No, that isn’t right. Jude is on guard every hour of every day of her life.

Not to mention that iron wouldn’t have slowed her in the least.

If he gets himself killed like this, she is never going to let him live it down.

“Even the High King cannot withstand iron,” Aslog says, walking toward the pit, peering down at him. Above her, he can see the trees and the bright, full moon, a shining coin of silver spinning through the sky. The first blush of sunrise on the horizon is still a ways off, and from this angle, Cardan may not even see it.

The troll woman bends and comes back up with a long pole. It looks as though someone has taken a rake and replaced the head with a black spike. She kneels down and uses it to stab at him as though she’s a spearfisher after a marlin.

She misses twice, but the third strike scrapes his shoulder. He drops out of her range, holding the chair between them as a shield.

Aslog laughs. “It steals even your power, kingling.”

Heart beating hard, lying in the dust of the iron filings, he reaches out with his magic. He can feel the land, can still draw something from it. But when he reaches toward the trees with his will, intending to bring their branches toward him, his control slips. The iron dust dulls his abilities.

He reaches the tendrils of his magic out again and sees the branches shiver, feels them dip. Perhaps if he concentrates very hard...

Aslog shoves her makeshift spear at him again. He uses the seat of the chair to block it, making the metal clang like a bell.

“This is silly,” he says to Aslog. “You’ve trapped me. I can’t go anywhere, so there’s no harm in talking.”

He rights the rusty chair and sits, dusting off as many of the iron filings as he can from his person, no matter how they scorch his hands. He crosses his legs, deliberately casual.

“Is there something you wish to say to me before I spear you through?” she asks, but does not strike. “You came to my woods, kingling, and insulted me with your offer of justice. Do you think it is only Queen Gliten whom I wish to punish? Your father might be dead, but that means someone else must inherit what I owe him.”

He takes a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story.”

“You?” she says. “A story?”

“Once upon a time,” he says, looking up. His shoulder is throbbing. He feels like a child again, like the boy in the stables. “There was a boy with a clever tongue.”

“Oh ho!” She laughs. “This is familiar.”

“Perhaps,” he says with a smile that he hopes will disguise his nerves. He thinks about the way Locke told stories, inventing them as he went, spinning them in the direction that might best delight the listener, and hopes desperately he can do the same. “Now, the boy lived on an island where he made a nuisance of himself, finding ways to belittle people that made them hate themselves, but hate him more. He was awful to the village maidens, favoring his wit over kisses. Perhaps he had reasons to be awful, perhaps he was born bad, but no matter. None of it gave him much pleasure, so he went into the woods where a troll woman lived and begged her to turn his heart to stone.”

“That’s an interesting variation,” she says. She looks pleased, though, and drags one of the rusted, creaking chairs to the edge of the pit, settling herself in it amiably.

“He was angry,” Cardan says, this part coming easily. “And a fool. Thereafter, he could feel neither pleasure nor pain, not fear nor hope. At first, it seemed like the blessing he had supposed it would be. With a heart of stone, he had no reason to stay in his village, and so he took up what few possessions he had and set off across the sea to seek his fortune.

“Eventually, he landed at a town and found work doing labor for a tavern—carrying barrels of ale into the earthen root cellar along with carts of onions, wheels of cheese, turnips, and bottles of a thin and sour wine that the tavernkeeper watered down for guests. He was the one sent to break the necks of chickens and toss out drunks who could no longer pay for another round. He was paid little but allowed to sleep on the hard wood next to the dying fire and given as many bowls of greasy soup as he could eat.

“But as he lay there, he overheard two men speaking about an unusual contest. A wealthy warlord sought someone to marry his daughter. All one had to do was pass three nights in her company without showing fear. Neither man was willing to go, but the boy resolved that since his heart was stone, he would, and pass his life in ease.”

“A warlord?” The troll woman looks skeptical.

“That’s right,” he affirms. “Very violent. Possibly making war on so many people was how his daughter wound up under a curse.”

“Do you know why the Folk can tell stories?” she asks, leaning forward and causing rust to fall around her chair. Her huge body makes it look sized for a child. “We who can never tell a lie. How can we do it?”

She speaks as though she supposes he’s never asked himself that same question, but he has. Many times, he has.

Cardan tries not to let his nerves show. “Because stories tell a truth, if not precisely the truth.”

She sits back, mollified. “Be sure yours does, little king, or it will dry up in your mouth, along with my patience.”

He tries not to let that rattle him as he goes on. “That night, he told the tavernkeeper exactly what he thought of him and walked out, making another enemy for no reason at all.

“He took his boat from the dock and made for the warlord’s land. When he arrived, the warlord looked him up and down, then shook his head, already certain of the boy’s fate. Still, he would allow him to try to break his daughter’s curse. ‘If you spend three nights with her, then you will marry and inherit all I possess,’ the warlord told him. Looking around the massive estate, the boy thought that wealth would bring him, if not pleasure, then at least idleness.

“But as evening came on, the boy was aware of the strangeness of feeling nothing at all. He ate food finer than he had ever tasted, but it brought him no enjoyment. He was bathed and dressed in clothing more elegant than he’d ever seen, but he might as well have worn rags for all the satisfaction it gave him. He had begged for the heart of stone, but for the first time, he felt the weight of it in his chest. He wondered if he ought to be afraid of what was to come. He wondered if there was something profoundly wrong with him that he could not.

“As night fell, he was led to a chamber with a curtained bed. He walked around the room and noted the way the plaster of the walls was scarred with claw marks. He pulled back the coverlets, and feathers flew out in a cloud to dust the floor. As he discovered what seemed eerily like a bloodstain on the rug, she entered, a monster covered in fur, her mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. It was only his heart of stone that kept him rooted in place, although he was almost certain he had heard the door being bolted behind him. He knew that if he ran, he was dead.

“They stayed like that for a while, the boy uncertain whether she would attack him if he moved, and the monster seemingly waiting for some sign of fear. Finally, the boy approached her. He touched the light fur of her jaw, and she leaned against his palm, rubbing her head like a cat.” Cardan pauses. The story is almost at an end, and he has to keep Aslog listening a little longer. He wishes he could see the edge of the horizon, wishes he could tell the time by it, but all he has to judge the hour by is fading starlight. “They sat together through the night, the monster curling up on the rug and the boy gazing down at her. For though he had known the magic of the troll woman’s curse, he had never known magic like this. Though his heart was as hard and cold as ever, he wondered what he would feel were it not.