I look at him in confusion, the consequences of what I’ve just done—including having to tell Cardan—are hard to think past. But the dress I am wearing is the one I wore before, the one I got from Mother Marrow’s walnut. There’s blood on one sleeve of it now, but it is otherwise the same.

“Did something happen?” I ask again.

“I don’t know?” he asks, puzzled. “Did it? I granted the boon you wanted. Is your father safe?”

Boon?

My father?

Madoc. Of course. Madoc threatened me, Madoc was disgusted by Cardan. But what has he done and what has it to do with dresses?

“Cardan,” I say, trying to be as calm as I can. I go over to the sofa and sit down. It’s not a small couch, but his long legs are on it, blanketed and propped up on pillows. No matter how far from him I sit, it feels too close. “You’ve got to tell me what happened. I haven’t been here for the last hour.”

His expression grows troubled.

“The Bomb came back with the antidote,” he says. “She said you’d be right behind her. I was still so dizzy, and then a guard came, saying that there was an emergency. She went to see. And then you came in, just like she said you would. You said you had a plan.…”

He looks at me, as though waiting for me to jump in and tell the rest of the story, the part I remember. But, of course, I don’t.

After a moment, he closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Taryn.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, because I don’t want to understand.

“Your plan was that your father was going to take half the army, but for him to function independently, he needed to be freed of his vows to the crown. You had on one of your doublets—the ones you always wear. And these odd earrings. Moons and stars.” He shakes his head.

A cold chill goes through me.

As children in the mortal world, Taryn and I would switch places to play tricks on our mother. Even in Faerie, we would sometimes pretend to be each other to see what we could get away with. Would a lecturer be able to tell the difference? Could Oriana? Madoc? Oak? What about the great and mighty Prince Cardan?

“But how did she make you agree?” I demand. “She has no power. She could pretend to be me, but she couldn’t force you—”

He puts his head in his long-fingered hands. “She didn’t have to command me, Jude. She didn’t have to use any magic. I trust you. I trusted you.”

And I trusted Taryn.

While I was murdering Balekin, while Cardan was poisoned and disoriented, Madoc made his move against the crown. Against me. And he did it with his daughter Taryn by his side.

The High King is restored to his own chamber so he may rest. I feed my bloodstained dress to the fire, put on a robe, and plan. If none of the courtiers saw my face before Balekin sent them away, then wrapped in my cloak, I might not have been identified. And, of course, I can lie. But the question of how to avoid blame for the murder of the Undersea’s ambassador pales beside the question of what to do about Madoc.

With half of the army gone along with the general, if Orlagh decides to strike, I have no idea how to repel her. Cardan will have to choose another Grand General and quickly.

And he will have to inform the lower Courts of Madoc’s defection, to make sure it is known he doesn’t speak with the voice of the High King. There must be a way to drive him back to the High Court. He is proud but practical. Perhaps the answer lies in something to do with Oak. Perhaps it means I ought to make my hopes for Oak’s rule less opaque. But all that depends on his not being seen as a traitor, although he is one. I am thinking over all this when a knock comes to my door.

Outside, a messenger, a lilac-skinned girl in royal livery. “The High King requires your presence. I am to conduct you to his chambers.”

I take an unsteady breath. No one else might have seen me, but Cardan cannot fail to guess. He knows whom I went to meet and how late I returned from that meeting. He saw the blood on my sleeve. You command the High King, not the other way around, I remind myself, but the reminder feels hollow.

“Let me change,” I say.

The messenger shakes her head. “The king made it clear I was to ask you to come at once.”

When I get to the royal chambers, I find Cardan alone, dressed simply, sitting in a throne-like chair. He looks wan, and his eyes still shine a bit too much, as though maybe poison lingers in his blood.

“Please,” he says. “Sit.”

Warily, I do.

“Once, you had a proposal for me,” he says. “Now I have one for you. Give me back my will. Give me back my freedom.”

I suck in a breath. I’m surprised, although I guess I shouldn’t be. No one wants to be under the control of another person, although the balance of power between us, in my view, has careened back and forth, despite his vow. My having command of him has felt like balancing a knife on its point, nearly impossible and probably dangerous. To give it up would mean giving up any semblance of power. It would be giving up everything. “You know I won’t do that.”

He doesn’t seem particularly put off by my refusal. “Hear me out. What you want from me is obedience for longer than a year and a day. More than half your time is gone. Are you ready to put Oak on the throne?”

I don’t speak for a moment, hoping he might think his question was rhetorical. When it becomes clear that’s not the case, I shake my head.

“And so you thought to extend my vow. Just how were you imagining doing that?”

Again, I have no answer. Certainly no good one.

It’s his turn to smile. “You thought I had nothing to bargain with.”

Underestimating him is a problem I’ve had before, and I fear will have again. “What bargain is possible?” I ask. “When what I want is for you to make the vow again, for at least another year, if not a decade, and what you want is for me to rescind the vow entirely?”

“Your father and sister tricked me,” Cardan says. “If Taryn had given me a command, I would have known it wasn’t you. But I was sick and tired and didn’t want to refuse you. I didn’t even ask why, Jude. I wanted to show you that you could trust me, that you didn’t need to give me orders for me to do things. I wanted to show you that I believed you’d thought it all through. But that’s no way to rule. And it’s not really even trust, when someone can order you to do it anyway.

“Faerie suffered with us at each other’s throats. You attempted to make me do what you thought needed to be done, and if we disagreed, we could do nothing but manipulate each other. That wasn’t working, but simply giving in is no solution. We cannot continue like this. Tonight is proof of that. I need to make my own decisions.”

“You said you didn’t mind so much, listening to my orders.” It’s a paltry attempt at humor, and he doesn’t smile.

Instead, he looks away, as though he can’t quite meet my eyes. “All the more reason not to allow myself that luxury. You made me the High King, Jude. Let me be the High King.”

I fold my arms protectively over my chest. “And what will I be? Your servant?” I hate that he’s making sense, because there is no way I can give him what he’s asking. I can’t step aside, not with Madoc out there, not with so many threats. And yet I cannot help recalling what the Bomb said about Cardan’s not knowing how to invoke his connection to the land. Or what the Roach said, about Cardan’s thinking of himself as a spy pretending to be a monarch.