A well-seasoned strategist waits for the right opportunity.

I push past a trio of goblins and a troll and one of the Still Folk. A spriggan growls at me, but I don’t pay any mind. The end of the coronation is in sight. I see goblets and tankards being refilled.

Up on the dais, Balekin has left his place with the other princes and princesses. For a moment, I think it’s part of the ceremony—until he draws a long, thin blade, one I recognize from his horrible duel with Cardan. I stop moving.

“Brother,” Prince Dain admonishes.

“I will not accept you,” Balekin says. “I have come to challenge you for the crown.” All around the dais, I see knights unsheathing blades. But neither Elowyn nor Eldred, nor any of the rest of them—not Val Moren nor Taniot nor Rhyia—is equipped. Only Caelia pulls out a knife from her bodice, the blade too small to be of much use.

I want to draw my own sword, but everyone is pressed in too tightly.

“Balekin,” Eldred says sternly. “Child. The High Court cannot be like the lower Courts. We have no blood inheritance. No duel with your brother will induce me to place a crown on your unworthy head. Content yourself with my choice. Do not humiliate yourself before all of Faerie.”

“This ought only be between us,” Balekin says to Dain, not acknowledging that his father had even spoken. “There is no High Monarch now. There is no one but us and a crown.”

“I need not fight you,” Dain says, gesturing out toward the knights grouped thickly around the dais, waiting for an order. Madoc is among them, but I am not close enough to see more than that. “And you are not worthy of even that much regard.”

“Then have this on your conscience.” Balekin walks two steps and thrusts out his arm. He doesn’t even look in the direction he’s thrusting, but his blade pierces Elowyn’s throat. Someone shrieks, then everyone does. For a moment, the wound is just a blotch against her skin, and then blood pours out, a river of red. She staggers forward, going to her hands and knees. Gold fabric and glittering gems are drowning in scarlet.

It was a mere flick of Balekin’s blade, an almost nonchalant gesture.

Eldred’s hand comes up. I think he means to conjure up the same magic that made the roots grow, made the branches of the throne bloom and twine. But that power is gone; he gave it up with his kingdom. Instead, the newly budded flowers of the throne brown and wither.

The crow on Val Moren’s shoulder takes to wing, cawing as it flies toward the roots hanging down from the hollow roof of the hill.

“Guards,” Dain says, in a voice that expects to be obeyed. None of the knights advance toward the dais, though. As one, they turn so their backs are to the royal family and their swords to the assemblage. They’re allowing this to happen, allowing Balekin to stage his coup.

But I cannot believe that this is Madoc’s plan. Dain is his friend. Dain campaigned with him. Dain is going to reward him once he’s the High King.

The crowd surges, carrying me with it. Everyone is moving, pushing forward or away from the gruesome tableau. I see the salt-haired king of the Court of Termites try to wade toward the fight, but his own knights get in front of him, holding him back. My family is gone. I look around for Cardan, but he is lost in the crowd.

It is all happening so fast. Caelia has run to the High King’s side. She has her small knife, barely long enough to be a weapon, but she holds it bravely. Taniot crouches over Elowyn’s body, trying to stem the tide of blood with the skirts of her dress.

“What do you say now, Father?” Balekin demands. “Brother?”

Two bolts fly from the shadows, thudding into Balekin’s side. He staggers forward. The cloth of his doublet appears ripped, a gleam of metal underneath. Armor. I scan the rafters for the Ghost.

I am an agent of the prince as surely as he is. It’s my duty to get to Dain. I shove forward again. In my head I can see a vision of the future, like a story I am telling myself, a clear, shining narrative to contrast with the chaos around me. Somehow, I will get to the prince and defend him against Balekin’s treachery until the loyal members of his guard reach us. I will be the hero, the one who put herself between the traitors and her king.

Madoc gets there before I do.

For a brief moment, I am relieved. His commanders’ loyalty might be bought, but Madoc would never—

Then Madoc thrusts his sword through Dain’s chest with such force that the blade emerges on the other side. He drags it up, through his rib cage, to his heart.

I stop moving and let the crowd flow around me. I am still as stone.

I see a flash of white bone, of wet red muscle. Prince Dain, who was almost the High King, falls on top of the gem-crusted red cloak of state, his spilling blood lost in the jumble of jewels.

“Traitors,” Eldred whispers, but his voice is amplified by the space. The word feels as though it rings through the hall.

Madoc pauses and then sets his jaw, as though he is doing some grim duty. He is wearing his red cap now, the one I saw sticking out of his pocket, the one I have studied in its case. Tonight he will freshen it. There will be new tide lines. But I cannot believe he is doing this on anyone’s orders.

He must have allied with Balekin, misdirected Dain’s spies. Put his own commanders in place, to keep the royal family isolated from anyone who would help them. Urged Balekin to orchestrate a strike at the one time no one would expect it. Even figured out that the only way not to trigger the crown’s death curse was to move when it rested on no one’s head. Knowing him as I do, I am sure he planned this coup.

Madoc has betrayed Eldred, and Dain is gone, taking all my hopes and plans with him.

Coronations are a time when many things are possible.

Balekin looks insufferably satisfied with himself. “Give me the crown.”

Eldred drops the circlet from his hand. It rolls a little ways across the floor. “Take it yourself if it’s what you so desire.”

Caelia is making a terrible keening sound. Rhyia stares at the crowd in horror. Val Moren stands beside Eldred, his narrow poet’s face pale. With the knights circling it, the dais is like a terrible stage, where all the players are doomed to run through their roles to the same bloody end.

Madoc’s hands are gloved in red. I cannot stop staring at them.

Balekin lifts the High Crown. The golden oak leaves glitter with the light of candle flame. “You waited too long to depart the throne, Father. You have become weak. You let traitors rule little fiefdoms, the power of the low Courts goes unchecked, and the wild fey do as they like. Dain would have been the same, a coward who hid behind intrigues. But I am not afraid of bloodshed.”

Eldred does not speak. He makes no move toward the crown or toward a weapon. He simply waits.

Balekin orders a knight to bring him Taniot. A female redcap in armor steps onto the dais to grab the struggling consort. Taniot’s head lashes back and forth, her long black horns cutting into the redcap knight’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. There are too many knights. Two more step forward, and there is no more struggling.

Balekin draws himself up before his father. “Declare me the High King, put the crown on my head, and you may go from this place, free and unharmed. My sisters will be protected. Your consort will live. Otherwise, I will kill Taniot. I will kill her here in front of everyone, and they will all know that you allowed it.”