“Pénélope is not nothing.”
Tristan scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Don’t twist my words, Marc. You know what I mean: to my father, she isn’t a powerful enough asset to interest him. That doesn’t mean she means nothing to me. Far from it. This is exactly what I’m fighting against, and you know it.”
“And yet you have no intention of doing anything to help her.”
“When did I say that?”
Pulling back my hood, I glared at him, feeling a strange twist of satisfaction and disappointment when he looked away.
“If I make my move against my father now, I’ll very likely lose,” he said. “Then I’ll either be dead or disinherited, and Angoulême will get exactly what he wants, with Pénélope no better off. And what sort of ruler can I claim to be if I sacrifice the welfare of thousands for the slim chance of saving one?”
“Then kill Angoulême.”
Ana?s shifted uneasily next to me, but I ignored her.
“And how is that any better? Awful as he might be, he hasn’t done anything. I can’t go around killing trolls because of what they might do.”
“Then let her bond someone.” The words were out before I had a chance to think them through, and I instantly regretted them, because I was going to get an answer to my request, and it wouldn’t be the one I wanted.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
Tristan’s eyes shifted once to Ana?s before going back to me. “Fine. Make me the ass for saying what we all know: no one – at least no one Pénélope would want – would agree to that sort of risk. And even if someone would, my father would never give his permission.”
“You could.”
“But I won’t. I’m not sentencing someone to a short life for the sake of giving her a few more years.”
I punched him in the face.
“Have you lost your damned mind?” he snarled, wiping the blood from his already healing lip.
It felt like it. “Maybe I have lost my mind given I’ve been trying to put a heartless bastard like you on the throne.”
He lunged at me and we both went down, fists flying while furniture toppled and broke around us. Then magic had me around the waist, slamming me against the wall hard enough that the room shuddered. “You would resort to magic,” I started to shout, then saw Tristan pressed against the opposite wall. And Ana?s standing between us, arms crossed.
“Are you two about finished?” She glared at both of us, then her magic relaxed, dropping Tristan and me to the floor.
“There is another way to keep her safe,” she said, “and that’s to make my father believe she’s more useful alive than dead.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Tristan asked, straightening his coat and giving me a malevolent look before righting one of the chairs and taking a seat.
“I’ve already done it,” she said, turning her eyes on me in a way that made my skin prickle with apprehension, because whatever solution she’d come up with, it wouldn’t be one I liked.
Chapter Seven
Marc
It was strange to both dread and anticipate something so much.
I could count on my hand the number of times I’d been alone in Pénélope’s presence; those quiet, charged moments where I’d wished for the nerve to take her hand, to tell her she was beautiful, to explain to her how I felt. But always my fear had ruled me. Fear that she’d reject me or that the Duke would learn I’d been too forward and take her away. That all of Trollus would laugh at my presumption – for daring to believe that I had a chance with Angoulême’s eldest daughter, the sister of the girl favored to become Queen.
But now everything had changed.
To Trollus society, she was no longer out of my reach, but me out of hers. The Duke himself was pushing us together, as were Ana?s and Tristan, and I could have no fear of rejection given it was now Pénélope in pursuit of me. I could have nearly everything I wanted, and all that was required of me was to feed her bits of information that she could then take back to her father to exchange like currency for another day of life.
But instead of making me happy, the chance to spend time alone with her felt wrong: she wasn’t doing it because she wanted to, but because she had to. It made that short interlude where I’d thought that her feelings for me might exceed the bounds of friendship now seem like wishful thinking on my part. Love meant many things, and a kiss could mean nothing at all. The result was that all I wanted to do was run as far away from this meeting as the witch’s curse would allow.
Instead, I accepted her invitation to meet at the bridge nearest the falls, reading and rereading her short note explaining that she wished to embark on a quest to live her life the way she had always wanted to, and that there was no one she wished to accompany her more than me. The truth and a lie in one, because one might wish all of eternity for something and never take a step toward making it reality.
The weather on the Isle had grown cold, the spray of the waterfall misting as it met the air of the cavern, creating a fog that sparkled in the lights lining the bridge. The structure was new, a marvel of architecture made of pale stone and glass that created the illusion of stepping stones floating over the water. Pénélope stood at the highest point, hair hanging loose in a black curtain down her back. One hand was balanced on the railing, while the other reached out to catch the falling water.
At the sound of my boots, she turned, tiny drops of water clinging to her lashes like dew on a flower. Then she smiled, and every thought in my head disappeared: the waterfall, the lights, and the city all falling away, leaving behind nothing but her.
“It’s cold,” she said, then flung the water cupped in her hand in my direction.
Instinctively, I dodged, laughing. “I suppose that rules out swimming for entertainment?”
“Haven’t the nerve for it?”
“You tell me.” Lifting her with magic, I held her suspended in the air, the falls splashing her hair and face while she shrieked and laughed.
She grinned as I settled her back on the bridge, soaked hair plastered to the side of her face. “I will have revenge for that, rest assured.” Spinning on her heel, she skipped across to the other side of the bridge, seeming not to care as her heels skidded on the slick glass, then perched on the railing, feet dangling over the frothing rapids.
There was an energy to her. Not something new – rather, something that had always been there, caged, but now released. It was like seeing her again for the first time, different, but wholly and deeply familiar. I took her arms to steady her, my heart skipping an uneven beat as she leaned back against me.
Is this real, or is she only doing it to save her own skin? I forced the thought away, focusing on the feel of her wet hair against my chin, the faint scent of spice rising from her skin.