Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(70)

The Duchesse shot me a dark look from over the Queen’s shoulder. She clearly did not appreciate me passing the blame to her nephew.

The King laughed. “Perhaps it would, but he isn’t here, is he? Tell me, Cécile, why do you think he is so set against you?”

I hesitated. I considered pleading ignorance, but then decided against it. He would know I was lying. “Because I am human, Your Majesty. He dislikes my kind.” I watched, barely able to breathe as he slowly shook his head.

“Excuses, Cécile. You were brought here to serve a purpose – a purpose you seem to have forgotten while you gallivant through my city pursuing every possible whimsy that this one,” he gestured at the Duchesse, “can think up.” He took a long sip of wine, eyeing me over the rim of the glass. Lessa leaned over his shoulder to refill it. “You are a splendid example of your kind, my dear, and for all his protests, Tristan is a seventeen year-old boy. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he replied. “Because if I don’t see an improvement in your conduct, not only will your gallivanting cease, I will lock you in a box with no room to move.”

The fork slipped through my fingers, clattering against the plate.

“I’ll leave you to rot in your own filth,” he continued, “until you come to understand why there is no one alive who dares to disobey me.” He smiled. “Now get out of my sight.”

Knocking back my chair, I rushed from the room before he could see the pallor of my face. My bravado had long since fled. Being able to open Anushka’s book and read spells that could separate a troll from his magic didn’t mean anything unless I could use them. I needed to learn to do so.





“I hate him!” I announced loudly. “He’s a vile, gluttonous, evil creature and I hope he chokes on a fishbone.”



élise stopped dusting and Zoé poked her head out of the closet. “What happened?”

Flinging myself down on a sofa, I waited for the girls to sit on either side of me before I explained in terse sentences what the King had said.

“Oh, he’s a villain,” Zoé said, her brow creased with indignation. “It isn’t fair to threaten you – it’s not your fault that His Highness is being…” She flung her hands up in the air. “I don’t know, antagonistic?”


I nodded warily. To the best of my knowledge, the girls didn’t know about our ruse – they thought our quarrels were real. It was all so complex and convoluted that I figured it was best to keep silent on it entirely. My head began to pound in frustration. “I don’t know what to do.” That much was honest.

The girls exchanged concerned glances. Zoé retrieved a hairbrush and began working on my hair while her sister set to filing my already perfectly filed nails. It was no hug – their training was too ingrained to instigate that degree of familiarity – but the sentiment was the same. It made me wish desperately that Sabine were here.

“I don’t think you have any choice,” élise said, exchanging the file for a buffer. “You have to do what the King says – we all do.”

“How?” I clenched my jaw. “I can’t make Tristan be nice to me.” Never mind that doing so would totally undermine the human-hating persona that he took such pains to cultivate.

“No,” élise said, “you can’t. But you can be seen making an effort. It might buy you time.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked, the growing gleam on their faces making me uneasy.

“We can lower the necklines on your dresses,” she said. “Make them snugger in the right places.”

“And there are certain fragrances that are said to stimulate ardor. I can procure some in the city and let it be known that you requested them. Word will spread like wildfire, and all gossip eventually gets back to the King.”

“This all sounds humiliating,” I said, slumping my shoulders.

élise shrugged. “It’s better than ending up in a box.”

She made a valid point, which is why I subjected myself to trying on gown after gown while the girls pinned, tucked, and altered, all the while thinking that this really wasn’t the answer. I didn’t want to buy time – I wanted to take action today. I wanted Tristan to get rid of his menace of a father now, not a year from now. The spells in Anushka’s grimoire might just be the key to speeding along the process, if I could find a way to use them. And in order to do that, I needed to get my hands on the primary ingredient of all the spells: troll blood.

That would be no easy task.

“Too tight?” Zoé asked around the silver pins she had stuck between her lips. I realized I’d been frowning, and forced my face to relax and shook my head. She went back to work and I went back to my thoughts.

Marc was the most obvious person to ask, but he would want to know why, and I had no confidence that he wouldn’t tell Tristan. Same with the twins. As much as they might like me, they were his kin, his closest friends, and they were fervently loyal to him. I glanced down at Zoé and élise, their faces terse with concentration as they worked. They were my friends, but again, their loyalty was unquestionably to Tristan. There was no way they’d hand over something that might possibly be used against him, and besides, I had no way of knowing how their half-human blood would affect the spells. So that ruled out Tips and his gang as well.