Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(44)

He laughed, but the flash of unease gave him away. “You can quit trying to hide the way you feel,” I added. “You can’t fool me the way you do everyone else.”

The smile slid from his face. “Works both ways, Cécile.”

I held my ground. “I’ll ask the questions. Do you hate humans?”

He snorted softly. “I thought you had all the answers.”

“I want to hear it from your lips.”

“What difference does it make to you? Knowing won’t change anything.”

His anxiety fed mine and my breath came in short little gasps. “Yes or no.”

“That’s awfully limiting,” he said, licking his lips. “I prefer to qualify my answers.”

“Yes or no, Tristan.”

Silence.

He didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame him. But I had to know. There had to be a way to convince him without resorting to blackmail. I was good at persuading people – all it took was a bit of concentration and the right words. I focused. “We both have a vested interest in each other’s survival,” I said. “No one else in this cursed city needs you alive more than I do. But in order for me to help, I need to know the truth. Please tell me the truth.” I leaned into the words, putting every ounce of willpower I had into them.

The sound of my heart was loud in my ears, the rocks solid beneath my feet. One of the unlatched stall doors swung against the wall. Tristan’s attention jerked in the direction of the sound. He frowned and looked back at me. Worried. Curious. But unconvinced and unmoved by my force of will, which was something that had never happened to me before. There was only one way to get him to cave.

“I believe you have recently been deprived of certain documents,” I said softly. “Documents that certain individuals are eager to possess.”

Fury burned through the back of my skull. Tristan became unearthly still, unblinking. “Where are they?”

I fought the urge to step back. “Safe. Hidden.”

“You surprise me, Cécile,” he said, voice frigid. “I didn’t figure you for the backstabbing type.”

I scowled at him. “I only want the truth – you are the one who is so damnably secretive. And besides, I didn’t take them to use against you. I took them to protect you.”


His eyes widened fractionally, but I felt his surprise.

“I think you had better explain yourself,” he said.

In short, terse sentences, I explained how I had wandered into the cellar and what had happened afterwards. “If I hadn’t taken them, Angoulême would have,” I said. “And I had them hidden in my skirts when he made his offer. I could have given them to him then, but I didn’t.”

“To protect yourself.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know about… that until after. Marc told me what happens if one of us…”

“Dies.” He finished my sentence. “You didn’t know?”

“How could I know?” I scuffed the toe of my shoe against the floor. “You trolls have taken away everything that matters to me. There is no way for me to escape on my own – I need help. Angoulême offered that to me, but I know he doesn’t mean it. He hates me and means to see me dead, I can feel it.” My hand balled into a fist and I hesitated. “But I think you would help me, if you could.”

He didn’t react. I closed my eyes and tried to read his emotions, but they were tumultuous and confusing.

“Is that your bargain, then?” he asked. “My promise to help you escape Trollus in exchange for my papers?”

“No,” I said. “I want something else.”

Silence. I didn’t bother opening my eyes to look for clues on his face. They wouldn’t be there – he had been at this game for far too long. All the clues I needed resided in my own head. Tristan was nervous. He had thought he could predict me, control me, but I’d just demonstrated otherwise.

“What?”

“I want you to tell me what those papers contain. I want to know why they are so important to you. Why they are so important to Angoulême.”

He laughed. “Of all the things in the world you could ask for, that is what you want?”

I nodded, not fooled by his flippancy. I had taken a chance and struck gold. Of all the things I could have asked for, this was the one he wanted to give up the least, which meant it was valuable. Within his answer lay the truth, the heart of his politics. Yes, I could have asked for him to help me escape, but I’d seen how easy it would be to get around that promise. A bird in hand was worth two on the fly, and if he gave me what I wanted, I was certain I would have something valuable indeed.

“Just because I can’t kill you doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you,” he said, stepping forward.

I shook my head. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” His hand slid around my throat, thumb resting against my fluttering pulse. “I could hurt you in ways that might make you wish for death.”

“You won’t.”

Breath hissed between his teeth. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because if it was in you to torture the information out of me,” I said, “you’d have done it already.” I leaned towards him, and his hand slipped from my throat to cup the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my curls. “You hate the way your father is, how he treats the half-bloods. I heard it in your voice yesterday, but more than that, I felt it.” I pressed a hand against his chest and for the first time ever, he did not recoil at my touch. “You aren’t like him.”