Pheolix shook his head. “A Naiad can’t make such a vow against their master. My body wouldn’t even let me say the words. They’d be empty air in my mouth.”
“You can,” I ground out. “You will. Theia will allow it.”
I didn’t know if such a thing was possible. I didn’t know if the moon listened to conversations spoken under the sun. But if I were to threaten a god over anything, it would be this. I reached into his pocket, drawing out the knife he played with whenever his thoughts grew dark and isolated. “Vow it.”
His shoulders deflated with slow skepticism. He straightened, taking the knife from my hand, and drew it across the pad of his thumb. Merely humoring me.
He didn't expect it to work.
My mouth thinned, unwilling to accept failure. Blood flooded into his thumbprint, tiny canals of scarlet red. Steel eyes flicked to me. Consoling. As though he knew the attempt had already failed.
“Vow it,” I growled.
Pheolix opened his mouth.
I held my breath.
A snap of light ignited over his skin.
Epilogue
Pheolix opened my door without knocking.
Well, not Pheolix. Thaan. Wearing Pheolix’s body.
I set my feather pen beside my notebook, placing my elbows on the table.
I knew what he came to say. Had suspected it since Prince Nikolaos’s letter arrived from Leihani. Then known for sure when the gossip trailed the ship into port.
It had started. She was here. Cebrinne’s daughter.
I’d hoped she’d arrive in Calder some other way. But like everything else I’d dreamed up in my life, avoiding Thaan was the wish of a fool. I suppose, somewhere deep down, I’d always known he’d get to her first.
Cain stepped through the door behind Pheolix, adjusting his glasses.
“I’m sure you heard the Prince brought a woman back with him,” Pheolix drawled in a voice that wasn’t his. He joined his fingers together in a position that wasn’t his either, looking down at me with such arrogance I had to flex my jaw to keep from shoving to my feet.
Thaan loved when I reacted. Loved when I lost my cool. Loved knowing he’d pushed me too far, easily signified when I started throwing whatever porcelain dish was nearest. Something about watching it explode always soothed my nerves, but I hated giving him the satisfaction.
“I heard,” I replied, facing Cain rather than the person through whom he spoke. The entire moon-damned palace had heard. The news had spread like wildfire, burning into the mouths of everyone from the secretaries in Thaan’s administrative offices to the guards along the curtain wall.
I couldn’t often scent Thaan’s anger. He usually kept it tucked tight around him. But his grip on his emotions slipped as I sat coolly before him, unbothered by the mention of the young woman from the islands. The metallic heat of it prickled in my nose, and I had to stifle the urge to smile. I was like him, I supposed.
I relished the thought of making him angry.
“She’s waiting for you,” Pheolix—Thaan—said.
The urge to smile dropped. The air felt too thick. My heart skipped a beat. “Now?”
“Now.”
I hesitated. “What does she know?”
He laughed cruelly. “Almost nothing. Doesn’t even understand what a Naiad is.”
Not what I meant. My mouth tightened. “Does she know who I am to her?”
Pheolix smiled. Even after twenty years of Thaan using Pheolix to taunt me, few things sliced as deeply under my hide. Cain stood innocuously in front of the door, but Pheolix draped himself over the table, propping himself on his elbows and leaning toward my face. “No, heiress. Why don’t you run up there and tell her?” I pushed slowly from the table, rising out of my seat. Pheolix pinned a hand over mine, stopping me. He stepped in close, nudging his mouth to my ear, and pulled the knife from my belt. I stared past the arch of his neck, glaring at Cain. “Careful,” Pheolix whispered. “This one grew up wild. Let’s not bring her any weapons.”
