Crack! The wood of the door splintered. They wouldn’t be able to break through my magic, but as soon as they were through the door, they’d know it was me keeping them out. I gave Marie’s shoulders a little shake. “Will your soldiers follow your orders?”

“You can’t be serious?” The lord whose weapon Marie had taken had been inching toward the door through our exchange, but my words had stopped him in his tracks. “She’s a woman!”

Marie ignored him. “How do I get my son free of this compulsion?”

Crack! I grimaced. “The only way is to kill my father.”

“And then Aiden will be himself once again?”

There was no way to predict how Aiden would fare, whether his sanity would survive, whether he’d revert to man he was before. “He will control his own will, his own self.”

She went very still.

“Marie, there is no time for this.” My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, and it was all I could do to keep from looking toward the shattering door. “Will they follow you?”

“Get your hands off me, troll,” she whispered.

I exhaled, letting my hands drop to my sides as the awareness that I was going to have to take control of Trianon by force settled onto my mind.

“Step back,” she said, reaching for the sword next to her.

I did what she asked.

Her eyes went to the lord who was now clawing futilely at my magic. “My Lord Lachance, attend to me. Help me away from this creature.” She held out a beseeching hand.

Lachance stiffened, and with palpable reluctance, edged his way toward Marie. “Stay back, fiend,” he said, and under other circumstances, I might have laughed.

“My lady.” He reached a hand to her without removing his eyes from me.

She stabbed the point of the sword through his throat.

I gaped as the dying man collapsed, entirely unsure of what I was witnessing.

Marie placed the hilt of the sword next to his hand, then climbed to her feet. “Lachance was a traitor,” she said. “A spy and assassin in the employ of the troll king. He killed my husband, and would’ve killed me if not for the quick actions of my son.” Walking to Fred, she extracted the blade from his hand, dipped it in the pool of blood, then replaced it. “Put his disguise back in place.”

I complied, seeing the beginnings of her plan.

“If anyone learns what Aiden’s done,” she said, “they’ll see him hanged. I’ve already lost my husband to you creatures – I’ll not lose my son. We’ll keep him hidden away until we’ve won this war, and then you–” she leveled a finger at Aiden, “–you will spend the rest of your life atoning.”

She turned to me. “Bind him. Hide him. And then let them in.”

Chapter 5

Cécile

“I’ve never known such cold,” Sabine said, wrapping her cloak more snugly around her shoulders only to have it torn open again by the freezing wind as we crossed the bridge. “And this snow… It’s not natural.”