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Wren shook her head, confused. “I am not quite sure what you mean. Who are you?”

“To some, I am nobody. To some, I am a lie. To others, I am the only one who matters.”

“How long have you been here?” she tried again.

“A moment, a lifetime. Does it truly matter? Time does not exist in this place.”

“I do not have time for this.” Wren sighed impatiently, turning from the boy to stare sightlessly at the water. Clearly, the boy had been trapped for a long time. He’d lost his mind. He began to recite a riddle that made absolutely no sense and she cursed her bad luck. His prattling would drive her insane. Perhaps that was what the elf king wanted?

The boy’s voice rose. “Beware the water.”

She glanced in his direction. “Why?”

“Danger,” he whispered. “And death.”

* * *

For two daysthe boy truly did only speak in riddles—going by the dry, tasteless meals they were brought at random intervals, Wren could only guess how much time had passed—she still did not risk touching the water. Instead, she found that she had not yet exhausted her ability to physically grieve for her family.

“So much for being too angry to cry,” Wren sniffed, not caring if the mad bard could hear her or not. He’d heard plenty of her tears over the past two days, anyway. At first, when it had become apparent that all Wren was going to think about was her family, she had tried to focus on Britta. For Britta was still alive and safe, of that Wren had to firmly believe in.

Rowen’s grandparents will look after her. You know that things will be bad for her for a while—will likely never be the same again—but Britta will recover. She can grow up and be happy. Even if you never reach her side again, even if she never ascends the throne…she will be all right.

But this train of thought caused Wren to inevitably replay the moment her mother and papa had died over and over and over again, until there was nothing but the sound of their final screams in her head and she had to hold her hands over her ears in a desperate attempt to keep them out.

“Hearing voices in your head?” the boy asked from two cells over. “In that direction madness lies!”

Wren ignored him. She knew, in fact, that his words were at least in part true. If she kept mulling over the ghosts of her past then she would go mad, and then what use would she be to anyone?

Rowen would not act like this.

Her heart stung as his image raced through her head, first smiling and delighted and so full of love Wren could have burst, and then…covered in blood, his lungs struggling as he told her to go save her sister. To save herself.

He would know what to do. He would not lose hope. He would sit and think on the matter for barely a second and then he’d be up and ready for action.That’s how he is.

Wren gulped.

How he was.

Rowen wasn’t rash. You cannot lash out again. You must think your every action through. No more mistakes.

Her tears dried and Wren vowed not to cry again. It helped no one. Dwelling on the past and stewing in her emotions would only serve to weaken her.

On the third day, when two guards brought food to the two of them for part of the time—which Wren took to mean nighttime, though she could have been wrong—a third man also entered the prison, and he did not seem like a guard. He held within his arms a large bucket, which sloshed loudly as he moved. It was clearly heavy; even with his muscled arms, his legs still bowed slightly beneath the weight of the bucket.

She watched as he entered the cell to her right and approached the water, though he kept at least two feet from the edge of it.Just what is he doing?she wondered, glancing at the boy for a moment to see what he thought of this. He wasn’t even watching; clearly this third man was constantly part of his dungeon routine that he was bored by it. Just how long had he been down here?

She turned her attention back to the man with the bucket.

Wrinkling his nose, the man stuck his hand in the container and pulled out something thick and wet, though Wren could not see what it was. Then he tossed thethingin the water and repeated the action over and over until the bucket was halfway empty. Then he dumped the rest of the contents in one go and turned to leave the cell.

He paused by the grille that separated them, the grin spreading on his face entirely unpleasant. “That was the prisoner who lived in your cell before you,” he sneered. “Just in case you were getting any ideas of escaping.”

Her stomach bottomed out.

And with that horrific remark, he was gone, disappearing alongside the two guards who had given Wren and the boy their dinner.

“Watch the water,” the boy said when they were alone once more. “Watch the water and despair. Despair!”