Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(88)

“Wonderful news!” the Queen exclaimed, blissfully ignorant of the tension between Ana?s and me. It wasn’t lost on the Duchesse, though she said nothing.

The three of us hurried into Tristan’s room, where he lay in the center of his bed, propped up on a pile of cushions. The frown furrowing his brow disappeared at the sight of us. His eyes locked on me and I felt relief course through him and me both. He wasn’t angry with me.

“Did they harm you?” He tried to push himself up on the pillows, but his mother scurried over and pushed him back down. “You must rest, Tristan.” She set to fluffing the pillows and tucking the blankets tightly around him like a swaddled baby.

He seemed annoyed at being fussed over, but he smiled at her anyway. “Thank you, Mother.”

Then he looked at me, taking in my severe hairstyle, the black dress, and, I realized far too late, the blood that dripped from the cut on the back of my neck. I should have cleaned it up before coming. “I’m quite well,” I assured him. “Fit as a fiddle.”

One of his eyebrows rose. “You are not suited to deception, my lady.”

The light Tristan had left with me when he thought he was dying chose that moment to zip over to the bed, flying in dizzying circles around its patient twin hovering over Tristan’s head. The result was a riot of light and shadows that caught everyone’s attention.

“It stayed with you this whole time? It should have dissipated hours ago,” Tristan said, clearly amazed. In truth, I hadn’t even noticed.

“It isn’t possible for a human to control troll magic,” the Duchesse said, tapping her chin with her index finger and watching the lights reflected in the mirror on the wall.

“Oh, I don’t control it,” I said. “It’s here because it wants to be.”

“Wants to be! Bah!” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

Tristan didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. “Stop that!” he said firmly to my light. It ignored him and continued to fly madly around the room like a disobedient child. “You there,” he said, pointing at it. “Come here.” With obvious reluctance, the light slowly drifted over and landed on his outstretched hand. “It’s a bit of my magic,” he said. “But there’s something changed about it.” He stared into the depths of the light. “It seems content to maintain its purpose.”

“What purpose?” I asked, confused.

“To light your path.” The glowing ball lifted off his hand and floated over to me.

The Duchesse had a look of satisfaction on her face, but she made no comment.

Tristan cleared his throat. “I’d like to speak to Cécile. Alone.”

After the Queen left, I walked over to stand next to the bed. My fingers played nervously with the blanket, while Tristan silently scrutinized my appearance.

“Never a dull moment since you arrived in my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant for this to happen.”

His hand closed over mine, our fingers interlocking. His skin was warm again, burning with the internal flame of magic. “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what Marc said to you, it wasn’t your fault.”

I raised my head. “How do you know what he said? You were unconscious.”

“No. I wasn’t.” He stared up at the ceiling, his thumb tracing circles over the back of my hand. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t open my eyes or speak, but I could hear. And I could feel.”

“How horrible!”

“Not entirely.” His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

“Oh.” I flushed down to the tips of my toes. “Oh, dear.”

“And my repertoire of foul language is much increased.”

I clapped my hand over my eyes, embarrassed to the core. Then realization dawned on me. “Then you know…”

He nodded gravely. “That you used magic to heal me.”

“And failed,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

Tristan held his arm up to the light, revealing scars that looked years old. “You didn’t fail.” His eyes searched mine. “I’d suspected for some time that you might have magic in your blood. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “That was the first time I tried, and I couldn’t even get her spells right. The poison didn’t leave.”

“Her?”

I swallowed hard. Letting go of his hand, I retrieved the grimoire from its hiding place and handed it to him. It was clear from his expression that he recognized it. “You can open this?”

“Yes.”

“Does it tell you anything about breaking the curse?”

“No, but there are spells to use on trolls,” I admitted, watching as he relaxed fractionally at my answer.

Tristan nodded and handed the grimoire back to me. “Keep it hidden,” he said. “No one must know about this.”


I stored the book back in its spot in the garderobe, and came back over to the bed. I felt nervous. Would knowing I was a witch change the way Tristan felt about me? I could hardly blame him if it did, given what Anushka had done to them. “Are you angry?” I asked softly.

He shook his head. “You saved my life, Cécile. Not many people would have had the courage to do what you did.” He sighed. “They brought me back to Trollus. I could hear them talking about what my father intended to do to you – they were acting as if I were already dead, even though they knew I wasn’t. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I could barely breathe and then…” He broke off, his eyes growing distant as though he were trying to remember something. “And then the venom’s power over me lifted. It was a close thing.” His gaze rested on my throat. “Too close.”