Page 68 of Fae Crown

Wistful, he whispered, “Of the entire Mirror World.” He glanced down beneath the bed, at where his real feet should have been, I guessed. “She woulda never done this to me.”

When he appeared to lose himself to the melancholy of his past, I gently asked, “Why did … well, why did the queen, Talisa that is, take your legs? What was her reason for it?”

He continued to stare at his substitute legs.

“I do believe no reason could possibly justify what she did,” I added.

Eventually, he looked at me. His eyes were blank, free of the emotion that had brimmed so freely in them when he’d defended Pru.

I was opening my mouth to offer a “never mind,” that I didn’t need to know, when he said, in a steady voice that was also carefully blank: “Long before Erasmus became king, I was appointed to attend to him. When he was naught but a boy.”

My breath hitched in my tender throat as I anticipated more.

“As you surely know, his brother Lohan was in line to inherit the throne.”

“Assume I know nothing. I was raised far from here.”

His brow bunched, but all he said was, “Right. Once Lohan disappeared and was presumed dead, and Erasmus ascended to rule, he grew dark. I was worried, though there seemed naught I could do. I was discussing the matter with fellow goblins, and Talisa somehow overheard. She decided I was to be punished and banished from the court. The latter was no problem for me. I didn’t want to be there anymore anyway. But the punishment…”

He pursed his lips.

“Please,” I nudged gently. “Go on.”

“She had my legs hacked off, the skin flayed from my back, and then some of the scales from my legs sewn onto my back.”

I felt my mouth gape before asking, “Why?”

“I don’t know. But the scales stuck to my back wherever they were sewn on. By the time I was able to try to remove them, it was too late.”

“You would have had to flay yourself again to get them off,” I whispered in perfect understanding. Hearing him talk like this made it easier to forget that just minutes ago he’d been hurting me.

“Aye. I decided being flayed once was enough.”

“I don’t blameyou.”

“To this day, I still don’t know how Talisa ever found out. The goblins I told, I trust them. They didn’t tell her.”

“She has spies.”

He shook his head. “We were careful. We kept watch. We always did. There were no spies.”

“She’s got spies others can’t see. They float around everywhere, listening and watching. They report back to her, I’m sure.”

He pursed his lips until they paled. “I figured it was something like that. She was just a girl then.”

I doubted Talisa Zafira Tatiana of Embermere had beenjust a girlfor long, if she’d ever been one at all.

“She’s the one keeping my mother here?” I asked.

“Your mother?” he asked with a sharp jerk of his head.

“Yes. Odelia.” It was the oddest experience, not just to know but to acknowledge her asmy mother. How long I’d searched for any information about her. And now … here she was, ten feet from me.

“Dashiell didn’t tell me,” he muttered.

“I’m not surprised. No one bothered to tell me either until very recently. How is she?”

He stared at me for several long seconds. “Not well. Weak. She sleeps.”

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