Page 97 of These Vile Hearts

“Maddox!” Tam exclaims. “What are you—”

“Where’s Castor?” I interrupt the moment I can speak. The feeling in my legs is taking dreadfully long to return.

“I—he’s in his branch, but you really need to—”

“I’m so sorry,” I state quickly, sliding from the table and nearly collapsing when I find my feet still numb. “I have to go. I can’t explain. And I’m sorry for last night. I was a horrible bitch.”

He stares wide-eyed at me as I check my weapons belt for my diabetic supplies. Blessedly, they’re all accounted for. Apologizing a third time, I swipe Castor’s cloak off the chair in the corner and clumsily stumble my way out of the infirmary.

31

Maddox

Through the throne room window, I catch sight of the Myrtle Queen bowing to King Durian just before she retreats through the doors.

Cursing, I look to the left and right to find an alternate way to Castor’s branch. But the only way I know is past the throne room. I push my quaking limbs to the limit as I break into a sprint and—

Drosera and Atlas step out of the throne room just as I’m about to pass the doors. They both reach for their weapons but stop when they take me in. I slam to a halt.

“You’re still alive, axeling?” Drosera sounds genuinely shocked, her attention moving to the newly stitched cut on my face. “Though it looks like someone got ahold of you, huh? Didn’t have your tiny mortal axe around to chop away at them?”

The Myrtle Queen emerges just behind them, standing at full height and looking down her nose at me with those piercing golden eyes. She speaks in a voice so quiet the wind nearly carries it away. “Miss Sinclair. Taking your precious time, I see. Your father had thedeed done before sunrise the very first day. I’d so hoped you would take after him. And yet the king still sits on his throne, very much alive.”

“I…” My brain is too full of Castor to come up with a clever lie. “I mistook the cursed prince for the king, which I just learned. Today. So I’m…a bit behind. If you’ll excuse me, I need to—” Drosera steps in front of me so I can’t pass, her hand on her weapon. My thundering heart stutters and sinks.

Please. Let me go to Castor.

The queen tilts her head, fixing me with a patronizing stare. “Oh, darling mortal girl. You do not listen well, do you? I warned you about this.”

“Warned me aboutwhat, exactly?” All respect I should be showing the dryad queen who made a pact with me evaporates with my impatience.

The queen’s eyes spark with amusement now. “I told you the king loves to play games.”

Drosera throws her head back in a cackle. “You’veactuallybeen plotting to murder the wrong brother. How humiliating for you.”

Her words would fill me with fury if another emotion weren’t consuming every cell in my body.

Terror.

I have to get to him. It’s been too long. My hand trembles as I try to keep it from grasping my throwing axe and giving Drosera a third horn. But then the trio’s attention is drawn away from me as a loud exclamation of “Amanita, darling!” is heard to their left. It’s the water nymph I met at the feast with the spherical eyes.

Bless you, frog woman.

I bolt away from the Myrtle Queen. Drosera doesn’t lash out with her weapon, but her laughter chases after me. I outrun it.

Flitting from one shadow to the next, I dodge the eyes of the citadel guards. Slipping inside the branch through the dining hall tothe living quarters, I snatch a tray of brandy and crystal glasses off a wooden bar cart to pass off my intrusion as a service to the king—to theprince.

I suppose he is both, so long as Durian keeps up his little game.

When I reach the sitting room outside of the dining hall, I stumble, catching sight of a painting that was definitely not there at the feast. I pause long enough to ogle Durian’s portrait. Golden hair and sandstone horns. Emerald eyes that seem to follow me. Castor’s face is nowhere to be seen among the queue of kings.

How was I so unbelievably naive?

The panic builds. I’m sure my blood sugar is building, too, but I don’t fucking care.

My strides grow longer as I rush through the maze of branches. Castor’s face shimmers in my thoughts like sunlight on dark water. His sharp jaw. His warm brown eyes. His reluctant smile. His hands that can push darkness into living things if he wants them to—the hands people fear. The hands that have only ever touched me with the utmost gentleness.

The lump clogging my throat sinks to my chest and morphs into a familiar black hole of aching emptiness.