“That would work.” Vincent chuckled and nodded. “Now I see. Magic is a stronger material.”

“And more flexible,” I added, pleased to see the understanding on everyone’s faces. And their growing anger.

“We’re a blasted bunch of idiots,” Tips snarled. “Fools, snatching the low-hanging fruit without worrying that it dangled from our enemy’s hand. He’ll pay for this, mark my words.”

I could not deny my elation. I had the half-bloods – at least some of them – back on my side. I held up a cautionary hand. “We cannot act in haste.”

Tips’s brow furrowed, and the rest of his crew made angry exclamations demanding instant action.

“He’ll have predicted that this conversation would occur,” I said. “He’ll know I’m down here by now, and he will be expecting us to take certain actions.”

“Which actions?”

“I don’t know.” I sucked in a deep breath. “But I do know he will have planned for all contingencies.”

Tips crossed his arms. “So what do we do?”

I cast my gaze around the tunnel, meeting the eyes of every one of the young men and women. “We need to figure out his endgame, and we need to sabotage it.”

The mine echoed with shouts of agreement, but Tips was quiet. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘us’ and ‘we’ coming from you, Tristan, but what makes you think we want you as our leader again? You betrayed us once to suit your purposes, how are we to know you won’t do it again?”

The tunnel grew deathly quiet.

“You don’t,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Which is why I’m not asking to be your leader – I’m asking for you to let me help us accomplish this coup as comrades. As equals. And…” I hesitated, the cynical, logical part of my brain screaming that what I was about to do was absolute lunacy. That I would have cause to regret this action countless times in the future. But I needed their trust. No… I needed to prove that I could be trusted.

“I…” My throat felt tight, as though my very nature was trying to strangle the words forming in my mind. “I, Tristan of the Royal House of Montigny, do swear that I will never again use or speak the true name of a half-blood, or” – I glanced at Marc – “full-blooded troll for the rest of my days.”

My vision blurred, and I could feel myself lose control of the power of their names. It was still there, like a sword lying motionless behind an impenetrable shield of glass, forever out of my reach. I felt rather than saw a shudder run through Marc, Vincent, and the mining crew as my power over them was relinquished. Only Tips seemed unaffected, which was strange. Very strange indeed.

“A grand gesture,” he muttered, seeming to sense my scrutiny. “One we all appreciate.”

I leaned back on my heels, not taking my eyes off him. “Some more than others, perhaps.” A bead of sweat trickled down his face. He licked his lips, looking anywhere but at me. A dark and ugly suspicion grew inside me, an inkling of an idea that, if proven true, would rattle Trollus to its very core. Not possible, not possible!