She wiped her eyes, nodding, then hugged me. I patted her back, racking my brain to think if I missed anything. “Thoma has hair like yours. Fair. If they don’t understand my clues, cry. He’s a sap and likes to take in strays.”
She smiled at that.
“You need a cloak.” I used the smallest blanket on a chair near the fireplace, and tore a hole in the middle, then yanked it over her head. “Not my best work, but you won’t freeze.”
She squeezed me again.
“This is my fault, Petal. I’m so sorry to have brought this on you, but you’ll be safe there. Now go.”
The hallway empty, I watched as she jogged in the shadowed corners at first, then slipped behind a tapestry I hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps she too knew the ways through the secret passages.
I closed and locked the door.
Pacing, I went over my entire conversation with the prince, all the simple clues I’d left him. He could trace my explanation of the sale to the market. With a little interrogation of the vendors, he would find the pregnant woman, and his mother’s ring. Petal should be safe then. But if I was in the Middle, he would wonder why.
He would think I was going to the Oughtnoch to see the draignoch he captured because I had foolishly told him I wanted her released. There he would learn there had been a struggle. When interrogated, my opponent would describe what we looked like. And that would lead them back to me, but also, to Griffin. The prince would know there was more between us than a kiss. My stomach knotted until I wanted to vomit.
I was coming between Griffin and the crown.
I would be his undoing.
Music and conversation drifted out of the Great Hall as I came down the stairs in another new dress from the prince. Green this time. Xavier waited for me outside the Great Hall, beside the cheetah, draped in red robes. His gems and bones in place. He reeked of so much rose oil I held my nose as I approached him.
“Maggie.” He sounded so relieved it broke my heart. “You’re here. When I didn’t see you on the balcony, I worried that . . .” He let out a long sad breath, shaking his head dismissively. “Well, at least you don’t plan on leaving me to the king’s hounds.”
“What do you mean?”
His lips pressed into a thin line. His glare floated, searching for guards and their distance from them. It was sufficient.
“Do you want to do the same show as last time?” I pressed, running my fingers up and over the rough fur on the back of the poor stuffed animal. “Shall there be a cheetah chasing after Sir Griffin, or perhaps the king? I’m told it hurts.”
“No. Not the king. Never!” Xavier’s head cocked like a curious owl. “Tell me, Maggie, why is it I can do nothing on my own, and yet with you beside me, there is something?” His face dipped into a deep angry frown. “Has this been the truth of you all these years? Are you a snake beneath a rock, waiting for a time to strike?”
“You killed the snake and drank its blood. I don’t want to strike at anyone. I only want to leave and—”
“No!” He slapped me then, hard. He grabbed my arms by the wrists, pinning them at my sides, speaking in hush tones. “I could have left you to die, but I didn’t. I stayed by your side. You will stay by mine. You will never leave. You will make this magic look as though it comes from me tonight, and every night. And you will do all that the king asks. You will manifest a cheetah and send it after Sir Cornwall of the North. That is what the king has asked and that is what will be done.”
I twisted my wrists, trying to break his grip.
“Xavier, stop!”
Prince Jori stepped out of the Great Hall. “Xavier, Maggie, what’s taking so long? The guests are waiting.”
Sir Raleigh trailed after him, a sardonic smile curling his lips at my reddening cheek.
Xavier let go and my hands went to cover the pain. “I’m not feeling well. I . . . I think I should go back to my room.”
“But Xavier needs you, Maggie,” the prince said in a sickeningly sweet tone. “Come. Perform and I’ll make sure your meal is brought to your room after.”
“No.”
Jori walked behind me and leaned over my shoulder. “This is what I want, Maggie. Can you please do this, for me? You want Griffin, you want your dragon. You want. You want. I want you go into that hall and help put on a magnificent show—for Xavier’s benefit.”
Did he know? Did he know for certain now that I was the source of Xavier’s magic? I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Word was spreading throughout the Middle. The prince didn’t threaten Griffin or Rendicryss in words, but the implication was there, nonetheless. It changed nothing. I wanted my dragon. I didn’t want Griffin hurt because of me. I would have to figure another way out of all of this.
Perhaps using the moon’s gift.
I nodded.
“Good. You see, Xavier? She can do as she’s told.”
When I returned, dinner was in my room as promised, but I wasn’t hungry. I vacillated between telling Griffin about the incident with the prince, or guarding that information. The only way I was getting out of this place was by using my power. I didn’t necessarily need Griffin for that, but I cared for him, more than I wanted to let on to him. He was becoming . . . important to me. For those reasons, I decided to keep the incident from him. If he turned on the crown completely, it would likely be the end of him.
I shifted the bed to better glimpse the moon, then stared at it until my eyes glossed over. Step one was for it to be there when I called. I held my hand up. With little thought, the moon reached out to greet me.
I smiled greedily. “That was easy.” It was as if we were two halves of a whole. Bathed in the cool white beam, I felt its power coursing through my veins.
A large hand grabbed my ankle. I yelped, startled, and whipped my hand down. A beam cut across the legs of the bedside table. It collapsed. A bowl of floating rose petals toppled all over Griffin’s head.
“Ow.”
“I’m so sorry!” Concentration fled through the window with the fleeting moonlight.
He climbed the rest of the way out from beneath the bed, and immediately examined the table’s cut legs. “How did you do this?”
Griffin was wearing the same thing he had at dinner: a red linen shirt, a fur-lined brown leather vest, and similar-colored trousers.
“I don’t know.”
“That, Maggie of the Hinterlands, will not be good enough anymore.” His expression serious and brooding, he showed me the wood, the edges steaming, the cold of my moon touch fighting a losing battle against the warmth in the room. “From now on you have to dissect every motion you make, every sensation you feel, and every action the moonlight takes in response. I have been thinking about this since we left the Oughtnoch.”
“Clearly.” My resolve waned. I had to tell Griffin at least part of what I knew. “Griffin, Jori saw us in the barn.”
His fallen expression told me all I needed to know.
“You should go. I’m putting you in danger.”
He laughed much harder than necessary.
“How is that funny?”
He picked up my hand and ran my fingers across the scars on his face. “I put me in danger all the time. You let me worry about me. We have two days. Tomorrow, Cornwall fights. And then I’m in the arena with Rendicryss. I’m sure of it. That is when you will free her.”