Page 84 of These Vile Hearts

“No shit.”

“Right. I forgot you were a fae expert.” His voice comes out dry.

Seems he still doesn’t trust me. Shocking. Truly shocking.

“What can I say? I just know lots of things about lots of things.”

“Conveniently enough.”

A wood sprite scurries along the railing beside me, and I nearly drop the drunken king, thinking it’s another blood nymph sweeping in to finish me off.

Castor starts up a third round of his new favorite song, and I dig my elbow into his side. “Honestly,whatis in that tieg wine?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Tamarind retorts with feigned shock. “Guess that is one of the exceptions to the ‘lots of things,‘ then?”

“Is there something you’d like to get off your chest, Tam?” I hiss, my feet dragging under Castor’s weight.

“Nothing at all, Mads.” My father’s nickname for me hits like a shock of ice water on the hottest day of summer. I abruptly stop, and Tamarind stumbles, struggling to keep Castor standing. “What are you—”

“Do notevercall me that name.”

The king’s guard opens his mouth to respond, but then our eyes connect, silver and copper locking like two pieces of metal moved too close to a magnet. I see something register in the depths of his. An understanding of some sort. I realize my usual featureless mask isn’t in place, and every devastating emotion is painted across my face for him to perceive.

“All right,” he says with a shallow nod.

I break our shared gaze. “Let’s just get this asshole to a bed before I give up dragging him and push him over the edge of this walkway.”

Castor stops singing. “You are a very, very mean mortal, you know.”

“Not mean enough,” I mutter.

We don’t stop until we make it to Castor’s home at the end of anabandoned pathway. My head tilts back as I take in the gothic mansion made of dark stone. Vines of black roses and ivy vein across the stone front. Emerald stained-glass windows make it look like Magesté’s distant cousin.

And not a trace of gold to be seen.

Tamarind opens the iron door with a key kept in his weapons belt, and we drag the king’s drunken ass inside, blinking in the lack of light. As if in response, all the candles bloom with lambent flames. The architecture is very nearly the opposite of that in the citadel. Swathed in muted shades of gray, black, deep brown, and ivory, the entrance is highly decorative and theatrical. Like an opera set with twisted columns and a sweeping staircase, candelabras affixed to the top of each railing.

Two open rooms branch off in opposing directions. To the right I spot a massive onyx island in the center of a sizable kitchen with three decanters of liquid set atop it. Walls of cloudy green-and-ivory stained-glass windows allow a conservative amount of light in. To the left is a room filled with armchairs, couches, and a sweeping vanity covered in an organized array of substances. And, if it’s possible, the air here smells more of nepenthe than Magesté.

Everything appears to be made of stone or iron or glass. Can’t have the king getting moody and rotting his wooden home to the ground, I suppose.

In the span of a handful of seconds, I take all of this in before turning back to Tamarind, who is now dragging the king into the sitting room and dumping him on the wine-colored chaise longue.

Grabbing hold of my hand, Castor looks up at me with angst-filled eyes. “Stay with me, Maddox. Don’t go back to Magesté tonight. Just stay with me.”

“I am staying,” I tell him.

He presses my hand to his forehead. “Only if you want to.”

“I want to.” Despite the crushing exhaustion and lingering pain, I realize I’m not lying. I do want to stay. For some fucking reason.

He nods and turns onto his side, eyes falling shut.

I glance at the vanity covered in narcotic substances, a plate of cheese and fruit, and a tiny wood sprite sleeping in a tin of purple leaves. “He sure loves his vices,” I mutter.

Tamarind heaves a deep sigh. “Indeed.”

The two of us stand in silence, watching Castor sleep. My focus breaks first, moving to Tamarind. He looks exhausted. Perhaps even more than me. But I’ve seen that expression—the way his copper eyes soften when he looks at the king—a time or two before.