"What's a quart?" Owain asked.
The faerie prince was squinting down at the cookbook. Morning sunlight filtered through the kitchen window, illuminating the specks of white flour in Owain's auburn hair. A frilly pink apron was tied around his waist. He looked ridiculous, Tristan thought, ducking his head to hide a smile. Ridiculous, and oddly sweet.
Tristan set down the butter. "What?"
"A quart." Owain squinted. "This infernal book says to add a quart."
"The recipe," Tristan said pointedly, "calls for four cups of milk."
"I see," Owain said.
He crossed to the cupboard. Owain examined a mug — blue, speckled, roughly the size and shape of a small pumpkin — and placed it on the counter. Tristan watched, eyebrows raised, as Owain picked up a glass jar of milk.
"What are you doing?"
Owain paused. "I'm filling four cups of milk."
"Not that sort of cup," Tristan said. "Good gods." He held out a hand. "Give me that."
Owain sighed. "I don't see the point in this exercise."
He passed Tristan the milk. Tristan rummaged through the drawer, pulling out iron pans and wooden spoons. "You heard Sophie. Everyone pulls their weight in Tarhalla."
Owain hopped on to the counter. "I believe my talents would be better utilized elsewhere."
"Such as?"
"Espionage." Owain's long legs dangled inches from the floor. "Infiltrating enemy camps. I'm excellent at sneaking into small places; Sophie would do well to recognize that I'm a valuable asset."
"Ah," Tristan said. "That's not your biggest strength, though."
"And what is?"
"Modesty," Tristan said.
He held out a measuring cup. Owain looked warily at the kitchen utensil, as if it might grow teeth and bite him. Tristan turned back to the bowl of flour. His shoulder twinged as he picked up the spoon, and he shook it impatiently.
"Is it your shoulder?" Owain asked.
Tristan frowned. "How do you—?" He paused. "Oh. Right."
Owain hopped off the counter. "Let me see."
"It's fine," Tristan muttered.
"Tristan."
Owain's voice was stern. Tristan sighed, setting down the spoon. Owain's long fingers sunk into his shoulder, kneading and prodding. Tristan half-closed his eyes. Heat stirred in his stomach, and he braced his hands against the counter.
"How does that feel?" Owain murmured.
"Good." Tristan cleared his throat. "Better."
Owain's fingers dug into a knot, and Tristan hissed out a breath. When Owain spoke, his warm breath fanned the back of his neck. "In faerie, we would not feed these scones to even our most wicked and debased prisoners."
"They're raisin scones," Tristan said.
Owain eyed the pastry dough with distrust. "Exactly."
"You know," Tristan said, "I never thought I'd be making scones with the prince of faerie. It's a new experience."
Owain sighed. "I'm useless."
"That's true," Tristan murmured. "But I like having you here."
Owain's fingers stilled. He was standing close enough that Tristan could feel the uneven beat of his heart; it had a fast, disjointed rhythm to it, a sort of thumpity-thump-thump. He wondered if it was a faerie thing. Probably.
"You shouldn't say things like that," Owain said.
He stepped back. The air suddenly felt cold between them, and Tristan crossed his arms. His cheeks felt hot.
"I'm not expecting..."
Owain's smile was wry. "That's not what I meant. I'm speaking more of trust." His smile faded. "You cannot trust me, Tristan."
"I hate to break this to you," Tristan said, "but if you were really as evil as you're saying you are, you wouldn't tell me about it. That's not how evil people operate."
Owain looked away. "I don't want to hurt you."
Tristan considered this. "I don't think you're capable of it."
"You see," Owain said softly, "that's where you're wrong."
He rubbed at his face. Slender veins flexed in his forearm; they were slightly darker than most people's veins, Tristan observed, almost the exact same shade as the summer lavender that grew by the castle. That had to be the blue faerie blood. He wondered if Owain ever blushed. Probably not.
Tristan picked up the measuring cup. "Did your father never teach you to cook? The king of faerie didn't host 'make-your-own-pizza' nights on a Friday?"
Owain stared at him blankly. "What's a pizza?"
"You're joking," Tristan said.
A smile flickered over Owain's face. "I am, actually. But no, he didn't." His throat bobbed. "My mother..."
Owain trailed off. Tristan measured out a cup of milk, stirring it into the flour. He sensed that the best way to encourage Owain to talk was to say nothing at all. Some people were like that; you had to coax the words out of them.
"Mum was an artist," Owain said finally. "A talented one, too. She used to do all sorts of commissions — oil paintings, sculptures, murals — and she travelled all over for work. She was useless at shapeshifting, but her eye for colour..." His throat bobbed. "Anyway, my father decided to hire someone to paint a portrait of him to hang in the palace below-the-hill. Mum is one of the few mortals that's ever travelled to faerie."
Owain picked up a spoon, running his hands over the handle. Tristan added more milk and stirred the dough.
"Mum discovered that she was pregnant shortly afterward. I spent the first six years of my life in Salvatoria. We lived in a small village by the sea. I didn't even know that I was part-faerie, if you can believe it. Mum and I would go down to the beach with her pots of paint and a kite, and we would eat cheese-and-crackers on the sand. And then..."
He tapped the spoon against his thigh. Again, Tristan waited.
Owain continued. "Mum had travelled to a remote village in Zarob, and she came home with a terrible cough. The fever came next. Crimson plague, the healer said. Two days later, she was dead. Afterwards, the healer told me that it was my faerie blood that saved me, which was how I found out that I..." His knuckles were white on the spoon. "Anyway, my father showed up a week later in a carriage drawn by white phoenixes. He explained who he was, and he took me below-the-hill."
"To faerie?" Tristan clarified.
"To faerie."
Tristan stirred the dough. "So the Somnus Woods..."
Owain anticipated the question. "There are many entrances in the Somnus Woods. Many fae prefer to live above ground during the summer months. Under-the-hill is beautiful, but it's..." He shook his head. "Imagine gorging on sweets until your stomach hurts. Or drinking until you're sick. That's what living there is like."
"Will you go back?" Tristan asked.
Something about the thought disturbed him. Owain set down the spoon.
"I may have no choice," he said.
Tristan stared at the dough; it was grey and lumpy, curdling slightly at the edges. They'd done something terribly wrong. He could already tell. "Your father seems like a difficult man to disobey."
"No," Owain said quietly. "Not difficult. Impossible."
He picked up a jar of raisins, offering them to Tristan. And Tristan — who didn't have the heart to explain that the scones were ruined, that they would never rise and take shape — poured in the raisins. Maybe they could fix it, Tristan thought; he'd spent his whole life improving things. Broken carriages. Pianos that wouldn't make sound. He could recall Dex shaking his head, holding up a rusted clock that was missing a hand.
"Look at it, Tris," his older brother had said. "It's not worth saving."
Tristan had shrugged. "Everything is worth saving."
That was the issue, Tristan thought; he'd never been able to resist something beautiful and broken. He could never bear to walk away.
"Your brothers," Tristan said, stirring the dough. "They're not Salvatorian?"
"No." A dark shadow crossed Owain's face. "No, my brothers are entirely fae. And they never let me forget it."
Tristan chose his next words carefully. "Is there a lot of... prejudice, towards mortals?"
Owain weighed the empty jar in his hand. "I suppose you could call it that. I told you once that faeries aren't allowed to keep human consorts. My mother knew that." He set down the jar. "I suppose she never considered that it might also be difficult for my father to keep a half-human son."
Tristan set down the spoon. "Owain..."
The door burst open.
Isaac tumbled into the kitchen. His white t-shirt was ripped at the collar, and there was a bloody gash across his cheek. His dark skin was slick with sweat. He smelled of smoke and steel and something like organs, and Tristan took an instinctive step back.
"Webb?"
"Put down the scones," Isaac said. "We have a situation."
"What is it?" Tristan demanded. "What's happened?"
Isaac wrenched open a drawer. "Sunhounds."
"Where?"
"Here," Isaac said.
The other boy made a triumphant noise, pulling out a large butcher's knife. Tristan watched, alarmed, as Isaac also picked up an iron poker and a meat cleaver. Owain — who was standing about three feet away — took a healthy step back.
"That's impossible." Tristan's mind was racing. "Sophie said they've never breached the perimeter before. She said—"
"Beauchamp?" Isaac cut in.
"Yeah?"
"Focus." Isaac's face was grim. "Just grab an explosive. And brace yourself," he added, turning for the door. "It's not nice out there."