He eyed the food as if it were about to turn on him. “Nothing tastes like I remember it.”

I poked at what looked like a carrot, but I couldn’t be sure. “Does it taste that bad?”

“Most things, no. This? Yes.”

“Huh. I just thought you’d lost your appetite when you turned human.”

“Lost my appetite?” He leaned forward. “Daisy, I love food—there’s hardly a thing I love more. If I could marry a meat pie, I would—why are you laughing?”

“I’m just trying to picture the sort of meat pie who would marry someone like you.”

“I’d make a nice meat pie quite happy, thank you,” he replied haughtily, taking a knife from the tray, and cut off a slice of eggplant. He held the utensils like Wen did, I noticed, his forefingers along the backs of the fork and knife. The proper way had been drilled into her by her etiquette instructor. The same woman who scolded her every time she muddied the hem of her dress.

He took two bites before he noticed me staring. “Is there something wrong?”

“Oh no. Just . . . I have a lot on my mind.”

He moved the food around on the plate, like I did with green peas I didn’t want to eat, to try to trick Papa into thinking I did. “I guess you’ve asked the leader here in Voryn for help already.”

“I did—the day you awoke.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I replied with a sigh, and told him what had happened at the meeting while we pushed this horrible vegetable concoction around on our plates. I ended up pouring myself a cup of tea and calling that my dinner for the night.

“Well,” he said, sniffing at what looked like a tree of broccoli, “it seems like things got a whole lot more complicated, Daisy.”

I scoffed. “You think? I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to go.” I frowned into my tea. “I thought this would be it, but Voryn is no more able to deal with the curse of the wood than we are. I just don’t understand it, Fox. In all the stories we have of Voryn, they live free of the curse. The Lady protects them against it. But where’s the Lady? The Grandmaster isn’t telling us something. I can feel it—about the woodcurse.”

“Technically, you can cure it,” he pointed out.

“Sure, if I had enough blood for every person in Aloriya,” I said, and then fell silent.

“There has to be another way.”

“And if there’s not?”

“There is,” he replied, so surely that I almost believed him. “Didn’t you say that Grandmaster or whatever told you that she’d act if we got proof that the woodcurse had grown stronger? I don’t know what kind of help she’d give us, but it’s gotta be better than us going back to the wood alone.”

“And how are we going to get that before they kick us out of the city now that we’re almost healed? We don’t have the crown, we don’t have any way out of the city—”

“Well, it’s a good thing I have an idea, then,” Fox said.

I was a little afraid to ask, but I did anyway. “What . . . sort of idea?”

He grinned, all white teeth and trouble. “How opposed are you to stealing?”

Oh. Oh no.

“Fox, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m sure the guards will be all over us if we go anywhere. We’re Aloriyans in Voryn, and as far as I can tell, all the stories I’ve heard are wrong. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust me either if I came here with magical blood and a crown—”

“That’s why we need to throw them off our scent,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows, and pushed himself off the bed.

I put the covers back on the plates and set the tray on the floor. “What do you mean?”

“There are lights down in the city. It looks like a market. I’d say we should start by going and finding some actual food.”

“What, you didn’t have your fill of the vegetable surprise?”

“Daisy, it tastes like old shoes.”

“I’ve seen you chew on an old shoe, so I believe you.”

He rolled his eyes and outstretched his arm for me to take.

“Well, Daisy? Are you gonna come with me, or do I have to do this all by myself?”

Then he grinned. And oh, what a dangerous look that was, trouble tucked into the corners of his mouth like sin. I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure what taking his arm would mean. We were supposed to stay in the building, and stay out of trouble, and leave the city.

I bit the inside of my cheek. No, Cerys. This is a terrible idea, Cerys.

I took his arm and said, “No stealing.”

And then his grin turned into a smile—and as strange as it was, it felt like, for the first time, I’d been found in my safe little garden, and asked to come outside.

26

For What Tastes Sweeter

Fox

VORYN WAS . . . HOW to describe it—immense. The entire city had been carved out of the side of the mountain. It was old but beautiful, made of ancient stones, smoothed to the touch by centuries of wind and weather, hundreds of secret alleyways and hidden doors scattered across like a game of hide-and-seek. The city was composed of layers built atop one another—like dusty cakes in a bakery fallen into disrepair. Atop the city stood the fortress, where the Grandmaster lived, and as the city cascaded down to the lowest layer, more and more people filled the streets.

About halfway down the city was what I was looking for—the night market. I rubbed my hands together as soon as I heard two passing women talking about some sort of celebration planned for this evening. Where there was celebration, there was food, and where there was food, there was my happy place. And a celebration also meant lots of people, and a crowd to get lost in. Which was exactly what we needed, as two Voryn guards had trailed us since we’d left the fortress. They kept enough of a distance, however, that I was pretty sure Daisy hadn’t noticed.

At least, not until she said, “I told you we’d be guarded.”

“Just act like you don’t know they’re there,” I murmured in reply. We squeezed through a particularly dense group of people and came out on the other side in some sort of crumbling balcony courtyard, overlooking the fifty-foot wall beneath and the wood beyond.

I turned my face to the clear night sky stretching overhead and basked in the openness of it all. The wind smelled fresh and sharp, brisk in the way the first breath of winter was. Behind us, orange lanterns illuminated most of the city, the shadows on the stone a dark blue.

“It’s so beautiful,” Daisy said softly.

“It looks to me like a pretty cage.”

She glanced at me and then back at the city. “I suppose it does.”

“But maybe, if we can find a way to break this curse, we’ll free the Voryns, too, along with your friend and your father and everyone else in your village.”

Her shoulders stiffened, and she turned away from the city, and leaned against the banister, gripping it tightly. “I hope so. So what’s this plan of yours?”

I took another glance at the guards, who were still standing at the stairwell we’d come out of onto the street. Then I leaned in casually, like we were sharing a secret joke. “Your corpse friend—”

“Seren?” she asked in surprise.

“That’s the one. He offered me a deal in the wood when you and I were split up.”

“What kind of deal?”

“He said that if I gave him the crown, he’d turn me back into a fox.” As I said it, I watched her, waiting to see what her face did, if she thought I was tempted. If she was disappointed in me.

But all she said was “You would probably have better luck with him, in all honesty.”

I couldn’t help it; I smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. Too bad I like being the underdog. Besides, you’re cuter than he is.”

Finally, there was some emotion on her face: horror. “You turned down giving him the most powerful object in the kingdom because he wasn’t cute enough?”

I gave a shrug. “His whole . . . dead . . . thing really wasn’t doing it for me.”

She shoved me on the shoulder. “Fox! You’re prime evil, you know that?”

“I can’t be that evil.” I laughed. “I chose you, didn’t I?”

She gave a heavy sigh and turned away, but before she did I could’ve sworn I saw a pink tinge flood her cheeks. I grinned. “I guess you did. So, Seren wants the crown. That isn’t new information.”

“No, but before I came running after you in the wood, he seemed pretty sure I would give it to him—like he knew something about me that I didn’t. Like he knew me. But I’ve never seen him before in my life, Daisy.”

“Oh”—she began to catch on, and her hazel eyes brightened—“so if we bring the crown to him, like we mean to give it to him—”

“We can capture him, bring him back to the old hag, and present our proof that the woodcurse is worse than she knows.”

“And capturing him may give us some answers, too, as to what happened in the wood, how the curse grew powerful, why it attacked now,” Daisy added, nodding. “This is, of course, a terrible idea—”

“It’s not that bad.”

“—but I think it’s the best we have.”

I spread my arms wide. “Thank you! Finally! Some confidence!”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll never change. What do you want me to do? Say good job and scratch you behind the ears?”

“I do love those scratches,” I teased, and glanced back to the guards again. “But I think that might have to wait. If we’re going to nab that crown from the Grandmaster, we’re going to need to shake them first.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?”

I offered my hand to her. “We have some fun.”