Page 76 of These Vile Hearts

“Dryads can influence natural things to do what they wish,” I interrupt. “Thatis how. The piano is made of wood and ivory, and a piece of the dryad’s soul lives on through the wood. That is why.”

“I thought only druids could speak Sylvan,” Maddox says, not looking my way.

“Sylvan is more of a two-way communication,” I say. “Dryad magic is like…a mortal giving a dog a command.”

“Ah…”

“What an incredibly dull conversation this is.” Durian leans toward Maddox now, ignoring my presence entirely as he speaks in a voice that makes the brandy I just swallowed crawl back up my throat. “Canyouplay the piano, Maddox?”

Her eyes flit briefly to me before moving back to him. “A little.”

“Can you sing as well?” he asks. “I’ve always found mortal voices rather enchanting.”

Maddox glances down at her lap with the trace of a frown tugging on her lips. “Sort of. Not perfectly.”

“Luckily, there is no such thing as a perfect mortal song. That’s what makes them so lovely.” He places a hand on her forearm. “You should sing me a song to cheer me up. I’ve been dreadfully melancholy lately.”

For the first time, Maddox looks truly panicked. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Come, now, darling,” he interrupts. “Entertainus.” Durian sits back, waving a hand around the room of gentlemen pretending not to listen in on our conversation.

“No, really.” Maddox shakes her head, clutching her glass of brandy to her chest. “I’m so out of practice—”

“Sing.”Durian’s voice takes on a commanding tone. “I insist.”

Maddox’s gaze moves to mine, as if seeking my counsel for once. I dip my chin into a slight nod, if only to get her away from my brother and the clawlike hands inching closer and closer to her thigh.

She swallows the rest of her brandy, setting the empty glass on the table. “I suppose I have no choice, do I?”

“There’s a good girl,” he purrs before calling out to the others in the room, “Quiet, gentlemen, quiet. Miss Maddox has generously offered to grace us with a performance.”

Her jaw tightens at his words. She approaches the piano no one ever touches, and the gentle plinking of the keys ceases the moment she sits down.

Sitting there on the wooden bench, a slight curve in her back like an elongated S, Maddox looks like she belongs anywhere in the world but here. In this place with these dryads who lord their coin and power over those who have less. She looks like she belongs in a quaint mortal café with the coffee she loves so much.

Durian watches her with a predatory hunger. Despite the fatal end goal of this pact, there is no doubt that it’s the only thing saving her from being my brother’s entertainment tonight. He can try to meddle all he wants, but he cannot touch her. Not like that.

Testing the keys, Maddox’s face takes on a new quality I’ve yet to witness. Concentration and echoes of memories swirl in herfeatures, softening the edges of them. The melody of the song is simple yet haunting all the same.

As her fingers feel their way across the ivories, her eyes fall closed. No one in this room can deny the mortal edge of imperfection in her beauty, the hint that the forest doesn’t flow through her veins.

Then the first note rings from her throat, and I realize her voice is the most mortal thing about her. Achingly, painfully raw and drenched with every emotion and feeling she’s held back over the past several days on dazzling display. Not a trace of a lie in her haunting words.

Her fingers stumble over the keys. But that’s what makes it beautiful, so very un-fae. The other men in the room look on, mesmerized. Durian’s piercing gaze doesn’t falter. Neither does mine.

Her eyes fix on me as she sings the last verse. A verse about love. How it is the greatest thing you could ever learn—to love and be loved in return.

The words are daggers and roses. Cruel lies and heartfelt truths. Slashes of claws and gentle caresses.

The final note rings out, and in this moment, I try with all my dark, demented soul to hate her. To remember how it feels to loathe the red-haired viper. But, among all my convoluted, muddled feelings, hate is not one of them. At some point—maybe tonight, maybe days ago—her silver eyes turned from daggers to blazing starlight.

I don’t know how she did it, how she bewitched me into this state. Through trickery, through carefully dosed poison, through some mortal magic of which I’m not aware. But of all the cruel crimes Maddox has committed against me, making me see her as something other than a monster is most definitely the cruelest.

24

Maddox

The cursed prince leans against the grand piano, where I sit watching the keys play a melody all on their own now that my control of them has been revoked. The dryad men seated around card tables, drinking brandy and talking with noses in the air, are growing drunker and drunker. Their voices begin to rise, conversations becoming more passionate and nonsensical.