The Mirror Prince Read Free

and never was, there you’re right. But the Banishment nears its end, and the Basilisk Prince moves his pieces upon the board, and they wear the shape of the Hunt. Do you tell me the Exile has nothing to fear from this?”
     
    Cassandra stopped in mid-shrug, allowing the knife to slip back into her hand from its sleeve sheath. “The Hunt? I had always understood the end of the Banishment to be a good thing.”
     
    “And so it might have been. But the Basilisk Prince builds his Citadel in the Vale of Trere’if . Yes,” Diggory continued as Cassandra stifled an involuntary movement, “he has dared so much. Now he knows that which he has sought to know this long time, and now he seeks to know what only my lord the Exile knows. And he cares not what means he uses to learn it. And it’s for you to keep the Exile safe, as always.” Diggory smiled like the sun coming through clouds and Cassandra almost found herself smiling back.
     
    What he said was true. The Basilisk Prince had grown in power and importance since the time of the Great War; some said he was High Prince in everything but name. Even Cassandra, who had not set foot in the Lands of the People the whole time of the Banishment, had heard that much. Still . . .
     
    There was only one thing the Exile might know that the Basilisk Prince wanted: the whereabouts of the Talismans—but that didn’t make sense. What had happened to make that knowledge so important now? Frowning, Cassandra studied the open, guileless face of the Solitary.
     
    “I come to you almost too late,” the Old One said, as if in answer to her unspoken suspicions. “I do not need to tell you the end comes, but you must act or your Oath is forfeit. Come, Truthsheart, would I trouble to lie? To you?” Diggory shook his head. “You think it was a jest, what your mother named you? Younger Sister, listen to your heart. You know I speak the truth.”
     
    Cassandra studied the Troll eyes in the boy face. Even if she did know the truth when she heard it—and right now that seemed like a mighty big if—she wouldn’t be quick to let this one know it.
     
    “And what is the price of this truth, Elder Brother? Or has Nighthawk paid it?”
     
    “I seek no payment,” the Old One said. “I have given my all without need of bargain.”
     
    The cold spot in Cassandra’s belly dropped several inches. What Solitary would give anything without bargaining first? “You want nothing, then?”
     
    The Old One suddenly loomed over her, his disguise fading as his skin became a darker gray-brown, and his eyes lost their human irises and pupils. Cassandra was glad of the chest behind her—it stopped her from shaming herself by backing away.
     
    “What do you know of what I might want? What would any Rider know, except the Exile?” He snarled with his mouth full of teeth, but he was already shrinking back down to human scale. “I will tell you this, Younger Sister. If you do not save the Exile, it will not matter one tenth part of an ant’s whisker what you, or I, or any being wants. We will none of us be safe. No Solitary, no Natural, no Rider of any Ward. Not even here in this place—the Basilisk Prince will find even these poor Shadowfolk useful to his hand.”
     
    The room seemed suddenly cold, and Cassandra folded her arms again, hugging her elbows. “I will consider your words,” she said.
     
    “Don’t take too long,” said the voice of the skate-boarder, as the Solitary gave her a last grin, turned on one sneakered foot, and was gone. Cassandra waited, listening to the clatter of his feet on the staircase, until she could be sure she was alone.
     
    “Get a job, I said. See the Shadowlands, I said. What could go wrong?”
     
    Cassandra rubbed her eyes and sank into the old oak captain’s chair behind her worktable with a sigh. Her whole day had started out badly, startled awake, trembling and cold, out of a dream of storm and lightning. Thunder that seemed somehow to be calling