Page 144 of Trick

Stalking to the vanity, I braced my hands on the tabletop and bent forward. The princess translated my silence as permission to explain my secret. We could only hope that Eliot’s affections ensured a measure of trust and that my rejection hadn’t embittered him.

Behind me, their voices blurred. I glared at them in the mirror’s reflection. “Where is he?”

Briar and Eliot wheeled toward me. She said, “They took him to a cell.”

“Have you seen him? Did they hurt him?”

“He’s unharmed, but—”

The back of my arm lashed out at the vials and pots of pigment. They launched off the vanity and crashed to the floor, where they shed glass and bled color across the stones. The piercing noise split the room in half.

The minstrel veered back. The princess hastened in my direction.

“Don’t,” I said, halting her. “Get on with it.”

Briar explained about Jinny and the ribbons. The scarlet one I had bestowed on her—which she’d tied to a bush whilst stalking me—had caught Nicu’s attention. He saw the carnival, then the stronghold and its swarm of people.

I’d taught him to follow those bands. Because of that, my son slept in a dungeon whilst I stood multiple levels above him.

“We returned by the same path,” I bit out. “You should have retrieved the ribbon.”

“I was blindfolded,” she reminded me. “I had been too distracted by that to bear the ribbon in mind, but you’re right. I should have been prudent.”

She wasn’t the only one. If only she hadn’t been blindfolded. If only one of us had remembered during our return.

The princess informed me of the guard positioned at the top of the stairway, plus the one stationed below amid the dungeon’s cells. I felt an urge to charge toward the window, or back to my chair, or I didn’t fucking know where. No corner of this room seemed favorable. My feet paced over the mess I’d made, my boots tracking golds, smearing reds, and coating everything in blacks.

If anyone touched my son, I would decimate them. If anyone so much as looked at Nicu the wrong way, they’d be dead once I found them.

My fingers itched for a weapon, for a hundred blades to throw, to hit my marks. I wouldn’t miss, for I never did.

“Maybe you could speak to the Crown,” Eliot suggested. “They treasure you. If you tell them, they might make an allowance.”

“No,” Briar protested. “Poet’s been hiding this for a year. Even if that didn’t offend Basil and Fatima, they won’t make a public exception, and it doesn’t change the law. Nicu would belong to them in some capacity.” She turned to me. “Poet, don’t take that chance.”

“What, then?” Eliot demanded.

I spun toward him, peering into his face for a shred of deception. He gaped, baffled and wounded. I made no effort to disguise my skepticism, nor was I the person he thought, nor had I confided in him as I had Briar. Were he like a thousand other people in this palace, I would have expected resentment or disgust.

But he wasn’t like them. Instead, Eliot took the brunt of my glower until I thawed. “I need your trust.”

“Seasons, Poet,” he murmured. “You don’t have to ask.”

Asking would have been the least of it. I would have gotten on my knees and begged. Without hesitation, I would kneel before an executioner, if it came to that.

Briar gripped my shoulder, “We’re breaking Nicu out of there.”

“Wait.” Eliot swung toward her. “We’re doingwhat?”

“It’s our only choice.”

“For shit’s sake, you’re a Royal. Use your authority and make something up. Say the boy’s from Autumn.”

“I did that to see him, but it won’t get past my mother. She will know he’s not Autumn’s property. She’llknowhe’s of Spring.”

The means to determine an Autumn citizen from a Spring one stemmed from a person’s lack of documentation and intimate knowledge of the culture. Though less official, certain overt facets of one’s personality confirmed their roots as well.

My heart shouted and raged. Yet the new trade amendment offered another option.

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