Page 39 of These Vile Hearts

“No, that is not quite what he is—”

Before he can finish, I push through the black-feathered curtain into a semicircular parlor with red walls punctuated every few feet by gothic arched doors, black, curving furniture, and a staircase that splits into two.

I wind through a maze of dozens of arborfae and dryads in various states of undress and erotic positions. They pay me no notice.

A grand piano plays a seductive melody all on its own while an exceptionally tall dryad buries her face between the legs of a pink-haired arborfae lying across the top of the instrument. Her screams of pleasure harmonize with its song. For a bizarre moment, I wonder what it would be like to join them, or at the very least take a seat at the piano and play for them.

My eyes catch on a mortal girl carrying a tray of drinks. Her eyes don’t seem quite as dazed as the mortals from the masquerade with the leashes and collars, but they still seem off. And the way her mouth is turned up in an always-there smile tells me she’s under some kind of dryad glamour. I want to grab her and run.

Tamarind comes to a stop beside me.

“Are you still going to tell me this isn’t a brothel?” I look back up at the guard to find him chewing on his lip. “That’s what I thought.”

I storm toward the stairs just as a group of giggling arborfae passes in front of Tamarind, blocking his way to me.

“Don’t worry,” I send over my shoulder, “I’m not going to kill the king. Just make him bleed a little.”

12

Castor

Evodia’s room is situated at the top of Magesté, directly behind the blades of the windmill. Unlike the rooms downstairs, the madam’s domain is one of peace and serenity, with its shades of gray and lilac and soft-hued paintings of women holding seedlings in their arms.

Lambent candles emanate calming scents of lavender and vanilla, a jarring contrast to Evodia’s rage after I barged into her interview with a wannabe orchid who looked like they’d just smoked an entire bush of nepenthe.

She folds her hands atop her ivory desk now, fixing me with a stern glare. “Let me see if I have this clear…You wish for me to take in a mortal girl with presumably no experience in a place such as this so you can convince her to fall in love with you to fulfill your foolish pact with the Redwood King?”

“That’s correct.”

“And this girl believesyouare the Redwood King.”

“She does, indeed.”

“And you wish for me to order my orchids and dancers to refer to you as such? To convince the girl that it’s true.”

I lean forward in the wingback chair before her desk. “Have I ever told you that you’re an excellent listener?”

“Why bring her here? Why not keep her in a branch of the citadel and hide her away from the king?”

“You mean attempt to hide a mortal who believes I’m king beneath the nose of theactualking who claims to have ‘ears’ everywhere?”

At least a decade passes as Evodia stares at me, amethyst eyes burning a hole straight through my skull—though not nearly as fiercely as when I first told her of my pact.

Folding her hands before her, she says, “You are a foolish man, Prince Castor.”

Evodia is only twenty years my senior—not a long time for a dryad—and yet she has an uncanny way of making me feel like a child. As a prince, I technically have the authority to punish her for speaking to me in such a casual manner, but I’ve never entertained the thought. Evodia has always treated me like one of her orchids. Stern and brash, with the shadow of care.

Not love, of course. But something that almost feels like it.

“Have I ever denied that I am foolish?”

“The effort you’re putting into wooing this mortal could be spent making a difference in this kingdom. Freeing people who were imprisoned without trial. Convincing your brother to pour some of his resources into this district. Help house the orphaned saplings whose homes have been destroyed.”

My upper lip curls and a thrum of anxiety starts up in my sternum. Despite my banishment from the bedrooms of this establishment, I thought at least she would agree to the extra help. “Perhaps I can focus on that when the threat of the Bloodwood Tree is no longer looming over me like a carrion bird.”

She heaves a deep sigh. “Well…I suppose Icoulduse the help.Fern is positively drowning in papers, and organization is not one of her strengths. Though I won’t be hiring the girl as an orchid.”

“Good. That wouldn’t exactly be helpful to my pact, nor do I think she would appreciate me offering up her body like it’s something to be sold.”