Read Chapter 14: The Weight of Oath

The first night of spying was easier than Maeve had feared, because the Unseelie court was too busy drinking to notice her.

She wore a groom's cast-off cloak over her own dress, the fabric rough against her skin, and kept to the shadows at the edge of their revels. The Unseelie were a chaos of color and noise, all clashing silvers and bruised purples, their laughter sharp as breaking glass. They danced with abandon, their movements unbound by the strict geometry of the Seelie court, and for a moment Maeve envied them. Then she remembered whose son they had stolen and let the envy curdle into disgust.

She listened for three nights. She scrubbed pots in their kitchens, carried flagons of their potent wine, and learned to keep her eyes downcast and her mouth shut. The Unseelie barely noticed her. To them, she was a mortal servant, useful and forgettable, and they spoke freely around her as if she were furniture.

Night after night, she gathered scraps. A lord complaining about a border dispute. A lady whispering about a mortal knight who had refused to die. A grey-faced messenger muttering about the harvest festival, about preparations being made across both courts, about something that was coming.

But nothing about the loophole. Nothing about the contract that bound her.

On the fifth night, she found herself in the wine cellar, stacking casks for the steward. He was a stooped creature with skin like old paper and eyes like wet stones, and he did not look at her as he counted bottles. She had been careful, so careful, to stay invisible.

“You're the Seelie queen's new little bird,” he said.

Maeve went still. The wine cask in her hands was suddenly very heavy.

“I don't know what you mean,” she said.

The steward did not turn around. “I mean the girl who carries the queen's silver whistle and thinks she's clever enough to hide it.” He gestured with one gnarled finger. “In your boot. Inside the lining. You really thought no one would notice?”

Maeve's blood went cold. She had hidden the whistle well. She had never even used it.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“No one important.” He finally looked at her, his wet stone eyes glinting. “But I know contracts, mortal. I was there when yours was signed, in a manner of speaking. I was there when the first one was signed, too.”

The words landed like a blow. Maeve set the cask down carefully, afraid her trembling hands might drop it.

“Your ancestor,” the steward said. “Niamh. She was clever, that one. Not clever enough, but clever.”

Maeve's heart hammered. “You knew her?”

“Every contract has a maker,” the steward said. “And every maker leaves a signature. The queen keeps the terms in her head, but the original writing—the source of it—she tucked away where she thought no one would look.”

“Where?”

The steward smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Why would I tell you that?”

Maeve stepped closer, careful to keep her voice low. “Because you've decided to help me. Or you wouldn't have spoken at all.”

For a long moment, the steward was silent. Outside the cellar door, the sound of revelry swelled and faded.

“The queen's private chapel,” he said at last. “In the Seelie palace. There's an altar stone, old as the pact itself. The original terms are inscribed beneath it, in the old tongue. If you know where to look.”

“But I'm banned from the Seelie palace,” Maeve said. “I can't go back there. She'll kill me.”

“Then find another way.” The steward turned back to his bottles. “You asked where it was. I never said it would be easy.”

The next night, Maeve was smuggling messages between Unseelie courtiers, pretending to be nothing more than a fast-footed servant, when she heard something that made her stumble.

“The queen's favorite keeps his name in a pot,” a male voice was saying, thick with wine. “Word is the mortal girl found it. Now the queen holds him like a dog on a leash.”

Maeve pressed herself against the wall, straining to hear more.

“Ciarán?” another voice asked. “The one who lost his son?”

“The same. They say the queen has been looking for a way to bind him properly for centuries. The boy was supposed to be the final payment, but the mother interfered.” A bitter laugh. “Females. Can never let a bargain finish clean.”

Maeve's fists clenched. The mother. Niamh. Her ancestor had interfered? She had thought Niamh had simply been stolen—but the stories were wrong. Or incomplete. Niamh had done something. She had fought back.

“The mortal girl, though,” the first voice went on. “She's blundering about, looking for a way out. The queen doesn't even care. Thinks it's amusing.”

“She should care,” the second voice said darkly. “If the girl finds the original covenant, the terms can be renegotiated. The queen knows that. She's betting on the mortal failing.”

Maeve's heart was pounding so loud she was sure they could hear it. So the queen knew. The steward hadn't been lying—and the queen knew that Maeve might go looking, and thought she would fail.

*You don't know me,* Maeve thought. *You've never known anyone in my family.*

She slipped away from the Unseelie revels before dawn, her mind racing. She needed to get back to the Seelie palace. She needed to find that altar stone. But she had been bound to serve as the queen's spy among the Unseelie—she couldn't simply leave without reason.

Unless she had a reason. A plausible reason.

She was still turning it over when the ambush came.

Three Unseelie, tall and lean as whips, stepped out of the trees ahead of her. The sky was just beginning to grey with false dawn, casting their already strange faces into sharper relief. They did not look friendly.

“The little bird flies far from her cage,” the tallest said. “Tell me, mortal—what does a Seelie spy hope to find in our woods?”

Maeve backpedaled, hand going instinctively to the rowan berry in her pocket. It was hot against her fingers, hot as it had been when she'd first taken it. The warmth spread up her arm, and she saw something shimmer in the air between her and the Unseelie—

Then one of them lunged, and the vision broke.

She ran. She wasn't good at fighting, not like they were, and she knew it. She ran through the trees, branches whipping at her face and arms, her lungs burning, and she knew she couldn't outrun them for long.

The whistle was in her boot, silent and heavy. Ciarán had said to use it only in desperation.

*He's forbidden to speak to me,* she thought. *He's carrying my family's debt. He lost his son because of us.*

But he had taught her the signs anyway, even when he wasn't supposed to. He had warned her, guarded her, kept her alive.

Behind her, the Unseelie were gaining.

Maeve skidded to a halt in a small clearing, spinning to face her pursuers. There was nowhere left to run.

The tallest smiled, slow and cruel. “The queen will reward us well for your return. She doesn't like spies who wander off the leash.”

Maeve's hand found the whistle in her boot. She could feel the smooth silver, the etched design of the rowan knot, and in her pocket the berry was nearly burning now, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

Sound the whistle, and she would owe Ciarán a debt she couldn't repay.

Not sound it, and die.

In the distance, the first light of dawn touched the treetops, and Maeve made her choice.