Queen of Hearts: The Crown (Queen of Hearts Saga #1)(35)

The woman was making no sense. It reminded Dinah of every conversation she had ever had with Charles. She took Faina’s hand in her own. “Please try not to speak in riddles. I need you to remember what you know.”

Faina blinked. “Have you seen my baby? She was here, once, inside of me. Now there is nothing but the black, the roots; they show me things. I know things. She will find her death under the heart, trampled under the devil steed, just like me. The palace from his story will break her.”

“She’s mad!” hissed Wardley.

Faina raised her head to look at Wardley and licked her lips. “You must have been mad,” she said, “or you would not have come here.”

Dinah pulled Faina to her feet and rested her on the stone platform that served as her bed. “What do you know? I need you to tell me. THINK. How did you get here?”

Faina’s lower lip trembled and black tears that looked like ink began rolling down her face. “We did nothing but serve Wonderland, all our lives. Catching clams and oysters for the King’s pleasure and table. I have seen the beauty of a fiery sunset over the Western Sea, of shells in my baby’s hand. And then it was all gone, in the flash of a silver blade. All because of you. The Queen’s cold bed was for naught, but she will, oh yes, she will rise like the sun, my own little sun . . . she will possess all that you desire.”

She leaned against Dinah, who held her breath against the wave of nausea that passed through her. Faina smelled like nothing she could ever describe—the smell of the tower itself, an ancient evil, filth and death.

“Please, Your Grace! Please don’t let them tie me to the tree. The root shows me things, horrible things, beautiful things. . . .” She started babbling incoherently.

“That’s Yurkei,” hissed Wardley. “She’s speaking Yurkei!”

Dinah listened closely but all her language lessons were useless. The Yurkei that Faina was speaking was a strange blend of sounds and random words. Faina’s body gave a jerk, and then another. Dinah held Faina’s head gently with her hands as she thrashed in the darkness.

“I know,” she murmured. “I know it hurts. I know it feels horrible to not have control.”

She flashed to Charles, how his mind was a wild, unknowable thing, always seeing but never sharing, straining but always failing to make a human connection. With a loud scream, Faina’s seizing ended and she laid her head on Dinah’s lap. Her bright-blue eyes shone with a new clarity, her voice unwavering. The madness had retreated. “You have to go,” she whispered. “Straddle the devil. And when the time comes, do not open the marked door. Please!” She grabbed Dinah’s arm, long nails ripping into her pale skin. “Please! Do not heed the blood of secrets.”

“What do you mean?” Dinah heard the faint sound of marching from down below. The Clubs were changing their watch.

“It’s time to leave, right now, we have to go!” insisted Wardley. “We will not be so lucky with the night Clubs coming in.”

Dinah leapt up. “We can’t leave her here like this—they’ll bind her to the tower again!”

“What did you think went on in the towers? Tea and tarts? That isn’t our choice to make! She is a prisoner here, and you are the Princess. We need to leave. You won’t get any more information from her!”

He was right. Faina was clawing her way toward the back of the cell. Wardley reached into his baldric and pulled out a thin dagger, barely the width of a finger. He placed it on the ground and kicked it across the floor toward Faina’s blackened hand.

“What are you doing?” demanded Dinah.

“A kindness,” snapped Wardley. He yanked Dinah to her feet. She tore away from him and knelt beside Faina, covering her with her cloak.

“I’ll come back for you, I will,” she insisted.

Faina closed her eyes. “Not this time. There will be a bloody end for Faina, no baby at her breast.” She looked up at Dinah, a peaceful contentment passing over her features. “Oh, my poor Queen. Your heart will sway your hand.”

“CRAY!” Wardley shouted, banging his sword against the lock. “Open this cell at once.”

Cray trotted out of the darkness and unlocked it with a smile. “Did you have your way with her? She was a pretty one when she came in, not so much now that the tree has taken her for itself. . . .”

Wardley slapped him across the face with an open hand. “A true man never needs to take by force.”

Cray stared at Wardley with awe as he pushed past. “I’ll strap her back up now. C’mon Faina.”

“Can’t you just leave her alone?” snapped Dinah.

“Nope. We are on orders from the King himself to have her strapped in from sunrise to sunset.” He easily propped Faina against the wall and pulled the leather strap across her chest. Roots began to stir and pulse away from the wall.

“Even I think it’s cruel. The most I’ve ever seen a prisoner strapped in to the tower is an hour a day. And that was for the Gray Turncoat.”

The Gray Turncoat was an assassin sent by the Yurkei. He had come very close to killing the King, but his mortal fault was that he underestimated Cheshire. After his failed attempt at poisoning, he spent a month in the towers before he lost his head, which was then sent back to the Yurkei on horseback. Cray pinched Faina’s thin cheek between his grubby fingers. “This one must have done something beyond horrible, but that makes sense from what she was saying when she arrived.”