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“A murder ballad maybe,” I growl.

“No doubt, by the end,” he says. “I wonder who will survive to compose it.”

“Have you come to gloat?” I ask, frustrated. “To stop me?” I am not sure how powerful a kelpie is out of the water and in the shape of a man.

“To surprise you,” he says. “Aren’t surprises wonderful?”

I grind my teeth but say nothing for a long moment. I may not be able to charm him with honey-mouthed words, but I understand resentment. “It must gall you, the way Tiernan talked to you.”

Jack might be a merry wight, but I bet he’s also a petty one.

“Maybe it wouldn’t bother you so much to see him looking foolish in front of the prince? And if their prisoner was gone, the one noble knight who checked on him last would look very foolish indeed.”

I don’t plan on freeing Hyacinthe. I don’t even think I can. Still, Jack doesn’t need to know that. I am only playing into what he thinks about me.

He considers my words, a smile growing on his mouth. “What if I were to make a loud noise? Perhaps the guards would abandon their posts to follow. What would you give me to make the attempt?”

“What do you want?” I ask, digging in my pockets. I take out the swan-shaped scissors I stole from Habetrot. “These are pretty.”

“Put them away,” he scoffs. “It would be an insult to be stabbed by them.”

“Then do not court that fate,” I growl softly, rummaging a bit more, past Bogdana’s note and the motel matchbook. I couldn’t fit much in the pockets of my dress, and it is not as though I had much in the first place. But then my fingers close on the silver fox with the peridot eyes.

I take it out and hold it on my palm, reluctant to show it to him.

“What’s this?” he asks.

I open my hand. “One of only three. A game piece of the Gentry.” I am proud of my answer, which is both true and yet missing the most important detail. I am learning how to speak like them.

“You didn’t steal it?” he asks, perhaps thinking of how disheveled I was when he first met me.

“It’s mine,” I tell him. “No one would dispute that.”

He plucks it up between two fingers. “Very well. Now it shall be mine, I suppose, since you have nothing finer. And in return I will lead the guards on a merry chase.”

I clench my hand to force myself not to snatch the little fox back. He sees the gesture and smiles. I can tell he likes the trinket better now that he knows I didn’t want to give it to him.

“On my signal,” he says. “Hide!”

“Wait,” I caution, but he is already moving.

The hall is lit with orbs that glow a sickly green, giving the stone walls a mossy cast. The orbs are spaced far enough apart that it is possible for me to push myself into a bend of the corridor and be concealed by darkness, so long as no one looks too closely.

I hold my breath. I hear the pelting of hoofbeats, then a great and foolish whooping accompanied by shouts.

“That’s my sword!” the rose-haired knight yells, and then I see Jack of the Lakes streak by, running hell-for-leather in his horse form, laughing and gripping a bright silver sword in his teeth.

The knight comes into view. “When I catch you, I am going to turn you inside out, like a toad!” she shouts as she gives chase. The bauchan follows at her heels, his blade drawn.

When they are far enough, I slip out of the dark.

I head swiftly to the copper-banded door to the prisons. The rocks around the door are studded with crystals that gleam bright against the dull gray stone.

I turn the latch and walk inside. All the rooms are like chambers of a cave, with massive stalagmites and stalactites functioning as bars. It appears not unlike looking at rows and rows of mouths with rows and rows of awful teeth.

Figures move in some of the cells, shifting to blink at me from the gloom within.

A clawed hand darts out, grabbing for my arm. I jump out of its reach, jerking the cloth of my dress from its grip. I step on, shuddering.