The sun is near to setting when I climb the stairs to the palace schoolroom. My footsteps echo in the unnatural quiet. I've never known this place so silent, broken only by Noggle's faint movements and his quiet mutterings.

"Good afternoon, Master Noggle," I say, opening the door.

Noggle looks up from packing books into the crate. "Ah, hello, Miss Jude," he says warmly. "Come to say goodbye?"

"Yes." I step fully into the room. Dust motes dance in the last beams of the sun. Most of the furniture has already been cleared out, and in the resultant hollow space the slightest noise echoes. I look around with a strange sense of disbelief. Was this really the site of the epic battles of my childhood? Of innumerable clashes I had with my schoolmates? Did I really think of this place with such intense dread and anger? Such emotion? This tiny, bare little room?

I turn back to Noggle. "I'm sorry you're leaving," I say quietly.

"I'm just closing up the palace school, Miss Jude." His eyes twinkle. "I'm not going off to war! I'll still be around Court plenty."

"Still."

"That's the way it works." He shrugs. "Students grow up. They leave school. In another few years or decades, there will be more students to teach." He smiles at me. "Speaking of which, congratulations are in order, Sir Jude!"

"I'm not a Sir yet, Master Noggle." Still, I can't help standing straighter, showing off my doublet with Madoc's crest embroidered on the front. I still can't believe Madoc let me start proper training as a knight a few weeks ago. Well, actually, I can: he's already lost his other two daughters. He has no intention of losing me too. Confining me to the barracks and training grounds is an excellent way of keeping me nearby and under his control. But I don't object: knightly training is what I've always wanted.

And I have considered my strategy regarding my search for Taryn. I can't just go haring off to Faerie's mainland; that would just be a fast way of getting myself killed. This way, I can stay at the High Court, where every piece of news and scrap of rumor eventually circulates, and I have entry to just about every social circle. I'm bound to hear something eventually. I hope.

The thought of Taryn deflates my proud moment. I sigh, looking away.

"Don't be sad, Miss Jude," Noggle says, reading my mind. "Your sister still might be found. Stranger things have happened."

"I know." I lean against the windowsill, raking my fingers through my hair. "I just worry so much about what actually happened to her. She's still alive—I know she is—but under what circumstances? If she was kidnapped…" I shiver.

"You haven't had a ransom note or anything?" At my shaken head, Noggle says encouragingly, "Then she might have just run away. Miss Taryn's been through some tough times; she might have just wanted some time alone to calm her soul. Court isn't exactly conducive to self-examination, after all. She'll come back once she's sorted things out in her mind."

I can't help smiling. Good old Noggle. Ever the optimist. "That's a nice thought, I suppose." My smile fades. "Did she really seem so unhappy to you?"

Noggle avoids my gaze, rearranging books in the crate. "You've both had a hard time," he says quietly. "You and Miss Taryn both. I was sorry when she stopped coming to class, but I wasn't surprised." He looks up suddenly, and I'm surprised by the sudden regret in his eyes. "I think sometimes I should have protected you better, Miss Jude. You and your sister both."

I glare back, dark memories rising between us like poison. "Yes," I say quietly. "Perhaps you should have."

He looks away. I sigh, anger draining out of me. "I apologize, Master Noggle." I'm speaking honestly here; I have better enemies to hate than Noggle.

Speaking of which… "Have you seen Cardan anywhere lately?"

"The prince? Why, no." Noggle seems suddenly very preoccupied with packing up his supplies.

"It's just that I haven't seen him since he stopped coming to class." That was such a surprise, coming into the schoolroom and seeing Cardan's place empty. We all sat through the lesson, silent and uneasy, and none of the Court of Grackles could even be bothered to torment me. They all just filed out of the room at the end of the day, like there was no point to anything, even malicious sport, without their prince.

That was really the beginning of the end of the palace school, I think. As the days passed and Cardan still didn't appear, all the spirit of the place seemed to be sucked out. Suddenly, there seemed to be no point to school, for any of us. One by one, we all started leaving: some of us back to our families, some into Court positions, myself into knightly training. Locke's mother took him away from Court altogether. "That boy needs to get his head on straight," I heard her telling Oriana. "A few years away from Court would do him a world of good."

"I don't know that anyone's seen him," Noggle says now, ears flicking in uneasiness.

"No one I've talked to has, that's for sure." I've been asking around, but no one will talk about Cardan. They're all like Noggle: weirdly evasive.

Noggle looks up with an odd smile. "Don't worry too much, Miss Jude," he says gently. "You will find both your sister and your prince again, I feel."

I blink in confusion and a strange embarrassment. "He's not my prince, Master Noggle. I mean, yes, he is, but not mine in particular…" I trail off, face heating, as I realize I'm babbling.

He shakes his head, still looking at me with that strange little smile. "How many times have I seen this dance before?" he murmurs, more to himself than to me, and chuckles before continuing to pack.

I wait, but he seems content to let the silence stretch on while he finishes up packing. "Do you need any help, Master Noggle?" I ask eventually.

He looks around. "No. Looks like I'm all set." He gives me one of his warm smiles. "It's been a pleasure teaching you, Miss Jude. I wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavors. And don't lose heart: those we value have a way of finding us again."

I give him a quick smile but don't reply. Maybe faeries can find those they value by magic, but I'm a mortal. I have to rely on luck, and frankly that's never worked out well in my life.

I'm still mulling over the conversation with Noggle as I'm heading home, late that night.

I got permission from Commander Foxfire to stay out of the barracks late. I think he knows why I sometimes ask to go to the clifftops at midnight, though he never says so. He just gives me permission, and I let myself quietly out. When I return, I go to my barracks room with equal discretion, and no one makes any comment.

Every seven days, Vivienne sends me a message at the clifftops, to check that I'm all right, and ask yet again if I will join her on the Ironside.

I'm still so angry with her. I keep going over the night she left, the terrible things she said, the way she just galloped off, leaving me here. Leaving Taryn here. Just deciding that our sister is dead, just like that, so she had an excuse to leave. But still I collect her notes from the enchanted seagulls that come wheeling over the ocean, and still I send her notes back, refusing to join her but assuring her of my well-being. I've already lost one sister. I can't bring myself to turn my back on Vivi—though, really, in all honor, that's what I should do. Vivienne refuses to do her duty by me and by Taryn, so what do I owe her?

But still. But still.

So I'm in no very good mood as I'm heading along the midnight paths back to the house. The woods are lit with fireflies and will-o-wisps, but not many faeries are out tonight. So I'm surprised when a cavalcade of horses suddenly thunders silently out of the sky to land on a broad swath of lawn before me.

Even before I see the crests of the knights, I know who it is: his thorns gleam in the moonlight. I halt immediately and bow low. Prince Balekin glances over, then looks away dismissively. He has no interest in me tonight. He trots away, leading his knights off, and soon they're gone, into the woods.

I watch them go, wondering. What were they doing, that they are returning home so late? Maybe looking for Taryn. Balekin's been astonishingly helpful in our search, bending his full resources to look for my sister. He's hunted on the mainland, and sent messages and spies to the lesser Courts. He really seems to want to help find her.

So why can't I warm to him? Why can't I trust him? Maybe because he hasn't really expressed any sympathy to us in our loss. He doesn't even seem all that concerned about Taryn. More…angry. He hunts for my sister with a furious obsession that makes me wonder what exactly he would do if he actually found her.

Frowning over my strange encounter, I continue on, following the pale footpath through the dark. There's a sort of village up ahead, of common faeries, and I skirt around the buildings, having no desire to encounter the inhabitants.

That's when I hear the thuds and shuffles up ahead.

I freeze. Slowly, so it makes no sound, I draw my cold-iron dagger. Holding it so it reflects no moonlight, I advance, cursing my feeble mortal eyesight that doesn't allow me to see clearly in the dark, to make out more than a vague shape that is scrabbling at a cottage window. Still, mortal eyesight or no, I sneak up behind them and press the blade to their throat.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" I demand, cold and hard.

The faerie under my dagger's blade stands frozen, still clinging to the windowsill. Then, very slowly, he turns around, and I see his face clearly in the moonlight.

Prince Cardan Greenbriar smiles at me. "Well?" he says. "Going to kill me, Jude Duarte?"

I stare at him. It's unmistakably Prince Cardan, his lovely face clearly illuminated in a brilliant moonbeam. But it is Cardan as I have never seen him before: his face drawn and haggard even in the mezzotint of the moon, hair shaggy, clothes ripped and torn. He makes no move to fight me or to escape. He merely stands, my blade still pressed to his throat.

Slowly, I withdraw it, but don't sheathe it. It's a cold iron blade: if I stab him with it, the wound will be iron-poisoned. He clearly knows this, as he stands still and inoffensive, eyeing my dagger warily.

"What are you doing here, Prince Cardan?" I ask at last.

"What are you doing here?" he returns. "I hardly think that mortal knights should be wandering around alone at night. Is Madoc's training regimen so lax that you have time to sneak off to meet some filthy lover—"

My dagger flashes, and he falls silent. "I am going to repeat the question one more time," I say in a quiet, steely voice. "What are you doing here, Cardan?"

For a moment he looks like he's going to fight, or make some other vicious remark. Then he gives an odd, defeated sigh, shoulders slumping. "I was trying to break in so I could steal some food," he mutters.

"Steal food?" I blink, honestly surprised. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I haven't eaten anything in three days," he says, still in that deadpan mumble.

"Three days?" When he doesn't react to this, I say, "Cardan, what's happened to you that you can't get food? Where have you been all this time?"

"Here and there." He gives a tired-looking shrug. "I was sleeping in someone's woodshed for a few days, but then they ran me out."

"Someone's woodshed?"

"Do you think you're a parrot or something?" he demands irritably. "Yes, someone's woodshed. Or in the woods. Or on the beach. I'm homeless, all right? My brother Balekin threw me out of the house. Happy now?"

I stare at him: my oldest enemy. The worst tormentor of my tormented childhood. The school bully who made my life an utter misery. The faerie prince who never missed an opportunity to remind me that my sister and I were mortal trash while he was royalty. And here he is: thin and ragged and homeless, trying to break into some commoner's house for a bite to eat, cowed into telling the truth just by a dagger.

"Well, well," I drawl at last, "took him long enough, didn't it? Just what did you do to finally piss your big brother off so badly?"

His mouth compresses into a thin line. I half-threaten him with the dagger again, and he visibly flinches. But he still doesn't speak. His face is closed with a stony resolve.

He really would rather be stabbed than tell me, I realize. "What did happen?" I ask more seriously.

I half-expect him to attack me, but instead he looks away, face shadowed. He is silent.

I sigh. "All right, fine." I sheathe my dagger. "Come on."

"Come on?" He blinks.

"Who's the parrot now?" I taunt. "Come with me. I'll take you back to the house. We can get you something to eat in the kitchen."

He hangs back, staring incredulously. "Why would you help me?" he demands.

I pause. That is actually a very good question. "Call it mortal perversity," I say at last. "Now come on, or don't you want to eat?"

To show that I mean it, I turn my back on him and advance further down the path. After a few seconds, I hear his footsteps, following wearily after.

I lead the vagabond prince back to the house, cursing myself all the while and wondering what in Faerie's name I can be thinking. Why am I taking Prince Cardan, of all people, back to the house? Why am I feeding him? I should have left him to his misery. Hell, I should have stabbed him. It would serve him right. And, clearly, no one would have cared.

But maybe that's the very reason why I can't do it.

Just outside the perimeter, I wave Cardan down. "Can you get up a glamour?"

"What kind of glamour?" he asks, surprised.

"One that will trick other faeries," I say bluntly. "If you don't want your arrival announced all over the island, I've got to get you past the sentries unnoticed."

"The General still posts sentries?"

"This is Madoc, remember? And he's been even more paranoid since Taryn…" I trail off, and curse my weakness. "Since Taryn disappeared," I force myself to finish. "So get up a glamour. Make yourself look different. Trees know, just about anything would be an improvement on your current appearance. Then shut up and don't contradict anything I say."

He glares. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

I smirk. "Well, I could say no, but I'd be lying. Now hurry up."

He gives some more sullen mutters, but erects the glamour. When Cardan next looks up, he's completely different: green-haired, with the antlers and the lambent eyes of a wood elf. "There," he says, still in his own voice. "This should hold, even against other faeries. What now?"

In reply, I throw my arm around him. He recoils. "What are you doing?"

"Don't contradict me, Cardan," I smirk, and escort him out of the woods onto the grounds.

"Holla!" I salute the sentry, letting a bit of drunken stagger enter my footsteps and making Cardan stagger too. "I'm back."

"Miss Jude." The sentry is biting back a snigger. "Having a good night?"

"Oh, a very good night." Unable to resist, I give Cardan a smacking kiss on the cheek, and giggle as he stiffens, vibrating with the effort not to jerk away from me. "And it's not over yet."

"Going to take him back to your old bedroom, are you?" the sentry laughs.

"You bet." I give her a broad wink. "Can't really get private in the barracks…if you know what I mean."

"I do indeed. Have fun!" Still sniggering, the guard steps aside, and I saunter past, escorting the stumbling Cardan after me, in through the kitchen door.

He breaks away the moment we're inside, glamour evaporating. Up close, in the clear illumination of the fey lights, he looks a good deal worse than out in the moonlight: thin and bony, his clothes hanging in dirty rags, face smudged with dirt. His iridescent black hair hangs in long, filthy tangles, and there are dark smudges under his cavernous eyes. Still, his smirk, when he turns it on me, as arrogant and insouciant as ever. "Why, Jude Duarte," he drawls, "is that the price of your assistance?"

"You wish, faerie boy," I snap, moving briskly past him. "Now come on, I'll get you something in the kitchen."

"You know, I think that's the first time in my life that anyone has called me 'faerie boy'," he says musingly as he follows me down the corridor.

"That's the beautiful thing about Life, isn't it?" I say dryly. "New experiences every day, new horizons, new things to learn. Now be quiet."

He takes a seat at the kitchen table while I hunt out a knife and cutting board. The kitchen is dark, cavernous and silent at this time of night, but the fey lights turn on as our movements trigger them, and the banked fires still glow in the ovens. He watches as I cut up fruit and slice a loaf of bread. "You know, you're scary when you have a knife."

"Good." I shove the cutting board of fruit and bread at him, and he immediately sets to. He really is hungry: by the time I turn back with a glass of water, half of the food is already gone.

"No wine?" he says ungratefully as I set the water glass before him.

I roll my eyes. "Great Trees, Cardan, just how much of a souse are you?" I push the water at him. "You don't need wine on a stomach three days empty. Drink this."

He drains the glass and gobbles some more, manners completely forgotten in his still-raging hunger.

"You're not worried that I've poisoned the apples or anything?" I ask eventually.

"No," he says between mouthfuls, and swallows. "That's not your style. You might poison someone to manipulate them or something, but if you really wanted me dead, Jude, you'd stab me."

While I'm blinking at this analysis, he finishes off the fruit plate. "Any cheese?"

After a moment, I hunt him out a hunk of white cheese. While he's eating that, I ask again, "Why did your brother throw you out?"

He swallows, then glares. His mouth is a thin line, letting nothing out.

He's really not going to tell me. I sigh. "All right, then why were you homeless? Why not ask at the palace?" He gives a scoffing laugh. "All right, then why didn't you go seek help from one of your friends?"

He gives a strange, bitter laugh and eats another piece of cheese. "You said yourself," he says in an odd, light tone, "that Life gives us new experiences every day. New things to learn. Well, one of the things that I have learned recently is that a homeless, unwanted prince has no friends. Even people he's gone to school with and has known for years become, by some strange alchemy, complete strangers. I must say, I found it rather odd."

I can't stop the smirk pulling at my lips. "I don't," I purr. "Well, well. So it was your title your friends liked, not you." I put my hand to my breast, pretending surprise. "Wow. What a shocker—to absolutely no one but you."

His eyes flash and he half stands up. I feel a flash of fear, but don't back down. He's eaten my food; by the laws of Faerie, he owes me. And besides, I am a knight in training, high in the favor of a powerful courtier, that courtier's beloved daughter—while he is a prince so abysmally out of favor that he doesn't even have a change of clothes.

After all these years, the tables have finally turned. He's the powerless one now. And he knows it.

It's fabulous.

"Well?" I ask, just to rub it in. "Aren't you going to do anything?"

"Yes." Slowly and grandly, he sits down. "I am going to finish this cheese." He eats a piece. "Bland and substandard though it is."

I just smirk, seeing his complaints for what they are: a transparent attempt to save face. I wait until he finishes the cheese plate, then straighten. "Leave the dishes," I say. "And follow me. I'll take you to a guestroom."

Quietly, he stands and follows me to the kitchen exit. At the door, he suddenly speaks.

"You haven't found your sister Taryn yet, have you?"

My left hand—the one with the missing fingertip—tightens on the doorframe. "I will not discuss Taryn with you," I say, as calmly as I can, without looking back. "Now come on, and try not to wake anyone up."

He follows silently, saying nothing more.

We wend our way through the silent, shadowy house, to the guestrooms on the second floor. I quietly push a door open to see that the bed is made up in the first on the left. "Here," I whisper. "You can spend tonight here at least. Washroom's just off the bedroom." I let out a sudden yawn; I'm so tired. "I've got to get back to the barracks now, but I'll come back tomorrow."

He moves past me into the room. He turns to look back at me, a thin, ragged prince framed in dimness. "What if someone finds me? One of the servants or something?"

"Don't ask stupid questions, Cardan," I tell him, and shut the door in his face. I hear him start to move around the bedroom. I guess that means he'll be spending the night in there, just as I ordered. Or not, of course. Not that I care, I remind myself. Let him leave if he wants to. He's not my problem.

I turn away and head down the hall back out to the barracks, my own statement ringing in my mind: Don't ask stupid questions. Don't ask stupid questions.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

In the barracks, we wake before dawn for pre-breakfast warmups and training. I'm therefore out of bed and fully dressed when the pounding comes on the door of my spartan little cell.

"Jude!" It's Commander Foxfire, sounding agitated. "Open up!"

I go to open the door and snap a salute as required to my superior officer. "Yes, sir?"

"The General wants you up at the house," he says. "Right now."

"Yes, sir," I say, as a good knight must, and follow him down the narrow corridor toward the stairs, not asking why Madoc wants to see me so early in the morning. It's not a knight's place to question her General's orders, and anyway I think I probably already know.

We leave the barracks, the whispered speculations of the other knights rising around us like murmurs of wind, and Foxfire escorts me to the main house. "Go to his study," he instructs, and then hesitates before heading back. "And Jude…good luck."

"And to you," I say, smiling to show that I appreciate his good wishes, before saluting again and heading into the house.

Inside, the servants all seem even more agitated than Foxfire, darting about and gathering to whisper excitedly. Tatterfell spots me and scurries over as I'm heading up the stairs. "Miss Jude," she says, fixing me with a suspicious stare, "one of the maids made an extremely unexpected discovery in one of the guestrooms."

"Did she now?" I say blandly, heading steadily up the stairs.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?" she asks, more suspicious than ever.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I lie airily as I open the door to Madoc's study and bow to the three people already waiting inside.

Cardan already has a glass of wine, I notice disapprovingly. "A bit more polite than last night, aren't you, Jude?" he drawls.

"A bit more drunk than last night, aren't you, Cardan?" I say pointedly. I shut the door and come over to bow again to Madoc and Oriana. "Good morning."

"Jude," says Madoc, coming straight to the point, "what was Prince Cardan Greenbriar doing in one of my guestrooms last night, when neither Oriana nor I invited him?"

No point delaying the inevitable. I tell them the whole story, even though it sounds completely insane even as I recite it.

"You just…brought him back?" Oriana says incredulously when I'm finished. "Without telling us?"

"Yes. I thought he'd be gone by now." This is a lie. The truth is, it just didn't occur to me to wake Madoc or Oriana last night. I was enjoying having Cardan all to myself, I realize in surprise. I didn't want to share him with anyone else.

Madoc turns his glower on Cardan. The prince looks a bit better this morning, freshly bathed and with his hair brushed. He's also changed out of his royal rags into a respectable-looking suit that Oriana or her seamstresses must have run up for him on the spot this morning. Still, he stiffens warily as Madoc's eyes play over him.

"And you, Your Highness?" Madoc says softly. "Did you too think you would be gone by now?"

Cardan looks him right in the eye. "General, I wasn't thinking past food and bed last night. If you choose to throw me out, I have no means to stop you."

"No." It comes out before I can stop it, sudden and vehement. "I beg your pardon, sir," I add as Madoc's glower turns on me and I remember that I am one of his trainees now, not just his daughter. "But I would prefer it if you didn't throw him out."

"Why?" Madoc sounds genuinely surprised. "He never did you any kindness."

"Quite the opposite, in fact," Oriana adds, glaring at Cardan icily. He squirms.

I look at Cardan. A Greenbriar, one of the High Princes of Faerie, in borrowed clothes, squirming under my stepmother's glower, having admitted that he has no power anymore. Knowing that he has nowhere else to go. And completely dependent on me.

What better revenge could there be?

"If we take him in," I say slowly, "he will owe us. And it is always good to have a Greenbriar prince in your debt, is it not?"

After a moment, Madoc barks a laugh. "Very true!" He turns to Oriana. "Well, my lady wife? What do you say?"

Oriana fixes Cardan with no very great warmth. "I say," she says softly, "that I did not lose two daughters only to see the third tormented in her own house by her childhood enemy." She stands up then, seeming to loom over Cardan. "If you are to remain in my house," she says evenly, "then it is at the sufferance of my stepdaughter, and hers alone. Jude is your patron in this house, Prince Cardan Greenbriar, your patron and your protector. And you will treat her as such, at all times. If you say or do anything in the least hurtful or prejudicial to her interests in any way—and I do mean anything, Your Highness—then I am going to throw you out. And then you can starve on the beach for all I care."

Silence falls. Cardan's eyes flash, and for a moment I think his pride is going to erupt, triumph over his need. But then comes bitter understanding: he has hit rock bottom. He has been reduced to begging for shelter from his enemies. He can't afford pride. And he can't afford to turn down charity, whatever the terms it's offered under.

"Very well," he says at last. He stands and bows to us: Madoc, Oriana and me. "I apologize for my previous behavior, Jude Duarte," he says formally. "It will not be repeated. And I will not say or do anything in any way hurtful or prejudicial to your interests in any way while I live in this house. You have my sworn word."

I smile, vicious triumph filling me at the sight. But there's something else too, something I did not expect. Pity. And sympathy. For I know what it's like, to have to beg from your enemies.

"I accept your sworn word, Prince Cardan," I say clearly. "And your apology." I straighten, holding out my hands in welcome. "Welcome to the house of Grand General Madoc," I say, as I should, as his sponsor in the house.

"Yes. Welcome to my house, Prince Cardan," says Madoc. He pauses, eyes brightening as a new thought strikes him. "You'd better go get your things from the barracks, Jude," he says, sounding suddenly much more cheerful.

I blink. "What?" I ask, forgetting knightly protocol in my surprise. "Why?"

Madoc shoots me a triumphant grin. "You're moving back into the main house," he says smoothly. "As the prince's patron, it's not proper that you sleep away from him, after all. You ought to at least share the same roof."

"Madoc's right, Jude," says Oriana reluctantly.

"But…" I cast around for arguments. I don't want to leave the barracks. I've found purpose there, and I've enjoyed the company of the other knights. Many of them have fought alongside mortals before, and know what a human knight can be worth; they see me as a fellow colleague, someone who can earn their trust and respect. I don't want to be shrunk back into a girl again, to have Madoc and Oriana and now Cardan watching my every move. Foxfire is a lot more understanding about the need to look the other way now and then, especially when I have to, say, communicate with Vivienne or talk to someone who might know something about Taryn. "But I have to continue my training—"

"You can do that from the house," Madoc says swiftly. He's grinning; he loves this. Loves this excuse to put me completely back under his thumb. "The practice yards aren't exactly distant, after all. You can train with the other knights, but you'll eat your meals with your family and sleep back in the main house. Understood, trainee?"

I do understand. He's addressing me as a trainee, not a daughter. I can't argue. I salute. "Yes, General," I say. "I'll get my things and move back in today."

"Excellent." Madoc dismisses me, and I salute again as I head for the door. I shoot a glare at Cardan as I go. He's barely been in this house twelve hours and he's already ruining things for me. How am I going to talk to Vivienne now, or conduct my investigations, with Madoc and Oriana watching me every hour of every day?

Unless…I shoot Cardan another look, more thoughtful. A smirk pulls my lips.

Perhaps the little prince can be useful after all.