The Shadow Prince

“And watch him,” he says, nodding at Garrick.

“Okay,” I say, and lead Garrick to a booth in the back of the diner, but I’m not quite sure what I’d do if Garrick tried to bolt. Sit on him, maybe? I’ve got at least twenty pounds on the scrawny kid. But from the way he collapses into the booth and rests his head in his arms, moaning like Joe with a hangover, I’m guessing he’s not going to try to make a break for it anytime soon.

Haden heads to the counter, and Garrick looks up at me over his elbow. “He didn’t tell you the whole story, you know. About what happened when his mother died.”

“You were awake when he told me about that?” I had a feeling Haden wouldn’t have shared his story with me if he’d known Garrick had been listening. Then again, Garrick already knew how it went. He’d been there, after all.

“I was in and out, but I heard enough to know Haden left out the part when he gave me this scar,” he says and runs his finger over the thin white line that mars his pale cheek. “He threw a broken crystal chess piece at my face. All because I tried to help him clean up after his father left and the servants carried out his mother’s body.”

“That’s terrible,” I say. “But I mean, his mom just died and he was only seven.”

“I was only five,” Garrick says.

“And you were a servant already?”

“I’m a Lesser. I was born to serve.” He sniffs and rubs his nose in his sleeve. “Working in the palace was a lot better than working in the Pits, though. I’ve been there since I was seven.”

“You work in the Pits. With those awful Keres?”

“Thanks to Haden.”

“Haden?”

“I bet he didn’t tell you that part of the story, either.…”

“What story?” Haden asks, sliding into the booth across from me. “What are you two talking about?”

“I was just about to tell Daphne what you did to me two years after your mother died,” Garrick says. He has no inner song, no tune coming from him, but I can tell he’s trying to upset Haden from the very loaded glare he throws his way.

It works. Haden goes ashen and a nervous little melody, like the tapping of anxious fingers against a table, comes off him. “We don’t need to talk about that,” he says.

“But she should know,” Garrick says. “If you’re going to give her your woe-is-me, disgraced-prince sob story, you really should tell the whole thing.”

“This is not the time or place,” Haden says, almost as if it were an order.

“But she wants to know,” he says. “Don’t you?” He turns that pointed glare on me. I can’t deny that I am dying with curiosity now.

“Tell her how you couldn’t stand having me around after I witnessed what you did when your mother died. Tell her how you lied just so you could get rid of the walking, talking reminder of your shame. Tell her how you had me banished to the Pits. Tell her how two little words could have saved me from seven years of living a nightmare, being clawed at by every terrible thing that lives in the blackest part of the Underrealm, fighting for scraps, and praying to the gods that I’ll make it one more day. Or when things are really bad, that I won’t.”

My breath catches when he says this. I look at Haden for his reaction.

From the dark tones coming off him, I expect him to lash out at Garrick, to order him to be quiet, but instead, he lowers his head, as if resigned to letting the truth come out.

“Tell her,” Garrick says. “Or do you want me to?”

Haden sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “When Garrick was seven, two years after my mother’s death, he was found with one of my mother’s pendants in his possession. It was made of rubies and shaped like a pomegranate. It was her favorite. He was banished to the Pits for stealing it from the palace.”

“But I didn’t steal it,” Garrick says. “She gave it to me. You knew that. You knew she gave it to me, but you told them that I took it.”

“Haden?” I ask. “Is that true?”

“In a way. He would have taken it if she hadn’t given it to him.”

“But she did give it to me—”

“Because she caught you trying to steal it.” Haden looks at me like he wants me to understand. “My mother and I walked in on him going through her stuff. He was supposed to be cleaning, but he pocketed the pendant right as we walked into the room. She saw him do it. We both knew she did, but instead of demanding it back or calling for the guards, she told him he could have it. I asked her why, and she said that Garrick was only different from me and Rowan because his mother wasn’t able to protect him the way she had protected us. She said that if letting him have the pendant would help his life be a little better, then the least she could do was let him have it. She said that we should show compassion and mercy for everyone.”

“A lesson you forgot as soon as she was gone. As soon as it was convenient for you.”

Haden lowers his head again. “I made a mistake and I’ve felt shame for it every day of my life.”

“You turned him in for stealing it?” I ask him.

“After my mother died, my father chose a new Boon from the harem to become his queen. He wanted to give her the pomegranate pendant, but when it came up missing from my mother’s possessions, the Court originally concluded that I was the one who stole it. When my father demanded to know what had happened to it, I told him that Garrick had taken it—and when they found it on him, they didn’t believe that she had given it to him.… I didn’t corroborate his story.”

“How could you do that to your own cousin?” I ask.

“We’re not cousins,” Garrick says. “We’re brothers.”

“Half brothers,” Haden says quickly. “And I did it because I hated Garrick at the time. He was right; he was a walking reminder of my dishonor. A walking reminder of what my life would have been like if my mother hadn’t protected me with that oath. It hurt me every time I looked at him, and so I wanted to hurt him back.” He sits up and looks Garrick in the eye. “I didn’t know how bad it would be. I didn’t know they’d banish you to the Pits. I thought maybe a few lashings … I didn’t know.” He pauses for a moment and then says, like it’s the most painful thing he’s ever had to say, “I’m sorry.”