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Oak pours while the Thistlewitch removes the rat from the spit and sets it out on the platter. She begins cutting up the melon.

“Mellith’s heart was supposed to be buried with Mab’s bones beneath the castle of Elfhame,” the prince says. “But it isn’t there. Can you tell me where it is?”

When the hag is done arranging things to her liking, she pushes the platter toward us and picks up her jar of wine. She takes a long slug, then smacks her lips together. “You want me to discover its location with my dowsing rod? You want me to send eggshells spinning down the river and tell you your fate? But what then?”

Tiernan pulls a leg off the rat and chews on it delicately, while Oak helps himself to a slice of melon. I eat one of the doughnuts.

“I see you there, unnatural creature,” the Thistlewitch informs me.

I narrow my eyes at her. She’s probably angry I took a doughnut.

“Then I will use Lady Nore’s desire for it to get my father back. What else?” Oak asks.

The Thistlewitch grins her wicked grin. She eats the tail of the rat, crunching on the bones. “Surely you know the answer, Prince of Elfhame. You seize the power. You have some of Mab’s blood in you. Steal her remains and find Mellith’s heart, and perhaps you can be Oak King and Yew King as well.”

His sister would forgive him then, certainly. He wouldn’t just return a hero. He would return a god.

After we eat, the Thistlewitch rises and dusts the bits of burned fur and powdered sugar off her skirts. “Come,” she says to the prince. “And I will give you the answer you came here for.”

Tiernan begins to rise as well, but she motions for him to sit.

“Prince Oak is the seeker,” she says. “He will receive the knowledge, but he must also pay my price.”

“I will pay it in his stead,” Tiernan declares. “Whatever it is.”

Oak shakes his head. “You will not. You’ve done enough.”

“What is the point of bringing me along to protect you if you won’t let me risk myself in your place?” Tiernan asks, some of his frustration over the fight in the Court of Moths obviously bleeding into his feelings now. “And do not give me some silly answer about companionship.”

“If I get lost in the swamp and never return, I give you leave to be very cross with me,” Oak says.

Tiernan’s jaw twitches with the force of holding back a response.

“So, what will you have?” Oak asks the Thistlewitch.

She grins, her black eyes shining. “Ahhhhh, so many things I could ask for. A bit of your luck, perhaps? Or the dream you hold most dear? But I have read your future in the eggshells, and what I will have is this—your agreement that when you become king, you will give me the very first thing I request.”

I think of the story the Thistlewitch told and the perils of bargaining with hags.

“Done,” Oak says. “It hardly matters, since I will never be king.”

The Thistlewitch smiles her private smile, and the hair stands up all along my arms. Then she beckons to Oak.

I watch them go, his hooves sinking into the mud, his hand out to support her, should she need it. She does not, scampering over the terrain with great spryness.

I take another doughnut and do not look in Tiernan’s direction. I know he’s still furious over Hyacinthe, and as mad as probably he is with Oak right now, I don’t want to tempt him to snarl at me.

We sit in silence. I watch the crocodile creature rise in the water again and realize it must have followed us. It is larger than I supposed earlier and watches me with a single algae-green eye. I wonder if it was waiting for us to get turned around in the swamp and what might have happened if we had.

After long minutes, they return. The Thistlewitch carries a gnarled dowsing rod in her hand, swinging at her side. Oak’s expression is haunted.

“Mellith’s heart is not in a place Lady Nore is likely to find it,” Oak says when he draws close enough for us to hear him. “Nor should we waste our time looking for something we can’t get. Let’s depart.”

“You weren’t really going to give it to her, were you?” I ask.

He does not meet my eyes. “My plans require keeping it out of her reach. Nothing more.”

“But—” Tiernan begins.