time it was a woman’s voice calling from a distance. “He’s alive. Tristan’s alive.” The Queen’s voice. The crowd parted, and she ran towards me with surprising speed, skirts pulled up to her knees. The blade rose, and a hand grabbed the back of my dress, pulling me down the steps and out of harm’s way.

“Tristan’s alive, and you will leave that girl alone if you know what’s good for you, Thibault.” The tiny Duchesse was speaking now and shaking her tiny fist at the King. “Leave her be!”

“Why should I?” the King said, his voice like ice.

“Kill her and you doom us all.”

The crowd slowly grew silent as her words passed in a wave through their ranks.

“Kill her, and you lose the chance of ever seeing the light of day. Of ever regaining Trollus’s previous glory.”

The King grew still. The crowd fell silent.

“So be it,” he said. “She lives.” His eyes met mine, and he softly added, “For now.”

A servant ran up. “Prince Tristan is asking for the lady Cécile.”

“Then it is a good thing her head is still attached,” the Duchesse muttered. “Come with me, girl.”

I nodded and stayed close to her arm as we walked back towards the palace, though it took every ounce of self-control to keep from running to Tristan. It would certainly have been easier if I’d hurried, because our stately pace only gave me time to think; and with thinking came doubt. What if I had imagined it all? Not the sluag and Tristan nearly dying – I knew I wasn’t delusional – but what about the emotions I’d felt from him in the moments before the sluag attacked? Had he really felt as strongly as I remembered, or were my feelings and desires coloring my memory?

I could feel his anger. What if that was the reason he’d asked for me? Not to profess his love as I might wish, but to tell me that he hated me for what I’d done and that he wanted me gone? Exiled from Trollus and his side forever.

We turned down the corridor leading to Tristan’s rooms and, ahead of us, the door flung open. Anaïs stalked out of the room and slammed it shut. Turning up the corridor, she froze when she saw the three of us blocking her way. I noted her streaked cosmetics and the handkerchief clutched in her hand, but all of that was quite secondary to the fury written across her face. There was murder in those kohl-rimmed eyes, and I was certain that if I’d encountered her alone, she’d have killed me where I stood.

She dropped into a deep curtsey. “Your Graces. My lady.”

“Anaïs.” The Queen inclined her head.

“You’ll be pleased to know that His Highness is recovering quite remarkably.” Anaïs straightened, and I had to give her credit for regaining her composure so quickly. “By your leave.” She hesitated only a moment and then spun around and strode off in the opposite direction.

“Wonderful news!” the Queen exclaimed, blissfully ignorant of the tension between Anaïs and me. It wasn’t lost on the Duchesse, though she said nothing.

The three of us hurried into Tristan’s room, where he lay in the center of his bed, propped up on a pile of cushions. The frown furrowing his brow disappeared at the sight of us. His eyes locked on me and I felt relief course through him and me both. He wasn’t angry with me.

“Did they harm you?” He tried to push himself up on the pillows, but his mother scurried over and pushed him back down. “You must rest, Tristan.” She set to fluffing the pillows and tucking the blankets tightly around him like a swaddled baby.

He seemed annoyed at being fussed over, but he smiled at her anyway. “Thank you, Mother.”

Then he looked at me, taking in my severe hairstyle, the black dress, and, I realized far too late, the blood that dripped from the cut on the back of my neck. I should have cleaned it up before coming. “I’m quite well,” I assured him. “Fit as a fiddle.”

One of his eyebrows rose. “You are not suited to deception, my lady.”

The light Tristan had left with me when he thought he was dying chose that moment to zip over to the bed, flying in dizzying circles around its patient twin hovering over Tristan’s head. The result was a riot of light and shadows that caught everyone’s attention.

“It stayed with you this whole time? It should have dissipated hours ago,” Tristan said, clearly amazed. In truth, I hadn’t even noticed.

“It isn’t possible for a human to control troll magic,” the Duchesse said, tapping her chin with her index finger and watching the lights reflected in the mirror on the wall.

“Oh, I don’t control it,” I said. “It’s here because it wants to be.”

“Wants to be! Bah!” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

Tristan didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. “Stop that!” he said firmly to my light. It ignored him and continued to fly madly around the room like a disobedient child. “You there,” he said, pointing at it. “Come here.” With obvious reluctance, the light slowly drifted over and landed on his outstretched hand. “It’s a bit of my magic,” he said. “But there’s something changed about it.” He stared into the depths of the light. “It seems content to maintain its purpose.”

“What purpose?” I asked, confused.

“To light your path.” The glowing ball lifted off his hand and floated over to me.

The Duchesse had a look of satisfaction on her face, but she made no comment.

Tristan cleared his throat. “I’d like to speak to Cécile. Alone.”

After the Queen left, I walked over to stand next to the bed. My fingers played nervously with the blanket, while Tristan silently scrutinized my appearance.

“Never a dull moment since you arrived in my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant for this to happen.”

His hand closed over mine, our fingers interlocking. His skin was warm again, burning with the internal flame of magic. “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what Marc said to you, it wasn’t your fault.”

I raised my head. “How do you know what he said? You were unconscious.”

“No. I wasn’t.” He stared up at the ceiling, his thumb tracing circles over the back of my hand. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t open my eyes or speak, but I could hear. And I could feel.”

“How horrible!”

“Not entirely.” His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

“Oh.” I flushed down to the tips of my toes. “Oh, dear.”

“And my repertoire of foul language is much increased.”

I clapped my hand over my eyes, embarrassed to the core. Then realization dawned on me. “Then you know…”

He nodded gravely. “That you used magic to heal me.”

“And failed,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

Tristan held his arm up to the light, revealing scars that looked years old. “You didn’t fail.” His eyes searched mine. “I’d suspected for some time that you might have magic in your blood. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “That was the first time I tried, and I couldn’t even get her spells right. The poison didn’t leave.”

“Her?”

I swallowed hard. Letting go of his hand, I retrieved the grimoire from its hiding place and handed it to him. It was clear from his expression that he recognized it. “You can open this?”

“Yes.”

“Does it tell you anything about breaking the curse?”

“No, but there are spells to use on trolls,” I admitted, watching as he relaxed fractionally at my answer.

Tristan nodded and handed the grimoire back to me. “Keep it hidden,” he said. “No one must know about this.”

I stored the book back in its spot in the garderobe, and came back over to the bed. I felt nervous. Would knowing I was a witch change the way Tristan felt about me? I could hardly blame him if it did, given what Anushka had done to them. “Are you angry?” I asked softly.

He shook his head. “You saved my life, Cécile. Not many people would have had the courage to do what you did.” He sighed. “They brought me back to Trollus. I could hear them talking about what my father intended to do to you – they were acting as if I were already dead, even though they knew I wasn’t. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I could barely breathe and then…” He broke off, his eyes growing distant as though he were trying to remember something. “And then the venom’s power over me lifted. It was a close thing.” His gaze rested on my throat. “Too close.”

I felt magic brush across my cheek and hairpins fell to the ground all around me. Magic teased my hair out of its knot and it cascaded down my back, still damp from my bath.

“You left a part out,” I said, my voice shaking. “The part where you died.”

Tristan’s eyes closed. “I’m fine now.”

“Now,” I said, my whole body shaking. “But not before! I felt you die. It felt like my heart had been torn from my body. It felt like…” I struggled to keep calm. “You were gone,” I said, misery filling me.

“But I’m fine now,” he said, voice firm. He pulled on my hand, and I willingly clambered onto the huge bed and tucked myself into the crook of his arm, head on his chest. The spot I had wanted to be in for so long: I could scarcely believe I was there now, with Tristan, in his arms.

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did you come back to life? How is such a thing possible?”

He was quiet for so long, at first I thought he’d fallen asleep. “Someone with a great deal of power did me a favor,” he said finally. “I owe her a very great debt.”

I started to ask him who, but an icy wind smelling of frost blew through the room. A woman’s voice whispered, “It is not for her to know. We have a bargain, you and I, Prince of the Accursed Ones.”

My head went fuzzy, and I pulled a blanket up around us, pressing closer against Tristan to ward off the icy chill. What was it I had been thinking about? I couldn’t remember.