Step 7b: ...don't trust him to keep his promises...

Ivelle's gawked at Lillian, sure she'd misheard.

"He – hang on... what?"

"I don't know all the details," Lillian said in a low voice. "It happened years ago, before I arrived at the palace. But I heard the news from his own lips."

"Surely there's some mistake." Ivelle shook her head, trying to clear it. "I thought your brother disappeared after the carriage crash that killed your parents."

"He made it to the palace alive." Lillian's hands twisted together in her lap. "Eirifold became his only friend in the palace. And then Eirifold betrayed him."

"Why?"

"I don't know. But he told me so himself. Boasted about it to me one night, while he was drunk out of his mind." Lillian's face hardened. "I'm not sure why you're always jumping to his defense. You saw with your own eyes what he did to Wilfred."

"I..."

Ivelle floundered, for once rendered speechless. Of all the accusations she had expected to come out of Lillian's mouth, murdering one of Lillian's close relatives had been near the bottom of the list, on par with learning that Eirifold had a secret side hobby as a snake charmer, or that he kicked helpless bunnies for fun.

This was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. Eirifold wasn't a murderer.

...Was he?

Unbidden, the memory of what Eirifold had said the night before floated to the forefront of Ivelle's mind.

Some things I've done can't be forgiven... I can see why she'd want to poison me...

Lillian was still watching her. Ivelle shook her head. "He... he just doesn't strike me as that sort of person."

A hint of pity glittered in Lillian's eyes.

"Ivelle," she said gently, "How long has Eirifold been using you?"

For the second time that morning, Ivelle found herself rendered speechless – so speechless, in fact, that she managed to choke on a large glob of spit. It bopped around in her trachea, tickling her vocal cords until she was convinced she would never stop coughing.

"I – hack hack – I'm sorry – What?"

"Using people," said Lillian, "is what the royal family does. Eirifold might not be a true son of the king and queen, but he's still a member of the royal family. And I suspect he's been toying with you, just like he toyed with me. Mariel told me how she caught the two of you together a few days ago."

Mariel, you little snake!

But Ivelle couldn't be mad, not really. She would've done the same thing as Mariel if she'd discovered someone's fiance cheating on them.

Then her brain caught up with the rest of what Lillian had just said. "What do you mean, just like he toyed with you?"

"Eirifold tried to get close to me a few years ago. Foolishly, I let him." Lillian's breath caught in her throat. "He bought me pretty gifts. He showed me his secret hideouts around the palace, passages only he knew about. For a time, I thought he loved me. But it was a lie. Eirifold doesn't know what love means. He was just using me to get back at Mariel. He'd made a bet with her, and he was trying to one-up her because of their foolish rivalry.

"And now, he's probably doing the same thing to you. He's leading you on, telling you things only when it's convenient for him. He didn't tell you what he did to my brother – I imagine it wouldn't have fit his particular agenda. He probably had some pretty excuses to explain away his other misdeeds."

Ivelle's mind churned. Something ugly was building in her stomach, threatening to burst free.

Had Eirifold been toying with her this whole time?

Had everything he'd told her been a lie?

Surely that couldn't be right. Surely some of what Eirifold had told her had been real. His emotions had always seemed so genuine when he spoke to her.

Well, aside from when he was rambling about tiny hats.

And when he'd purposefully hidden his discovery of her flier...

Lillian was still watching her, her expression guarded. Ivelle realized she'd better say something fast. As concerned as Lillian seemed, Ivelle was still under Lillian's employ, and she'd been hired to poison Prince Eirifold. Lillian had been surprisingly understanding so far, but Ivelle suspected Lillian's kindness would only extend so far, especially when Ivelle had been caught doing something as incriminating as kissing the enemy.

"I never meant any disloyalty to you," Ivelle said. "Look – I originally thought I should spy on Eirifold, to help you figure out the optimal way to poison him. But when you spy on someone too long, you sometimes get a different impression of who they are as a person. You start to see their more human qualities. I started to wonder if there might be other ways to solve your marital problems that didn't involve murder. And now, I'm as confused about all this shi– stuff – as you are."

Ivelle sucked in a breath.

"What if we confront the bastard together? Get to the bottom of everything he's done?"

"And give him the chance to lie to us again, or throw another of my servants down a staircase?" Lillian shook her head. "Confront him if you like, Ivelle. I don't want to be involved."

"I..."

The words I don't think he'd do that died on Ivelle's tongue. Because when it came down to it, did Ivelle know what Eirifold would do?

Did she really know the prince at all?

An ungainly flapping, followed by a muffled thud, jolted Ivelle out of her thoughts. For a split second, Ivelle saw Ash's panicked face plastered against the window-glass, before her crow slid down the window and out of sight.

"Ash!"

Ivelle hurtled out of her chair and back out to the hallway, down the steps, and into the courtyard. Ash lay on the ground, at the base of Lillian's window. One of his wings was streaked with blood.

"Ash... no no no! What happened? Talk to me, Ash!"

Ash opened one beady eye. "'M'okay," he wheezed. "Izzonly... a flesh wound..."

His head tumbled limply to the side.

Lillian and Anabelle hurried into the courtyard. They stopped when they saw Ivelle crouched over Ash's limp body. Anabelle gasped in horror.

"The poor wee crow! What happened?"

"I don't know." Ivelle's hands shook. She had never seen Ash in such bad shape before. His wing-wound oozed sluggishly.

Frantically, Ivelle started tearing strips off the bottom of her gown, not caring that some of the soldiers in the courtyard were starting to stare. "Help me," she said. "I need–"

Thankfully, Lillian seemed to understand what she was asking for. She turned on her heel and picked up her fine skirts in an uncharacteristic sprint back to the castle.

Anabelle helped Ivelle wrap the strips of skirt around Ash's wing and secure them. "What kind of monster attacks a wee crow?" she tutted. "Tigers?"

Ivelle's hands ran across the blood-matted feathers of Ash's right wing. There was a charred smell to his feathers, a smell which reminded her oddly of... "Magic." She felt faintly sick. "Somebody spelled him with magic."

Lillian was back with Ivelle's secret stash of potions. Ivelle grabbed the healing potion off the top of the pile and tipped it into Ash's beak. The crow sputtered and gagged but eventually choked it down. Gradually, his breathing became less ragged, and the wound in his wing began to knit shut.

"Is he better?" Anabelle asked hopefully.

Ivelle stroked Ash's head. "Ash?" she said.

The crow shifted uneasily, but he didn't wake.

"I think," Ivelle said with a sinking stomach, "fixing him might not be quite so easy."

~*~

For the two days that followed, Ivelle didn't leave Ash's side. Anabelle set up a little basket in the servants' wing, a makeshift crowfirmery filled with Ash's favorite nuts and seeds, and Ivelle crouched beside it, muttering every healing charm she could remember. (She didn't remember many. Her mum had been a bigger fan of poisoning people than of healing them). A few times, Lillian stopped by with spellbooks she had smuggled from the royal library, and Ivelle flipped through the books, searching for anything that might help speed Ash's recovery.

Ash drifted in and out of consciousness. When he wasn't mumbling incoherently, he was dreaming, and his dreams often bordered on violence. A few times, he nearly thrashed his way out of the basket. At other times, he was quiet, his eyes glazed, his breathing shallow.

Ivelle knew this was her fault. They should have left the palace, as he'd suggested. Hell, they should've taken the jewels Lillian gave them and scrammed on the first day.

What had Ivelle achieved while being here? Everything she'd set out to accomplish had come to nothing so far. She was an idiot and a failure, just like her mum always said. Her bad decisions unfailingly managed to hurt the people she cared about.

"You've got to sleep," said Anabelle, after Ivelle's second night at Ash's side. "You're going to keel over if you don't get some winks in."

"I can't leave him."

Anabelle sighed. "The wedding's tomorrow, and they're going to want you to do some jesting to entertain the guests. They're sure to notice your absence if you aren't there to provide entertainment. Take some time to sleep and work on your jesting routine. I'll watch your crow for a while. I promise, I'll get you the moment anything changes."

Ivelle had forgotten that her role as jester might involve more than just wearing a funky hat and mismatched shoes. The realization ought to have panicked her. Instead, it just left a sour taste at the back of her throat. At one point, she had hazily sketched out a routine with Ash, but that routine had relied on Ash doing tricks, which was out of the question. Ash could barely lift his head, much less fly.

It all seemed terrifically impossible.

Instead of taking her to her bedroom, as would have been the sensible place to go, her traitorous feet carried her to the hideous statue of King Bozifer. Ivelle stared dazedly at his ugly shoes for a few minutes, before edging around to his backside and trying the knob that was carefully hidden beneath his left elbow.

To her surprise, the door was unlocked. It snicked open with a subtle click.

After a moment's hesitation, Ivelle ducked inside.

The secret door into Eirifold's chamber was also unlocked. Under different circumstances, this might have worried her. Now, with Ash so sick and Lillian's words still churning in her mind, all Ivelle felt was annoyance at Eirifold's irresponsibleness.

Her irritation intensified when she opened the door that led to the garden. Eirifold sat at the same garden table where he'd been sitting the first day she met him. And, just like that first day, there was a generous bottle of wine on the table. A bottle that looked half-empty.

He looked up at her, startled and a little guilty as she stormed toward him.

"You utter bastard!" Ivelle snarled. "Finding you drunk is the last thing I need!" She grabbed his wineglass and threw it in his face. "Sober up!"

"Ivelle." Eirifold blinked bemusedly at the wine dripping down his tunic. "Fancy seeing you here. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

The tipsy lilt to his voice only fueled Ivelle's fury. Without a word, she grabbed his wine bottle and unceremoniously dumped its remaining contents onto the nearest bush.

"I hope you're prepared to pay for that," Eirifold protested. "That vintage was expensi–OUCH!"

"Exactly what," seethed Ivelle, dragging him out of his seat by the ear and frog-marching him back toward his rooms, "do you think you're doing, getting drunk? It's broad daylight. In fact it's"—She glanced at the nearby sundial, trying to make out its numbers through a generous dusting of pigeon poop—"only nine fucking thirty in the morning!"

Eirifold finally managed to free himself from her grip. He staggered backward and into an armchair, folding his arms with a glower. "My wedding is tomorrow," he huffed. "Hundreds of nobles are gathering at the palace to watch me swear vows of holy matrimony to a woman who's well within her rights to wish me dead. Do you honestly expect me to remain sober at a time like this?"

"I thought you were a better man than that. Clearly, I was wrong."

Ivelle spun on her heel with half a mind to storm back through the secret passage, then shrieked as her eyes landed on the corner of the room.

"What?" Eirifold gasped. "What is it?"

"Why is Saffron's crate open? Where is he?"

~*~

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