ARC: Stolen Songbird

  And there was no way for me to get into trouble, either.

  “And here, I meant to give this to you straight away.” She handed me a dark green envelope. Inside was a green and gold invitation. “Lord Marc is throwing me a party,” I said slowly, once I had read and reread the inscription.

  Zoé nodded. “Then it begins.” She pointed towards the door and the sound of the waterfall returned, making me jump. “Go for a walk,” she said. “It will help clear your head.”

  I was no small amount surprised to discover Albert standing guard outside the door.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again,” I said, tilting my head back so I could look him in the eye.

  He frowned. “Why is that?”

  Perhaps because you chased me through the city and then almost killed one of my dearest friends. And put a bee in the bonnet of His Royal Crankiness in the process. “Never mind,” I grumbled. “Take me to the glass gardens.”

  He led me through the maze of quiet palace corridors and out an entrance in the rear.

  “The paths are lit,” he said. “Don’t wander off them.”

  I set off, the white gravel on the pathway crunching beneath my feet. On either side rose glass hedgerows, each branch and leaf blown with exquisite attention to detail, guiding me towards the center of the garden. I paused from time to time to examine delicate flowers, bushes, and even trees that soared beyond the pools of light cast by the widely spaced lampposts. There was beauty all around me, but it was like walking in any garden in the darkness of night – I had no sense of the whole, only the little pieces revealed by too few circles of light.

  The garden was like the whole city of Trollus – shrouded in mystery but for the few snippets of information revealed by those seeking to use me. Part of me wanted to turn my back on their problems – I wasn’t the one cursed to this place.

  But another part of me was drawn to the half-blood’s conundrum. It seemed unsolvable: on one hand, they had abject slavery, and on the other, almost certain death. What would I choose, if the choice were mine?

  Out of habit, I began to sing to relieve my frustration. Softly at first, but my voice was drowned out by the endless roar of the waterfall, so I sang louder. I could sing over a full orchestra, but tonight I fought the waterfall for supremacy. I walked until I found a gazebo, and it became my stage. I chose the powerful pieces belonging to heroic women, my heart hammering and my lungs aching from the sustained effort. It made me feel alive, stronger than the elements and more powerful than the seas. I sang with my eyes closed and imagined I was in faraway places, free to roam and love as I pleased. When I opened them, it seemed I had been transported far away, to a place not of darkness, but of light. All around me, the garden was glowing with an impossible brilliance. Nothing on this earth could be so beautiful.

  “Heavens,” I gasped, clutching the gazebo railing and blinking at the brilliant light.

  “More like hell, really, but the Artisans’ Guild has done a good job disguising it.” I whirled around. Tristan was standing at the foot of the gazebo steps. “You’ve a lovely voice. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything like it.”

  “That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” I said, my mind reeling. How long had he been standing there listening?

  “Don’t get used to it,” he laughed snidely, turning to go.

  “Wait!” The word was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. Tristan froze, then turned slowly back around to look at me. I hurried down the steps and stopped in front of him. “I wanted to thank you for saving my friend’s life today.”

  He tipped his head to one side, eyes searching my face. “Is that what you think happened?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. His face was smooth, but his unease was a growing knot in the back of my mind. “Albert would have killed him if you hadn’t made him stop.”

  “Albert’s an idiot,” he shrugged. “Christophe didn’t deserve to die just because you foolishly decided to throw yourself on him in public.”

  “You know his name?” I asked, surprised.

  “I know all their names. What of it? I’m sure you know the names of all your pigs.”

  I rolled my eyes at the comparison. “I’m just surprised you bother, given that you supposedly hate us so much.”

  One eyebrow rose. “Supposedly?”

  “It’s what I’ve been told,” I said. “Although if you do hate humans, then you wouldn’t have cared if it was my fault or not. You’d have killed him anyway. And don’t give me any of that nonsense about humans being tools.”

  “Nonsense?” A faint smile drifted across his face.

  “Quit parroting my words back at me,” I snapped, “and answer my question.”

  “But you haven’t asked one.” He tapped his chin with an index finger and waited.

  He was right, I hadn’t. It was sitting on the tip of my tongue: why were you happy when we failed to break the curse? The cynical, logical side of me wondered if he was even more extreme than his father – that he would rather stay in a cage forever than give up an ounce of power – but my gut told me otherwise. He had a reason he was desperate to keep secret. I opened my mouth to ask, but nerves kept the words from coming out.

  Tristan cleared his throat. “When I was a young boy, Jérôme used to let me ride around on his mule. He would tell me stories about what it was like outside, and I would imagine that I was a knight on his horse riding off to save the world. That the curse was broken and we’d escaped Trollus.”

  Was that an answer to my unasked question? I wasn’t certain. “Do you still dream of escape?”

  He closed his eyes and his misery rushed over me. “Yes, but I don’t call them dreams anymore.”

  “What do you call them?”

  “Nightmares,” he said, so softly I barely heard him. He was shaken, visibly so, but I didn’t understand why. What about coming out into the world above terrified him so much?

  “My lady?” Zoé’s voice made me jump and I turned, half expecting to see her right behind me, but her dancing orb of light was still over by the hedgerows.

  “She probably thinks I’m lost,” I started to explain, but when I turned around, Tristan was already some distance away and walking quickly.

  “My lady?” Zoé called again, and I could hear the concern in her voice.

  “Over here,” I called and she hurried over. Albert, I noticed, was with her. “You should come in now, my lady. It is getting quite late.”

  “Quite late,” I echoed, my eyes searching for Tristan’s light.

  “Was there someone out here with you, my lady? I thought I heard voices.” Albert was watching me intently, and I felt a shiver run through me like ants marching down my spine.

  Zoé gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Don’t tell.

  “No,” I lied, not knowing exactly why. “I was just talking to myself.”

  He frowned. “Who lit up the garden then?”

  I tensed.

  “Oh don’t be such a boor, Albert,” Zoé said, smiling winsomely at him. “The poor thing is miserable – I thought the gardens would cheer her up a bit.”

  “Only royals or members of the Artisans’ Guild are allowed to light the garden, Zoé,” he chided, but I could see he wasn’t immune to her charms, half-blood or not.

  “I know.” She lowered her head. “You won’t tell, will you?”

  “I suppose not,” he said, motioning for us to start towards the palace. “Not unless I’m asked, at least. I would not care to see you punished.”

  The girl smiled at the hulking troll, but said nothing.

  I kept my mouth shut, but my mind was whirling about like some great machine. Zoé had just lied. Not overtly, of course, but the effect was the same. But why was she covering for Tristan’s presence when the whole city knew that we were bonded? Why was she covering for him at all when by all accounts she should hate his noble guts?

  What were they trying to hide?

  CHAPTER
12

  TRISTAN

  “Idiot, idiot, idiot,” I muttered to myself as I navigated through the gardens away from Cécile, hoping Zoé would be quick-thinking enough to conceal my presence. I needed my association with Cécile kept at a minimum, or I’d risk questions arising over why I had suddenly changed my tune about her. What had I been thinking? If anyone knew I had followed her into the gardens like a lovesick puppy and then lit them up in a moronic attempt to impress her, it would undermine the purpose of my performance in the market today.

  It had been a risky move to intervene and save Jérôme’s son’s life. I’d thought I’d played the circumstances well enough to hide my true motivations, but if Cécile, who’d only known me for the space of a day and knew nothing about politics, suspected me, then a savvy bastard like Angoulême was bound to have seen through my act.

  Sure enough, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye as I crossed the bridge into the city proper. Plastering a smile on my face, I tipped my hat to Angoulême’s man, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Not that it mattered. I never bothered trying to lose them anyway.

  Keeping Christophe alive hadn’t been up for debate, but following Cécile into the gardens and telling her the truth? Inexcusable. For one, I couldn’t trust her, and two, the more she knew the greater danger she was in. If everyone believed her to be nothing more than a failed experiment in my father’s quest to break the curse, they’d let her be. But the minute anyone thought she could be used against me…

  I ground my teeth in frustration. I hadn’t thought it would be this hard, even though Marc had warned me. “The bond changes everything,” he’d said. “Whether you like her or not, keeping her safe will become your ultimate priority.” Lo and behold, I’d been awake all of last night fretting about the tiny cut on her foot and whether the cold damp of the city would cause her to catch a chill. She’d shivered uncontrollably in her sleep until I’d warmed up the room, forcing me to spend the rest of the night dripping sweat.

  And that voice. The strange acoustics of Trollus had filled the city with her song, luring me to her. And when I’d seen her standing in the dark, so fierce and defiant with hair like flames trailing loose down her back… If I wasn’t careful, she would be my undoing.

  I turned into the Dregs, negotiating the narrow streets until I came to a ramshackle house leaning against a tavern. Anaïs stood in the shadowy doorway, a smile touching the corners of her lips when she saw me. “You’re late.”

  “My most sincere apologies.”

  She slid her arms around my neck and leaned in for a kiss, but I turned my face at the last minute so that her lips landed on my cheek. For me, this was a ruse – a valid reason to be skulking around the Dregs in the middle of the night; but for Anaïs, it was something more. Nudging the door open with my foot, I swung her across the threshold, her giggles filling the street until I shut the door behind her.

  She clung to me even after I’d dropped my hands from her sides, dangling from my neck like a child. “Let go, Anaïs.”

  “What if I don’t want to?” she purred into my ear, holding on easily without assistance. I walked from room to room with her feet banging against my knees, ensuring we were alone in the house, setting barriers against eavesdroppers and whispering to my magic to set off firecrackers if anyone came in.

  I looked down at Anaïs. “Please?”

  She made a pouty face, but let go of my neck. It was one of the things Angoulême never seemed to understand about his daughter. No one made Anaïs do anything. All you could do was ask and pray she was in an amicable mood. I didn’t thank her though. That would imply she’d done me a favor, and I already owed her enough as it was.

  “You’re in a foul temper,” she said, watching as I tossed my hat across the room before flopping face down on the bed.

  “Tired,” I mumbled into the dank-smelling pillow. “And I missed dinner.”

  “New little wife keep you up all night?”

  I glared at her with one eye. “Don’t start.”

  She shrugged. “There’s already a rumor going about the city that your first-born son will reach out and shatter the barrier with his little fist.”

  “They may have a long wait.”

  “That isn’t what I heard,” Anaïs said, examining the contents of a basket sitting on the floor. “I heard two of my maids talking. They heard from the kitchen staff, who heard from one of the groundsmen, who heard from one of your wife’s maids that you are a vile wheezing hog. The lady Cécile reckons she’s never been so mistreated in all her life, and she’ll never read another romance novel because the knowledge of what she’s missing breaks her heart.” She plucked a pastry from the basket. “Éclair?”

  I munched on one of the pastries and counted the cracks in the ceiling. Well played, Cécile, I thought, if perhaps a tad overacted.

  “I assume she’s lying?” Anaïs nibbled on an éclair, expression mild, but I wasn’t fooled.

  “Assume what you want – it’s none of your business.”

  She laughed. “My business or not, I told my father what I’d heard and added in a bit about how you were never ever cruel to me. Given that he finally thought he’d found a way to discover where your loyalties truly lie, he was furious. He was certain you’d be sweet to her in private.”

  “Of course,” I murmured. Several months ago, Angoulême ordered his daughter to seduce me and spy on my activities to see if she could discover any sympathetic leanings. Anaïs had promptly told me everything. It was she who concocted the plan to pretend to do her father’s bidding, but actually feed him useless information. It had also been her idea, although I was against it, to continue the ruse of her seduction so that I might have a way to meet with the revolutionaries. I hadn’t wanted to damage her reputation, but in the end, her argument had won out. “What does my reputation matter?” she’d said. “I’m afflicted in the worst sort of way, and everyone knows it. There isn’t a man in Trollus who’d risk the odds, even if my reputation were pure as the driven snow.”

  And to my shame, I’d had to agree with her.

  “How is Roland?” I asked. Anaïs hesitated and my heart sunk. “Worse?”

  “Yes and no. His rages in themselves are no worse, but he’s stronger. When he learned you’d bonded the human, he quite lost himself. The servants couldn’t control him and I had to step in.”

  “He’s eight, how strong could he be?”

  “He’s your brother, a Montigny descended from the most powerful trolls to ever walk this earth. Another few years and only a handful of us will have the power to hold him. By the time he’s grown, he’ll be nearly unstoppable. My father believes he can control him, but he’s a fool. The boy’s insane, Tristan.” She coiled a finger around a lock of hair and nibbled on the ends – a nervous habit she’d never been able to break. “I know it’s a hard thing to consider, but…”

  “No.”

  She threw up her hands. “Tristan, not only is he a danger to everyone around him, as long as he lives, he also puts everything you’ve worked for at risk. A steel knife in the heart would solve all our problems.”

  “No!”

  The air in the room grew hot, but Anaïs didn’t flinch. “You’re being a sentimental fool, which is something a king cannot afford to be.”

  “Perhaps, but neither should he be a murderer. Not even my father murders trolls.” Though he’d torture them to the point that they wished they were dead…

  “And here I thought you were against discrimination… but it would appear that even you, with your lofty morals, value troll lives over those of your precious humans.”

  I shot her a dark look. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Are you certain?” Her eyes searched mine. “I know some of them are precious little pets to you, but is it possible you weigh our lives equally with theirs?” Anaïs sighed. “I, myself, do not. Oh, I recognize the need to treat them well or risk another embargo, but within reason. We are better, a high
er level of being. It is like comparing dragons to mice.”

  “There are no dragons here any longer, Anaïs,” I chided.

  “I know.” There was longing on her face. “But when the curse is broken, perhaps they will come back. All the others, too.”

  The witch had been more than savvy in her cursing. My people were not the only ones who looked for her death. “All things are possible,” I said, and Anaïs was too lost in her own thoughts to notice my non-committal response.

  The silence stretched. “We have little power to control such things,” Anaïs finally said. “But we can resolve the matter of your brother.”

  “Leave the matter be, Anaïs. I’m no murderer, and I’m certainly not going to kill an inno… a child.” My voice caught on the word. Innocent, Roland was not.

  She tilted her head to one side. “Of course you’re not, that’s why I’d do it for you.”

  Leaping to my feet, I leveled a shaking finger at her. “Anaïstromeria, you will not…” I broke off before giving the order, and slowly turned away. I could hear the sound of her ragged breathing. A bead of sweat dripped down my neck as the temperature rose, her magic responding to her fury.

  “I gave you my true name as a token of trust, Tristan. To demonstrate my loyalty to you and you alone. Not so that you could use it to compel me whenever we disagreed.”

  Her voice was bitter, and I had to fight down the wave of guilt it inspired. Not only because of what I’d nearly done to Anaïs, but because it occurred to me that I’d lost count of the number of true names I possessed, the number of trolls I had the complete power to compel. It was a power I never intended to use – it was enough that they knew I could, but chose not to.

  “It’s time,” she said, handing over my hat. “They’ll be waiting for you now. You’ve only got about another half-hour until curfew.”

  Glad to have a reason to drop the conversation, I pushed the bed aside, lifted the trapdoor, and jumped into the tunnel leading to the cellar of the tavern next door. When I emerged, they were all there waiting for me. Hair more brown than black, eyes more grey than silver, I could feel the weakness of their magic, could tell even with my eyes closed that everyone in the room was half-blood. Except for the one human. I frowned at Esmeralda, who leaned against the wall. Her patience with my timeline was growing thin. I would have to find an excuse to get her out of Trollus before she caused any more trouble.