“No. It’s crafted entirely from my dreams,” he purrs. “Careful, or I might simply make it all vanish, right in the middle of the wedding.”
I nearly drop the gown. “What?”
“You wanted a distraction, did you not?” He actually rolls his eyes as my jaw drops open. “It’s real, Zemira. It’s all been made just for you.”
“You have an entire trunk of clothes cut to my size?” Not even a brownie with the best homespun magic can simply magic up an entire wardrobe of clothes like this.
“I like to be prepared,” he says. “I have a year and a day of your service, and if I need you to do something for me, then I don’t want to have to wait until you have a wardrobe.” His gold eyes lock on me mockingly. “You have an entire suite of rooms awaiting you at my palace. You have a wardrobe of gorgeous gowns. You have books. You have a set of goblin-forged knives, spelled to cut through any ward and keyed to your hand only. Everything you might need and desire.”
“Goblin-forged knives?”
The goblin court was named Forbidden during the same wars that branded my people with that title. The goblin king vanished his court from fae eyes and swore that his court would not deal with the fae while the sun was still in the sky. A goblin-forged blade is worth a small earldom. They’re rare. Impossibly rare. And to get his hands on an entire set of them….
For me.
I can’t breathe. A horrible, giddy feeling sweeps through me. Soraya has one goblin-forged blade she stole from the collection of a centuries-old fae who captured pretty mortal girls and chained them to his dais. She killed him with his own knife, set the girls free, and then burned his palace.
It’s her most treasured item.
“When you say ‘set,’” I manage to sound almost calm, “precisely how many knives are you talking about?”
Keir laughs under his breath. “I should have known that would be the gift that would get your attention.”
Gift. Every inch of me stills.
Soraya used to give me gifts for my birthing day every year. Small things like honeyed cakes she’d stolen from the kitchens, a flask of mead when we came of age—which is probably the reason I can never taste it again without gagging in remembrance—and a string of dandelion seeds with which to make wish after wish.
She stopped leaving them on my pillow after she betrayed me in the trials.
And nobody else has ever given me a gift since.
I stare at him, reminded once again that he’s a fae prince with all the luxuries that title can buy him. It probably means nothing. As he said, he has plans for me and needs me to be able to infiltrate a court at his beck and whim.
But still….
I blow out a breath. Mind on track. I have the wardrobe required to infiltrate the Court of Blood. I have the prince. There’s just one little problem….
“Speaking of Merisel, is she going to become an issue?” I ask. “I can’t imagine that having two of us appear together would be wise.”
“My sources tell me she rarely leaves her manor. Something about a digestive disagreement she had the last time she traveled, which caused her to lose her chance at attending a prince’s summons. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“If I’d ingested that much Monksflower, I probably wouldn’t leave the manor for a while either. Or I’d travel with a personal chamber pot.”
“That doesn’t sound very kindly of you.”
I cut him a scathing look. “My sister wanted to feed her a heavy dose of hensbane. I thought Monksflower to be the kinder alternative. I didn’t want her dead. Just indisposed.” The look on his face…. “What?”
His eyelids hood. “Nothing.”
I start tugging on the buttons of my shirt. “I’m a thief, Keir. A pragmatic thief. Dead bodies bring questions. They also inspire lofty notions such as vengeance or justice in ones enemies. The best thieves are the ones no one ever knows about. I don’t need to be known as the Scarlet Hand or the Black Hood. Or—”
“The White Wraith.”
“What?”
“The White Wraith,” he murmurs, a faint smile toying about his lips. “That’s what King Angmar named you when you stole his trident.”
That fucking trident. It’s going to be the bane of my existence.
“He did not.”
Oh, he’s enjoying this moment. “There’s a reward poster and all. It seems you’re not as unknown as you might wish for.” He cocks his head. “Though the painting on the poster doesn’t quite do you justice. You’re much lovelier in the flesh.”
I drag my hand down my face. “All my sources say Angmar won’t be attending.”
It was the first thing I asked my father’s spymaster.
“He’s not. He made some excuse about mermaids attacking one of his watch towers along the shore. I daresay he feels a little naked without his source of strength, especially when Prince Malechus would love to see him humbled.”
“The trident wasn’t that powerful.” My father tried to use it to break the curse on one of his guards, and the gold in the trident simply warped as the magic lashed back. “If he can’t face another ruling prince without it, then perhaps he should pass his throne on to one of his siblings.”
“Oh, I think it won’t be long before one of them takes it.”
Perfect. Angmar won’t be in attendance. I’m sure he’ll send an emissary, but nobody else saw me the night I stole the trident, and my glamor is strong enough to make my face just different enough to his reward poster.
“There’s just one more little problem as far as I can see,” Keir says.
I’ve been through all of my plans. Nothing has been left to chance. Nothing. “What?”
“You said you had another master.” A certain intensity
