“If that is acceptable to you, Lady Aerinne?” Baroun asked in his smooth voice.
“If it is acceptable to my Lord,” I replied, equally smooth, inclining my head. I had no idea what they’d been discussing, my attention even more scattered than usual. “What pleases him pleases Faronne.”
“I am blessed with so dutiful and attentive a daughter,” Baba said, but no one who didn’t know him would recognize that tone in his voice.
I refocused, determined not to fall for Baroun's scheming, and thumbed through the documents in front of me, wishing againthatwe had a digital tablet.
“We have to live like we’re in the fucking renaissance,” I muttered. And ignore most forms of human technologybecause we Fae liked to cut off our own noses to spite our faces.
Gods, my kingdom for a laptop.
ThenI confirmed the missing fine print, because lo and behold, reading worked.
“Where is the clause guaranteeing the release of hostages?” I asked the Prince, ignoring Baroun-the-Middle-Man as I inserted my question into a natural—finally—break in the arguing. Baba had had five days to prepare preliminary negotiations and send them to Montague for review and counteroffers.
Renaud didn't respond.
I lifted a hand, snapping my fingers in front of his nose to knock him out of the fugue. Well, he shouldn't have seated me so close to him. The Prince turned his head toward me slowly and stared.
“Allô? I need you to pay attention here.” I threw his words back in his face. “Focus. Earth to Renaud.”
I was going to hate dealing with an Old One, especially so newly woken. Obviously, they could deteriorate to barely sentient in a second, their minds off in the old realm somewhere, chasing dandelion fluff.
I needed to jump on Nora the next time she had a lucid moment and pick her brain on the best way to drag an Old One kicking and screaming into present time, and how to handle them when they faded back. One minute he was fully present and issuing soft threats; the next minute no one was home. Things couldn't have beenthatfascinating in his mind.
For a split second, I chased the tail end of a thought, a whisper of something I was supposed to remember, butthenit was gone.
“You have my attention, Lady Aerinne.”
Thank fuck for small favors—though it probably wasn’t. “The hostages? Where is the clause guaranteeing the release of House hostages moldering in your dungeon for the last twenty years? The ones your palace assured us were alive, uninjured, and fed.”
“No,” he said, tapping his finger on the chair of his arm once.
“No? What do you mean, no? This is non-negotiable.”
I set the papers down carefully and curled my hands around my glass of water, fantasizingthatit was his neck, and reminded myselfthata repeat of last night's little stabby incident would get me killed this time. It was probably only cute when it happened the first time.
“I have no incentive to release what is mine,” he said.
Blood rushed to the remnants of my stress fried brain. “They were captured by House Montague, but they belong to Faronne. They aren'tevensupposed to be in the palace dungeons.”
So much for crown neutrality.
Another finger tap.Justthe one. “And yet, in the palace dungeons they reside.”
This time, I punched my temper in the teeth, kneedthatbitch in the groin, wrestled her to the ground, and sat on her. I could control myself when Ireally,reallywanted to. My brother's life depended on me. My brother, and all my other people trapped away from the sun, moon, and stars.
“This is why this is a negotiation, myPrince. We state our demands, you return with a counteroffer.”
Incredulity flashed across my father's face. Whatever. Better people could lecture the Prince on negotiation strategy, but this was important.
Renaud stopped tapping his finger. “Verywell.” The words were mild, but I tensed. “If you require—” he said the word as ifamusedwe might require anything of him, “—that I release what is mine,you must compensate me for the loss.”
I downed my water. Forget tablets, give me vodka. I needed to work on my coping mechanisms with my therapist. “And this is when you tell us what you want in compensation. It's the second stage of negotiation. Wearemaking progress. So what do you want?”
A small smile curled his lips. “Lady Aerinne,” he crooned, and his deep wintry voice filled the courtyard, lifted by the breeze and ruffling the leaves. Several drifted from their branches onto the table. Smoke and frost filled my nostrils, haunting notes of blackberry and fir. “You know what I want.”
I picked up a pencil, snapped it into fourths, and began arranging the pieces into shapes. “I'm afraid negotiations requirethatyou be more specific. We can't put 'Lady Aerinne, you know what I want' into writing. Your Highness.”
