Page 31 of The Midnight King

“You’re early,” I whisper. “My stepmother is upstairs. I can’t leave until after she drinks this potion and falls asleep.”

“Potion?” He bends over, holding his scarf against his chest while he sniffs at the mug. “There’s no magic in that.”

“Just herbs. But it’s usually effective.”

“Let’s make sure she stays asleep.” He passes his fingers in a circle over the cup and whispers something I don’t understand. “There. That will keep her in dreamland until late tomorrow morning.”

“You’re rather useful, you know,” I tell him.

“Why, thank you.”

“Now hush, and wait here.”

I take the tray and carry it upstairs to the darkened room where my stepmother lies. I leave the bedroom door open, giving her just enough illumination by which to see the tray and drink the potion. She sits up and gestures for me to hand her the mug, but she doesn’t speak to me. I wait patiently until she has drained it all. Then I pick up the tray and leave the room, closing the door behind me.

When I return to the kitchen, the Faerie is tilted back in a chair with his boots propped on the table.

“Off,” I tell him, and he reluctantly swings his feet down again. “Did you bring the dagger?”

He strikes his forehead with his palm. “Shit, I forgot.”

“You what?” I start toward him, incensed, but he holds up a finger and frowns as if he’s thinking. Then, with a flourish of his other hand, he produces a dagger from thin air. It has a poisonous-looking green blade and a hilt like a coiled snake.

“You absolute fiend,” I hiss. “This is not a joking matter.”

“All matters are joking matters,” he replies. “Especially the most serious subjects.”

Instead of dignifying that with a response, I set my foot on his knee. “Try it.”

My stomach flips over with a panicked throb of hope as he brandishes the dagger. If it works, I could be free in a matter of seconds—free forever. I can’t even imagine the wonder of that future.

He sets the blade to the gold band around my ankle and saws against it for several seconds. Then he tries stabbing the anklet. But I can tell by the bend of his brows that if the dagger was going to work, it would have done so immediately.

“It’s alright,” I say, even as my heart goes cold and dark.

“I brought a few other things to try.” A leather satchel appears out of thin air, and he dumps its contents onto the kitchen table. I don’t recognize half the items he brought, but I remain still, watching him smear the anklet with pastes and creams, drizzle it with various liquids, and ply various weapons and objects against it. He even prepares a concoction of herbs, lights it, and waves the smoke back and forth while reciting a spell in some other language.

The anklet doesn’t react to any of it.

“Fuck this fucking thing,” he snarls, pushing my foot off his knee and shoving himself back from the table. With atempestuous burst of glittering blue magic, he explodes every item he brought into puffs of dust, then hurls the satchel into the fireplace. He stands by the mantelpiece, gripping it with one hand, staring into the flames.

“Your stepmother put the anklet on you,” he says. “I’ve figured out that much. She controls you with it, somehow.”

A long sigh pours out of me. It’s an immeasurable relief, just knowing thatsomeoneknows about the truth.

“I’ve seen your scars,” he continues without looking at me. “I know she has made you do terrible things to yourself. And I assume she has laid various laws upon you, under which you must operate—such as the rule that you may not tell anyone about the anklet or its purpose.”

Too overcome to speak, I simply nod.

“I wish I could kill her for you,” he says earnestly. “But I took a vow before the god-stars, years ago, that I would value mortal life and never kill a human. For a Faerie like me, breaking such a vow can have lethal consequences.”

Just my fucking luck.

“Even if I had not taken such a vow, killing her might destroy you as well,” he adds. “That object has been spelled with very powerful magic, and sometimes, if the master of such an object dies, the wearer dies as well, or is forever trapped by the orders the master gave while they were living.”

Dread seeps into my soul. “I didn’t realize that could happen.”

“It’s a very real possibility, unfortunately.” He gives a frustrated sigh. “What I don’t understand is why she choseyouto wear it, instead of someone with greater power and fortune.”

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