Page 68 of These Vile Hearts

The wailing siren song and distant screeching between districts is even louder this time. I swear I hear the ominous beating ofmassive insectile wings from just behind the nearest redwood trunks. Looks like another early morning sprint for me. Luckily my blood sugar is resting well above 150, as I’ve been forced to ration insulin even more after my careless mistake.

When I reach the citadel, panting and clutching a cramp in my side, only a pair of guards stand at the arched entrance. Putting on my most dreamy expression, I tiptoe toward them, feigning wonder at my surroundings.

“Oi!” one of them calls out. “How did a mortal get loose?”

“The pretty man with pretty green hair brought me here,” I say in an airy voice that is helped along by the lack of air in my lungs. “I don’t know where he went. Have you seen him? He told me I could have more wine. Do you have any wine?”

The guards exchange an exasperated look, both muttering, “Archer.”

The one on the left calls out to someone inside the citadel walls to fetch the prince’s mortal-snatcher. I walk in a slow circle with my hands clasped loosely behind my back, staring up at the treetops and humming.

“This is the third time this has happened,” one guard grumbles. “Yet he makes more gold than both of us. Pathetic.”

Archer arrives wearing a bewildered expression. I know he recognizes me by the panicked flare of his eyes. I wave, smiling widely.

“Wine boy!” I exclaim, lifting both my arms like a girl in the club whose song has just come on. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

He stops short, glancing between the guards and me. “What’s going on?”

“Your feet aren’t still sore, are they?” I ask in a singsong voice.

“Just take her, will you?” one guard says. “It’s too early for this.”

Archer’s frown deepens, but he takes hold of my arm anyway, guiding me away from the guards.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“Pretending to be drunk on tieg wine. Those guards weren’t about to let a mortal in to see the king.”

“You’re here to see the king?”

“I have some unfinished business with him.”

“Have you…metthe king?”

“Um. Yes?” I narrow my eyes at him. Archer was literally there when Castor stormed into our foot-rubbing session. “I know you’re afraid of him and all, but could you just show me to his rooms? He’ll be fine with it. I promise. I’ve spent…way too much time with him the past week.”

Archer is looking at me like I’ve truly lost my mind. Both eyebrows lift as he lets out a breathy laugh. “If that’s what you want, golden girl.”

Despite my mind being wrapped up in murder and daggers, I study the sprawling interior of the citadel. Now that my blood sugar isn’t plummeting like it was at the masque, I take in branches the size of roadways woven tightly together and earthen platforms covered in emerald grass. Truly a fairy-tale wonderland up here. And I’m about to water the soil with their king’s blood.

I really wish that thought didn’t make me want to vomit.

Archer leads me into the palace through a maze of branches and secret passageways. I try to make note of each turn, but soon right, left, left, right, right, left becomes a jumble of meaningless directions. I’ll find a way to escape. Chop my way out if I must—not that throwing axes are great for chopping anything more than thin branches, but…

The guards in the passageways have tripled, so I assume we’re getting close to Castor’s room. I wonder why Tamarind is enough protection for the king in a place like Magesté, but he needs a horde of golden goons to protect him inside his branch while he’s sleeping.I wonder if it has anything to do with what my dad did to King Cyperus’s heartwood tree.

Stopping at a pair of gilded doors, Archer nods to the sentries standing on either side wearing golden-feathered armor. “Morning, gents.”

They grunt in response.

Archer clangs the door knocker once, pauses, twice quickly, pauses, and once again.

The door opens, but it isn’t Castor bathed in the light cast by the glowing sconces. Before me stands a strikingly beautiful dryad man with golden hair styled perfectly, not a strand out of place, though he’s wearing a silken scarlet robe as if he just woke up. Dark green eyes the color of emeralds, dazzlingly white teeth, sharp cheekbones, and a pair of sandstone horns.

“Prince Durian?” I say.

FuckingArcher. Of course he would bring me to the mortal collector instead of the king. See if I ever rub his aching feet again. The green-haired traitor looks quickly over at me, his maple eyes suddenly wide and panicked. The guards flanking the doors actually unfreeze and glance my way.