“Not bad,” I tell my sister.

Taryn grins. “Get up there. I want to see the whole picture.”

I sit in the chair, my back straight, and look out at the dancing flames. Taryn gives me a very mortal thumbs-up.

“Okay,” I say. “Then I’m ready for the Living Council.”

Fand nods and goes out to fetch them. As the door shuts, I see she and Taryn discussing something. But then I have to turn my attention to Randalin and the rest of the councilors, who are grim-faced as they enter the room.

You have only seen the least of what I can do, I think at them, trying to believe it myself.

“Your Majesty,” Randalin says, but in such a way that it sounds a little like a question. He supported me in the brugh, but I am not sure how long that will last.

“I’ve appointed Grima Mog to be the Grand General,” I tell them. “She cannot come and present herself at the moment, but we should have a report from her soon.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” says Nihuar, pressing together her thin green lips, her mantis-like body shifting with obvious distress. “Perhaps we ought to wait for the High King to be restored before we come to any decision about such important matters.”

“Yes,” says Randalin eagerly, looking at me as though expecting some answer about how we’ll do that.

“Slithery snake king,” says Fala, dressed in lavender motley. “Rules over a Court of nice mice.”

I remember the Bomb’s words and do not flinch, nor do I attempt to argue. I wait, and my silence unnerves them into silence themselves. Even Fala goes quiet.

“Lord Baphen,” I say quellingly, “does not yet have an answer to how the High King may be restored.”

The others turn to him.

Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise.

Baphen nods briefly in assent. “I do not, nor am I sure such a thing is possible.”

Nihuar appears astonished. Even Mikkel seems taken aback by that news.

Randalin glares at me with accusation. As though everything is over and we’ve lost.

There is a way, I want to insist. There is a way; I just don’t know it yet.

“I’ve come to make my report to the queen,” comes a voice from the doorway. Grima Mog stands there.

She strides past the Council members with a brief nod. They eye her speculatively.

“We would all hear what you know,” I say to murmurs of reluctant approval.

“Very well. We received intelligence that Madoc intends to attack at dawn the day after next. He hopes to catch us unprepared, especially since a few more Courts have flown to his banner. But our real problem is how many Folk plan to sit out the battle and see which way the wind blows.”

“Are you sure this information is accurate?” Randalin asks suspiciously. “How did you obtain it?”

Grima Mog nods toward me. “With the help of her spies.”

“Her spies?” Baphen repeats. I can see his putting together some of the information I had in the past and coming to new conclusions about how I got it. I feel a jolt of satisfaction at the thought that I no longer have to pretend to be entirely without my own resources.

“Do we have enough of our own army to push him back?” I ask Grima Mog.

“We are in no way assured of victory,” she says diplomatically. “But he cannot yet overwhelm us.”

That’s a long way from where we were a day ago. But it’s better than nothing.

“And there is a belief,” Grima Mog says. “A belief that has grown swiftly—that the person to rule Elfhame is the one who will slay the serpent. That spilling Greenbriar blood is as good as having it in your veins.”

“A very Unseelie belief,” Mikkel says. I wonder if he agrees with it. I wonder if that’s what he expects from me.

“The king had a pretty head,” says Fala. “But can he do without it?”

“Where is he?” I ask. “Where is the High King?”

“The serpent was spotted on the shores of Insear. A knight from the Court of Needles tried his luck against the creature. We found what was left of the knight’s body an hour ago and tracked the creature’s movements from there. It leaves marks where it goes, black lines scorching the earth. The difficulty is that those lines spread, blurring the trail and poisoning the land. Still, we followed the serpent back to the palace. It seems to have taken the brugh for its den.”

“The king is tied to the land,” says Baphen. “Cursing the king means cursing the land itself. My queen, there may be only one way to heal—”

“Enough,” I say to Baphen and Randalin and the rest of the Council, startling the guards. I stand. “We are done with this discussion.”

“But you must—” begins Randalin, then he seems to see something in my face and goes quiet.

“We’re meant to advise you,” says Nihuar in her syrupy voice. “We are thought to be very wise.”

“Are you?” I ask, and the voice that comes out is honeyed malice, the exact tone Cardan would have used. It spills out of me as though I am no longer in control of my mouth. “Because wisdom ought to urge you not to court my displeasure. Perhaps a stay in the Tower of Forgetting will recall you to your place.”

They all become very quiet.

I had imagined myself different from Madoc, but already, given the chance, I am becoming a tyrant, threatening in place of convincing. Unstable instead of steadying.

I am suited to the shadows, to the art of knives and bloodshed and coups, to poisoned words and poisoned cups. I never expected to rise so high as the throne. And I fear that I am utterly unsuited for the task.

It feels more like compulsion than choice as my fingers unlatch the heavy bolts of the brugh doors.

Beside me, Fand tries to dissuade me, not for the first time. “Let us at least—”

“Remain here,” I tell her. “Do not follow me.”

“My lady,” she says, which is not exactly agreement but will have to do.

I slip inside the large chamber and let the cloak fall from my shoulders.

The serpent is there, coiled around the ruined throne. It has grown in size. The width of its body is such that it could swallow a horse whole with a mere stretch of its fanged jaws. There are yet some torches lit among the spilled food and turned-over tables, illuminating its black scales. Something of the golden sheen has dulled. I can’t tell if it’s illness or some further transformation. Fresh-looking scratches run along one side of its body, as though from a sword or spear. Out of the crack in the floor of the brugh, steam floats gently into the chamber, carrying the smell of hot stone.

“Cardan?” I ask, taking a few soft steps toward the dais.

The serpent’s great head swings toward me. Its coils slide, unwinding itself to hunt. I stop, and it does not come for me, although its head moves sinuously back and forth, alert to both threat and opportunity.

I force myself to keep walking, one step after another. The serpent’s golden eyes follow me, the only part of it—save for its temper—that seems like Cardan at all.

I might have grown into something else, a High King as monstrous as Dain. And if I did—if I fulfilled that prophecy—I ought to be stopped. And I believe that you would stop me.