Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to Holly Black and her Folk of the Air series. I have no rights to them. I write this out of whimsy. The characters and dialogue are taken from The Cruel Prince; many sentences of dialogue between the characters are taken straight from the text to be true to canon.

I turn to the sound of the door opening, pleased to find Jude entering the den of the Court of Shadows. I am genuinely glad to see her, now that I have a plan of how to proceed.

"What are you doing?" Jude speaks with clear anger as she looks at the lot of us gathered at the table. "He's supposed to be tied up! He's our prisoner!"

"Worry not." The Roach gives her a reassuring grin. "Where's he going to go? You really think he can get past all three of us?"

"I don't mind being one-handed," I say. "But if you're going to restrain both of my hands, then you'll have to pour the wine directly into my mouth."

"He told us where the old king kept the really good bottles," the Bomb explained. "Not to mention a stash of jewelry that belonged to Elowyn. He figured that in the confusion, no one would notice if it got lifted, and so far, no one has. Easiest job the Roach has ever done".

Jude looks at me like she wants to scream. Perhaps some humor will soften her. "Everything is spiraling into chaos anyways", I say with a shrug. "Might as well have some fun. Don't you think, Jude?" I like the feeling of her name on my lips. It has a sense of power. Even if her true name does not have power, I get a tingle from hearing my voice say it aloud and without shame.

"What did he offer you?" Jude looks upset with her three colleagues in the room.

"Mostly gold", the Ghost reports, "but also power. Position."

"A lot of things he hasn't got!" The Bomb adds with a laugh.

"I thought we were friends," I give her an exaggerated look of sorrow.

"I'm going to take him in the back," Jude says, standing behind me as she rests her hands on the top of my chair, her fingers brushing against my back. I get a tingle of fear that perhaps her words 'take him in the back' allude to her taking me out by putting the bolt of a crossbow into my back. Her hands firmly grasp the chair, and I prepare myself for her dragging the chair with me in it, as she did last night. Surprisingly, she doesn't.

"And do what?" The Roach asks. Perhaps I do have a friend in him.

"He's my prisoner," Jude reminds them. She pulls her knife out and squats down to remove the binds on my legs, slicing through what's left of the dress she wore last night. The dress I gave her. The dress she wore for me, even though she didn't know it was for me.

"Can we stay out here?" I give her a keen smile as I look down at her. "There's wine out here." Perhaps a pour or two down her throat will make her more amenable.

"Something bothering you, princeling?" The Roach gives me a smirk. "You and Jude don't get along after all?"

Does he aim to betray me already? I give him a glare but immediately release it. I need to keep my emotions in check.

Jude prods me into walking, and I find how uncomfortably stiff my legs are. Luckily, I had kept my tail around my waist rather than down my pant leg, so at least my tail is loose. She pushes me into Dain's office, and I hear her lock the door after it closes. Yes, I am locked in here, and she is my only way out.

"Sit down," Jude says in a commanding voice as she points to a chair in front of Dain's desk. She walks around to sit in the miniature throne at the back of the desk. She picks up the crossbow and cocks it back in a practiced manner to inform me that she knows exactly how to use it.

"You're going to shoot me?" I try to hide the alarm in my voice. "Right now?"

Jude has a smirk on her face. She likes knowing that she has control over me. She makes a show of caressing her finger against the trigger. Though in making that show, I don't think she realizes that doing so sets the aim of her bolt away from me. I hope she doesn't realize it.

"I can see why you'd want to, but I'd really prefer if you didn't." There, I've set my aim. Cocked back the only weapon I have to spar with her. Step 1, confess and tell her what she wants. Step 2, convince her to keep me alive.

"Then you shouldn't have smirked at me constantly—you think I am going to stand being mocked, here, now? You still so sure you're better than me?" Her voice shakes with anger.

I hold up my hands in defense. In doing so, I am reminded that there are no rings on any of my fingers. I trust she still holds my signet ring—the only symbol I have that I am a Prince and ought to have power over her.

"I'm nervous", I confess. "I smile a lot when I'm nervous. I can't help it."

Jude looks confused to find me being forthcoming, revealing my weaknesses to her. I see that she lowers the crossbow, but only for a moment. She checks her aim and I see that it is in a deadly position against me.

"You are terrifying." I trust that my honesty will save me yet. "Nearly my whole family is dead, and while they never had much love for me, I don't want to join them. I've spent all night worrying what you're going to do, and I know exactly what I deserve. I have a reason to be nervous."

She again seems to relax to hear me speak so candidly, but her defenses are quick to return. Perhaps that is the key: keep talking, don't give her the space to dwell on her hatred of me and all the horrible ways I've treated her in the past.

"I'll tell you whatever you want", I offer. "Anything." I hope I can actually provide that without utterly shaming myself.

"No word games?"

"I swear it."

"And if I shoot you anyway?"

"You might well, but I want your word that you won't."

"My word isn't worth much."

"So you keep saying. It's not comforting, I've got to tell you."

I startle to hear Jude laugh. The crossbow wavers in her hand. I worry she might shoot me simply as an accident. Perhaps that's her worry too as she, thankfully, sets it on the desk. The tip of the bolt away from me, her hands folded against her chest rather than on the trigger.

"You tell me whatever I want to know—all of it—and I won't shoot you."

There, the trap is set. Step 1 is in full swing, let's see if I can reach Step 2. "And what can I do to persuade you not to turn me over to Balekin and Madoc?" The tip of my tail begins to quiver with the excitement that my plan might work.

Jude's face shifts. Perhaps 'persuade' was too strong of a word to use. Jude wants the power to be hers, not to be coaxed away from it. Though perhaps it is not my words that give her pause. If my tail is reacting, perhaps I am revealing too much from the look on my face. I try to look bored.

"How about you concentrate on staying alive?"

"What do you want to know?"

"I found a piece of paper with my name on it. Over and over, just my name."

I can't help but flinch. How did she find that? Ah, yes, Dain's little spy. What other secrets had she found in my room? What else does she already know of me?

"Well?" She demanded an answer. This game no longer feels fair. Not that it ever was.

"That's not a question. Ask me a proper question, and I'll give you an answer."

"You're terrible at this whole 'telling me whatever I want to know' thing."

Yes, it's because I've never done anything like this. Thankfully, the words in my head do not escape my lips. I'm sober enough for that. But hopefully she does not believe me to be sober. I try to put a drunken look on my face, but I see that her hand returns to caress the crossbow again. Hard to pretend to be drunk when your heart is racing that you might die in the next few seconds. Either die from her weapon or die from the shame of confessing my feelings about her. My tail cannot stop its twitching from behind my back; I'm grateful that she can't see that.

Keep talking, I remind myself. "Just ask me something." I try to put on the character of an aimless drunk. "Ask me about my tail. Don't you want to see it?"

"You want me to ask you something? Fine. When did Taryn start whatever it is she has with Locke?"

I laugh with an honest delight. Just what I was hoping for. "Oh, I wondered when you would ask about that. It was some months ago. He told us all about it—throwing stones at her window, leaving her notes to meet him in the woods, wooing her by moonlight. He swore us to silence, made it all seem like a lark. I think, in the beginning, he did it to make Nicasia jealous. But later…" My voice starts to falter at the mention of Nicasia.

"How did he know it was her room?"

I give a careless shrug. "Maybe he didn't. Maybe either of you would have done as his first mortal conquest. I believe his goal is to have both of you in the end."

"What about you?"

I'm startled by her question. Did she already know of my goal to have her? What else had she found in my bedroom that made her aware that I could not stop thinking about her?

I try to play it cool. "Locke hasn't gotten around to seducing me yet, if that's what you're asking. I suppose I should be insulted."

"That's not what I mean. You and Nicasia were…"

"Yes, Locke stole her from me." Why did she have to bring Nicasia up? Why did she need to remind me of how utterly incompetent I am in romantic pursuits? How unloved I am. Just keep talking, I remind myself. "And I don't know if Locke wanted her to make some other lover jealous or to make me angry or just because of Nicasia's magnificence. Nor do I know what fault in me made her choose him. Now do you believe I am going to give you the answers you were promised?" Hopefully, that was enough for her.

"Did you love her?"

"What kind of question is that?"

Jude merely shrugs as if it is of little consequence. My feelings are just a trivial curiosity to her. "I want to know."

"Yes. I loved her," I admit with a feeling of emptiness. A love that was never returned. Perhaps because it is true that I am unlovable. I look at Jude's hands, casually resting on the desk. Perhaps I would prefer a bolt to the heart. A bolt to stop my heart from hurting.

"Why do you want me dead?"

Her words surprise me. She thinks I want her dead? I put my head down in my hands, feeling that there is not much lower I can go. But yes, my face is not yet squashed to the dirt floor. There is still a further distance to fall.

I take a deep breath to be able to continue. "You mean with the nixies? You were the one who was thrashing around and throwing things at them. They're extremely lazy creatures, but I thought you might actually annoy them into taking a bite out of you. I may be rotten, but my one virtue is that I'm not a killer. I wanted to frighten you, but I never wanted you dead. I never wanted anyone dead." My mind goes to Valerian and his desire to witness death. Why had I ever desired to be his friend? All of this was his fault. Or mine for letting him get away with it.

"Valerian tried to murder me outright. Twice. First in the tower, then in my room at my house."

I'm startled first by her speaking Valerian's name—like she had just been reading my thoughts. Then I'm startled to comprehend her statement. He actually tried to kill her? Twice? The game had become far more deadly than I ever anticipated it could have been. I again wonder what Valerian's feelings towards me were. Why he would go to such lengths. Not that I'd ever find out now.

"I thought when you said you killed him you meant that you tracked him down and… Only a fool would break into the general's house."

Jude moves closer to me and pulls down the collar of her shirt. For a moment, I think she is going to take off her shirt, but she stops to show me only her neck. A clear bruise around her neck. A bruise that her dress had covered the night before. Had he really tried to strangle her to death? Jude could be lying, but why would she lie about something like this? Why would she reveal to me just how vulnerable she was?

"I have another on my shoulder from where he knocked me into the floor. Believe me yet?"

How could he? That murderous bastard! Trying to kill a potential relationship between me and Jude by killing Jude in the flesh? I want to erase all of it. My hand reaches to her neck to try to erase it. Rub it away. Make it feel better. Oh, I've hurt her too much already.

I straighten as she pulls the crossbow back up. Yes, she let herself be vulnerable in front of me, and now she regrets it. But she did let herself be vulnerable.

"Valerian liked pain," I say, trying to remind myself and her that it was he who had strangled her. "Anyone's. Mine, even. I knew he wanted to hurt you." I stop to find a lump in my throat. I should have done more to stop him. "And he had. I thought he'd be satisfied with that."

"So it doesn't matter that Valerian wanted to hurt me? So long as he wasn't going to kill me."

"You have to admit, being alive is better." I smile; it's a nervous smile. Perhaps she sees it as that. Perhaps not.

"Just tell me why you hate me. Once and for all."

I feel dizzy at her words. I smooth my fingers over the wood of Dain's desk looking for something solid to grasp. "You really want honesty?"

"I'm the one with the crossbow, not shooting you because you promised me answers. What do you think?"

Death by crossbow or death by shame—the second has the greater odds of survival. "Very well." I look up at her to let her know that I am up for the duel. "I hate you because your father loves you even though you're a human brat born to his unfaithful wife, while mine never cared for me, though I am a prince of Faerie. I hate you because you don't have a brother who beats you. And I hate you because Locke used you and your sister to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from me. Besides which, after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw you in my face as the mortal who could best me."

"Is that all?" She gives me a hard scowl. "Because it's ridiculous. You can't be jealous of me. You don't have to live at the sufferance of the same person who murdered your parents. You don't have to stay angry because if you don't, there's a bottomless well of fear ready to open up under you."

I smile. Yes, we are equals in this. More similar than different. Her blade is equal to mine, and it makes me fearful that she might win if I'm not careful. "Oh really, I don't know about being angry? I don't know about being afraid? You're not the one bargaining for your life."

"That's really why you hate me? Only that? There's no better reason?"

My breath catches. I want to tell her my feelings, all of them. I want to tell her I love her, I fantasize about her. But that would be too much. That would be laying myself bare before her, naked at her mercy. She would most certainly shoot me. I have done nothing to redeem myself. She ought to shoot me.

"Well?" She points her crossbow directly at my chest. "Tell me!"

I close my eyes, ready to accept my fate. "Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop."

I hear nothing. The trigger of the crossbow is unmoved. I peek up to know what is happening. Jude is standing with stunned silence.

I can't tolerate it. "Maybe you should shoot me after all." I cover myself with a hand not wanting her to see the truth about what my face must be showing. The tip of my tail is already convulsing with a nervous energy.

"You're playing me," she says, her voice full of suspicion. She sets down the crossbow and brings out her dagger. She walks around the desk and puts the tip of her blade underneath my chin. She forces my head up so that the only thing I could possibly see is her face. I reluctantly bring my eyes to match hers. Her face is dangerously close to mine.

"You really do want me." Her breath is warm on my skin, yet I shiver in response. "And you hate it."

She releases my chin from the control of her blade, and for a moment I think she is about to put it away until I find the cold blade pressed to my neck. I shouldn't be surprised. I deserve this. Her next move stuns me into silence, her lips touching mine as she opens her mouth to open mine.

The kiss is brief but very real. Too shockingly real. As she pulls her lips away, her face stays near to mine. We rest against each other, cheek to cheek. She is so much more tender than I ever imagined her. It fills me with a revelry I could never have dreamt of. And I want more of it. Oh, how I've longed for someone to be tender to me. The paling sadness I've felt every time I see a mother stroke her child's back in a loving gesture that my mother never showed me. The twinge of jealousy I felt the time I saw Jude lovingly pick her brother Oak up after he took a stumble. The mournful envy I feel whenever I see lovers hold hands or exchange whispers.

I open my eyes to fully accept this as reality. As I do so, I blink a few times, fearful there might be tears starting to form. But my cheek never leaves hers. Unthinkingly, I realize that I've just given her a butterfly kiss. I wonder what it feels like to her—if she even notices. Does she have any idea of how I care for her? Thus far, I've only told her of my own disgust for wanting her.

Feeling incapable of speech, I try to tell her with my actions. As gently as I can, I reach to touch her arms. The tingle in my own hands more fierce than the first time my hands ever felt hers—the time I held her hand to prick her thumb to cure her of the effects of Faerie fruit. I wonder if the intoxication she felt from the bite of that fruit is anywhere close to the intoxication I feel at present to be so close to her. Slowly, my hands caress her shoulders, still half expecting that she'll put a stop to this, that she might slice my throat yet. I still feel the edge of the blade on my skin, though it feels as tremulous as my breath.

Incredibly, she never stops me as I'm the one to initiate this second kiss. I feel that I've lost all control over myself. Seeking her tongue like I'm a mortal craving another bite of the Fruit of Elfhame. My fingers find their way into her hair, trying to bring her ever closer to me. I want not just her lips but all of her. It becomes clear to me that I'm not the only one who wants this. Not only is she letting me do this, she is an active participant in this attempt to devour one another. I've just confessed to her that I don't want to want this, that I find this disgusting, and yet she pulls me along headfirst into the morass. She wants this. Perhaps only as a type of revenge, but it is clear that she desperately wants this even as she seems to fear it.

I am startled out of my trance by the sound of a thud paired to a crack.

Before I fully comprehend where that sound must have come from, I am reminded of the story that a troll once told me. The story about a boy with a stone heart who was kissed by a beast, the end result of which is the boy's stone heart cracking. Has my own heart just been cracked open? Forever changed? My mind returning to the present, I turn to look in the direction of the sound's origin and see that Jude has thrown her knife into Dain's desk, the tip buried into the wood. I suddenly burst with laughter. A nervous laughter.

Jude moves her head back as if surprised by her own actions. "Is that what you imagined?" Her voice is harsh, far from the softness of her lips that were just pressed against mine.

"No." Her question brings to mind the various daydreams I've had of kissing Jude. None of them were anywhere close to what just transpired between us. Our kiss just now was modest in comparison since it never moved beyond kissing, though the passion expressed by it was far more excruciating than I ever imagined.

"Tell me," her voice has a seductive quality even though her actions suggest that she is repulsed by what just happened.

I shake my head with a nervous intensity. Despite my prior candid confession, I do not want Jude to know of my deepest fantasies. "Unless you're really going to stab me, I think I won't. And I might not tell you even if you were going to stab me." I might die yet from my own shame.

Jude stands up and takes a step back from me. Again, I worry that she must be repulsed even though her kisses towards me had been hungry and accepting. Though when I look at her face, I find a reluctant desire hiding within her.

I realize that I need to act now before the opportunity is lost. Before the effects of the kiss begin to fade. "I am going to make a proposal." Wait, I remind myself. Complete step 2 before I engage myself into step 3. "I don't want to put the crown on Balekin's head just to lose mine. Ask whatever you want for yourself, for the Court of Shadows, but ask something for me. Get him to give me lands far from here. Tell him I will be gloriously irresponsible, far from his side. He never needs to think of me again. He can sire some brat to be his heir and pass the High Crown to it. Or perhaps it will slit his throat, a new family tradition. I care not."

"Get up," she commands. I imagine if she was Fae and I was mortal, she would have added glamor to those words.

"So you're not worried I'm going to run for it?"

"After our kiss, I am such a fool over you that I can hardly contain myself. All I want to do is nice things that make you happy. Sure, I'll make whatever bargain you want, so long as you kiss me again. Go ahead and run. I definitely won't shoot you in the back."

It takes me a moment to recognize that she is not a creature of Faerie—she can lie. She is lying. But what part of her statement is a lie? Is there any truth at all to what she just said?

"Hearing you lie outright is a bit disconcerting."

"Then let me tell you the truth. You're not going to run because you've got nowhere to go."

She is right. I am still entirely under her control. I think this even as I realize that I've been lacking control over myself for months, entirely enraptured by her. And I continue to hate myself for this. And hate her as a result for doing this to me.

As she turns away from me, preparing to leave, my eyes are transfixed by her figure, by the mystery that is her essence. The soft, roundness of her curves that exist in contrast to her tough, cutthroat determination.

She talks with her companions, but I don't hear a word of it. I cut and shuffle the deck of cards on the table, the movement of which rubs against the barely-healed cut on my finger she gave me yesterday. Luckily, I'm good at hiding my wounds. Yes, she is a formidable opponent who will likely best me yet. I remain powerless against her. My only hope is that she shows me mercy. Already, she's shown me her tenderness, shown me her vulnerabilities, her generosity. Would she ever show me such kindness again? Would I ever be worthy of such?