The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1)(49)

“Your hair looks like a thicket,” she says, popping a slice of fruit into her mouth.

I glance at a silver plate on the wall, which shows only a distorted and blurred image of myself. Even in that, I can tell she’s right—a halo of brown surrounds my head. Reaching up, I begin undoing my braid, combing it out with my fingers.

“Locke’s asleep,” I say, assuming that she’s waiting to see him. I expect to feel as though I have something over her, being the one that came from his bedroom, but what I actually feel is a little bit of panic.

I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to wake up in a boy’s house and talk to the girl with whom he had a relationship. That she’s also a girl who probably wants me dead is, oddly, the only part of this that feels at all normal.

“My mother and his brother thought we were to be wed,” she says, seeming as though she might be talking to the air and not to me at all. “It was going to be a useful alliance.”

“With Locke?” I ask, confused.

She gives me an annoyed look, my question seeming to bring her briefly out of her story. “Cardan and me. He ruins things. That’s what he likes. To ruin things.”

Of course Cardan likes to ruin things. I wonder how that could be something she only just realized. I would have thought that would be something they had in common.

I leave her to her apple and her reminiscences and head toward the palace. A cool breeze blows through the trees, lifting my loose hair and bringing me the scent of pine. In the sky, I hear the call of gulls. I am grateful for the lecture today, glad to have an excuse for not going home and hearing whatever Oriana has to say to me.

Today the lecture is in the tower, my least favorite location. I climb the steps and settle myself. I am late, but I find a spot on a bench near the back. Taryn is sitting on the other side. She looks at me once, raising her brows. Cardan is beside her, dressed in green velvet, with golden stitching picking out thorns tipped in blue thread. He lounges in his seat, long fingers tapping restlessly against the wood of the bench beside him.

Looking at him makes me feel equally restless.

At least Valerian hasn’t shown up. It is too much to hope that he never returns, but at least I have today.

A new instructor, a knight named Dulcamara, is talking about rules of inheritance, probably in anticipation of the coming coronation.

The coronation, which will mark my rise to power as well. Once Prince Dain is the High King, his spies can haunt the shadows of Elfhame with only Dain himself to keep us in check.

“In some of the lower Courts, a king or queen’s murderer can take the throne,” Dulcamara says. She goes on to tell us that she is part of the Court of Termites, which has not yet joined Eldred’s banner.

Although she is not wearing armor, she stands as though she’s used to the weight of it. “And that is why Queen Mab bargained with the wild fey to make the crown King Eldred wears, which can only be passed down to her descendants. It would be tricky to get it by force.” She grins wickedly.

If Cardan were to try to stop her lesson, she looks like she would eat him alive and crack his bones for marrow.

The Gentry children look at Dulcamara uncomfortably. Rumor has it that Lord Roiben, her king, is planning to swear to the new High King, bringing with him his large Court, one that has held off Madoc’s forces for years. Roiben’s joining the High Court of Elfhame is widely considered to be a masterstroke of diplomacy, negotiated by Prince Dain against Madoc’s wishes. I suppose she’s come for the coronation.

Larkspur, one of the youngest of us, pipes up. “What happens when there are no more children in the Greenbriar line?”

Dulcamara’s smile gentles. “Once there are fewer than two descendants—one to wear the crown and the other to place it on the ruler’s head—the High Crown and its power crumble. All of Elfhame will be free from their oaths to it.

“Then, who knows? Maybe a new ruler will make a new crown. Maybe you’ll return to warring with smaller Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Maybe you will join our banners in the Southwest.” Her smile makes it clear which of those she would prefer.

I stick my hand up. Dulcamara nods in my direction. “What if someone tries to take the crown?”

Cardan gives me a look. I want to glare, but I can’t help thinking of him sprawled out on the ground with those girls. My cheeks heat all over again. I drop my gaze.

“An interesting question,” Dulcamara says. “Legend has it that the crown will not allow itself to be placed on the brow of anyone who isn’t an heir of Mab, but Mab’s line has been very fruitful. So long as a pair of descendants try to take the crown, it could be done. But the most dangerous part of a coup would be this: The crown is cursed so that a murder of its wearer causes the death of the person responsible.”

I think of the note I found in Balekin’s house, about blusher mushrooms, about vulnerability.

After the lecture, I go down the steps carefully, remembering taking them at a run after stabbing Valerian. My vision blurs, and I feel dizzy for a moment, but the moment passes. Taryn, coming behind me, all but pushes me into the woods once we’re outside.

“First of all,” she says, tugging me over patches of curling ferns, “no one knows you weren’t home all last night except for Tatterfell, and I gave her one of your nicest rings to make sure she wouldn’t say anything. But you have to tell me where you were.”