Page 8 of Fae Crown

My smile was soft. “I know. It’s my nickname for her.”

“Nick … name?”

“Like you, when we first met, she wouldn’t tell me her name. I refused to call her ‘goblin,’ so I chose one for her.” I shrugged, the silk of the robe almost sliding off one shoulder. “It stuck.”

“It … stuck.”

“Yes.” The goblin’s shock at one of them being treated as an individual instead of a faceless slave was yet another reason why the queen needed to die a bloody, gory, agonizing death.

“Anyway, I’m not sure if Pru shared with any of you, but I can see the queen’s spies. And there aren’t any in my chambers at the moment. So you can speak freely.”

When the she-goblin only hesitated, I added, “You can trust me. I’ll never do anything to hurt you, Pru, or any other goblin. I swear it.”

I’d believed her eyes couldn’t grow any larger. And yet somehow they did.

“You’d … swear an oath to a goblin?” Her voice was thready.

“I would and I just did.” I only abstained from sharing about the blood oath with Pru in case it might get my friend in trouble. I knew little about the workings of the court, but I understood even less about the goblins. About any of the fae creatures, really.

“What is it you know?” I asked.

First checking over either shoulder, she tippedtoward me. “Milady iscertainHer Majesty can’t hear us?”

“Entirely.” As soon as the reply was out of my mouth, I had to swallow a grimace. Could I ever be fully sure about anything when it came to the queen? She was more powerful than anyone else in the Mirror World.

When the she-goblin continued to hesitate, I urged, “Please. Any help you can offer me will be so amazing. I intend to take down the queen.”

Her mouth dropped open, revealing spindly, sharp teeth.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, but everything to gain, I confessed, “I’m the secret daughter of the king and the queen’s eldest sister, Odelia.”

Her next inhale wheezed with her shock before she barely breathed, “The daughter of Odelia Catalina Corisande?”

“The very one.”

The she-goblin wrung her knobby fingers in front of her chest. “The daughter … is milady quite certain?”

“As certain as I can be given that I’ve never met my mother, yes.”

“Then…” Fervently, she nodded her head, seeming to come to some decision. “My brother attends to Lord Ivar.”

Oh, this was going to be good. I slid to the edge of my seat. “Yes?”

Knock, knock.

The she-goblin shrieked, shuffled backward, andtoppled from her stepstool with another squeal while I lunged to catch her. She landed on her behind with athump, muffled by the rug.

Immediately, I extended a hand to her. But she scuttled backward and out of reach as if my touch were contagious. After she scrambled to her floppy feet—so pointedly without my assistance—she ran across my bedchamber and through the antechamber.

Knock, knock, knock—louder this time.

She squeaked before I heard her finally pulling open the door.

Beyond startling the crap out of my would-be goblin confessor, the knocking also woke the dragonling who’d been sleeping soundly on the chaise since the night before.

He went from asleep to groggy to fully alert and whipping his head every which way, searching for me, in a matter of seconds.

While what sounded like a guard informed the goblin that “Her Majesty expects the Lady Elowyn at the Great Salon of Delicacies in twenty minutes,” Saffron leapt off the chaise, tearing into the luxurious brocade fabric—ripppppp—with his already dangerous claws. In a few loping bounds, he was on my lap, which didn’t fit him any longer, his claws snagging on my silk robe, likely ruining it as well.

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