"Stop that," said Lady Moigré, frowning at Diarmán's fidgeting hands. "You'll shred it to bits."

Diarmán frowned back, but he tossed the ribbon he had been toying with back into his mother's sewing basket and then slumped into his chair. "It helps me think."

"You don't need the help. You've always been too clever for your own good." Moigré bent over her work again. She had left off her weaving for the afternoon and was now sewing, making minor alterations to one of her dresses, which was to be Lady Naefe's wedding gown.

"Not clever enough for this." Diarmán drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair, his gaze drifting around his mother's room. It was dark; she was working by the light of the fire and a candle as evening wore on toward the middle of the night.

"He has not grown suspicious?"

"No, I don't think so. I've just come from supper, and I'll meet him again on the morrow. Besides, it's not strange to spend time with you. A man passing an hour with his mother needn't have anything to do with hatching schemes."

Twirling a curl around his fingers, he watched his mother's nimble fingers as she stitched along a seam, her needle flashing in and out of the delicate fabric. He marveled to watch her; he could not remember a time when her hands had not been either slow and clumsy, or trembling. "I think we're running out of time. The wedding is two days hence, and I do not see a way to stop it from happening. I have no instrument."

"Mm." Moigré stitched and stitched, her focus on the seam. "It is unfortunate she cannot be convinced to flee until her mother and fiancé are freed, although I admire her for it."

"I don't suppose she's disposed to trust us. We could promise to unwork the spell that cursed her lover, but why would she believe us?" He stretched, then sank back into his chair. As his arm hung over the edge, his fingers brushed a fold of silk, and he fetched it up and ran it through his hands.

"You spared my ribbon only to shred my silk?"

"I'm just looking at it. I'm not shredding anything, and my hands are scrupulously clean."

Moigré gave a soft chuckle.

Diarmán tossed the length of silk up into the air, and it billowed down, settling over his face and chest. He closed his eyes, mulling and musing. "Do you think I would fill out that dress of yours, Mother?"

"I'm afraid I had a little more shape to me when I last wore it," she replied without skipping a beat. "We would have to use some stuffing. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm nearly of a height with our unfortunate bride. Cover my ruggedly masculine features with a veil, and perhaps I could stand in her place long enough for her to flee."

Moigré gave a skeptical sound. "I think your father would notice your absence at his wedding. And Lady Naefe will still have no intention of leaving."

"Of course." With a groan, Diarmán slid the silk away from his face, staring up at the ceiling. "Then there's no way to manage it: if she is here, she must be wed."

Silence fell, aside from the soft rustle of fabric as Moigré moved the dress she was working on over her lap. After a spell, she spoke again. "What if I stood in her place?"

Diarmán swung his legs over the arm of the chair and sat up, his feet on the floor. He stared at his mother in shock. "Absolutely not."

She did not look up at him, although she raised her brows. "Do not take that tone with me, my son. Consider it: I may need a little stuffing, too, but I could wear this gown."

"I will not put you in that position again."

"You would do nothing. Was it not I who raised the suggestion?"

"You would have to do battle with every one of your sons. No, Mother."

"Think: if I veil myself and go through the ceremony, we will be wed before he realizes that I am not Naefe. Then it will be too late. I will be his wife, and she will be free."

"And you will not be!" he exclaimed. "Besides—he claims he wants to marry Naefe by human traditions, and we know it is to legitimize his bond in Narr and to forge a link with the High Queen's family here, but do you think he actually honors our customs? When he discovers that you deceived him, he will consider the bond completely void, and if he does not find Naefe he will find himself another human wife."

Lady Moigré lowered her sewing and straightened in her seat. She narrowed her eyes, gazing into the space ahead of her, deep in thought. Diarmán waited, though the expression on her face did not reassure him.

After a moment, she looked at him, and he could tell from the expression on her face that she had come to some decision.

"Once upon a time, you changed my appearance completely," she said. "You disguised me such that he could not recognize me at all."

"Yes...but I cannot do it now. I don't have my flute. Every instrument we had here is gone. I'm a man of many talents, Mother, but I can only work my glamour with music."

Moigré seemed about to say something else, but she frowned, returning her attention to her work.

"What?"

"Be silent for a moment, sweet. Let me think," she said.

"That's what I was doing before you looked at me with brilliance shining in your eyes," he retorted, slumping back into his seat. "I thought you had solved all of our problems."

She straightened again, lowering her work into her lap. "I have."

"What?"

"Our problems. I've solved them."

"No—I mean, what solution have you found?"

"Your flute. We must speak with Declaen."

"Declaen?"

"Of course. There's nothing he cannot craft with those clever hands of his."

Diarmán stared at his mother. How could he not have thought it himself? "Gods below," he breathed. "I've driven myself nearly mad with the puzzle of it, and it's been looking us plain in the face."

"I don't think he has ever made an instrument before, but you know that he could."

"'Twill be pretty enough, at least—"

"And it doesn't matter if a normal man could play it, does it? Your hands are as clever as his. You said it yourself, you could coax music out of anything."

"Anything more musical than a stone. This may very well work."

"So you can disguise me, and I can stand in Naefe's place."

"What? No—no, that, I will not do. He will know you are missing, first of all."

"Then trade our faces." Lady Moigré traced her fingers along the line of her jaw. "Give me Lady Naefe's features, and I will stand in her place tomorrow at the wedding. And in exchange, give her mine. She can stay here in my chambers, safe and sound—and still here in the castle with her mother and her fiancé until they can be restored to their human shape."

"What?"

"It's a perfect plan."

"Perfect? Mother, no! I will not put you in his grasp again!"

She scoffed. "I will never be in Han Taín's grasp again, my darling. I know him now, and my mind is unclouded."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Certainly I'm afraid, but fear is not enough to keep me from action. I would rather suffer the same fate I endured a hundred times than allow another woman to go through the same. He worked his charms and wiles on my mind, but he was not cruel to me in body. For a week, for a month, for a year, I can survive him."

Diarmán stared, digesting the suggestion she had made. He did not like the idea in the slightest, but it was at least one option that would grant Naefe's wish to stay in the castle without forcing her into the marriage. Lady Moigré could manage the deception; she was a noblewoman who knew the posture and poise of a woman of her station, but she also knew Han Taín better than anyone else.

Maybe it could work.

Maybe it would work.

"I will do this under one condition," said Diarmán.

"Mm?"

"We must find a way to end this before it begins. We must find a way to get Father back to his realm, and then we will close the door behind him and destroy the portal so that he cannot return."

"There's so little time, my sweet. I do not think we have the luxury of naming our terms."