The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1)(74)

Not having spent much time in the Court of Shadows, I don’t know its secrets. I walk through rooms, opening heavy wooden doors, opening cabinets, taking inventory of my supplies. I discover a pantry that is as full of poisons as it is of cheeses and sausages; a training room with sawdust on the floor, weapons on the wall, and a new wooden dummy in the center, its face crudely painted with a disturbing grin. I go into the back room with four pallets on the ground and a few mugs and discarded clothing spread out near them. I touch none of it, until I come to the map room with a desk. Dain’s desk, stuffed with scrolls and pens and sealing wax.

For a moment, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of what has happened. Prince Dain is gone, gone forever. And his father and sisters are gone with him.

I go back to the main room and drag Cardan and the chair into Dain’s office, propping it against the open door so I can keep an eye on him. I take down a handheld crossbow from the wall in the training room, along with a few bolts. Weapon beside me, cocked and ready, I sit down in Dain’s chair and rest my head in my hands.

“Will you tell me where exactly we are, now that I am trussed up to your satisfaction?” I want to strike Cardan over and over until I slap that smugness off his face. But if I did, he’d know just how much he scares me.

“This is where Prince Dain’s spies meet,” I inform him, trying to shake off my fear. I need to concentrate. Cardan is nothing, an instrument, a gambling marker.

He fixes me with an odd, startled look. “How do you know that? What possessed you to bring me here?”

“I’m trying to figure out what to do next,” I say with uncomfortable honesty.

“And if one of the spies returns?” he asks me, rousing from his stupor enough to actually seem concerned. “They’re going to discover you in their lair and …”

He trails off at the smirk on my face and subsides into stunned silence. I can see the moment he arrives at the realization that I’m one of them. That I belong here.

Cardan lapses back into silence.

Finally. Finally, I’ve made him flinch.

I do something I would never dare to do before. I go through Prince Dain’s desk. There are mounds of correspondence. Lists. Notes neither to Dain nor from him, probably stolen. More in his hand—movements, riddles, proposals for laws. Formal invitations. Informal and innocuous letters, including a few from Madoc. I am not sure what I am looking for. I am just scanning everything as quickly as I can for something, anything, that might give me some idea of why he was betrayed.

All my life, I grew up thinking of the High King and Prince Dain as our unquestioned rulers. I believed Madoc to be entirely loyal to them; I was loyal, too. I knew Madoc was bloodthirsty. I guess I knew he wanted more conquest, more war, more battle. But I thought he considered wanting war to be part of his role as the general, while part of the High King’s role was to keep him in check. Madoc talked about honor, about obligation, about duty. He’d raised Taryn and me in the name of those things; it seemed logical he was willing to put up with other unpleasantness.

I didn’t think Madoc even liked Balekin.

I recall the dead messenger, shot by me, and the note in the scroll: KILL THE BEARER OF THIS MESSAGE. It was a piece of misdirection, all meant to keep Dain’s spies busy chasing our tails while Balekin and Madoc planned to strike in the one place no one looked—right out in the open.

“Did you know?” I ask Cardan. “Did you know what Balekin was going to do? Is that why you weren’t with the rest of your family?”

He barks out a laugh. “If you think that, why do you suppose I didn’t run straight into Balekin’s loving arms?”

“Tell me anyway,” I say.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “Did you? Madoc is your father, after all.”

I take out a long bar of wax from Dain’s desk, one end blackened. “What does it matter what I say? I could lie.”

“Tell me anyway,” he says, and yawns.

I really want to slap him.

“I didn’t know, either,” I admit, not looking at him. Instead, I am staring at the pile of notes, at the soft wax impressions, an intaglio in reverse. “And I should have.”

My gaze cuts toward Cardan. I walk over to him, squat down, and begin to prize off his royal ring. He tries to pull his hand out of my grasp, but he’s tied in such a way that he can’t. I yank it off his finger.

I hate how I feel around him, the irrational panic when I touch his skin.

“I’m just borrowing your stupid ring,” I say. The signet fits perfectly into the impression on the letter. All the rings of all the princes and princesses must be identical. That means a seal from one looks much like the seal of another. I pull out a fresh piece of paper and begin to write.

“I don’t suppose you have anything to drink around here?” Cardan asks. “I don’t imagine that whatever happens next is going to be particularly comfortable for me, and I would like to stay drunk in order to face it.”

“Do you really think I care if you’re comfortable?” I demand.

I hear a footfall and stand up from the desk. From the common room comes the sound of smashing glass. I shove Cardan’s ring into my bodice, where it rests heavily against my skin, and head into the hall. The Roach has knocked a line of jars off the bookshelf and cracked the wood of a cabinet. Jagged glass and spilled infusions carpet the stone floor. Mandrake. Snakeroot. Larkspur. The Ghost is grabbing the Roach’s arm, hauling him back from smashing more things. Despite the line of blood streaking down his leg, the stiffness of his movements. The Ghost has been in a fight.