“For what?” Martin’s eyes were closed, but the muscles of his jaw were working back and forth as though he intended to grind his teeth to dust. I was thankful, because I felt my face lose its color at the sight of his injuries. Both arms were gone at the shoulder, and his legs, judging from where the blanket fell flat against the ground, had been removed just above the knee.

“Helping me catch Angoulême.”

Martin’s eyelids snapped open, silver gaze full of fury. The air around us warmed, and I felt Tristan come closer, ready to step in if things got out of hand. “Bad enough,” he said, “that you went back on your word to kill him, but must you also mock me?”

“I’m not mocking you,” I said. “You said once that you’d see him bleed out like his daughter. At first, I thought you meant Anaïs, but then it occurred to me in the tombs that you meant Pénélope. That Angoulême had the same affliction as her.” I swiftly explained what had happened.

“You bit him?” Martin shook his head, then accepted a mouthful of tea from my gran. “You know I can do it myself,” he said to her, the cup lifting out of her hand and floating in the air.

“Gives me purpose,” she said, taking hold of the handle and pulling it back. “And what’s a life without purpose?”

“What indeed.” He stared at the blanket where the rest of his legs should’ve been. “I never saw any proof that Angoulême was afflicted,” he said. “But a number of years ago, several volumes of research on the condition went missing from the library, and there was a rumor that circulated amongst the librarians that someone from the peerage had paid for them to be destroyed. After Lady Pénélope’s affliction became known, my curiosity was piqued, and I delved into the matter. Of a surety, the girls’ mother was no more than a carrier if she was able to bear two children, which, based on my research of other inherited conditions, lead me to believe the Duke was a victim of the ailment.

“I thought you never speculated,” I said, realizing that I’d staked everything on an unproven notion.

“It was a well-researched hypothesis,” he said, accepting another mouthful of tea. “Which you subsequently proved to be correct.”

“Right,” I said, wishing my cup was filled with something stronger. “I need your help with something else now.” I explained my meeting with the Summer King, and his belief that the trolls could somehow be brought back to their homeland.